(Above) The Ostrog Bible, the first full Slavonic Bible, did not include Enoch. Neither have Orthodox Bibles in the Septuagint Greek tradition, or the earliest manuscripts of the Christian Bible. The Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 did not include Enoch on its list of the Septuagint books and “books worthy to be read.”

The Newrome Press has a beautiful new Orthodox Reader Bible. However it includes the Book of Enoch, which is a problem, in that it thus redefines what is an Orthodox Bible.

Below is a thread of discussion on that from the Press’ Facebook page recently (May 2026).

Priest Paul: Looks beautiful. Is Enoch included? It’s in the Lexham translation but not part of the Septuagint or “books worthy to be read” included in Orthodox Church scriptural lists (such as the Synod of Jerusalem’s in 1672). https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/1jgx58e/why_does_the_lexham_english_septuagint_include/

Luc Lefebre: Enoch is included father. The 1672 Synod is pretty late, and I’m pretty sure the use of Enoch as a book to be read had fallen out of use at that point, but I think it might be included in earlier lists. I’ll reference Fr. Stephen De Young’s Apocryphal book when I get home, because I know he references and covers it.

But the Lexham includes it because they were working off Swete’s edition of the Septuagint that chose to include Enoch for its second temple period value, particularly in the Alexandrian region. I’ll have a look at the Lexham introduction again when I get home as well to see if there are further details.

Luc Lefebre: I just checked, and Enoch is listed among the books recommended to be read in private in the canonical list of St. Nikephoros, the Confessor of Constantinople, ninth century AD. It’s listed on pg.303 of Fr. Stephen De Young’s Apocrypha book. He also spends 60 pages summarizing the books, its reception in the early Church, and its value for us today. An excellent read that I think can put its inclusion into the Lexham OT at ease within a given context.

Priest Paul: Uneasiness seems more called for than “at ease.” Enoch wasn’t in three early manuscripts (Alexandria, Sinai, Vatican) of the Christian Bible, and not in the Orthodox Study Bible based on the Septuagint as known in the Orthodox Church for centuries in the Greek tradition; it was not included in the Ostrog Bible, which is the Ur-version of Slavonic Bibles It also wasn’t carried over into Reformation-era English or Catholic apocryphal/deterocanonical books, such as in the 1611 King James or contemporary Douai-Rheims.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Bible does include Enoch, but that of course is in a tradition that is deemed heretical by the Orthodox Church, and has always been sold/marketed distinctly.

Cautions about Enoch include its uncertain provenance, fragmentary nature, lack of inclusion in canonical Jewish or Orthodox Christian scriptures, and use for occult purposes. 

There’s more discussion about Lexham’s inclusion of Enoch here: https://community.logos.com/discussion/215423/why-did-lexham-include-1-enoch-in-their-english-lxx

Lexham’s inclusion of Enoch seems based on the work of Henry Swete, a prominent Edwardian Anglican cleric, who apparently did not argue that it was part of the Septuagint (LXX), but held that the fragments of Enoch were important in understanding the development of biblical-adjacent apocrypha. The discussion above also suggests that Greek texts of Enoch became rare apparently because it was not used in public or private study as the first Christian millennium rolled on.

While respecting Fr Stephen DeYoung’s often insightful writing, he is not enough of an authority in Orthodox Tradition to justify the inclusion of Enoch as a book in the Orthodox Bible. That is, he’s a better Christian and a smarter scholar than I am I’m sure, but as I’m also sure he would admit he’s not a Church Father, Holy Elder, Saint, Church Council, and although he is an Orthodox priest, his PhD in Bible Studies is from an online Protestant university (which doesn’t mean he’s not expert, but is a contextual reminder for all of us converts who are newcomers to Orthodox Tradition, myself more than all). He does seem to partake at times of the “we know better than the Church Fathers today because of modern biblical studies” school, which to me as both a priest and a university professor of Christian literature fwiw is a hallmark of academic modernism when it comes to Scripture.

At best I guess Enoch could have been included as an appendix with a cautionary note in an Orthodox Bible, which was done in another translation project earlier this century as I recall. Leaving it out would be best.

All this is not to rain on the parade again of a beautiful project. But I think what is included and accepted as Orthodox scripture in a Bible for readers is an important enough issue to highlight. Leaving Enoch out would have been the right call. Analogously perhaps, the Orthodox Study Bible picked up certain translation and style problems arguably due to its adopting Thomas Nelson’s New King James framework. Here again there is a kind of modern influence it appears (perhaps related to legal/copyright/business issues as with the OSB) arising from adopting a non-Orthodox framework (Lexham). But in this case it has led to adding a book not included in Scripture in the Orthodox Tradition. The effect can be misleading although I’m sure of good intent.