Over the years of teaching, I have often referred my students to the books of Enoch. But most of the time, I did so with some reservations. I knew that the broadly distributed copies they would likely come across would be littered with archaic and hard-to-digest language. Finally, between 2023 and 2024, I spent considerable time revising the translations of all three books of Enoch, publishing them as they were ready. Now, I have decided to assemble them into one volume as a collection, "The Books of Enoch: Three Visions in New Translation."
But that is not all... In this edition, I decided to go a bit deeper in exploring the ancient texts and supplied each individual book of Enoch with introductions, notes, biblical references, and suggested parallel passages of interest. In my notes, I focused on unique names and terms that may not be very familiar to readers. I highlighted some pertinent linguistic features and mentioned occasional variant readings. My general explanatory notes were not designed to explain away the texts themselves, however, but rather to encourage an independent study of Enoch and stimulate a look beyond the text to broader ideas. The notes are for those who want to delve beyond the surface reading, but they are non-invasive and easy to ignore.
I deliberately decided to publish this three-in-one volume in a slightly larger format (6x9) for ease of reading, as well as made it available in both paperback and hardcover. For Kindle readers, I highly recommend getting the audio version and simply following along. It's a whole new way of experiencing the story. In antiquity, most people were listeners, not readers. The books of Enoch are fascinating, and it's my hope that the footnotes in this collection of all three visions will be helpful as you explore these ancient Jewish apocalyptic texts on a new level.
The Books of Enoch: Three Visions in New Translation
This volume is a collection of updated and easy-to-read modern English translations of three visions: The Book of Watchers (1 Enoch), The Book of Secrets (2 Enoch), and The Book of Palaces (3 Enoch). Countless readers of Enoch enjoy ancient stories but are often discouraged by struggling through the obscure and archaic language of older translations. This new and updated translation removes such obstacles. This collection of three visions of Enoch is supplemented with study footnotes to aid curious readers and students of ancient apocryphal and Jewish literature alike. So, immerse yourself into the world of Enoch literature, and now, not only read the stories but listen to them in audio format!
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