A collection of five Jewish works · oldest parts c. 3rd century BC or earlier
1 Enoch
The book Jude quotes by name, the oldest full account of the Watchers, and still not Scripture.
- 108Chapters
- 1,063Verses
Written: Composite work c. 300 BCE - 100 CE; oldest sections (Astronomical Book and Book of Watchers) likely third century BCE · Original language: Aramaic (with possible Hebrew sections)
R. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
Read 1 Enoch
R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (1917, SPCK) — public domain. Charles's critical marks are removed for reading; his parenthetical supplied words and square-bracket interpolations are kept. Lettered sub-verses (as at 91:14) are merged into their verse; where Charles prints parallel recensions, the Ethiopic text is given.
Featured studies on this book
— the deep dives, each its own page
1 Enoch: The Book Jude Quotes
Unknown printer, The First Book of Enoch in Amharic (unknown) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Animal Apocalypse
Unknown Ethiopian illuminator, Illuminated Gospel, Amhara peoples (late 14th to early 15th century) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Apocalypse of Weeks
Unknown Ethiopian scribe, Ethiopic Genesis manuscript page (15th century) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Azazel and the Scapegoat
William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat (Manchester version) (1854-1855) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Enoch, the Man Who Walked with God, MannaFest
Unknown engraver, God Took Enoch (19th century) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Giants of 1 Enoch
Gustave Doré (1832 – 1883), The Titans, Inferno Canto XXXI (1861) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mount Hermon: the Oath
Unknown engraver, Picturesque Palestine, Mount Hermon from Rasheiya (1881) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Son of Man in 1 Enoch, MannaFest
Michelangelo, The Prophet Daniel, Sistine Chapel ceiling (1511) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Watchers' Secrets
Maurice Greiffenhagen, The Sons of God Saw the Daughters of Men That They Were Fair (1897) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Plain answers first
What this book is
1 Enoch is not one book. It is a collection of five separate Jewish writings gathered under the name of Enoch, the man who walked with God and was taken (Genesis 5:24). No one thinks Enoch wrote them; writing in the name of a great figure of the past was a normal and recognized practice in this period.
The five parts are the Book of the Watchers (chapters 1-36), the Parables or Similitudes (37-71), the Astronomical Book (72-82), the Book of Dreams (83-90), and the Epistle of Enoch (91-108). They were written at different times by different hands. Dating is hedged, but the Watchers and the Astronomical Book are usually placed in the third century BC or earlier, which makes parts of this collection older than Daniel. Aramaic copies of most of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. The Parables are the exception: no copy of them turned up at Qumran, and most scholars date that section around the turn of the era.
The Book of the Watchers is the part most readers come for. Two hundred angels descend on Mount Hermon, bind themselves by a mutual oath, and take human wives. Their offspring are giants who devour everything. One of their leaders teaches men to make swords and armor, and women to make cosmetics; another teaches sorcery and the cutting of roots. The earth cries out, the archangels bring the cry before God, and judgment falls. Enoch is sent to the fallen angels with a sentence they cannot appeal, and his intercession for them is refused.
Chapter 15 carries the piece with the longest reach: when the giants die, their spirits do not go where human spirits go. They remain on the earth as evil spirits. That is the demonology that stands behind a great deal of Second Temple Jewish thought, and it is worth knowing when you read the exorcisms in the Gospels.
The complete text survives only in Ge'ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the one church in the world that receives 1 Enoch as Scripture. This site serves the R. H. Charles translation of 1917, which is in the public domain.
Why a student of the 66 should still open it
Why read it: and how
Take the two truths in order, because both are true and neither cancels the other. First: the New Testament touched this book. Jude 14-15 quotes it directly and by name, saying Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints. That is 1 Enoch 1:9, quoted almost word for word. Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 then speak of angels who did not keep their first estate, kept in chains under darkness for judgment, which is the sentence pronounced in 1 Enoch 10 and is not narrated that way anywhere in the Old Testament. Second: quoting a book does not make it Scripture. Paul quotes the Greek poets Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander in Acts 17:28, Titus 1:12, and 1 Corinthians 15:33, and no one has ever proposed adding them to the Bible. Jude used a text his readers knew, and the Spirit made Jude's letter Scripture; the source stayed what it was. That is the honest position: a valued witness the New Testament itself touched, held outside the canon. And its value is real. MannaFest reads Genesis 6:1-4 the way Jude and Peter appear to read it, with the sons of God as heavenly beings, and 1 Enoch is the oldest surviving full account of that reading. It shows us how Jews in the centuries before Christ understood that passage, and it stands behind the angelology, the demonology, and the Son of Man language a first-century reader would have carried into the Gospels.
Start with chapters 1-16 and stop there on the first pass; that is the Watchers, and it is what everything else in the collection gets read against. Read Genesis 6:1-4, Jude 6 and 14-15, and 2 Peter 2:4-5 alongside it, in that order. Then read chapter 15 twice. Keep two habits the whole way. Read it as a witness to what Jews believed, never as a source of doctrine, and never settle a question of faith with a line from it that Scripture does not also say. And expect the collection to be uneven: the Astronomical Book is a long technical calendar, and it is fine to skim it on a first reading.
The canon question, honestly
Why it stands outside the 66
1 Enoch was never in the Hebrew Bible, and Jewish tradition did not receive it as Scripture, though clearly many Jews read it. The wider Christian church did not receive it either. Tertullian defended it in the early third century and lost the argument; Augustine wrote that the church rightly excluded books circulating under the names of the ancient patriarchs, precisely because their antiquity could not be verified. The book then dropped almost entirely out of Western view until James Bruce brought Ethiopic copies back to Europe in the 1770s. Only the Ethiopian church has held it as canonical throughout. And there is a plain reason to keep the line firm: this is a collection assembled over centuries and written under a borrowed name, which is a different thing from what the church means when it says Scripture.
Doors into the text
Key moments
1 Enoch 1:9, the coming of the Lord with his holy myriads, quoted almost word for word in Jude 14-15.
Two hundred Watchers bind themselves by a curse together so no one can back out, then descend and take wives.
The archangels are dispatched; Azazel is bound in darkness until the day of judgment, language Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 echo.
The spirits of the dead giants remain on the earth and afflict it; the demonology behind much of Second Temple Judaism.
In the Parables a heavenly figure appears before the Ancient of Days; chapter 71 then seems to identify him with Enoch, and the debate over what the Gospels owe this section runs through chapters 37-71.
All of Israel's history retold with the nations as animals, ending in judgment and a new house for the flock.
Plainly told
The story it tells
Five books, one name
1 Enoch is not a single work. It is five separate Jewish writings, composed at different times by different hands, gathered under the name of Enoch: the man who "walked with God" and was taken (Genesis 5:24). Writing under a great figure's name was a known and accepted practice in that world; no one who wrote these thought Enoch himself held the pen.
Two hundred angels descend
In the oldest section, the Book of the Watchers, two hundred angelic beings bind themselves by a mutual oath on Mount Hermon, descend, and take human wives. Their offspring are giants who devour everything around them, and one Watcher teaches men to forge weapons while another teaches sorcery.
The earth cries out
The earth itself cries out under the corruption, the archangels carry the cry to God, and Enoch is sent to pronounce a sentence on the Watchers that cannot be appealed: his plea on their behalf is refused, and they are bound until the day of judgment.
Where the evil spirits came from
When the giants die, their spirits do not go where human spirits go: they remain on the earth as evil spirits. This is the demonology standing behind much of Second Temple Jewish thought, worth knowing before reading the Gospels' exorcism accounts.
A calendar, a history, a Son of Man
The other four sections are stranger neighbors: a technical solar-calendar treatise; a retelling of Israel's whole history with the nations cast as animals; a book of exhortations; and, in the debated Parables (chapters 37–71), a heavenly "Son of Man" figure who appears before the Ancient of Days: language scholars still argue over in relation to the Gospels.
Dates hedged where scholarship hedges
Where it sits in history
- c. 3rd century BC or earlier
The Book of the Watchers (chs. 1–36) and the Astronomical Book (chs. 72–82) are composed: among the oldest strata, attested in Aramaic fragments at Qumran.
- mid-2nd century BC
The Book of Dreams / Animal Apocalypse (chs. 83–90) is composed, reflecting the Maccabean crisis.
- 2nd–1st century BC
The Epistle of Enoch (chs. 91–108) is composed.
- late 1st century BC – 1st century AD, range debated
The Book of Parables (chs. 37–71) is composed: the one section with no fragment found at Qumran.
- 1770s
James Bruce brings Ethiopic manuscripts of the complete work to Europe, ending centuries of near-total Western unfamiliarity with the full text.
- 1917
R. H. Charles publishes the standard public-domain English translation (from Dillmann's Ethiopic text, collated with Greek fragments): the edition this site serves.
The disagreement is old: here it is plainly
Where the traditions stand
1 Enoch was never received into the Hebrew Bible, and the wider church did not receive it either, though it was clearly read widely by Jews in the centuries before Christ. Tertullian defended its antiquity and value around AD 200 and lost the argument; Augustine held that the church rightly excluded books circulating under the names of the ancient patriarchs, because their transmission could not be verified: he named Enoch's writings specifically.
The book then dropped out of direct Western view for over a thousand years, known only through scattered citations, until Ethiopic manuscripts reached Europe in the 1770s. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the one body in the world that has held 1 Enoch as canonical Scripture throughout: it stands inside that church's 81-book canon to this day.
There is a plain reason the Western and Eastern churches have kept the line firm even while valuing the book highly: this is a collection assembled over centuries under a borrowed name, and that is a different kind of document from what the church means when it says "Scripture." Being quoted by an apostle, as chapter 14 below explains, is not the same claim as being Scripture.
| Tradition | Where this book stands |
|---|---|
| jewish | non-canonical; the Watchers tradition was actively suppressed in some rabbinic strands but preserved in others |
| anglican | non-canonical |
| catholic | non-canonical |
| protestant | non-canonical; widely studied for historical and theological background |
| eastern orthodox | non-canonical (with the exception of some Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions) |
| eritrean orthodox tewahedo | fully canonical |
| ethiopian orthodox tewahedo | fully canonical |
Real echoes only: each one attested, none invented
What the New Testament has made of it
"Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints." Compare Charles's 1917 translation of 1 Enoch 1:9: "And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly." This is the New Testament's one unambiguous quotation of a book outside the Old Testament, named as a source by the apostle himself.
D. A. Carson, in G. K. Beale & D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic/Apollos, 2007), on Jude 14–15, calling it "the longest and only unambiguous quotation in the Epistle of Jude… not from an Old Testament book but rather from 1 Enoch."
"Angels which kept not their first estate… he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness" (Jude 6); "cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness" (2 Peter 2:4). This binding-until-judgment sentence on the fallen Watchers is not narrated this way anywhere in the Old Testament text of Genesis 6: it is the judgment scene 1 Enoch 10 spells out.
Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary, Word Books, 1983), on Jude 6.
1 threads into the 66
Its connections into Scripture
Jude 14-15 explicitly attributes a quotation to 'Enoch, the seventh from Adam' — and the quotation matches 1 Enoch 1:9 with high precision: 'Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, 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.' This is the New Testament's clearest direct quotation of a non-canonical Jewish work as prophetic Scripture.
Reception history, never our confession
What the church has made of it
1 Enoch is the fullest ancient witness to the "Watchers" reading of Genesis 6:1–4, the sons of God as heavenly beings, that Jude and 2 Peter appear to assume. MannaFest reads Genesis 6 the same way, and this book is the oldest surviving full account of how Jews in the centuries before Christ understood that passage: it stands behind a great deal of the angelology and demonology a first-century reader carried into the Gospels' exorcism accounts.
Hold both truths in order, because both are true and neither cancels the other. First, the New Testament touched this book directly, Jude quotes it by name as prophecy, and Jude 6 with 2 Peter 2:4 both echo its judgment scene. Second, being quoted does not make a book Scripture: Paul quotes the pagan poets Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander in Acts 17:28, Titus 1:12, and 1 Corinthians 15:33, and no one has ever proposed adding their poems to the Bible. Jude used a text his readers already knew and trusted; the Spirit made Jude's own letter Scripture, and the source he cited stayed exactly what it was, a valued witness, not a thirty-ninth or sixty-seventh book.
The voices
What the teachers have said
“And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly.”
Every claim above rests on these
Where this comes from
- R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (Oxford, 1917) — the public-domain translation served on this site
- R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2: Pseudepigrapha (Oxford, 1913)
- George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary (Hermeneia, Fortress, 2001) — cited, not quoted
- Michael S. Heiser, Reversing Hermon: Enoch, the Watchers, and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ (2017) — cited, not quoted
- Bruce M. Metzger, An Introduction to the Apocrypha (Oxford, 1957)