1 Enoch (The Book of Enoch)

Reflection

First Enoch is a Jewish apocalyptic anthology composed in five sections between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century BC. Aramaic fragments of every section except the Parables were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, confirming that the book was read, copied, and treasured by Jewish communities in the period immediately before and during Christ's earthly ministry. The complete text survives only in Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic), preserved by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which retains it in its canon to this day.

The opening section, the Book of the Watchers, expands the brief Genesis 6 account of the 'sons of God' who took human wives and produced the Nephilim. Enoch is portrayed as ascending into the heavens, witnessing the judgment of these rebellious angels, and being shown the divine throne. The Astronomical Book describes a 364-day solar calendar at sharp variance with the lunar-based rabbinic system. The Book of Parables introduces the title 'Son of Man' for a coming heavenly judge — a usage that has long been compared with Jesus's preferred self-designation in the Gospels.

The most direct New Testament witness to 1 Enoch comes in Jude 14-15, where the letter quotes Enoch 1:9 explicitly: 'Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all…' Jude treats Enoch as a true prophetic voice within the patriarchal age, even while the book is not received as canonical Scripture in the Jewish or mainstream Christian canon. The presence of multiple Aramaic copies at Qumran shows that the theological world the New Testament steps into was already shaped by Enochic categories: watchers, judgment, heavenly ascent, and the persistence of righteous figures who 'walked with God' and did not see death.

Sources: George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia, 2001); James C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (1984); Daniel C. Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (2013).