The Book of Enoch

The Challenge

Most books in The Quick Scroll walk through what a book says. Esther went the other way: a book inside the canon, questioned for whether it belongs there. Enoch is the opposite case, a book outside the canon that many refuse to touch. This scroll does not summarize Enoch. It lays down a challenge.

Show one verse in Enoch that goes against the Word. Not a translator’s opinion, not a scholar’s date, but a saying in the book that contradicts Scripture. Until one is produced, Enoch deserves the same hearing given to Josephus and the other ancient writers: a historical witness, read under the Word and tested by it. It is not claimed here as Scripture.

The verses critics bring to the table most often are chapters 46 and 48, and the one they lean on hardest is 71:14. Each is answered below. Quotations from Enoch follow the R.H. Charles translation of 1912. Scripture follows the KJV.

The Standard Every Witness Must Meet

I, even I, am Yahuah; and beside me there is no saviour. (Isaiah 43:11)

Any book that sets a second savior beside Yahuah, or a second throne equal to His, fails at once. Enoch never does. Through every chapter it keeps one Lord of Spirits on one throne, and a chosen man who stands before Him. An outside witness never settles a doctrine by itself (Deuteronomy 19:15), but when it says what the Prophets already say, it adds its voice to theirs.

An Apostle Quoted Enoch

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all. (Jude 14-15)

Jude is quoting Enoch 1:9 almost word for word. An apostle did not hesitate to cite the prophecy or to name its source. Fragments of the book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls also show it was being copied and read before Yahushua was born.

Why Chapters 46 and 48 Are Set Aside

The Book of Enoch falls into five sections. Fragments of four of them were recovered at Qumran. The section holding chapters 37 through 71, called the Similitudes or Parables, was not found. On that absence alone, many scholars date the Similitudes later, and some call them a Christian addition.

The argument rests on silence. A missing fragment proves only that a fragment was not found. The content of these chapters also argues against a church hand. They do not read like the creeds; they read like Daniel 7, Isaiah 42 and 49, and Psalm 2. There is no co-equal Son, no three-in-one, no council language. A forger working for the later church would have written the creed into the text. Enoch did not.

Enoch 46: Two Figures Before the Throne

And there I saw One who had a head of days, and His head was white like wool, and with Him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels. (Enoch 46:1)

This is the son of Man who hath righteousness, with whom dwelleth righteousness, and who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden, because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him. (Enoch 46:3)

Daniel saw the same scene. The Ancient of days sat, with hair like pure wool (Daniel 7:9), and one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, came to the Ancient of days, and was brought near before Him (Daniel 7:13). Stephen saw it again at his death: the Son of man standing on the right hand of God (Acts 7:56).

All three witnesses agree on the arrangement. One sits enthroned. A second, with the appearance of a man, stands before Him. Enoch adds the reason the man stands there: the Lord of Spirits chose him. A choice requires a chooser, and the one who chooses is greater than the one chosen. Nothing here gives a co-equal Son or a single being in three persons. It gives Yahuah on the throne and the man He chose, brought near before Him.

Enoch 48: The Ministry Foretold

Chapter 48 moves from who the Son of Man is to what he would do. It reads as an outline of the earthly ministry of Yahushua.

Yea, before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of the heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Spirits. (Enoch 48:3)

Trinitarian teachers reach for this verse as proof of eternal pre-existence. The verse does not say the man existed before the sun; it says his name was named. Verse 6 confirms the sense: he was chosen and hidden before Him, before the creation of the world. Scripture uses the same language of the Lamb, who was foreordained before the foundation of the world but manifest in these last times (1 Peter 1:20). Paul uses it of believers as well: chosen in him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). No one claims the believers in Ephesus existed before creation. Named and chosen before creation is Yahuah’s purpose, settled in advance, not a second being living alongside Him.

He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not fall, and he shall be the light of the Gentiles, and the hope of those who are troubled of heart. (Enoch 48:4)

Every line is drawn from the Prophets. Yahuah gives His servant for a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6), and Simeon held the child and said the same (Luke 2:32). The light is the Father’s; the servant carries it as the lamp bears the flame. The hope of the troubled in heart is the anointing of Isaiah 61:1, which Yahushua read aloud at Nazareth and declared fulfilled that day (Luke 4:18-21).

All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him, and will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits. (Enoch 48:5)

The earth bows before the chosen one, but the praise goes to the Lord of Spirits. Paul gives the same order: every knee bows at the name of Yahushua, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).

In his name they are saved. (Enoch 48:7)

Peter preached the same: there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). The saving belongs to Yahuah, the only Savior of Isaiah 43:11. The name of His chosen one is the way He provided.

For they have denied the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed. (Enoch 48:10)

Here Enoch names two, not three, and not one: the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed, His Mashiach (H4899). It is Psalm 2:2 almost exactly, where the kings of the earth set themselves against Yahuah, and against his anointed. The apostles quoted that psalm in prayer and applied it to Yahushua (Acts 4:25-27).

The Objection from Enoch 71:14

Critics of the Similitudes point to the close of the section. In the Ethiopic manuscripts the angel greets Enoch with words usually rendered “You are that Son of Man who was born for righteousness.” On that reading, the critics say, the whole section makes Enoch himself the Son of Man, and chapters 46 and 48 have nothing to say about Yahushua.

Charles judged the verse corrupted and openly emended it to read “This is the Son of Man.” Other translators, among them E. Isaac (1983), read “son of man” there as a form of address, the way Ezekiel is called son of man more than ninety times without being the figure of Daniel 7 (Ezekiel 2:1). The objection also faces three problems of its own:

First, no Qumran fragment of chapter 71 exists, so the reading rests entirely on Ethiopic copies made many centuries later. Second, in 46:2 Enoch asks the angel who that Son of Man is. A man does not ask an angel who he himself is. Third, 48:3 names the Son of Man before the sun and stars were made, while Enoch was born the seventh from Adam (Genesis 5:18; Jude 14). And 70:1 says Enoch was raised aloft to that Son of Man, which places Enoch in his presence, not in his place. The verse in dispute cannot overturn what the section says plainly in chapters 46 and 48.

The Challenge Stands

The verses most often used to throw Enoch out are the verses that agree most closely with the Prophets. One Lord of Spirits sits on one throne. A chosen man stands before Him, named in purpose before creation and revealed in time, a light to the Gentiles, in whose name the righteous are saved. The challenge remains open: produce one saying in Enoch that contradicts the Word.

John saw the same scene at the end. A Lamb stood before the throne, and he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne (Revelation 5:6-7). Daniel saw it, Enoch saw it, Stephen saw it, and John saw it last: one on the throne, and the chosen one who comes before Him.