license: cc0-1.0
pretty_name: 1 Enoch (Ethiopic Enoch) — Wheel of Heaven Translation
language:
- en
- arc
task_categories:
- translation
tags:
- translation
- parallel-corpus
- religious-text
- aramaic
- biblical-studies
- digital-humanities
- public-domain
1 Enoch (Ethiopic Enoch) — Wheel of Heaven Translation
A verse-aligned parallel corpus of 1 Enoch (Ethiopic Enoch) — the Aramaic source text alongside the Wheel of Heaven English translation, with transliteration, manuscript-witness attribution, per-verse translator commentary, an aligned public-domain reference translation, and a translation glossary. An English translation of 1 Enoch chapters 1-36 — the Book of the Watchers — produced from a per-verse layered witness reconstruction: Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls fragments (4Q201/4Q202/4Q204/4Q205/4Q206/4Q207; the OLDEST surviving Enoch material, late 3rd c. BCE through 1st c. BCE) as the primary witness where preserved; Greek Akhmim Panopolitanus codex (6th c. CE; chs 1-32 substantially complete) as the secondary witness; Ge'ez (Ethiopic) as the tertiary witness and fallback for what neither Aramaic nor Greek preserves. The Ge'ez is the only complete witness to 1 Enoch but is the most-removed-in-time and -language from the original Aramaic composition.
The Raëlian canon (per Yes... I am Raelian commentary) names 1 Enoch among the texts 'closer to the truth' — alongside the Mahābhārata, Kojiki, Popol Vuh, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Watchers myth (chs 6-11) — the 200 fallen angelic 'Watchers' descending to take human wives + Asael (later Azazel) teaching humanity metallurgy, weapons-craft, cosmetics, magic, and astronomical-divination — is the canon's central interest. The text expands Genesis 6:1-4 (the bnei elohim + Nephilim notice) into a fully-developed mythological narrative.
Scope: 36 chapters / Book of the Watchers. this edition (chs 72-82 Astronomical Book) is a separate edition — the Aramaic DSS Astronomical Book (4Q208-4Q212; late 3rd c. BCE — the OLDEST Enoch fragments overall) is significantly longer than the Ge'ez recension, with much astronomical detail abbreviated in the Ge'ez transmission.
The text was canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (where it remains in the canon today) and the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) tradition. It is quoted explicitly in the New Testament (Jude 14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 + Jude 6 + 2 Peter 2:4 allude to the Watchers narrative) and was widely cited by 2nd-c. Church Fathers (Tertullian, Athenagoras, Justin Martyr) before falling out of Western and Eastern Orthodox + Roman Catholic canons in the 4th c. CE.
Cross-corpus density: extremely high. Cross-corpus to Genesis 6:1-4 bnei elohim; Jude 14-15 + Jude 6 + 2 Peter 2:4 (NT citations); Shi'ur Qomah + Hekhalot Rabbati throne-vision tradition; Ezekiel 1 + Daniel 7 + Revelation 4 throne-vision chain; the Watchers tradition in Jubilees + the Testament of Reuben + Origen + Augustine; the apkallū / Seven Sages Mesopotamian antediluvian-sages tradition (cross-corpus to Adapa + Gilgamesh XI L308).
Files
book-of-enoch-woh.jsonl— 403 rows, one per verse.glossary.json— the 12-entry translation glossary (the lexical decisions that make this a Wheel of Heaven translation rather than a generic one).
Columns
ref, chapter, verse, original (source script), original_lang, transliteration, english (WoH translation), reference_english (aligned public-domain translation; empty where none is available), reference_version, reference_license, commentary (translator's note; populated only for verses the editor annotated), glossary_refs, witness_primary, witness_secondary.
Reference translation
This edition bundles an aligned reference translation — The Book of Enoch (R. H. Charles, 1917) (Public Domain) — in the reference_english column, joined to the source verse-by-verse and covering 97 of 403 verses (24%); the remaining verses differ in versification between the editions and are left blank. It is the neutral control the Wheel of Heaven rendering can be read against: where english and reference_english diverge, the glossary and commentary explain why (e.g. Elohim kept as a plural, taninim as great dragons, ruach as breath rather than Spirit).
Method & provenance
Produced under the Wheel of Heaven Translation Program (translator → editor → reviewer → human sign-off).
- Review status: editor + reviewer approved, human-signed-off (2026-06-05).
Source: Milik, J. T., The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford 1976) — THE foundational publication of the DSS Aramaic Enoch fragments. Black, M., The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: A New English Edition (SVTP 7, Leiden 1985) — Greek + scholarly commentary. Nickelsburg, G. W. E., 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36, 81-108 (Hermeneia, Minneapolis 2001). Stuckenbruck, L. T., 1 Enoch 91-108 (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature, Berlin 2007). Charles, R. H., The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (Oxford 1912; Public Domain) — the classic Ge'ez critical edition. Tigchelaar, E. J. C., and García Martínez, F., DJD XXXVI: Qumran Cave 4 / XXVI (Oxford 2000). VanderKam, J. C., Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQMS 16, Washington 1984). Reed, A. Y., Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge 2005). Knibb, M. A., The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (Oxford 1978) — Ge'ez text + English translation; the scholarly-standard Ge'ez edition.
License & citation
The Wheel of Heaven layer — source pointing, English translation, per-verse commentary, and glossary — is dedicated to the public domain under CC0-1.0. The bundled reference_english column is The Book of Enoch (R. H. Charles, 1917), itself in the Public Domain and carrying no additional restrictions. Documentation and the reading edition: https://www.wheelofheaven.world/library/book-of-enoch-woh/.
Wheel of Heaven Translation Program. 1 Enoch (Ethiopic Enoch) (Wheel of Heaven Translation). Wheel of Heaven, 2026. CC0-1.0. https://www.wheelofheaven.world/library/book-of-enoch-woh/