About the texts
Two texts, both free to print
We print each book as its translator left it. We add the design: the big type, the black spreads and, in Genesis, the story titles. We do not change a word of the text itself.
Genesis
- Translation
- World English Bible (WEB)
- Source
- eBible.org, 2020 stable text
- Status
- Public domain worldwide
- In the book
- 50 chapters, 1,533 verses, 160 pages
The World English Bible is a modern English translation, an update of the American Standard Version of 1901. Its makers placed it in the public domain, which means anyone may print, share and sell it. They ask one thing: if the text is changed, it should no longer be called the World English Bible. We print it unchanged.
The story titles and the large lines on the special spreads are part of our design. The large lines are quoted word for word from the verses they stand over. The titles are ours, and so is the closing AMEN spread: the word does not appear in Genesis. The colophon at the back of the book says so.
Why not the King James Version
Copies for Europe are printed in the UK. There the King James text is still under a royal privilege, and only a few licensed publishers may print it. The World English Bible has no such limit, so one edition can be printed in both places.
The Book of Enoch
- Translation
- R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch
- Published
- SPCK, London, 1917
- Made from
- The Ethiopic text
- Source
- Project Gutenberg, eBook #77935
- Status
- Public domain in the US, the UK and the EU. Charles died in 1931.
This is 1 Enoch, also called Ethiopic Enoch: 108 chapters in five parts, the Watchers (1 to 36), the Parables (37 to 71), the Heavenly Luminaries (72 to 82), the Dream-Visions (83 to 90) and the Epistle of Enoch (91 to 108). The Slavonic 2 Enoch and the Hebrew 3 Enoch are different books and are not in this edition.
Charles marked the places where he restored or questioned the text with his own brackets. We keep them as he printed them.
How the book reached English
The whole book survives in Ge'ez, the old language of Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church keeps it in its Bible. The traveller James Bruce brought Ethiopic manuscripts to Europe in 1773. Richard Laurence published an English translation in 1821. Charles brought out his Oxford edition in 1912 and the translation we use in 1917.
Aramaic fragments of Enoch were found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls, about ten copies in Cave 4. The oldest, known as 4Q201, was dated by its editor to about 200 to 150 BCE. That is the date of the copy, not of when the text was first written.
Behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy onesEnoch 1:9, quoted in the Letter of Jude, verses 14 and 15
Newer translations
Charles is the classic older English version, and newer scholarly translations exist. If you are studying Enoch closely, they are worth reading next to this one. Our edition is for reading the whole book in one sitting or opening it anywhere.
Read them free
Both texts are online at no cost, and we are glad they are.