Other ancient texts · In other Bibles
1 Enoch
1 Enoch is a collection of five Jewish writings credited to Enoch, the man in Genesis 5 who "walked with God." It tells of fallen angels (the Watchers), journeys through heaven, the movements of the sun and moon, visions of history, and a coming judgment. People read it because it shaped how many Jews and early Christians thought about angels, demons, the Messiah and the end of the world, and because the New Testament quotes it.
- about 300 BC to the 1st century BC (in sections)
- Aramaic
- Protestant Catholic Orthodox Ethiopian
Should it be in the Bible?
The case for
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A New Testament book quotes it as genuine prophecy.
The evidence
Jude 14–15 says "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied" and then quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 closely. Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4 and 1 Peter 3:19–20 also speak of angels who sinned being held in chains or prison, which fits the Watchers story in 1 Enoch 6–16.
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Jews in Jesus' time read it widely and treated it as authoritative.
The evidence
The Dead Sea Scrolls include Aramaic fragments of about eleven or twelve copies of Enochic books (4Q201–4Q212 and others), more than for many books in the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Jubilees and other scrolls from Qumran draw on its stories and calendar.
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Early Christians cited it as scripture, and one ancient church has kept it in its Bible ever since.
The evidence
The Epistle of Barnabas (16:5) introduces a passage from Enoch with "the scripture says," and Tertullian (On the Apparel of Women 1.3) argued it should be accepted. The Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches have kept it in their Old Testament for more than 1,500 years, and the book survives complete only because they did.
The case against
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Enoch cannot have written it, and its parts come from different authors centuries apart.
The evidence
The language, ideas and historical references (such as the Maccabean revolt in the Animal Apocalypse, chapters 85–90) point to the 3rd century BC through the 1st century AD. Scholars of every background treat it as pseudonymous: later authors writing under the name of an ancient hero, which was a common practice at the time.
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Apart from the Ethiopian church, Jews and Christians did not accept it as scripture.
The evidence
It is not in the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint codices, the Muratorian fragment, Athanasius' list of 367, or the lists of Hippo, Carthage or Trent. Origen said the churches did not treat it as divine (Against Celsus 5.54), Augustine rejected it (City of God 15.23), and Jerome said some doubted Jude because it quoted Enoch.
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Being quoted in the Bible does not make a text scripture, and its teaching goes beyond the rest of the Bible.
The evidence
Paul quotes Greek poets such as Aratus (Acts 17:28) and Epimenides (Titus 1:12) without treating them as inspired. 1 Enoch traces much of the world's evil to angels who taught forbidden knowledge, not mainly to Adam's sin, and its 364-day solar calendar set some groups against the calendar used at the Temple.
Both sides are written as strongly as the honest evidence allows, so you can decide for yourself. Researched by claude-opus-5-5.
When, where and by whom
Ethiopian Orthodox tradition holds that Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, wrote it before the Flood. Most scholars see five separate Jewish works written in Judea, mostly in Aramaic: the Astronomical Book (72–82) and Book of the Watchers (1–36) in the 3rd century BC, the Dream Visions (83–90) around 164 BC, the Epistle (91–108) in the 2nd century BC, and the Parables (37–71) around the turn of the era, between the late 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.
Jesus, the New Testament and this book
- Quoted in Jude 14–15 (1 Enoch 1:9).
- Its "Son of Man" passages (chapters 37–71) parallel Jesus' favourite title for himself.
- Many copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- Jude 14–15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 almost word for word and names Enoch as the speaker. (strong link)
- Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 describe sinning angels kept in chains of darkness until judgment, as in 1 Enoch 10:4–6 and 10:11–14. 2 Peter's word "Tartarus" also appears in the Greek of 1 Enoch 20:2. (strong link)
- 1 Peter 3:19–20 tells of Christ preaching to "spirits in prison" who disobeyed in Noah's day. This matches Enoch's mission to the imprisoned Watchers (1 Enoch 12–16). (likely link)
- In the Parables (1 Enoch 46–71) a heavenly "Son of Man" sits on a "throne of glory" and judges the world. This parallels Jesus' use of the title, especially Matthew 19:28 and 25:31. Both draw on Daniel 7, and the Parables' date is debated, so direct borrowing is uncertain. (likely link)
- The fire "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41) and the abyss and imprisoned angels in Revelation (9:1–11, 20:1–3) resemble the judgment of the Watchers in 1 Enoch 10, 18–21 and 54. (possible link)
- The Epistle's "woes" against the rich (1 Enoch 94–97) resemble Luke 6:24–26. Its separate places for the righteous and wicked dead (1 Enoch 22) resemble the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). (possible link)
How it came down to us
The oldest copies are Aramaic fragments from Qumran Cave 4, copied from about 200 BC to the 1st century AD. They cover every section except the Parables, which has never been found at Qumran. Greek translations survive in part: the Akhmim (Panopolitanus) codex of about the 5th–6th century for chapters 1–32, a 4th-century Chester Beatty–Michigan papyrus for chapters 97–107, and quotations in the 9th-century chronicler George Syncellus. The only complete text is in Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic), translated probably from Greek in the 4th–6th centuries and copied by Ethiopian monks, with surviving manuscripts from about the 15th century onward. James Bruce brought copies to Europe in 1773, Richard Laurence published an English translation in 1821, and August Dillmann edited the Ge'ez text in 1851.
- Dead Sea Scrolls Aramaic fragments 4Q201–4Q212 (J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch, 1976)
- Greek manuscripts: Codex Panopolitanus (Akhmim), Chester Beatty–Michigan papyrus, excerpts in George Syncellus
- Ge'ez manuscripts and editions (Dillmann 1851; Knibb 1978)
- Modern critical commentary (Nickelsburg, Hermeneia 1 Enoch 1 and 1 Enoch 2 with VanderKam)
- New Testament texts: Jude, 1–2 Peter, Matthew, Luke, Revelation
- Early Christian writers: Epistle of Barnabas, Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Augustine
- Canon lists: Muratorian fragment, Athanasius' Festal Letter 39 (367), councils of Hippo, Carthage and Trent, Ethiopian Orthodox canon
- Scholarly debate on dating the Parables (Enoch Seminar, 2005 Camaldoli meeting)