History of the Book of Enoch: Qumran, Jude, and the Ethiopian Bible

1 Enoch is a composite Jewish apocalypse written in Enoch’s name. It survives complete in Ge’ez. Aramaic fragments from Qumran cover four of its five parts. Jude 14–15Jude 1:14 · King James VersionAnd Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,Jude 1:14 · King James VersionOpen source (2) quotes 1 Enoch 1:9Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) 1:9 · R. H. Charles, 1917Non-CanonicalNot received as Scripture by the Jewish canon or by the major Christian churches, apart from local exceptions such as the Ethiopian Orthodox canon, which includes 1 Enoch and Jubilees. This is not the Apocrypha.And 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.Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) 1:9 · R. H. Charles, 1917Open source (1). The Jewish canon and the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant canons did not receive the book. The Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo churches list it. The chapter text is on the Book of Enoch page.

Key Points

• Fitzmyer divides 1 Enoch into five parts and reports that the Parables are absent from Qumran. (8)
• Milik dated the Parables to about AD 270 as a Christian work; the 2005 Enoch Seminar treated them as Second Temple Jewish, usually late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD. (21) (18)
• Jude quotes one sentence from the opening chapter. That citation did not put the whole book in the major canons. See Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter.
• Ethiopian church practice includes Enoch; the Fetha Negest list omits it; the church’s English list includes it. (13) (14)

Structure and Dating of the Five Parts

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, reviewing J. T. Milik’s edition of the Qumran Aramaic fragments, treats Ethiopic 1 Enoch as five compositions under Enoch’s name, not one book from before the flood. (8) Genesis 5:24Genesis 5:24 · King James VersionAnd Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.Genesis 5:24 · King James VersionOpen source (7) says Enoch walked with God and God took him. Later writers used that notice as a frame for revelations.

Book of the Watchers (Chapters 1–36)

Enoch blesses the elect, recounts the fall of the Watchers who take wives, and journeys to the ends of the earth. The Watchers teach charms and crafts. The spirits of the giants become evil spirits on the earth. Fitzmyer reports Milik’s date for the book’s final form in the 3rd century BC, with an earlier source behind chapters 6–19. Cave 4 copies of Watchers material begin in the early 2nd century BC. (8)

Parables or Similitudes (Chapters 37–71)

Three “parables” describe heavenly secrets, judgment on kings and the mighty, and a figure titled Messiah, Elect One, Righteous One, and Son of Man. No Aramaic fragment of these chapters has been identified at Qumran. Dating is disputed and treated in the next section. (8)

Astronomical Book (Chapters 72–82)

Uriel shows Enoch the courses of the luminaries under a 364-day year. Milik placed the work’s origin in the Persian period. The Cave 4 Astronomical manuscripts that Fitzmyer reports run from the late 3rd century BC to the early 1st century AD. The Ethiopic form is shorter than the Aramaic. (8)

Dream Visions (Chapters 83–90)

A flood dream is followed by the Animal Apocalypse, which retells history under animal symbols. Milik dated the Animal Apocalypse about 164 BC from an allusion to the battle of Bethzur. (8)

Epistle of Enoch (Chapters 91–108)

Woes against sinners, admonitions for the righteous, and the Apocalypse of Weeks. Fitzmyer reports a mid-1st-century-BC terminus ante quem from the copy date of 4QEn^g, with composition likely in the 2nd century BC. Chapters 106–107 on Noah’s birth are often treated as an appendix. (8)

Dead Sea Scrolls and the Similitudes Debate

Fitzmyer reports seven Cave 4 manuscripts of 1 Enoch (4QEn^a–g) preserving Watchers, Dreams, and Epistle material, plus Astronomical copies (4QEnastr), and related Book of Giants fragments. He stresses the absence of the Parables among the recovered pieces. (8)

Milik’s Late Christian Dating

Milik argued that the Parables were a Christian Greek composition substituted for the Book of Giants. Knibb states Milik’s date as around AD 270. (21) On that view the Son of Man titles in chapters 37–71 would not be pre-Christian Jewish background for the Gospels.

The Enoch Seminar Consensus

Most specialists after Milik have treated the Parables as Jewish. Michael A. Knibb’s 1979 review challenged Milik’s Christian dating. (21) The Third Enoch Seminar at Camaldoli in 2005, chaired by Gabriele Boccaccini, focused on the Parables as a Second Temple Jewish document about a heavenly Messiah Son of Man. Published discussion from that meeting clusters dates around the turn of the era, often late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD, and usually before AD 70. (18)

What Follows for the Son of Man Passages

If the Parables are Jewish and roughly Herodian, their Son of Man figure is available as Second Temple context for New Testament usage. If Milik is right, those titles in 1 Enoch would be later than Jesus and cannot explain Gospel usage. This page states both views with their holders. It does not collapse them into one date.

Even among scholars who date the main Parables early, chapters 70–71 are widely treated as a later ending or appendix. Nickelsburg and VanderKam present 70:1–2 as the original close of the Parables and treat 70:3–71:17 as secondary; Nickelsburg elsewhere calls chapter 71 almost certainly an addition in which Enoch himself is identified as the Son of Man. (29) (30)

Key Quote From 1 Enoch

Charles’s 1 Enoch 1:9Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) 1:9 · R. H. Charles, 1917Non-CanonicalNot received as Scripture by the Jewish canon or by the major Christian churches, apart from local exceptions such as the Ethiopian Orthodox canon, which includes 1 Enoch and Jubilees. This is not the Apocrypha.And 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.Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) 1:9 · R. H. Charles, 1917Open source (1), the line that matches Jude:

And 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.

Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter

Jude alone among New Testament writers quotes 1 Enoch by name and wording. Jude 14–15Jude 1:14 · King James VersionAnd Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,Jude 1:14 · King James VersionOpen source (2) in the King James:

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, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Jude 1:14–15 · King James Version

The letter uses that sentence. It does not place 1 Enoch on a list of received Scriptures. Acts 17:28Acts 17:28 · King James VersionFor in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.Acts 17:28 · King James VersionOpen source (5) and Titus 1:12Titus 1:12 · King James VersionOne of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.Titus 1:12 · King James VersionOpen source (6) quote poets and a Cretan writer without receiving their books as Scripture. The same distinction applies to Jude’s sentence.

1 Peter 3:19–201 Peter 3:19 · King James VersionBy which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;1 Peter 3:19 · King James VersionOpen source (3) speaks of proclamation to spirits in prison in the days of Noah. 2 Peter 2:4–52 Peter 2:4 · King James VersionFor if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;2 Peter 2:4 · King James VersionOpen source (4) speaks of angels cast down and kept for judgment, and of Noah. Many commentators see Watchers and flood traditions shared with 1 Enoch behind those lines. Those passages do not quote 1 Enoch by name.

Church Fathers and Canon Lists

Support

Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women 1.3 (9) treats Enoch as Scripture and argues that Noah could have preserved the preaching, and that Jude’s testimony supports the book:

I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order (of action) to angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either.

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes early esteem for Henoch writings, including Barnabas, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen’s awareness of them, before fourth-century credit declined in the Mediterranean churches. (17)

Rejection

Augustine, City of God 15.23 (10) grants that Jude implies Enoch left some divine writing, then denies that the books circulating under that name can be shown to be genuine or placed in the canon. Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 4 (11) calls the Book of Enoch apocryphal and notes that many rejected Jude itself because of the citation, while Jude still gained authority by age and use.

Council of Laodicea

The Synod of Laodicea (mid-4th century; exact year disputed) forbids uncanonical books in church reading (Canon 59). Canon 60, whose genuineness New Advent marks as questionable, lists Old and New Testament books and does not include Enoch. (12)

Ethiopian and Eritrean Churches

Aksum and the Ge’ez Translation

Christianity reached the Aksumite court in the fourth century. Rufinus’s Ecclesiastical History 10.9–10 narrates how Frumentius and Edesius of Tyre served at that court and how Athanasius of Alexandria consecrated Frumentius bishop for the region (Abba Salama in Ethiopian tradition); the Catholic Encyclopedia’s Ethiopia article summarizes that account for Axum in the early half of the fourth century. (31) (32) King Ezana (Aeizanes) belongs to that same century of Aksumite rule; a Greek inscription of his exploits is among the Axum monuments noted in the Catholic Encyclopedia. (33)

Mikre-Sellassie reports scholarly agreement that Ethiopic Bible translation began with that introduction of Christianity in the second quarter of the 4th century and continued over two or three centuries, with most work not later than about the end of the 6th century on Ullendorff’s view. Pseudepigrapha such as Enoch and Jubilees were translated in that period. (13)

Surviving Manuscripts

The earliest surviving complete Ge’ez copies are late medieval, not Aksumite. Adrian Mętel dates Kebrān 9 to the late 14th or early 15th century as the oldest complete copy, and EMML 2080 to the 15th century or possibly the 14th. He reports more than 150 Ethiopic manuscripts of all or part of 1 Enoch. (16)

Narrower and Broader Canon

Mikre-Sellassie describes two Ethiopian forms that both aim at eighty-one books. The narrower canon of church practice includes Enoch and Jubilees among fifty-four Old Testament titles plus twenty-seven New Testament books. The Fetha Negest names eighty-one in a heading but lists seventy-three and, with its commentary, omits Enoch and Jubilees. That omission is evidence that not every Ethiopian legal list included them, even while practice and other catalogues did. (13)

Official Church Lists Today

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s English books page lists Jublee and Enoch after Chronicles. (14) The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s English canon page (the site’s own spelling is Tewahdo) likewise lists Jublee and Enoch and describes a narrower canon that contains Enoch and Jubilees. (15)

Greek Fragments and Rediscovery

Greek witnesses include Codex Panopolitanus (Akhmim), found in 1886–87, with much of the Book of the Watchers; extracts in the chronography of George Syncellus; and the Chester Beatty–Michigan papyrus of much of the Epistle. (8) (17)

James Bruce brought Ethiopic manuscripts of Enoch to Europe in 1773. Richard Laurence published the first English translation in 1821. R. H. Charles’s editions and the 1917 SPCK translation used here followed. (17) (16)

Official Positions

• Catholic — Non-canonical; not among the deuterocanonical books. Trent, Session IV list of sacred books omits Enoch; Catechism 120. (22) (23)
• Eastern Orthodox — Non-canonical. Synod of Jerusalem (Confession of Dositheus, 1672): Schaff lists the Apocrypha that confession names; Enoch is not among them. (26)
• Protestant — Non-canonical. Westminster Confession 1.2–3; Thirty-Nine Articles VI. (24) (25)
• Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo — Canonical (listed). Church English books list. (14)
• Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo — Canonical (listed). Church English canon page. (15)
• Judaism — Not part of the Tanakh. Bava Batra 14b order of Prophets and Writings; Josephus, Against Apion 1.8Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 · William WhistonFor we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another: [as the Greeks have:] but only twenty two books: which contain the records of all the past times: which are justly believed to be divine. And of them five belong to Moses: which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind, till his death.Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 · William WhistonOpen source twenty-two-book count. (27) (28)
• Latter-day Saints — Distinct Enoch material in the Book of Moses (Pearl of Great Price), not Ethiopic 1 Enoch as Bible. Official Pearl of Great Price introduction. (19)

Pseudepigrapha, Forgeries, and Common Misconceptions

1 Enoch is pseudepigraphic: it was not written by the Enoch of Genesis. Its layers are centuries after the flood narrative. (8)

Common Misconceptions

• “Enoch wrote it before the flood.” The speaker is Enoch; the recoverable manuscripts and language are Second Temple and later.
• “Jude proves the whole book is Scripture.” Jude quotes one sentence. See Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter.
• “Qumran has the whole Ethiopic book.” The Parables are missing from the identified Qumran Enoch fragments. (8)
• “The oldest Bible is the Ethiopian Bible with Enoch.” Ge’ez translation is early; the oldest surviving Enoch Ge’ez copies are about the 15th century. Other biblical manuscripts worldwide are older. (16)
• “Every ‘lost Book of Enoch’ online is 1 Enoch.” Modern occult or commercial “lost Enoch” editions are not the Charles Ge’ez text. 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch are different books.
• “1 Enoch is the same as the Apocrypha.” The King James Apocrypha and the Catholic deuterocanon are a different set. See Apocrypha.

Why Jude’s Citation Matters

What the citation shows. A New Testament writer could treat a line also found in 1 Enoch as a true prophecy spoken by Enoch. Tertullian used that fact to defend the book. (9)

What the citation does not show. It does not by itself place all 108 chapters in the canon. Augustine separates a possible genuine writing of Enoch from the unverifiable books under that name. (10) Jerome keeps Jude while calling Enoch apocryphal. (11) Major churches followed Jewish non-admission for this title, with the Ethiopian and Eritrean Tewahedo lists as the living exception. (14) (15)

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 1 Enoch Scripture Because Jude Quotes It?

Views differ by communion. See Why Jude’s Citation Matters and Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter.

Did the Son of Man Title in 1 Enoch Predate Jesus?

Labeled views: Enoch Seminar majority, late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD Jewish Parables; Milik, about AD 270 Christian composition. (21) (18)

When Did Ethiopia Get Enoch?

Translation into Ge’ez is placed with the Ethiopic Bible project from about the 4th through 6th centuries. Surviving complete manuscripts begin about the 15th century. (13) (16)

Where Do I Read the Text on This Site?

The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) has Charles’s 1917 chapters and a short hub summary. What Is the Book of Enoch and Why Isn’t It in the Bible? is the short canon answer.