PREFACE

It is unnecessary to apologize for the appearance of this book, as such a work has long been a requirement desideratum: something needed or wanted for scholars. A knowledge of Enoch is indispensable to New Testament students.

It would be best, perhaps, at the outset, to mention briefly the features in which this edition differs from previous editions of Enoch.

I. First, the translation is made, in the main, from a British Museum manuscript which is incomparably better than those on which Professor Dillmann’s Ethiopic text is based. But as this manuscript, which I designate G, is still unpublished, I have followed Dillmann’s text. In every instance in which I have deviated from it in deference to G or other British Museum manuscripts, I have given in my critical notes the Ethiopic reading adopted. As a rule, it appears as it stands in the manuscript followed, though it may be flawed in both spelling and syntax. These instances number about six hundred in total. It will be remarked that on page 4 they are said to be three hundred and twenty-two. The explanation for this discrepancy is that the bulk of this book was already in type when the Gizeh manuscript was published by M. Bouriant, and I allowed the introduction to remain as it stood before the publication of that Greek fragment. But as the examination of this fragment made it clear that I had underestimated the value of these new Ethiopic manuscripts...