Questions About Enoch? Answering Common Questions & Misconceptions About the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)
Addressing common questions and misconceptions about the Book of Enoch (also known as 1 Enoch).
0:00 Introduction
0:23 What is the Book of Enoch?
2:17 Should you read the Book of Enoch?
2:53 What’s in the Book of Enoch?
3:30 The Flood
5:51 The history of mankind
6:57 THE SON OF MAN
7:30 THE SON OF GOD
9:49 Why isn’t the Book of Enoch in the Bible?
10:38 The Hebrew theory
11:20 The calendar theory
12:37 Two thousand years of bad press about Enoch… as he prophesied
15:24 Answers to common questions
15:34 Sin, Azazel and Yom Kippur
17:02 Angels in heaven don’t marry
17:34 Noah and the angels built the ark
18:29 Enoch and The Messiah
20:04 What’s Next
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Resources and Links:
For a free download of this video, visit our Downloads page.
Free PDF Download of the Book of Enoch
The Book of Enoch read by Alexander Scourby (read-along version on YouTube)
An article that lists the parallels between the Book of Enoch and the New Testament
Great video series about Enoch by Acts Initiative: “Enoch: Believed by the Apostles, Banned by the Church”
The calendar theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVgYWuKX_4c&t=0s
Full episodes of our Generations of the World video series (mentioned in this video)
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Transcript:
A few people have commented on our YouTube channel asking why do we read the Book of Enoch? We put this video together to provide a little bit of background on the Book of Enoch and to answer common questions that many people have such as why was this book excluded from the Bible.
The Book of Enoch was written over 5,000 years ago by Adam’s great-great-great-great grandson, Enoch. Moses described him as someone who walked with God, and the apostles described him as a prophet. The book contains prophecies about Yeshua that are so elaborate and in line with our Savior’s ministry, scholars were at one time convinced that the book must have been written by Christians after Yeshua’s crucifixion. That theory has now been debunked since copies of the Book of Enoch were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it’s obvious to everyone that those copies were made long before the coming of Christ or before the advent of Christianity.
It’s common knowledge these days that the Book of Enoch was in wide circulation at the time of Yeshua and the apostles, and that the apostles’ writings were influenced by Enoch’s writings. Also, we have plenty of evidence that the Book of Enoch was treated as scripture by many of the early church fathers and by the ancient Jewish scribes whose work is preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
However, these truths have not stopped the attacks on the Book of Enoch. In order to diminish his work, which is something that Enoch prophesied would happen, many scholars today claim that it wasn’t the Enoch of the Bible who wrote the Book of Enoch. But in the same way that we can know it was Moses who wrote the Torah because Yeshua told us so, we can know that Enoch wrote the Book of Enoch because Jude told us so. Jude quotes from Enoch’s book and he attributes that quote to Enoch himself.
Twenty years ago, Father gave me and my friends a word to let us know that the Book of Enoch is true scripture. And since then, I have learned for myself that everything in the book aligns with the words of the Old Testament prophets, the apostles, and Yeshua our Messiah. If Father hasn’t spoken to you about the book and you’re wondering if you should read it, why not ask him?
Our Father is living and He speaks to His children and He sent his Holy Spirit to guide us in all things.
So what is the Book of Enoch all about? Enoch was a scribe who was instructed to write things down for the generation who would live to see the Day of Judgment. And that is our generation, and that Day of Judgment is coming soon. Enoch gave his writings to his son Methuselah, and he told Methuselah to make sure that the words were passed down to all the generations of the world.
Through Noah, Methuselah’s grandson, the book survived the flood, and some of Noah’s own writings were preserved in the Book of Enoch as well.
Here are a few topics that are included in the Book of Enoch. First is the flood. In Genesis 6, we learn that before the flood, all flesh on earth corrupted their way. And in the Book of Enoch, we learn the extent of that corruption. Enoch explains that angels rebelled against God, and they taught men how to make weapons of war, how to kill people in various ways, and how to do many other things that men were striving to learn at the time.
For those interested in history, it’s worth noting that many of the skills the angels taught to mankind during this time were the same skills that mankind supposedly developed on their own in a sudden explosion of knowledge during the era that historians call the “birth of civilization”. Of particular interest to us here at Original Hebrew, Enoch informs us that one of the things the angels taught men was how to write. And this makes perfect sense, since if you’ve watched our Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet series, you know that the Hebrew alphabet shows obvious indications that the original script was designed by God himself. The angels would have obtained the knowledge of writing directly from God before they rebelled.
Enoch tells us that the rebellious angels also married women and produced a type of offspring not authorized by God, the Nephilim of Genesis 6. And the angels sinned against animals, which helps explain what Father meant when He said that all flesh, men and animals, had corrupted their way, and why all flesh, men and animals, therefore had to be destroyed in the flood.
For those interested in the flood and in creation, science, Enoch contains details about geological events that occurred on earth before and during the flood event. These details are very helpful in understanding the bigger picture of how the flood shaped our physical word.
In our “Generations of the World” video series, we talk a bit about the flood in our second episode. And in our third episode, we discuss the fallen angels and the fall of man in greater detail.
The Book of Enoch also talks about the history of mankind and Enoch contains two complete histories of mankind. One history is in the form of a parable in which the various nations are represented as animals. The people of Israel are represented as sheep in the parable, and God is the Lord of the sheep. From this parable we gain greater understanding of biblical concepts such as blind sheep, the tower of the flock in Micah 4, the Lord as a shepherd over His people, and His mission to seek out the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
In our video on the history of ancient Israel, we go over Enoch’s parable of the animals in great detail. The other history in the Book of Enoch is in the form of a prophecy about the righteous sons in the genealogy of Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus Christ. In our video on Enoch’s 10 weeks, we go over Enoch’s 10 weeks prophecy in greater detail.
Another topic of the Book of Enoch is the Messiah. Enoch gives a very beautiful and very detailed account of the role of the Son of Man, which is a title that Yeshua used often for Himself as He ministered here on earth. In the Book of Daniel we find a reference to one like a son of man, but in Enoch it becomes abundantly clear that the Son of Man was established long ago as a title reserved for Yeshua, the Messiah. Enoch also makes it abundantly clear that God has a son. In the Old Testament, references to the Son appear in messianic psalms, in a proverb and in prophecies. And all of those verses attest to Yeshua as the Son of God. But to be frank, they require a little bit of help from the Holy Spirit in order for us to understand that that’s what they’re talking about. Whereas in Enoch, the mention of the Son of God is incredibly straightforward.
Enoch records the Lord God as saying this about the righteous, “For I and my Son will be united with them forever in the paths of uprightness in their lives.” Consider the words of Yeshua here. He said, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” This is Yeshua, the prophesied Son, and the way that is the ultimate path of uprightness speaking of us being united with Him and with God, just the way Enoch described.
Enoch’s obvious reference to God having a son also helps us to understand the words of Martha, sister of Lazarus. She said, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” She was waiting for the Son of God because it was so clearly prophesied and Peter was waiting for him as well. Matthew records Yeshua asking his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and the disciples responded, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter was waiting for God’s Son.
One big question that many people have is, “Why isn’t the Book of Enoch included in the Bible?” On this topic, all we can do for now is speculate. It’s worth noting that what we call the Old Testament was a list of books that was selected by the Jewish leaders of the day after the destruction of the second temple and therefore after Yeshua and the apostles and the resurrection.
Before this, Israel did not have a defined list of which books were considered to be scripture. My personal belief is that since the rabbis who produced the Old Testament list didn’t include the Book of Enoch and the Protestant church later adopted the exact same rabbinical list, Enoch was therefore excluded from the Bible. But why the rabbis excluded it is up for debate. Some say that it was left out because the men who determined the list only considered writings that were in Hebrew. And while we believe that Enoch was originally written in Hebrew, since that was the only language of the day in Enoch’s time, we have yet to find a Hebrew copy of the Book of Enoch.
What we do have today is many fragments in the Aramaic language of the book from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we also have the full book preserved in the ancient Semitic language of the Ethiopians. But as of yet, there is no Hebrew scroll available for public view.
Another view held by a prominent Jewish scholar on why Enoch was left out of the Bible is because of the calendar that it contains. Enoch speaks of a 364-day year, and evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible shows that the 364-day year calendar had been in use by Levitical priests in the temple of God and also in the tabernacle in the days of Moses. However, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the rabbis felt the need to reinvent any part of their religion that had to do with temple life.
Part of this well-known reinvention of Judaism involved creating a new calendar that they had more control over. For example, the modern Jewish calendar is often adjusted so that certain days never fall on a Sabbath. But in the ancient 364-day calendar, dates for feasts are set forever and they never change, according to the command of the Lord.
Since the modern Jewish calendar is at odds with the calendar described in the Book of Enoch, the rabbis excluded it from their list is how the theory goes. Those are just a few of the theories out there on why Enoch was excluded, but no matter what the reason is, it’s fair to say that since the day the rabbis excluded it, Enoch has suffered nearly 2,000 years of bad press. Today, a lot of people who have never actually read the book nevertheless make videos upon videos about why others shouldn’t read it either. However well-meaning they may be, they are telling lies about a prophet of God, which is not a place I would want to be in.
In any case, as I said before, Enoch prophesied that this would happen. He wrote, “And now I know this mystery, that many sinners will alter and distort the words of truth, and speak evil words and lie, and concoct great fabrications, and write books in their own words. But when they write out all my words exactly in their languages and do not alter or omit anything from my words, but write out everything, exactly everything which I testified about them before, then I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and wise, which will be a source of joy and truth and much wisdom. And books will be given to them, and they will believe in them and rejoice over them, and all the righteous who have learned from them, all the ways of truth, will be glad.”
I believe the books that will be given to the righteous, which Enoch mentions here, are books of understanding because if you’ve studied Enoch in detail, your house no doubt has at least a few notes on the understanding that you’ve gained from it. And we, Father’s children, who He declares in His mercy to be righteous, we rejoice over the knowledge that He has given us. We rejoice over knowing things like Father has a son, and that He made it so clear for us, and that even if they removed those words from our Bibles, His sheep hear His voice, and we know His voice, and we know the truth when we hear it.
Twenty years ago, when Father told us that the Book of Enoch was true, we were in a very narrow minority of believers who considered Enoch to be scripture. But thankfully, more of our Shepherd’s sheep are now tuning in. As just one example of Enoch’s message becoming more widespread and well received, an audio version of the Book of Enoch that was recently posted to YouTube, read by the well-known bible narrator Alexander Scourby, has received over 800,000 hits in just seven months.
People who teach against the Book of Enoch often use the same set of arguments. One of them is that Enoch doesn’t match scripture because he says that fallen angels caused sin rather than mankind, but that’s not true. Enoch specifically says sin has not been sent upon the earth, but man of himself has created it. What Enoch does say that people get confused is that Father ascribed the sins of man to the angel named Azazel. And He ascribed man’s sin to Azazel because it was through the teachings of Azazel that violence became widespread on the earth. Azazel taught men how to make weapons, how to value money, and how to beautify themselves. And it was through these things that Father said the earth was ruined. The act of God ascribing man’s sins to his Azazel, like Enoch describes, actually explains the origins of a ritual that Father commanded Israel to perform every Yom Kippur. Moses tells us that on Yom Kippur, the priest was to put the sins of Israel onto an animal called the scapegoat. The word for scapegoat in Hebrew is actually Azazel. Father used this ritual as a sign for Israel to remember that He is merciful and as a sign to Himself that He would judge the angel and forgive those who love Him even though we sin.
Another common argument against the Book of Enoch is that Yeshua said angels in heaven don’t marry, and Enoch teaches that the angels came and took wives. However, Jude explains in the New Testament that these lawless and rebellious angels are not considered angels in heaven. They are the ones who left their estate in heaven. Father’s holy angels who listened to him do not marry, but the sinful ones who left heaven did marry.
Many people have a hard time understanding why Enoch wrote that the angels built the ark, whereas Moses wrote that Noah built the ark. We believe simply that Father commanded His angels to help Noah, and that both of the statements in Enoch and in Genesis are true. As an example of this, it’s written in the New Testament that the angels will gather us at the last day. Since the angels are under Yeshua’s command, to say that the angels will gather us is the same as saying Yeshua will gather us, since the commander receives credit for the actions of those under his command. In war, if you say, King David won the battle, it doesn’t mean that he fought alone without an army. We think the two varying accounts of the ark being built are written in the same way.
Another attack that people make against the Book of Enoch is they say that Enoch refers to himself as the Son of Man, aka the Messiah, but that is not true. Son of Man is a term that is used for the sons of Adam. Father called the prophet Ezekiel son of man many times, and like Ezekiel, Enoch was a son of man, but not the Son of Man who is to sit on the throne of His glory and judge the world. The Son of Man is Yeshua and Enoch speaks of Him numerous times as being someone completely separate from himself.
Where Enoch is called son of man by the angels, the angels tell him that Father’s righteousness will never leave him, that all the righteous will walk according to His ways, and that the inheritance of the righteous will be with Enoch. And this is true of all of the righteous sons of Adam. We all walk according to the same way. Father’s righteousness will never leave any of us, and we will all live together forever with God our Father and share in the inheritance that He promised, which is eternal life in the City of God. As Yeshua said, one day we will sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom, and Enoch will be there as well.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Book of Enoch, I invite you to take a look at our video series “Generations of the World”. And if you’ve already seen that series, stay tuned for our next project, coming very soon.
[End of transcript]
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