(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 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.

The Press has picked up the Lexham translation of the Old Testament, but while that includes Enoch, it was 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). For discussion on the history of the Anglo-Protestant Lexham translation see https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/1jgx58e/why_does_the_lexham_english_septuagint_include/

Those involved in the Newrome publication have justified this partly in online discussion with writings by Fr. Stephen De Young indicating Enoch’s historical — and potential spiritual — value. This is based on Fr. Stephen’s book on the Apocrypha (p. 303 and following). Also, they referenced in online discussion that Enoch was recommended to be read in private in the canonical list of St. Nikephorus the Confessor of Constantinople, in the ninth century.

But the Lexham translation worked off the Edwardian-Anglican Henry Swete’s edition of the Septuagint. He chose to include Enoch for its Second-Temple-era significance.

But Enoch wasn’t in three surviving early manuscripts of the Christian Bible (of Alexandria, Sinai, and the Vatican), and is 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 Orthodox 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 from Orthodox Bibles.

Cautions about Enoch historically have included 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 online here: https://community.logos.com/discussion/215423/why-did-lexham-include-1-enoch-in-their-english-lxx

Swete (the influencer in this on the Lexham Septuagint) apparently did not argue that it was part of the historical Septuagint, but he held that the fragments of Enoch were important in understanding the development of biblical-adjacent apocrypha. The discussion linked 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, it is Church Tradition that has shaped the Orthodox Christian Bible across centuries, not academic work. The “we know better than the Church Fathers today because of modern biblical studies” view, which is a hallmark of academic modernism when it comes to Scripture, is suspect to me as both a priest and a university professor of Christian literature, and not of course a replacement for Church Tradition.

I am aware of another less-prominent English translation of the Septuagint by an Orthodox Christian that included Enoch as an appendix with a cautionary note. But leaving Enoch out would be best, in accordance with our tradition. It can still be accessed elsewhere easily for those who wish to read it for historical reference.

All this is not to rain on the parade of a beautiful book project. But I think what is included and accepted as Orthodox scripture in a Bible for readers is an important issue to highlight. Leaving Enoch out of a Bible marked as Orthodox Christian again would have been the right call.

Analogously, 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 (related to legal/copyright/business issues as with the OSB). arising from adopting a non-Orthodox framework in the Lexham Septuating.

But in this case. it has led to adding a book not included in Scripture in the Orthodox Tradition.

The effect can be misleading and set a bad precedent, even if of good intent.