3 Enoch


The Third Book of Enoch is Biblical apocryphal book in Hebrew. 3 Enoch purports to have been written in the 2nd century, but its origins can only be traced to the 5th century. Other names for 3 Enoch include The Book of the Palaces, The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest and The Revelation of Metatron.
Most commonly, the Book of Enoch refers to 1 Enoch, which survived completely only in Ge'ez. There is also a Second Book of Enoch, which has survived only in Old Slavonic, although Coptic fragments were also identified in 2009

Content

Modern scholars describe this book as pseudepigraphal, as it says it is written by "Rabbi Ishmael" who became a "high priest" after visions of ascension to Heaven. This has been taken as referring to Rabbi Ishmael, a 3rd generation Tanna and a leading figure of Merkabah mysticism. However, this Ishmael lived way after destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and thus could not have been High Priest. An alternative identification would be the earlier Tanna Ishmael ben Elisha, who lived through the Siege of Jerusalem but is not attested as a High Priest either.
The name Sefer Hekhalot, along with its proposed author, places this book as a member of Hekalot or Merkabah mysticism. Its contents suggest that 3 Enoch's contents and ideas are newer than those shown in other Merkabah texts. The book does not contain Merkabah hymns, it has a unique layout and. All these facts make 3 Enoch unique not just among Merkabah writings, but also within the writings of Enoch.
3 Enoch contains a number of Greek and Latin words. The book appears to have been originally written in Hebrew. There are a number of indications suggesting that the writers of 3 Enoch had knowledge of, and most likely read, 1 Enoch.
Some points that appear in 1 Enoch and 3 Enoch are:
The main themes running through 3 Enoch are the ascension of Enoch into Heaven and his transformation into the angel Metatron.