Summary: The Book of Enoch

The GIST

The Book of Enoch, also called 1 Enoch, is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic text that tradition ascribes to the patriarch Enoch, the father of Methuselah and great-grandfather of Noah. It is not the work of one hand. Scholars regard it as five originally separate books, written at different times and later stitched together: the oldest parts date from about 300 to 200 BC, and the latest, the Book of Parables, is the subject of a long dating debate. It was first written in Aramaic or Hebrew, or a mix of both, and fragments of the Aramaic were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. The complete book survives only in Geʽez, the old church language of Ethiopia.

It matters because it fills in what Genesis leaves in shadow. Here is the fullest ancient account of why some angels fell, where the giants called Nephilim came from, how demons and forbidden knowledge entered the world, and why the Flood was morally necessary. It also contains one of the earliest developed pictures of a heavenly Messiah and a final judgment. Most Jewish and Christian traditions do not count it as Scripture, but the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches and the Ethiopian Jewish community, Beta Israel, do, and the writers of the New Testament knew it: the Epistle of Jude quotes it by name, as the words of "Enoch, the Seventh from Adam."

What It Says

The Book of the Watchers (chapters 1–36)

The book opens with Enoch introduced as "a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God," who saw a vision of the Holy One in the heavens and was told that what he saw was meant not for his own generation but for a remote one still to come. He announces that God will come with his hosts to judge humankind. Then he points to the order of creation: the lights of heaven rise and set at their appointed times, and everything in nature keeps the task God gave it. Only sinners do not, and they will perish while the righteous live on in light, joy and peace.

Then comes the story that made the book famous. In the days of Jared, two hundred angels called the Watchers look down on human women and desire them. Their leader, Semjâzâ, is afraid he will be left to bear the guilt of "a great sin" alone, so all of them swear an oath and bind themselves by mutual curses to go through with it. They descend on the summit of Mount Hermon, which the book says takes its name from that oath, and take wives.

The children of these unions are giants, three hundred ells tall. They eat everything human beings can produce, and when people can no longer feed them, the giants turn on humankind and devour it, then turn on the animals, and finally on each other, drinking blood. Meanwhile the angels teach what should not have been taught. Azâzêl shows men how to make swords, knives, shields and breastplates, and how to work metals into bracelets and ornaments; he reveals cosmetics, precious stones and dyes. Others teach enchantments, astrology and the signs of the sky. Godlessness spreads, and humanity is corrupted in all its ways.

The archangels Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel appeal to God, and God answers with four commissions. Uriel is sent to the son of Lamech to tell Noah to hide himself, because a deluge is coming to destroy the whole earth, and to teach him how to escape so that his descendants may survive. Raphael is ordered to bind Azâzêl hand and foot and throw him into darkness beneath jagged rocks in the desert of Dûdâêl, to stay there until the day of the great judgment, and to heal the earth the angels have ruined. "To him ascribe all sin," God says. Gabriel is sent against the giants, to set them against each other until they destroy themselves in battle. Michael is told to bind Semjâzâ and his companions, once they have watched their sons kill one another, for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, until they are led to the abyss of fire.

Enoch himself now enters the story. In a dream vision he intercedes for Azâzêl and the fallen angels and must carry back to them the announcement of their doom. The rest of this first book follows his journeys through the earth, the underworld and the heavens. He learns the names and duties of the seven archangels. He sees the prison prepared for the fallen angels, Sheol, the Tree of Life among seven mountains, Jerusalem and an accursed valley, and he travels on to the edges of the world.

The Book of Parables (chapters 37–71)

The second book, also called the Similitudes, is built from three parables, or visionary discourses. It grows out of the Watchers story but widens the judgment. Now the fate of the "kings and the mighty" of the earth is at stake along with the fate of the fallen angels.

At its center stands a figure with several names: the Righteous One, the Chosen One or Elect One, the Messiah, and above all the Son of Man. Enoch sees him beside the Ancient of Days. He will sit on the throne of glory at the last judgment, and before him the rulers of the earth will repent too late. The parables describe the dwelling places of the righteous, the four archangels, the resurrection of the dead and their separation by the judge, a new heaven and a new earth, the valley of judgment with its angels of punishment, and the final sentence on Azâzêl, the Watchers and their children. Scattered through it are secrets of the stars, the monsters Behemoth and Leviathan, and passages in which Noah is warned of the Flood. The book ends with Enoch being taken up to heaven, and in the Ethiopic text he is told, "You are that Son of Man."

The Astronomical Book (chapters 72–82)

The third book changes tone completely. Guided by the angel Uriel, Enoch is shown how the heavens work: the course of the sun, the moon and its phases, the lunar year, the twelve winds and their gates, the four quarters of the world with its seven mountains, seven rivers and seven great islands.

The purpose is a calendar. The year has 364 days, divided into four equal seasons of 91 days. Each season has three months of thirty days plus one extra day. That makes exactly fifty-two weeks, so every date falls on the same weekday every year, and each year and each season begins on a Wednesday, the fourth day of creation, when Genesis says the lights of the sky were made. The book also warns that human sin will throw nature and the heavenly bodies out of order, and it closes with a charge to Enoch to pass on what he has learned.

The Book of Dream Visions (chapters 83–90)

Enoch recounts two dreams. The first is a vision of the Deluge. The second, known as the Animal Apocalypse, tells the whole history of the world as a fable in which animals stand for people and men stand for angels. Color carries meaning: white for purity, black for sin, red for blood and martyrdom.

Adam is a white bull, and his sons are a red calf and a black one. Stars fall from heaven and breed elephants, camels and asses, the giants of the earlier story, and the cattle tremble before them. Noah is a white bull who becomes a man; three bulls leave the ark with him, and from them come every kind of wild beast and bird, the nations. Israel is a flock of sheep under the Lord of the sheep. The flock is led out past the wolves across a divided water, receives the law, comes to "a pleasant and glorious land," and is harried there by dogs, foxes and wild boars. One ram forsakes its glory and another is raised in its place, which readers take as David succeeding Saul. A house and a high tower are built for the Lord of the sheep, the Temple, and then the sheep go astray and are handed over to lions and tigers, who burn the tower and demolish the house.

After that, seventy shepherds are appointed over the flock, each for a set time, and they allow more slaughter than they were permitted. Three sheep return to rebuild the house. Birds of prey descend on the flock, until horns grow on the lambs and one great horn rises that the ravens cannot break. Most scholars see the Maccabean revolt here, with the great horn as Judas Maccabeus. The vision ends with judgment on the fallen stars, the shepherds and the blinded sheep, a new house, the gathering of all the beasts and birds into it, and the birth of a white bull with great horns, after which every creature is changed. Enoch wakes and weeps.

The Epistle of Enoch (chapters 91–108)

The last book is a testament, with Enoch speaking to his son Methuselah and his children. It includes the Apocalypse of Weeks, which arranges all of history into ten "weeks": seven already past and three still ahead, ending in the final judgment, a new heaven, and "many weeks without number for ever" in goodness and righteousness.

Most of it is exhortation. There are two paths, righteousness and unrighteousness. A series of woes is pronounced against sinners, who are very often the rich and powerful with their "unrighteous wealth," while the righteous are the oppressed. The whole creation is called as a witness against the wicked, every sin is recorded in heaven, and the righteous are assured of their fate after death. Two appendices close the collection: the strange birth of Noah, a child born with the appearance of an angel, and a conclusion setting the "generation of light" against those destined for darkness.

Why It Matters

It names the source of evil. Genesis gives the "sons of God" and the Nephilim only a few lines. Enoch turns them into a full account of how evil entered the world from above, through rebel angels and the knowledge they leaked, and it presents the Flood as a just and necessary answer to it.

It shaped the idea of the Messiah. The Book of Parables contains the first known use of "Son of Man" as a definite title in Jewish writing: a figure who sits on God's throne and judges the world. That usage may have played a part in how early Christians understood and used the title. Scholars still argue about when the Parables were written: no fragment of them turned up at Qumran, and they are missing from the Greek version.

It shows a faith arguing with itself. The 364-day calendar, also found in the Book of Jubilees and used by the Dead Sea sect, made it impossible to keep the festivals on the same days as the Temple in Jerusalem. That is a glimpse of real disputes among Jews in the centuries before Christ.

It survived against the odds. The Qumran fragments suggest the original collection may have held a different work, the Book of Giants, where the Parables now stand. The complete text lived on in Ethiopia, where it is still read as Scripture.

Who Should Read It

Read it if you have ever wondered what lies behind the Bible's brief, puzzling references to fallen angels, giants and the days before the Flood, or if you want to see the world of ideas in which the New Testament was written. Students of Jewish and Christian origins and readers of apocalyptic books such as Daniel will find it rich. It is not easy going: the visions are strange and the symbolism is dense. Taken a section at a time, it is a vivid record of how ancient believers explained evil and hoped for justice.

This has been a summary of The Book of Enoch, giving you the GIST so you can decide if you want the REST.