Natural colouring will often strike the reader of this literature as fantastic, and at times bizarre; but this…
- Date of account
- Composite work, broadly c. 300 BCE to 100 BCE
- Source
- The book of Enoch
- Reference
- The book of Enoch · selected passage 1
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- Ge'ez preserved in complete form; translated from earlier Semitic and Greek textual traditions
- Translation
- R. H. Charles, with W. O. E. Oesterley
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
natural colouring will often strike the reader of this literature as fantastic, and at times bizarre; but this should not be permitted to obscure the reality which often lies behind these weird shadows
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlynatural colouring will often strike the reader of this literature as fantastic, and at times _bizarre_; but this should not be permitted to obscure the reality which often lies behind these weird shadows. Mental visions are not always easily expressed in words; the seer who in a vision has received a message in some fantastic guise necessarily has the impress upon his mind of what he has seen when giving his message; and when he describes his vision the picture he presents is, in the nature of the case, more fantastic to the ear of the hearer than to the eye of him who saw it. Allowance should be made for this; especially by us Westerns who are so lacking in the rich imaginativeness of the Oriental. Our love of literalness hinders the play of the imagination because we are so apt to “materialize” a mental picture presented by another.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a passage from a historical religious or interpretive text. Its genre, manuscript history, translation and place within its own tradition are part of the evidence and must remain visible.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice can compare the passage's descriptive features with later reports, but resemblance does not turn a vision, angel, mythic creature or sacred narrative into a modern incident report.
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