# The Book of Enoch > [!summary] The short answer The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish writing that was well known in Jesus' day and is even quoted in the New Testament (Jude 14-15). It's valuable for understanding the world of the Bible, but it is not Scripture. It wasn't written by the Enoch of Genesis, it was never accepted as part of the Hebrew Bible, and most of the church throughout history has not received it as inspired. --- ## Who Was Enoch? Enoch appears briefly in Genesis. He was the seventh generation from Adam and the great-grandfather of Noah. > [!quote] Genesis 5:24 (ESV) Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Enoch is one of only two people in the Bible who didn't die (the other is Elijah, 2 Kings 2:11). Hebrews 11:5 commends his faith. Because the Bible says so little about him, his mysterious departure made him a natural figure for later Jewish writers to build stories around. --- ## Which "Book of Enoch"? There are actually three ancient books connected with Enoch: |Book|Also called|Language preserved|Approximate date| |---|---|---|---| |**1 Enoch**|The Ethiopic Book of Enoch|Complete in Ge'ez (Ethiopic), with Aramaic and Greek fragments|3rd century BC to 1st century AD| |**2 Enoch**|The Slavonic Enoch, or _Secrets of Enoch_|Old Slavonic|Likely 1st century AD| |**3 Enoch**|The Hebrew Enoch|Hebrew|5th century AD or later| When people talk about "the Book of Enoch," they almost always mean **1 Enoch**. That's the focus of this note. --- ## What's in 1 Enoch? 1 Enoch is not one book written at one time. It's a collection of five works written by different authors over roughly three centuries. |Section|Chapters|What it's about| |---|---|---| |**The Book of the Watchers**|1-36|An expanded story of Genesis 6:1-4. Rebellious angels ("Watchers") descend, marry human women, father giants, and teach humanity forbidden knowledge. God judges them, and Enoch takes heavenly journeys.| |**The Book of Parables** (Similitudes)|37-71|Visions of judgment and of a heavenly figure called the Son of Man, the Elect One, who will judge the world.| |**The Astronomical Book**|72-82|The movements of the sun, moon, and stars, and a 364-day solar calendar.| |**The Book of Dreams**|83-90|Two visions, including the "Animal Apocalypse," which retells Israel's history with people pictured as animals.| |**The Epistle of Enoch**|91-108|Moral warnings, woes on the wicked, encouragement for the righteous, and the "Apocalypse of Weeks," which divides history into ten weeks.| --- ## Where Did It Come From? - **It was written long after Enoch.** The oldest sections date to around the 3rd century BC, thousands of years after the Enoch of Genesis. Like many Jewish writings of that era, it was written in the name of an ancient hero, a common literary practice called _pseudepigraphy_. - **It was popular among Jews before and during the time of Jesus.** Aramaic fragments of every section except the Parables were found among the **Dead Sea Scrolls** at Qumran. - **It survived complete only in Ethiopia.** The full text was preserved in Ge'ez, and it is part of the Bible of the **Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church** and the Eritrean Orthodox Church to this day. - **It was largely unknown in the West** until James Bruce brought Ethiopic copies to Europe in the 1770s. The first English translation appeared in 1821. --- ## Enoch and the New Testament ### Jude quotes it directly > [!quote] Jude 14 (ESV) It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones..." Jude 14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9. This is the strongest connection between the two books. ### Other possible echoes - **2 Peter 2:4** describes angels who sinned being cast into _Tartarus_ and held in chains until judgment, which resembles the Watchers story. - **1 Peter 3:19-20** speaks of Christ proclaiming to "the spirits in prison" who disobeyed in Noah's day. Many scholars see the Enoch tradition in the background. - **Jude 6** mentions angels who "did not stay within their own position" and are kept in chains. - **The "Son of Man"** language in the Parables overlaps with Daniel 7 and Jesus' favorite title for Himself, though scholars debate whether the Parables were written before or after the Gospels. --- ## Does Jude's Quote Make It Scripture? No. Quoting a book doesn't mean endorsing all of it. - **Paul quotes pagan writers** without making their works Scripture: Aratus in Acts 17:28, Epimenides in Titus 1:12, and Menander in 1 Corinthians 15:33. - **Jude also draws on another non-biblical tradition** in verse 9, about Michael disputing with the devil over Moses' body, which early Christian writers connected to a work called the _Assumption of Moses_. - **Jude affirms that this particular statement is true,** that the Lord will come in judgment, not that the entire book is inspired. - **Jude never introduces the quote with "it is written,"** the formula the New Testament uses for Scripture. The Holy Spirit guided Jude to use a true statement his readers knew well, much like a pastor quoting C. S. Lewis today. --- ## Why It Isn't in the Bible 1. **It wasn't written by Enoch.** Its authors wrote centuries later in his name. 2. **It was never part of the Hebrew Scriptures.** The Jewish community never received it as Scripture, and Jesus affirmed the Hebrew Scriptures of His day as God's Word (Luke 24:44). 3. **Jesus and the apostles never cite it as Scripture,** though they cite the Old Testament hundreds of times. 4. **The early church mostly rejected it.** A few early writers, such as Tertullian, valued it highly, but most church leaders did not accept it, and Augustine explicitly rejected it as Scripture (_City of God_, Book 15). 5. **Parts of it conflict with the rest of Scripture,** such as the fantastical details about the giants and the 364-day calendar that doesn't match the biblical festival calendar. ### Was it "banned"? Popular videos and books sometimes claim the Book of Enoch was "banned" or "hidden" from the Bible. That isn't accurate. It was never in the Bible to begin with, at least outside of Ethiopia. It was simply not accepted as Scripture, much like hundreds of other ancient religious writings. --- ## Why It's Still Worth Knowing About 1 Enoch isn't Scripture, but it can still help us read Scripture better: - **It shows what Jews in Jesus' day believed** about angels, demons, judgment, the resurrection, and the coming Messiah. - **It explains the background** of some difficult New Testament passages, like 1 Peter 3, 2 Peter 2, and Jude. - **It shows how Genesis 6:1-4 was commonly read** in the Second Temple period. Read it the way you'd read any important historical book: with interest, with discernment, and always under the authority of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:21). --- ## Other Views - **The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church** includes 1 Enoch in its canon and reads it as Scripture. - **Some evangelical scholars,** such as the late Michael Heiser, have urged Christians to study 1 Enoch closely as background for understanding the supernatural worldview of the Bible, while still not treating it as Scripture. - **Some popular teachers** treat 1 Enoch as a lost or suppressed book of the Bible and build detailed teachings on it about giants, angels, and the end times. Most scholars, both Christian and secular, reject that view. ## For Further Study - Genesis 5:18-24; 6:1-4 - Hebrews 11:5 - 1 Peter 3:18-20; 2 Peter 2:4-5; Jude 6, 9, 14-15 - Augustine, _The City of God_, Book 15 - George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, _1 Enoch: A New Translation_ This is a good explanation of what to think of the book of Enoch. - It was not intended to be thought of inspired. It was almost a commentary of what the Jewish people thought about things not directly spelled out in Scripture. https://youtu.be/gfxQrV8dY1s?si=NgrGAhl8zsiLeNaW