The Jewish Book of 2 Enoch with Illustrations

Book excerpt: Many people are not familiar with extra-biblical books such as Enoch and wonder why they should be studied. The answer is simple - they shed much light on various Jewish beliefs and traditions prevalent before the emergence of Christianity. The text of this edition is an English translation by the late William R. Morfill updated and edited by us. The original translation by Professor Morfill did not include the last section of Second Enoch (2 Enoch 68-73) since it is only found in non-Slavonic versions of the book. We provide it here for your attention and enjoyment, since it contains extremely interesting and relevant ancient Jewish ideas for the study of New Testament. Exposure to such ancient worldviews allows modern students of the Holy Bible to develop a better, more nuanced understanding of antiquity and the cultural climate in which both Christianity and Judaism developed. Though the real Jewish author of the 2nd Book of Enoch is unknown, the book preserves among other things ancient Jewish perspectives and traditions associated with multiple levels of heaven, God's throne, and the glassy sea, all mentioned in Revelation Chapter 4. The text that you are about to discover mentions epochs that span a thousand years each, similar to the thousand-year Messianic reign described in Revelation Chapter 20.