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Author of Translation: R.H. Charles, D.Litt., D.D. 1912
PREFACE
This is not so much a second edition as a new book. A brief comparison of the first edition and the present work will make this clear even to the cursory reader. Alike in the translation and in the commentary it forms a vast advance on its predecessor. I cannot claim to be satisfied with it even as it stands, and yet twenty additional years spent in Apocalyptic and Biblical studies have not, I would fain hope, been fruitless with regard to the present work.
The translation in the first edition was made from Dillmann’s edition of the Ethiopic text, which was based on five MSS. With a view to this translation the present editor emended and revised Dillmann’s text in accordance with nine hitherto uncollated Ethiopic MSS. in the British Museum, and the Greek and Latin fragments which had just come to light, but notwithstanding every care he felt his work in this respect to be of a wholly provisional character. From the date of the publication of the first edition in 1893 he steadily made preparation for an edition of the Ethiopic text and of the Greek and Latin fragments. This text, which is exhaustive of existing textual materials in these languages, was published by the University Press in 1906, and from this text the present translation is made. A new and revolutionary feature in the translation is due to the editor’s discovery of the poetical structure of a considerable portion of the work. I call it revolutionary ; for such it proves to be in respect of the critical problems of the text. By its means the lost original of the text is not infrequently recovered, phrases and clauses recognized as obvious interpolations, and not a few lines restored to their original context, whose claims to a place in the text were hitherto ignored on the ground of the weakness of their textual attestation.
During the past eighteen years the criticism of the book has made undoubted headway, and that, I am glad to say, mainly in the direction defined in the first edition. The idea of a Grundschrift, which was accepted by most of the chief scholars in this field till its appearance, and to which I strove and not in vain to give the coup de grdce, is now universally abandoned. The critical advance made in the present volume is not of a revolutionary character, but consists rather in a more detailed application of the principles of criticism pursued in the first edition.
In my first edition I said that a knowledge of 1 Enoch was indispensable to N.T. students. The further study of Apocalyptic and Biblical literature, Jewish and Christian, in the score of years that have since elapsed, has convineed me still more fully of this fact. And I might add here that to the O.T. student it is likewise indispensable, if we would understand many of the problems underlying O.T. prophecy. To the biblical scholar and to the student of Jewish and Christian theology 1 Enoch is the most important Jewish work written between 200 B.c. and 100 a.p. For a short account of the book the reader should consult the Introduction, § l.
I cannot help expressing here my deep regret that Jewish scholars are still so backward in recognizing the value of this literature for their own history. Apocalyptic is the true child of Prophecy, and became its true representative to the Jews from the unhappy moment that the Law won an absolute autocracy in Judaism, and made the utterance of God-sent prophetic men impossible except through the medium of Pseudepigraphs, some of which, like Daniel, gained an entrance despite the Law into the O.T. Canon. It is true that eminent Jewish scholars in America and elsewhere have in part recognized the value of Apocalyptic literature, but, as a whole, Orthodox Judaism still confesses and still champions the one-sided Judaism, which came into being after the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 s.p., a Judaism lopped in the main of its spiritual and prophetic side and given over all but wholly to a legalistic conception of religion. It is not strange that since that disastrous period Judaism became to a great extent a barren faith, and lost its leadership in the spiritual things of the world.
I cannot close this Preface without recording my deep obligations to the officials of the University Press for the skill, care and expedition with which they have carried this work through; and likewise acknowledging the very helpful service rendered to me by a promising scholar, the Rev. A. L. Davies, in the correction of proofs, the verification of references, and at times the acquisition of fresh materials.
24 BARDWELL ROAD, OXFORD.
June 1, 1912.
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