The Book of Enoch

Enoch (also: 1 Enoch) is canonical scripture for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The only complete copy of an early version of Enoch is available in Ge’ez (Classical Ethiopic), here used with permission by the Bible Society of Ethiopia.

The translation into English used here: 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation. Translated by George W. E. Nickelsburg & James C. VanderKam. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. with editorial alterations by Abraham Haile and additional translations by Haileyesus Woldemariam.

vision

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Greek that is translated as “vision” in English is translated in a variety in the following languages:

  • Chol: “as if in a dream” (source: Robert Bascom)
  • Obolo: ilaak ọkpọchieen̄ or “dreaming awake” (source: Enene Enene)
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “a showing like dreams”
  • Desano: “see in a dream what God will send”
  • Rincón Zapotec: “see what God shows”
  • Mayo: “see things from God as in a dream”
  • Lalana Chinantec: “dream how it is going to be”
  • Chuj: “like dreaming they see”
  • San Mateo del Mar Huave: “understand what they see as if in a dream”
  • Ayutla Mixtec: “see that which will happen” (source for this and seven above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Tagbanwa: “being caused to dream by God” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Chichewa: azidzaona zinthu m’masomphenya: “they will see things as if face-to-face” (interconfessional translation, publ. 1999) (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 69)
  • Mandarin Chinese: yì xiàng (异象 / 異象), lit. “different (or: strange) appearance.” (Source: Zetzsche)

The Greek in the books of Revelation and Acts is translated as obq-rmwible: “look-dream” in Natügu. Brenda Boerger (in Beerle-Moor / Voinov, p. 162ff.) tells the story of that translation: “In the book of Revelation, the author, John, talks about having visions. Mr. Simon [the native language translator] and I discussed what this meant and he invented the compound verb obq-rmwible ‘look-dream’ to express it. Interestingly, during village testing no one ever had to ask what this neologism meant.”

See also see a vision.