Chapters 69-73 of 2 Enoch (sometimes referred as the Exaltation of Melchizedek or 2EM) outline the priestly succession of Enoch. There is not unanimous consensus whether this section belongs to the main body of the text or it is an early addition. Considering the not-fragmentary main manuscripts, 2EM is not included in P V N, it is included partially in J, while it is fully included in R U B, which anyway represent the best traditions of all versions. So we have both shorter and a longer versions of 2EM. Some early authors, as Charles, have not included this section mainly because they based their edition on manuscripts P and N. The lack of this section in recent manuscripts is explained by others because of the scandalous content (the virgin birth of Melchisedek) for Christian copyists. According to Vaillant, who edited the first critical edition of 2 Enoch, there is no evidence that 2EM ever existed separately. Modern editions usually include also these chapters.
The recent discoveries of Melchisedek 11Q13 text at Qumran and of a related text at Nag Hammadi, have made possible to have an idea about the Melchisedek controversy, involving also 2EM and the Letter to the Hebrews, that developed in non-mainstream Jewish communities and in early Christians communities from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE against the traditional Jewish identification of Melchisedek with Shem.
A growing number of scholars recognize the antiquity of 2 Enoch, including also 2EM, and support a pre-70 CE dating for its original composition. Sacchi suggests that 2EM is actually an addition to the main body of the text (the style is slightly different), but a very early addition by someone of the same sect that wrote 2 Enoch (it uses the same language and same typical names as Ahuzan for Temple), dating 2EM after the 70 CE but before or about the Letter to the Hebrews. The differences between 2EM with the Letter to the Hebrews (in the Letter to the Hebrews, Melchisedek is primarily a heavenly figure, while 2EM depicts him as an earthly one) don't allow to prove the dependence of 2EM from Hebrews.
Read more about this topic: Second Book Of Enoch
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“None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)