The "Otherworld" And The Epistle Of Enoch

Abstract

This chapter explains what does the otherworld of the dead look like in the Epistle ? if there is very little in the document that describes the world outside of earthly life in the present, to what extent do the text traditions that preserve the Epistle provide clues from which to draw inferences? how does the eschatology of the Epistle relate to and reflect an understanding of the world which the writer(s) assumed? It argues that, to a significant degree, the cosmology of the Epistle was based on its reception and adaptation of an earlier Enochic seer's vision of places for the dead in the Book of Watchers , especially as described in 1 Enoch chapters 21-22. After a comparison between the earlier and later Enochic traditions, the chapter then considers how the religious and social climate underlying the Epistle may have affected its cosmology. Keywords: 1 Enoch ; book of Watchers ; cosmology; Enochic traditions; Epistle