We have begun our study of Enoch’s Book

This week, we kicked off our multi-month exploration of Enoch’s book- technically, chapters 1-36 of The Book of Enoch, aka “The Book of the Watchers.” To do this, I have three commentaries on Enoch, as well as numerous other books about the pre-flood world. (I’m also reading the updated and expanded 2025 version of Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm, which released late last year).

If you missed the kickoff episode, you can catch up right here:

Where did this book come from?

In that episode, I discussed some reasons we can trust the Book of Enoch as legitimate history, even if it’s not Scripture. And why isn’t it Scripture? For one thing, it hasn’t been perfectly preserved throughout history- as God promised to do with His Word.

For the first few hundred years of the church, there was a lot of ambiguity about which books were and weren’t considered Holy Scripture- and the Book of Enoch was hotly debated. Some “church fathers,” such as Tertullian, accepted it as God’s Word. But others did not, and at the Council of Carthage in the 400s the Biblical canon was firmly established- with Enoch left on the cutting room floor. They narrowed the list down with such questions as:

1) Was the book written by a prophet of God?
2) Was the writer authenticated by miracles to confirm his message?
3) Does the book tell the truth about God, with no falsehood or contradiction?
4) Does the book evince a divine capacity to transform lives?
5) Was the book accepted as God’s Word by the people to whom it was first delivered?

Why didn’t the Book of Enoch make the cut? There were a variety of reasons, with questions over its authorship chief among them. There are also accusations that it was too “Jewish” for the Gentile church to find acceptable, though I’m skeptical of some of those arguments.

After that, the Book of Enoch kinda disappeared for more than a thousand years. The Church at large decided that if it wasn’t scripture, it should be eradicated. It wasn’t 100% stamped out, thought. The Ethiopian Church had decided to regard it as Holy Scripture and kept copies of it, and we should be glad they did because that kept the book alive for a long, long time- and they were the only ones who had it.

In 1773, a Scottish Explorer named James Bruce of Kinnaird was exploring the origins of the Nile River, which took him right into the heart of Ethiopia.

He brought back something a lot more exciting than a story about a river. He found a text that told the story of the Watchers (the Sons of God) who descended to earth and married human women, producing the ancient giants- the Book of Enoch!

He took three copies home with him. One, he gave to the King of France, which still resides to this day in the French National Library. The second, he donated to the Bodliean Library in Oxford. The third, he kept for himself.

These are the only complete copies of Enoch we have discovered. If not for these Ethiopian Christians, we wouldn’t have it at all in complete form.

However, fragments of the book of been discovered on rare occasion- most of which were found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

The fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were in Aramaic, were considered extensive and authenticated that this book existed prior to the New Testament. (Or at least, that the first 71 chapters were around during the Old Testament period. We can’t prove those claims for the rest of it).

Even though we can be almost certain that there were Hebrew copies of this book prior to the Aramaic version, they have not yet been discovered. Like I said above, the early church destroyed whatever copies they had once they determined it wasn’t actual Scripture.

(One interesting idea I’d note, though: even though the Book of Enoch was written during one of the world’s earliest generations, it was addressed to the final generation- those who would be here when Jesus returns to this earth. If we are that generation- or getting very very close to it- perhaps that is why God has restored this book to us now?)

Enoch is broken up into a few sections, with chapters and verses similar to the Bible- though the book of Enoch’s chapters are significantly shorter than your typical Bible chapter.

1-36 - The Book of the Watchers

37-71 - The Book of Parables

72-82 - The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries

83-90 - The Book of Dream Visions

91-108 - The Epistle of Enoch

For my podcast, I am only planning to take you all through the first 36 chapters- and actually, only the first 16 in-depth. For the remaining 20, much of it will be condensed or summarized.

But I hope you enjoyed the opening episode on chapter 1. This Wednesday, we’ll discuss chapters 2-5, as well as the question: Why Does Hell Last Forever?

Have a great week, and a weird Wednesday!

-Luke

PS: For those who would like a little extra reading for this weekend, I converted one of my past episodes into a new article on my website: