Jude 1:14-15, The Book of Enoch

Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

//These verses in Jude are a direct quote from the ancient book of Enoch, chapter one, verse nine. Enoch was quite popular among first-century Christians: Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation all freely quote from Enoch. One can hardly make sense of parts of Revelation without first reading the tenth chapter of Enoch, but in the fourth century, the church suppressed this book as heretical due to its references to the physicality of fallen angels (called “Watchers”), accused of having sexual relations with the “daughters of men.” Yet, Genesis 6 confirms this story, where we learn about the offspring of the Watchers, called “Nephilim”: In those days, and even afterward, giants lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes mentioned in legends of old (NLT).

The blacklisted book of 1 Enoch remained underground for 1400 years until rediscovered in 1773, though more recently it surfaced several times among the Dead Sea scrolls, which pushes its date back to at least 100-200 BCE, and presumably earlier.

So what do you think? Is Enoch inspired scripture or not?