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Comment by waynecochran | Hacker News Reader

I have a copy of Enoch 1, 2, 3; but I have not seen it included in any Bible. It is not part of the Apocrypha -- you don't find in the Orthodox Study Bible or a Catholic Bible. What Bible is it in? I would like to get it.

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I believe that it is canonical in ethiopian christianity so I think maybe their bibles contain it.

Ethiopian Christianity is in a lot of way really really special as it predates almost any other surviving christian society, they also claim to possess the literal "ark of the covenant". not to mention claims of links between Ethiopia and Israel doing the time of king David.

Yeah, it's Coptic canon.

As a protestant I've certainly seen some of the deuterocanonical books in non-Catholic study Bibles. Not the same thing really as Enoch, which I think is a little bit more controversial.

Certainly -- you find Tobit, Judith, 1,2,3 Maccabees, Baruch, Wisdom of Sirach, and a couple others. But if there is a Bible with Enoch in it I want it. I try to read a different Bible every year.

We know much more Jewish and Christian religious literature from antiquity than found its way into the bible. The nomenclature for it is a bit confusing. There are the "apocrypha" of the "Old Testament" in the narrow sense, which are those parts nowadays excluded by the Protestants. And then there are the "apocrypha" in a wider sense, which is the literature that bears a certain generic resemblance to biblical writings. However, some texts related to the New Testaments were typically not called "apocrypha" because the term traditionally had something pejorative about it; so it is not used for "almost" canonical texts that were traditionally recommended as pious reading, such as the so-called "Apostolic Fathers"[1].

To everyone who is interested in the texts and backgrounds of the apocrypha of the New Testament, I can highly recommend the two volumns of Wilhelm Schneemelcher: "New Testament Apocrypha" (or for German speakers: "Neutestamentliche Apokryphen"): vol. I: "Gospels and Related Writings" and vol. 2: "Writings Relating to the Apostles Apocalypses and Related Subjects". They include a lot of texts, many in complete translations, and provide excellent philological introductions to each text. However, the Apostilic Fathers are not included. For this you must look for other editions.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Fathers

> There are the "apocrypha" of the "Old Testament" in the narrow sense, which are those parts nowadays excluded by the Protestants.

Given the pejorative connotations of "apocrypha", Catholics don't accept that term for the books in their OT canon which are rejected by Jews and Protestants – they say the appropriate term is "deuterocanon" ("second canon"). Catholics do use the term "apocrypha" for books of similar antiquity (such as Enoch) which ended up being rejected from the Catholic canon. Many Protestants prefer to call those later books "pseudepigrapha", to avoid confusion with the books of the Protestant apocrypha / Catholic deuterocanon; however, in the strictest sense of the term, that's not entirely correct, since "pseudepigrapha" literally refers to false claims of authorship, and while most of these texts do make such false claims, some of them are instead anonymous.

I once owned a copy of The Gospel According to St. Barnabas (English translation - I'm no scholar), a deuterocanonical gnostic text. Very weird and magical. It describes the events of Jesus' descent into Hell, and his return. There are many resonances with "The Egyptian Book of the Dead".

The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

Yes .. I see Enoch is included in the version I found in Amazon. I wonder if it is just 1st Enoch?

Yes the Ethiopian version is considered Enoch 1.

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