The books of Henoch

 

To the less known non-canonical texts belong the book of Baruch and the book of Enoch. ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the seventh descendant of Adam and the great-grandfather of Noah.  Various aramaic fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Koine Greek and Latin fragments are a proof, that the Book of Enoch was known by Jews and early Christians.

The work has only survived in its entirety in the old Ethiopian version. This is thanks to the fact that the book is part of the biblical canon of the Ethiopian Church. The  Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church consider the books of Enoch as canonical.
Within the oldest fathers and apologists the book of Enoch, whose acknowledgement as a canonical book especial Tertullian (150-225) advocated, enjoyed a high esteem, until the Enoch scriptures lost credit in the fourth century,  especially caused by Hyronimus (347-420), and then ceased to be quoted and finally  fell under the ban of the church.

The pious patriarch Enoch(e'-nok ; chanokh, 'initiated'; Henoch) was already mentioned in the Old Testament in the Genesis 5.23 with 365 years of life.

In the Book of Enoch there are apocalyptic descriptions, as in the Revelation of John and in the Book of Daniel, but they are much older than these.

In the Judas-Letter 14 and 15 is a citation from the ethiopian Enochbook Chapt. 1.9: "Now, even at these people is the prophecy aimed which Enoch, the seventh descendant of Adam has pronounced with the words: Behold, the Lord has come amidst his holy tens of thousands to hold court and to punish all the wicked for their godless deeds, with which they have commited an outrage and because of all the naughty discourses, which they led against him as godless sinners. "

The Enochbook 1 contains a description of the flood of Noah and more.

* Enochbooks

 

The most complete Book of Enoch comes from Ethiopic manuscripts, maṣḥafa hēnok, written in Ge'ez. It was  brought to Europe by James Bruce in the late 18th century and later translated into english.

The Enochbook has three versions with different origin and language :

 

1. The egypt Enochbook stems from the Abyssinian Church
A. Dillmann, Leipzig, 1853: The Book Enoch;
C. Bonner, London, 1937: The last chapters of Enoch in greek;

2. The Slavic Eenochbook is in its earliest form in old slavoinan.
But chapters 37-71 are a messianic supplement. It contains direct experiences with archangels like Gabriel, Michael and Vereviel.

3. The Hebrew Enochbook(the hebrew book of Enoch) was after a jewish tradition issued of Hugo Odeberg in 1928. 1968 Reprint by "Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft", Darmstadt.


The Enoch-book describes a planetary "soul travel" of Enoch under the leadership of various Archangels (Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel) through the planes of creations to the Lord.
"Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Phanuel are later described to be the four angels of the "Lord of the Spirits". The fall of a big group of angles is described (Leaders: Semjasa, their leader; Urakib, Arameel, Sammael, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Ezeqeel, Saraqujal, ASAEL ASSOCIATIONS, Armers, Batraal, Anani, Zaqebe, Samsaveel, Sartael, Tumael, Turel, Jomjael, Arasjal), their incarnation under the human race, which they seduced to fornication and wickedness, and their tribunal after the Archangel had brought the grievances before the face of the Lord.

Even the underworld in the West is described: Then, the future kingdom of God is pointed out, and the Messianic judgement is described.

One should see these visions and narratives more as symbolic paraphrases of certain orders and less as direct experiences. A man will not stand in that way before God and his angels, or even be taught by God, who would then have much to do. The higher man evolves, the more he will take part in the divine consciousness, standing more and more symbolically before God until he is face to face as  fully enlightened, in the consciousness of that other space-time continuum, in which the cosmic distances  play a minor role.


Later similar soultravels were described in the Merkaba-literature.

The soultravel as described by the former Eckankar - Guru Paul Twitchel goes very much higher than the above creator god.

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