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The Second Book of Enoch (abbreviated as 2 Enoch and also known as Slavonic Enoch, Slavic Enoch, or the Secrets of Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic text in the apocalyptic genre. It describes the ascent of the patriarch Enoch, ancestor of Noah, through ten heavens of an Earth-centered cosmos. The Slavonic edition and translation of 2 Enoch is of ...
Each heaven and earth is flat, with the heavens being superimposed one upon each other, analogous to a stack of plates. Above the highest heaven is the Throne of God, a solid structure. Cosmogonically, the Quran describes God creating the heavens and the earth using a six-day creation formula, with the earth originating first. [1] [2]
Based on the number of copies found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch was widely read during the Second Temple period.Today, the Ethiopic Beta Israel community of Haymanot Jews is the only Jewish group that accepts the Book of Enoch as canonical and still preserves it in its liturgical language of Geʽez, where it plays a central role in worship. [7]
The lowermost bounds also makes contact with the uppermost ends of the earth, similar to 1 Enoch's reference that Enoch saw "the ends of earth whereon heaven rests, and the portals of the heaven open" (31:1-2). In later rabbinic literature, this is described as heaven and earth coming to "kiss each other". In 3 Baruch, they meet at the Oceanus ...
The concept of seven heavens as developed in ancient Mesopotamia where it took on a symbolic or magical meaning as opposed to a literal one. [4] The concept of a seven-tiered was likely In the Sumerian language, the words for heavens (or sky) and Earth are An and Ki. [5]
In Mesopotamian cosmology, heaven and earth both had a tripartite structure: a Lower Heaven/Earth, a Middle Heaven/Earth, and an Upper Heaven/Earth. The Upper Earth was where humans existed. Middle Earth, corresponding to the Abzu (primeval underworldly ocean), was the residence of the god Enki.
MacEvilly points out that God's lordship separates the proud from the humble both in heaven (Satan from the good angels), and on earth (the Apostles from the Pharisees and Scribes). The "little children" portion appears to be an allusion to Psalm 8 :2(3), "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."
The eschatology of the book is rather unusual. The end time described by the author does not manifest itself in the normal culmination of a battle, judgment or catastrophe, but rather as "a steady increase of light, [through which] darkness is made to disappear or in which iniquity dissolves and just as the smoke rising into the air eventually dissipates". [5]