The Early Enoch Literature

Inspired by a series of seminars which have already produced several other volumes, these papers focus on the complex relationship of 1 Enoch to Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Contributors describe 1 Enoch's depiction wisdom and apocalyptic literature, its relationship with the Torah, textual evidence, Enochic traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1 Enoch's influence in the Sadokite priesthood and the laity, memory and expectation in passages on temples and the Temple, the Enochic apocalypse, sociological settings and social profiles of the communities that produced the earliest texts, the book's influence in the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and parallels in the intellectual movement comprised of Enochians, urban Essenes and Qumranites. The essays reflect the collegiate and strongly interactive nature of the seminars, and the collection also includes a very good bibliography of scholarship from 2000 to the present. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Gabriele Boccaccini, Ph.D. Turin (1991) is Professor of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins at the University of Michigan. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal Henoch, director of the Enoch Seminar and editor of its Proceedings.Among his publications are Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Eerdmans, 1998), Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Eerdmans, 2001).John J. Collins, Ph.D. Harvard (1972) is Holmes Professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. He has published extensively on the Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Second Temple Judaism. His more recent books include Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Fortress, 2004), Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture (Brill, 2005), Encounters with Biblical Theology (Fortress, 2005), and The Bible after Babel. Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age (Eerdmans, 2005).