The Book of Enoch 3
Book I The Book of the Watchers Chapters 1–36 · 3rd century BCE
The oldest core of 1 Enoch: the descent of the two hundred Watchers, the birth of the giants, Enoch's intercession, and his guided journeys through the cosmos and the places of judgment.
Dating & manuscripts. Among the oldest apocalyptic writings in existence. Aramaic copies were found at Qumran (4QEnoch a-c), confirming its pre-Maccabean date - older than the Book of Daniel.
Chapters 6-11 preserve an older Semjaza/Shemihazah myth cycle later woven together with the Azazel/Asael tradition; scholars read them as composite, with a Noah fragment embedded. Angel names vary by manuscript (Semjaza/Shemihazah, Azazel/Asael).
In later tradition. This section's imagery echoes through later scripture and tradition: the Epistle of Jude (verses 14-15) quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 by name, and the Watchers legend shaped 2 Peter, the Book of Revelation, and the theology of the Qumran community and early Christianity.
The Book of Giants. A sixth Enochic work that expands the Watchers story from the giants' point of view - their violence, their prophetic dreams, and their doom. Known from Aramaic fragments at Qumran and, centuries later, adopted into Manichaean scripture. It is not part of the Ethiopic 1 Enoch preserved here.
1 Enoch is an anthology of five distinct works, composed over roughly three centuries.
The Courses of the Luminaries
In the winter all the trees seem as though they had withered and shed all their leaves.
1bserve and see how (in the winter) all the trees seem as though they had withered and shed all their leaves, except fourteen trees, which do not lose their foliage but retain the old foliage from two to three years till the new comes.
Did You Know?
In the winter all the trees seem as though they had withered and shed all their leaves.
Fourteen trees form the sole exception to the winter shedding of leaves by all other trees.
Fourteen trees do not lose their foliage but retain it while other trees shed all leaves.
Fourteen trees retain the old foliage from two to three years till the new comes.
New foliage comes only after the fourteen trees have retained the old for two to three years.
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Commentary
In brief
The chapter describes how all trees in winter seem withered after shedding their leaves, except fourteen that keep their old foliage for two to three years until new growth arrives.