What is the Book of Enoch?

Why reading apocryphal texts can help us deepen our understanding of Scripture

The Book of Enoch is an enigma.

Excluded from Scripture, yet referenced multiple times by the New Testament writers.

Detailing aspects of Genesis that are woefully brief, expanding the ideas presented in Daniel and Isaiah about heavenly courts and ultimate judgement, and further detailing the divine council presented in Job and Psalms.

Lost to the Western world for over a thousand years and rediscovered in 1773, the Book of Enoch has sprung back into our consciousness during a modern revival, swirling through esoteric circles and taking on a life of its own.

Widely read and accepted by early Jewish and Christian scholars, the cultural loss of the Book of Enoch ultimately changed the mainstream Christian interpretation of several key passages in the Bible, which has resulted in most people having an incomplete understanding of angelology and demonology.

While this loss of understanding does not ultimately affect salvation, it does affect our understanding of angels, demons — and ultimate judgement.

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The Relative Importance of Enoch and Jubilees

Enoch and Jubilees were considered historically important to the earliest Jewish and Christian theologians, but they ultimately were not considered scripture (except in the Ethiopian Orthodox canon) as there was debate about whether they were actually divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. And more controversially, there was debate about what was contained within them. As these books were heavy into angelology — the nature of angels and their origins, their role in administering God’s law — they got cut as being less applicable for everyday reading in churches.

In the post-Jesus early Christian world, they became especially problematic as the early church fought Gnosticism and sought doctrinal clarity, making exclusion from the canon both practical and protective for the early church.

By the 5th century AD, both Enoch and Jubilees had stopped being copied, translated, and preserved, resulting in the loss of the original Hebrew and Greek texts as well as the understanding contained within for more than a thousand years. In 1773, amidst increasing European interest in the Ethiopian manuscripts of the Bible, a manuscript of the Book of Enoch was brought from Ethiopia to Europe for the first time, with Jubilees following several decades later. The texts were then translated from Ge’ez, the Ethiopic language, to English.

In 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered containing 15,000 fragments of scrolls of about 900 different texts dating back as far as 250 BC. The most numerous biblical scrolls found were Psalms (30), Deuteronomy (25), Isaiah (19), and Genesis (19) — with 11 copies of the Enoch and 15 copies of Jubilees found, confirming that these texts were widely read and understood in antiquity. Once translated from Aramaic and Hebrew, these texts provided additional context and insight to the Ethiopian versions of Enoch and Jubilees which had been preserved.

In contrast to the lost books rediscovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which also includes fragments of the Book of Giants, there are other books referenced in the Bible and clearly read and understood in ancient Judaism that have been truly lost and not rediscovered, including the Book of Jasher and the Book of the Wars of the Lord. Today there are multiple books purporting to be the Book of Jasher that are actually modern forgeries.

What is the Book of Enoch?

First, let’s clarify exactly which book we are talking about.

There are three books attributed to Enoch, the great-great-great-great-grandson of Adam, a prophet, and Noah’s great-grandfather.

The first Book of Enoch, known as 1 Enoch, is the most well known, and is the only book of Enoch included in our Bible study. While excluded from the canon of most Scripture, it is included in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

1 Enoch is actually a compilation of 5 books:

• The Book of the Watchers

• The Book of Parables (or “Similitudes”)

• The Book of the Luminaries (or The Astronomical Book)

• The Book of Dreams

  • Enoch’s First Dream Vision: The Flood

  • Enoch’s Second Dream Vision: The History of Humanity (or The Animal Apocalypse)

• The Epistle of Enoch

These sections are presumed by most scholars to have been written at different times, with the latest being around 200 BC (the Second Temple period).

It is said that Enoch invented writing, and, while in modern day this work is classified as pseudigraphical (not written by the author to which it is attributed, like Job) — several early Church Fathers believed that Enoch did, in fact, write this text. That would mean it was given to Noah as either a written or oral tradition and survived the flood on the ark.

If this is true, it would mean that the Book of Enoch is the oldest Biblical text, predating all other written religious texts on earth. It would make the Book of Enoch the only antediluvian book of the Bible. It would also prove that Mesopotamian folklore of their gods — whom they claim invented writing, survived a flood, built great cities and towers/ziggurats, etc — is a direct copy and inversion of the origins of humanity documented in the Holy Bible, and not the other way around.

And if it’s not true, it is at minimum a Christian and Jewish text of great historical importance.

2 Enoch and 3 Enoch were written later, dating to the 3rd and 5th century AD, respectively. As these books were written much later, they were not treated as important historically or considered potentially canonical to either Jewish or Christian theologians, and they are not included in our reading. They also contain material that is increasingly esoteric, potentially gnostic, and at odds with other areas of canonical Scripture.

Contents of the Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch details that the fallen angels exercising their free will chose to defect from God’s design to crossbreed with human women, resulting in the giants and demigods (nephilim) detailed in the folklore of nearly every culture (“men of renown” Genesis 6:4). The Book of Enoch, together with the Book of Jubilees, details the origin of demons as the disembodied spirits of the nephilim.

That’s incredibly scandalous.

Just as Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, exercising their own free will — so, too, did some of the angels sin, utilizing their own free will to defect from God and the order of His kingdom. While they were given a role intended to teach humans good and virtuous skills, they defected and instead taught humans the destructive arts of sorcery, astrology, weaponry, and herbology (pharmakeia in Greek), to name just a few.

It’s also not an addition to scripture — it’s very clearly stated in Genesis 6 that the “sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them” (Genesis 6:4). Just a few sentences later Genesis states that “all flesh” had been corrupted (Genesis 6:11). However, there is not much more elaboration within Genesis itself, and many church traditions have chosen to sort of glaze over the weirder parts of this aspect of Scripture and interpret it metaphorically, claiming the “sons of God” refers to Seth’s lineage and “daughters of men” refer to Cain’s lineage. But that doesn’t explain giants.

It’s a safe and convenient — but likely inaccurate — interpretation. And it’s an interpretation that is at odds with the original understanding of the texts and the Bible.

The authors of the Bible, both Old Testament and New, were clearly very familiar with the Book of Enoch and appeared to have treated it as the inspired word of God. The author(s) of the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible, commonly believed to be written by Moses) directly quote from Enoch, using verbatim language — indicating that it may have been around in existence when the first books of the Bible were written (further bolstering the claim that it may be the oldest existing Biblical text). The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the Book of Acts also draw on and reference the information and concepts contained in Enoch, while the Book of Jude references it directly.

What is the Book of Jubilees?

The Book of Jubilees, also called “little Genesis,” was also widely read by early Jewish and Christian theologians, and contains elaborations that answer some of the questions people have about the early world in the beginning of Genesis.

Who did Cain and Seth marry if Adam and Eve were the first and only two humans on Earth? (Their sisters.) What are the names of the women and wives who are not named in early Genesis? How and why were the nephilim spirits permitted to continue existing on Earth as demons to torment humanity?

The Book of Jubilees is written from the perspective of an angel dictating to Moses how and when the world was created according to a specific timeline designed by God, with a plethora of dates and times clearly documented.

Some scholars say the calendar detailed in the Book of Jubilees predicted a window for the Messiah to arrive between 10 BC and 2 or 3 AD — which is exactly when Jesus Christ was born (on December 25th, probably).

Jubilees contains other interesting notes, including that Hebrew was the original language of heaven and of all the people, until they lost that language after Babel — and then gained it back when the angels taught it to Moses.

But Jubilees is also incredibly legalistic — and discusses the enforcement of laws that don’t matter as much after the arrival of the Messiah and creation of a new covenant. Nevertheless, Jubilees provides detail and context to the early world which helps frame the entire Biblical story.

A Double-Edged Sword

I kind of agonized over where to put Enoch and Jubilees in the Bible in a Year Plan. The events within those books occur very early on in the chronological timeline of the Bible, but they are not included as Scripture for principled reasons. Introducing them without the scaffolding of the canon of Scripture risks distracting new readers from the Bible’s central story and has the potential to invite the kind of esoteric fixation that often replaces understanding with speculation. There is no shortage of speculative podcasts and books that do just that — and I believe some of these sources lead astray believers and non-believers alike.

I ultimately tried to include these books where they are most relevant but without competing with the more important parts of Scripture that cover similar aspects of the Biblical worldview.

Curiosity killed the cat — and curiosity, pride, and obsession can lead us away from God if we aren’t careful, so let us be sure we are reading these texts for what is in them, in the full context of the rest of Scripture, and not for what we want to see esoterically.

Again, I encourage you to pray for discernment while we read all of these texts.

Why We Are Reading Them

Whether we believe these books should be included in Scripture or not, we are going to be reading the Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilees for historical context more than for divine guidance. I believe that they can answer questions that many people have right at the outset of their Biblical journey, and can support people in understanding the reality of this story, and the reality of the spiritual world we find ourselves in today.

Here is a link to an online version of The Book of Enoch.

And here is a link to a website of The Book of Jubilees.

We start Enoch this week! We will learn much, much more about the Watchers. And will revisit the rest of the sections of Enoch throughout the year where they are most relevant, while we will read Jubilees in March.

Questions or comments on Enoch and Jubilees? Share below or in the chat!