1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch

1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch: Chapters 1-36; 81-108, by George W. E. Nickelsburg. Edited by Klaus Baltzer. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001. Pp. xxxviii + 618. $58.00 (cloth). This book, a welcome addition to the Hermeneia commentary series, is a critical and historical commentary on books 1, 4, and 5 of 1 Enoch, which provides a careful use of philological, historical, textual, and literary methods. Nickelsburg brings together the results of a lifetime of study on what is probably the most important of the Jewish "pseudepigrapha" of the postbiblical period. Accordingly, most of Nickelsburg's major contributions are not presented here for the first time, but they are presented in a comprehensive and integrated way, possible only in a full-length commentary. Not the least of its virtues is that it contains the most authoritative and readable English translation currently available. It is to be hoped that it will soon be possible to purchase this translation separately in the form of an inexpensive paperback. The introduction consists of a short discussion of methodology and "Some Hermeneutical and Theological Observations," a review of the enochic corpus, textual and literary notes, a long theological discussion of worldview, the place of 1 Enoch in the history of ideas and social contexts, followed by a treatment of 1 Enoch in ongoing Jewish and Christian tradition and in modern scholarship. The commentary itself consists of introductions to each major section, translation, extensive textual notes, and detailed notes. The book also includes a useful bibliography and index. Nickelsburg has contributed greatly to the study of the text of 1 Enoch, although, as he himself says, "A major desideratum is a new critical edition of 1 Enoch . " (p. 125). In the absence of a printed text the translation is based on Nickelsburg's own decisions in each passage. Where Aramaic or Greek texts are available, Nickelsburg generally translates them, but occasionally he translates two or more different versions combined. Independent of, but generally in agreement with, Uhlig's appraisal of the Ethiopic textual evidence (Siegbert Uhlig, Das athiopische Henochbuch [JSHRZ 5/6; Gutersloh: Mohn, 1984]), Nickelsburg prefers "the older mss. (T^sup 9^, 2080, and g)" but notes that the later MS t and sometimes even the later group [beta] deserve serious consideration (p. 19). In most (but not all) of the passages that I investigated, I have been persuaded by Nickelsburg's textual choices, even in some for which I had previously argued for other readings. Nickelsburg accepts the use of emendation as "a last resort," one that he makes use of when the text is "opaque" or "clearly corrupt" (p. 20). The Ethiopic, Greek, and even Aramaic texts of 1 Enoch are frequently corrupt, and bold emendation is often the only practical recourse for one who wants to understand the text as a product of second century B.C.E. Judea. One of the many persuasive emendations offered by Nickelsburg is his proposal to read dabbar (Aramaic for "leader") at the end of the Animal Vision (90:41 [p. 403]) where the Ethopic reads nagar (thing). This is by far the best proposal offered for this corrupt text. Nickelsburg's understanding of 1 Enoch and the arrangement of his commentary depend on his view that the text is best seen not as a corpus of collected Enochic books but as an accumulation in stages of a single book that consisted at one point of books 1, 4, and 5. Nickelsburg's argument that this "book" was testamentary in form has often been criticized (and sometimes not well understood), and this has unfortunately deflected attention from the more important issue, that of the shape and history of the corpus. This argument controls the shape of the commentary primarily in that the first volume of the commentary covers books 1, 4, and 5 along with chs. 81-82. Although these chapters now belong to the Astronomical Book, Nickelsburg believes that they consist of a remnant of the final vision of the Book of the Watchers and a narrative bridge between books 1 and 5. …