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This article discusses 2 Enoch^[1][2][3]), classed as a pseudepigraphon (a text whose claimed authorship is unfounded) of the Old Testament. It is unrelated to the Book of Enoch, known as 1 Enoch, which survives completely only in Ethiopic language. There is also a 3 Enoch (surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th-6th century^[4]). The numbering of these texts has been applied by scholars to distinguish the texts from one another.

The Second Book of Enoch (usually abbreviated 2 Enoch, and otherwise variously known as Slavonic Enoch or The Secrets of Enoch) is a Jewish pseudepigraphic apocalyptic text of uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text has been preserved only in Slavonic, but this has certainly been translated from Greek. It is widely held that the Greek version may itself have been a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic. Dates ranging from the 1st century BC to the 10th century AD have been proposed, with the late 1st century AD often preferred. It was rediscovered by Professor M. I. Sokolov in 1886 in the archives of the Belgrade Public Library.

The book begins with a first-person account by Enoch of a journey through the ten heavens that culminates in a meeting with God. This is followed by a discussion about the creation of the world, and God's instructions to Enoch to return to Earth and disseminate what he has learned. These teachings are then described as taking place within a 30-day stay, at the end of which Enoch is taken back to heaven and transformed into the angel Metatron. At this point, the text switches to third-person and tells the stories of Methuselah, Nir (Noah's younger brother), and Melchizedek.

2 Enoch has survived in more than twenty Slavonic manuscripts and fragments dated from 14th to 18th centuries AD. These Slavonic materials did not circulate independently but were included into collections that often rearranged, abbreviated, or expanded them. Typically, Jewish pseudepigraphical texts in Slavic mileux were transmitted as part of larger historiographical, moral, and liturgical codexes and compendiums where ideologically marginal and mainstream materials were mixed with each other.

Only a small number of the manuscripts^[5] give a full account of the story leading up to the Flood. Manuscript J (0:1–71:4) goes to chapter 71. Manuscripts P (0:1–68:7), N (0:1–67:3), V (1:1–67:3), and B2 (1:1–67:3) contain only the first two parts of the book and end with Enoch’s second ascension. Manuscript L (0:1–33:8) goes to chapter 33. The rest of the manuscripts give only fragments of the different parts of the book^[6]. A large group of the manuscripts^[7] are copies of the compilation of rearranged materials from chs. 40–65 of 2 Enoch from a judicial codex “The Just Balance” ("Merilo Pravednoe").

Scholarly consensus holds that 2 Enoch exists in longer and shorter recensions, although some scholars proposed the existence of three or even four recensions (Andersen, 1983).^[8]

Most scholars believe that the Slavonic version was translated from Greek, since the text attests to some traditions that make sense only in the Greek language, for example a tradition found in 2 Enoch 30 that derives Adam’s name from the Greek designations of the four corners of the earth. The Semitisms, such as the words Ophanim, Raqia Arabot, and others found in various parts of the text, point to the possibility of the Semitic Vorlage behind the Greek version.

The date of the text can be deduced solely on the basis of the internal evidence since the book has survived only in the medieval manuscripts. The crucial arguments for the early dating of the text have very largely been linked to the themes of the Jerusalem Temple and its ongoing practices and customs. Scholarly efforts have been in this respect mostly directed toward finding hints that the Sanctuary was still standing when the original text was composed.

Scholars noted that the text gives no indication that the destruction of the Temple had already occurred at the time of the book's composition. Critical readers of the pseudepigraphon would have some difficulties finding any explicit expression of feelings of sadness or mourning about the loss of the sanctuary.

Affirmations of the value of animal sacrifice and Enoch's halakhic instructions found in 2 Enoch 59 also appear to be fashioned not in the “preservationist,” mishnaic-like mode but rather as if they reflected sacrificial practices that still existed when the author was writing his book. The author tries legitimize the central place of worship, which through the reference to the place Ahuzan, which is a cryptic name for the temple mountain in Jerusalem, is explicitly connected in 2 Enoch with the Jerusalem Temple.

Scholars have also previously noted in the text some indications of the ongoing practice of pilgrimage to the central place of worship. These indications could be expected in a text written in the Alexandrian Diaspora. Thus in his instructions to the children, Enoch repeatedly encourages them to bring the gifts before the face of God for the remission of sins, a practice which appears to recall well-known sacrificial customs widespread in the Second Temple period. Further, the Slavonic apocalypse also contains a direct command to visit the Temple three times a day, an inconsistency if the sanctuary had been already destroyed.

The theological universe of 2 Enoch is deeply rooted in the Enochic mold of the Jewish apocalypticism of the Second Temple period. Yet along with appropriations of ancient traditions about the seventh antediluvian hero, the text attempts to reshape them by adding a new mystical dimension to the familiar apocalyptic imagery. The figure of Enoch portrayed in the various sections of 2 Enoch appears more elaborate than in the early Second Temple Enochic treatise of 1 Enoch. For the first time, the Enochic tradition seeks to show Enoch, not simply as a human taken to heaven and transformed into an angel, but as a celestial being exalted above the angelic world.

In this attempt, one may find the origins of another image of Enoch, very different from the early Enochic literature, that was developed much later in rabbinic Merkabah and Hekhalot mysticism: the image of the supreme angel Metatron, “the Prince of the Presence.” The titles of the patriarch found in the Slavonic apocalypse appear to be different from those attested in early Enochic writings and demonstrate a close resemblance to the titles of Metatron as they appear in some Hekhalot sources. These developments demonstrate that 2 Enoch represents a bridge between the early apocalyptic Enochic accounts and the later mystical rabbinic and Hekhalot traditions.^[9]

1. ^ Surviving only in Old Slavonic, c. 1st century; Eng. trans. by R. H. Charles (1896
2. ^ http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/2enoch.html
3. ^ http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/enoch.html
4. ^ http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/3enoch.html
5. ^ Namely A (0:1–72:10), U (0:1–72:10), B (0:1–72:10), and R (0:1–73:9).
6. ^ P2 (28:1–32:2), Tr (67:1; 70–72), Syn (71;72), Rum (71:1–73:1), G (65:1–4; 65:6–8), Chr (fragments from 11–58), Chr2 (11:1–15:3), K (71:1–72:10), I (70:22–72:9).
7. ^ MPr, TSS 253, TSS 489, TSS 682.
8. ^ The longer and shorter recensions of 2 Enoch differ not only in length but also in the character of the text, and both of them preserve original material. MSS R, J, and P are the manuscripts of the longer recension. MSS U, A, B, V, N, B2, and L represent the manuscripts of the shorter recension. P2, Tr, Syn, Rum, MPr, TSS 253, TSS 489, TSS 682, G, Chr, Chr2, I, and K represent fragments of the longer or shorter recensions. [A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005) 148.]
9. ^ A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005)

• The Secrets of Enoch can be found in The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden

• Text of 2 Enoch on sacred-texts.com
• Bibliography on 2 Enoch: [1]