What is wrong with the Book of Enoch?

[GLipscomb48]

I can't find anywhere in the Scripture that Enoch wrote anything. Can you point that out please?

 

[Deacon]

Either the real Enoch did prophecy as Jude described, or the book of Jude is not inspired. I don't see any third option here.

Quite a dilemma but it doesn't necessarily mean the book of Jude wasn't inspired.
But it certainly effects how we perceive biblical inerrancy.
Maybe we've set the bar too high.

Would Jude's use of folklore change the meaning of his message?

Rob

 

[npetreley]

Quite a dilemma but it doesn't necessarily mean the book of Jude wasn't inspired.
But it certainly effects how we perceive biblical inerrancy.
Maybe we've set the bar too high.

Would Jude's use of folklore change the meaning of his message?

Rob

Yes, it would. He's talking about the fulfilment of a prophecy made by a specific person (Enoch, the seventh from Adam). The fact that he specifically said the seventh from Adam tells you he's not just saying "some prophecy supposedly made by Enoch". In addition, being Jewish, he would know that prophecy is serious stuff. You make a bad prophecy and you would have to be stoned to death according to the law. Enoch predates that law, but Jude doesn't. I don't think Jude would pass on a prophecy he thought might be invalid.

.

 

[npetreley]

I can't find anywhere in the Scripture that Enoch wrote anything. Can you point that out please?

It doesn't say he wrote anything. Jude quotes Enoch, and it's possible Jude is quoting from a text like the book of Enoch. The quote appears in the modern book of Enoch so it stands to reason that Jude was quoting the same book or a similar rendering -- although Jude does not explicitly say that.

Jude 1:14It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

 

[GLipscomb48]

Or, the author of the Book of Enoch was quoting Jude to make his book look more credible...

 

[npetreley]

Or, the author of the Book of Enoch was quoting Jude to make his book look more credible...

Highly unlikely.

I did ask if the dead sea scrolls contain the book of Enoch, and if those particular scrolls predate Jude. Maybe nobody on BB knows.

Edited to add: I googled Enoch and dead sea scrolls. Fragments of the book of Enoch were found in cave 4 that are dated 200-150 BC. So the book itself as we know it probably predates Jude, assuming the fragments match what we have. Everyone who writes about it seems to believe the fragments authenticate the Ethiopian version, at least.

Most sites that talk about the book consider it to be pseudepigrapha. If it is, then I would have to argue that Jude is probably not inspired.

I know either conclusion will rub some people the wrong way, but that's my opinion: Either the quote in Jude is from an authentic statement by Enoch (either inspired directly or quoted from the text of the book of Enoch, which was inspired), or the book of Jude is not inspired. Some will say there's a third option but I don't happen to agree.

Assuming there are only those two options, I don't have an opinion as to which is correct. I don't know enough. The best I can say is that I haven't read anything in Enoch which contradicts scripture, so I can't rule it out on that basis.

.

 

[Deacon]

Yes, it would. He's talking about the fulfilment of a prophecy made by a specific person (Enoch, the seventh from Adam). The fact that he specifically said the seventh from Adam tells you he's not just saying "some prophecy supposedly made by Enoch". In addition, being Jewish, he would know that prophecy is serious stuff. You make a bad prophecy and you would have to be stoned to death according to the law. Enoch predates that law, but Jude doesn't. I don't think Jude would pass on a prophecy he thought might be invalid.

A bit of a dance here.

The prophecy recorded by Jude 14, 15 is true/inspired (as reported by the author of the book of Enoch, and we know Enoch was seventh from Adam).

I don’t think that his quoting from a pseudonymous book necessarily makes his statement wrong.
Jude’s quote also doesn’t imply an endorsement of the rest of the book of Enoch.

“Enoch, the seventh from Adam”; by the way, count them; there was Seth (first from Adam), Enosh (2), Kenan (3), Mahalalel (4), Jared (5), then Enoch (6) [Genesis 5:3-18].

Rob

 

[Allan]

A bit of a dance here.

The prophecy recorded by Jude 14, 15 is true/inspired (as reported by the author of the book of Enoch, and we know Enoch was seventh from Adam).

I don’t think that his quoting from a pseudonymous book necessarily makes his statement wrong.
Jude’s quote also doesn’t imply an endorsement of the rest of the book of Enoch.

“Enoch, the seventh from Adam”; by the way, count them; there was Seth (first from Adam), Enosh (2), Kenan (3), Mahalalel (4), Jared (5), then Enoch (6) [Genesis 5:3-18].

Rob

But if it is referencing the Godly heretage would not Able be first, Seth second... making Enoch Seventh?

 

[LadyEagle]

Or, the author of the Book of Enoch was quoting Jude to make his book look more credible...

Here's my second post about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Enoch:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1034388&postcount=40

The Dead Sea Scrolls (which contain pieces of the Book of Enoch) predate Jude by 200 to 300 years.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1034388&postcount=40

 

[thomas15]

Here we are at post #50 and no one has settled this debate by enacting the TR/KJVO rule of Inspired Scripture Viability (ISV).

Someone is asleep at the wheel.

 

[Karen]

Highly unlikely.
..............
Most sites that talk about the book consider it to be pseudepigrapha. If it is, then I would have to argue that Jude is probably not inspired.

I know either conclusion will rub some people the wrong way, but that's my opinion: Either the quote in Jude is from an authentic statement by Enoch (either inspired directly or quoted from the text of the book of Enoch, which was inspired), or the book of Jude is not inspired. Some will say there's a third option but I don't happen to agree.

Assuming there are only those two options, I don't have an opinion as to which is correct. I don't know enough. The best I can say is that I haven't read anything in Enoch which contradicts scripture, so I can't rule it out on that basis.

.

I think you have not given enough options or at least not enough details in them. What about this one? The quote in the inspired book of Jude is from an authentic statement by Enoch, and that God did not want the book of Enoch to be included in the Canon of Scripture.
Either of your two options, based on your previous statements, seems to imply to me that God did not give us the Bible He should have.

Certainly historians can read ancient documents, and we can learn much from them. But that does not mean God intended for them to be included in Scripture. Even other documents written perhaps by people who did write Books of the Bible.

 

[npetreley]

I think you have not given enough options or at least not enough details in them. What about this one? The quote in the inspired book of Jude is from an authentic statement by Enoch, and that God did not want the book of Enoch to be included in the Canon of Scripture.

I'm fine with that option. That makes the most sense to me, actually.

 

[Karen]

LadyEagle,
I see major problems with your John Pratt link.
Reading on down in it, his point seems to be to develop a calendar and theory of angelic activity based on the book of Enoch.
Then he ties it to a supposed day of Pentecost in 1836 when the Mormons dedicated the Kirtland temple and claimed to see angels.

So in other words, he seems to be using non-canonical material to try to legitimize Mormon history.

 

[EdSutton]

LadyEagle,
I see major problems with your John Pratt link.
Reading on down in it, his point seems to be to develop a calendar and theory of angelic activity based on the book of Enoch.
Then he ties it to a supposed day of Pentecost in 1836 when the Mormons dedicated the Kirtland temple and claimed to see angels.

So in other words, he seems to be using non-canonical material to try to legitimize Mormon history.

Good point, as I just read it, and even he says there are "probably some interprelations of men" in the book.

Ed

 

[LadyEagle]

LadyEagle,
I see major problems with your John Pratt link.
Reading on down in it, his point seems to be to develop a calendar and theory of angelic activity based on the book of Enoch.
Then he ties it to a supposed day of Pentecost in 1836 when the Mormons dedicated the Kirtland temple and claimed to see angels.

So in other words, he seems to be using non-canonical material to try to legitimize Mormon history.

While it may be true that the Mormons have used the book of Enoch for some of their beliefs, that doesn't mean John Pratt is a Mormon.

 

[LadyEagle]

Here we are at post #50 and no one has settled this debate by enacting the TR/KJVO rule of Inspired Scripture Viability (ISV).

Someone is asleep at the wheel.

:laugh: :wavey:

 

[LadyEagle]

Next question - is there anything in the Book of Enoch that CONTRADICTS Scripture? Can someone list those?

 

[npetreley]

Next question - is there anything in the Book of Enoch that CONTRADICTS Scripture? Can someone list those?

I read it thoroughly years ago. I don't recall anything that seemed to contradict scripture, although some of it is very hard to understand.

 

[SummaScriptura]

{This post is offered to torpedo the oft-repeated untrue statement that The Epistle of Jude merely states Enoch prophesied but does not cite from the Book of Enoch; the faulty conclusion is often made therefore, that Jude cannot be seen as endorsing the Book of Enoch as a whole. As it turns out, Jude (the brother of the pastor of Jersulem, and half-brother of Jesus) was a veritable Book of Enoch enthusiast...}

There are at least 7 places in his letter in which Jude, through the inspiration of God, either quotes directly or refers to 1 Enoch (aka The Book of Enoch, or Ethiopic Enoch):

1. First, Jude calls Enoch a prophet, despite the fact no explicit prophecy (though some see an implicit prophecy in Methuselah's name) and no book of the prophecies of Enoch can be found in our 66-book Bible common in Western Christendom. Jude alone, among the 40 or so writers in the Bible (common in Western Christendom) seems aware of this fact. However, the Book of Enoch everywhere records the prophecies of Enoch, so we can see Jude agrees with the Book of Enoch on this point. Enoch is to be numbered among the prophets.
2. Jude 1:6 refers to, "angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling". This is a reference to Enoch 6:6, "They were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it."
3. Further, Jude 1:6, relates these were angels which, "he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day" We see this outlined for us later in the book in Enoch 10:12, "Bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: and to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever."
4. Jude also tells us in verse 6, the angels are bound, "...until the judgment of the great day", which is also described in Enoch 54:6, "Michael, and Gabriel, and Raphael, and Phanuel shall take hold of them on that great day, and cast them on that day into the burning furnace, that the Lord of Spirits may take vengeance on them for their unrighteousness in becoming subject to Satan and leading astray those who dwell on the earth."
5. In Jude 1:7, the apostle says the sin of these angels was sexual immorality and that Sodom's sin was of the same class as those angels, "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh"; the sexual nature of the angels' sin is corroborated in Enoch 7:1, "All the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them"
6. Then there's Jude 1:14 which oddly calculates Enoch was the 7th from Adam, "It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied". But to reckon it this way, Adam's generation has to be counted too; Enoch 60:8, reckons the generations in the identical fashion where Noah says, "where my grandfather was taken up, the seventh from Adam"
7. Finally, Jude 1:14-15 caps it off by quoting The Book of Enoch directly as being the source of a prophecy regarding the 2nd-coming of Jesus Christ, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." This quote can be found in Enoch 1:9, "Behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly: and to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."

For those keeping score, Jude alludes to and/or quotes from not just Enoch 1:9, but also from Enoch 6:6, Enoch 7:1, Enoch 10:12, Enoch 54:6, and Enoch 60:8. Besides this, the Epistle of Jude confirms the underlying thesis of the Book of Enoch, that Enoch is to be numbered among the prophets.

P.S. There may be other references I have missed.

 

[jonathan.borland]

Perhaps both are dependent on the same or similar source material, much like the Kingdoms and Chronicles, with the Chronicler adding and theologizing much of the material.