Welcome

What do the last three sections of 1 Enoch teach? In the previous post we saw that the first two sections of 1 Enoch taught things that fell far outside the bounds of Scripture, including outright error and legendary accounts. We will look at the last three sections of 1 Enoch in turn.

3. The Astronomical Book

The Astronomical Book supposedly deals with the movement of the sun and moon. Both have multiple portals from which they may emerge. Depending on the portal they come out of the resulting weather can be either a blessing or destruction.

Chapter 78 discloses that the circumference of the sun and the moon are the same. A few verses in this section speak of judgment against sinners. Most of the section is flowery speculative verbiage

The section consists of various musings, musings that would not be uncommon for time that 1 Enoch was written. As with the first two sections, the third section is not biblical, not even remotely so.

4. The Book of Dream Visions

The Book of Dream Visions is an allegorical dream about sheep, sheep that portrays the history of Israel from before the exodus to the coming of the victorious Messiah.

All the evil nations, portrayed as various animals, end up being restored. Given the section’s language, it is tough to see it as a prophecy from Enoch. For someone who knows Israel’s history, the vision makes sense, but if someone didn’t know their Old Testament history, it likely would not. It is also very different from the prophetic precision one finds in the book of Daniel.

Once again, the section fails in terms of qualifying as Scripture.

5. The Epistle of Enoch

The Epistle of Enoch is supposedly Enoch’s words to Methusaleh, exhortations given to Methusaleh to live righteously. It includes many woes against the wicked, contrasted with hope for the righteous

Chapter 105 includes prophecies regarding Noah that Enoch gave to Methusaleh to pass on to Lamech just after Noah was born. Biblically, was that conversation even possible?

Genesis 5:20–29 gives the chronology. Enoch lived 300 years after the birth of Methusaleh. Methusaleh was 187 years old when he fathered Lamech, and Lamech was 182 years old when he fathered Noah. Thus, Noah was born 369 years after Enoch fathered Methusaleh. There is only one problem: Enoch was not alive on earth to prophesy at the time Noah was born as Noah was born 69 years after God had taken Enoch.

That chronology doesn’t work, does it? As with the other sections of 1 Enoch, we once again see that this last section of 1 Enoch does not qualify as Scripture.

All told, given what 1 Enoch claims, it is not a biblical book in any sense. It contains too many errors, it has key ideas that go against what Scripture directly state, and chronological impossibilities. But it does say what people want to hear: we are not responsible for our sin; the Watchers are. What is perhaps disconcerting, prominent Bible teachers often use it to teach about the Nephilim and the origin of demons.

We want answers to things that the Bible doesn’t tell us. We either want our pastors to fill in those blanks or we look to hidden books, books that have supposedly been deliberately repressed by the church, for those answers. Those books provide answers, but the answers often directly contradict Scripture. Indeed, one of the reasons the books are marketed as “truth” is precisely to turn us away from God’s revealed truth, found in Scripture alone.

Sadly, we are often no different from the early Gnostics. We want secret truth that no one else has. We want to know, but especially to know “the truth” that contradict what God declares in Scripture, that apart from faith in Jesus Christ, of accepting His death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, we will be separated from God for all eternity in hell.

We can heap up to ourselves teachers who will tell us what we want to hear, but doing so ultimately leads us only to our demise. It is far better to stick with Scripture, what God declares in the Bible. Wisdom is to reject books like the Gnostic Gospels, Jasher, Giants, Jubilees, and the three Enochs, books that purport to tell us “truth,” but instead contain biblical lies.

Hopefully, by God’s grace, we can lead those who have been ensnared by the words of these books, to the truth and freedom found in Jesus Christ.

What does 1 Enoch claim to teach? Why is it so popular? Overall, does 1 Enoch accord with or contradict Scripture?

As for the book itself, 1 Enoch is divided into five parts: The Watchers; The Book of Allegories of Enoch; The Astronomical Book; The Book of Dream Visions; The Epistle of Enoch.

First Enoch is so popular as it purports to fill in the blanks, to give details that Scripture does not explain, especially in the first section: the Watchers. It gives all sorts of details about how the Watchers fathered the Nephilim and how the Watchers taught humans forbidden knowledge. It gives details about angelology and demonology as well as speaking of a “Son of Man” messianic figure.

We will look at each of the five sections in turn.

1. The Watchers

The Watchers is probably the most studied section, for the reasons outlined above. Chapter 6 names the leaders of the 200 Watchers who came down and impregnated the daughters of men. Chapter 8 tells how the Watchers led humans astray by teaching humans war, astrology, immorality, and other arts. Earth’s corruption was not caused by Adam and Eve’s sin, but by the corrupting influence of the Watchers, corruption that leads directly to the Flood.

We can already see why 1 Enoch has a strong appeal: humans are not the source of the world’s sin problem. It is somewhat ironic. Just as Adam blamed Eve for his sin, and Eve blamed the serpent for her sin, the writer of 1 Enoch blamed the Watchers as the real source of human corruption.

Chapter 15 reveals that evil spirits proceeded from the giants that were fathered by the Watchers by human women. When the Nephilim perished due to the flood, evil spirits emerged from their corpses. In this respect 1 Enoch parallels Jubilees.

Elsewhere the first section of Enoch teaches that some stars are in the fire because they transgressed God by not coming out at the proper time. Visions of interim places of punishment and blessing are disclosed. Also, the women who transgressed with the Watchers became sirens (in Greek mythology sirens were the female half-bird/half-human creatures that lured sailors to their death through their singing).

What can we conclude about this first section? The Watchers directly contradicts Scripture, blaming sin and human corruption on the Watchers, not freely made human choice. It also includes legendary accounts and other myths. It is not biblical.

2. The Book of Allegories of Enoch

The Book of Allegories tells how no place for wisdom was found on the earth, but rather unrighteousness. A future Son of Man will break kings that don’t worship him, along with sinners. The earth will then rejoice, and in chapter 62, the kings of the earth fall down and worship before him, but they won’t repent: their worship is false.

The Book of Allegories also tells us a bit more about the Watchers. Chapter 69 discloses that the Watcher Gadreel led Eve astray. Chapter 69 discloses that the Watcher Penemue caused men to sin by teaching them to write with paper and ink; men were not created for that purpose. That raises an interesting question: what does that say about Moses’s writing down the 10 commandments, and the Law, let alone the Jew’s reording of the Old Testament?

Elsewhere, many evil angels (Watchers) are named, along with key good angels. Overall the second section includes lots of flowery language that says much less than one might think.

As with the first section, the second section of 1 Enoch does not mesh with Scripture. In the next post we will look at the last three sections of 1 Enoch.

If there is any extra-biblical book that has caused controversy over whether it should be included or not, it is first Enoch. Favored by some conspiracy theorists and fringe Christian groups, a loud vocal minority trumpets the supposed importance of this book. The only complete manuscript is found in the Ethiopian Bible. Many fragments of it are also in the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with others in Greek, Coptic, and Latin. First Enoch was a well-known book. It was written between 300 BC–100 AD, although many say it was written between 200 BC and 0 BC

Should 1 Enoch be considered Scripture, given that it is part of the Ethiopian Bible? As we’ve seen, in ancient times Ethiopia was an isolated region with relatively little contact with other churches. The Ethiopian church developed independently, with its own traditions.

Two things about 1 Enoch stand out. First, it purports to provide extra-biblical information about the Watchers, the angelic beings that took human women as wives, resulting in the birth of the Nephilim. Second, Jude 1:14–15 appears to quote 1 Enoch, as Jude 14–15 while not an exact match, closely resembles 1 Enoch 1:9.

1 Enoch 1:9 (The Complete Enoch): And behold, He comes with myriads of His holy ones to execute judgment on all. And to destroy all the ungodly, And to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed. And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

Jude 1:14–15 (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, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

The biggest difference is that Jude does not include “And to destroy all the ungodly.” That reference in Enoch is undoubtedly to the forthcoming destructive world-wide flood of Noah’s time. That Jude does not precisely follow the text found in 1 Enoch is important.

Was Jude quoting 1 Enoch? Advocates for 1 Enoch insist that Jude was, and thereby insist that 1 Enoch should be included as Scripture. But, was he quoting it? Ii is quite possible that Jude was indeed quoting it. As previously stated, it is highly likely that early Christians were aware of 1 Enoch. It has been suggested that as Paul referenced a secular poet in his preaching at Athens, Jude was using 1 Enoch to relate to his readers. It is also theorized that both Jude and the writer of 1 Enoch were referencing earlier source material. Many ideas have been presented; all are hypothetical conjectures.

Whatever the case, in the end it doesn’t matter. It has no impact on the authority or inerrancy of Scripture. Even given that Jude was quoting 1 Enoch, only what he quoted would then be included as inspired, since all Scripture is God-breathed, and Jude 14–15 is part of Scripture. It certainly does not automatically follow that 1 Enoch is an inspired book. It is here that the difference between the two verses in Jude and the corresponding verse in 1 Enoch is important.

The resulting arguments that insist Enoch should be considered Scripture, are something of a sidetrack. As we will see in the next two posts, 1 Enoch cannot be considered Scripture. First, some of what is said in 1 Enoch contradicts Scripture by letting humans mostly off the hook when it comes to the origin of human sin. Second, we will also see that 1 Enoch contains serious and obvious errors. Those facts alone disqualify 1 Enoch from consideration as God-breathed inspired Scripture.