1 Enoch 85
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1And after this I saw another dream, and I will show the whole dream to thee, my son.
2And Enoch lifted up (his voice) and spake to his son Methuselah: ‘To thee, my son, will I speak: hear my words—incline thine ear to the dream-vision of thy father.
3Before I took thy mother Edna, I saw in a vision on my bed, and behold a bull came forth from the earth, and that bull was white; and after it came forth a heifer, and along with this (latter) came forth two bulls, one of them black and the other red.
4And that black bull gored the red one and pursued him over the earth, and thereupon I could no longer see that red bull.
5But that black bull grew and that heifer went with him, and I saw that many oxen proceeded from him which resembled and followed him.’
6And that cow, that first one, went from the presence of that first bull in order to seek that red one, but found him not, and lamented with a great lamentation over him and sought him.
7And I looked till that first bull came to her and quieted her, and from that time onward she cried no more.
8And after that she bore another white bull, and after him she bore many bulls and black cows.
9And I saw in my sleep that white bull likewise grow and become a great white bull, and from him proceeded many white bulls, and they resembled him.
10And they began to beget many white bulls, which resembled them, one following the other, (even) many.
The chapter, studied
Two Bulls Before the Flood
Enoch tells Methuselah his second dream, cast entirely as animals. A white bull comes forth from the earth, then a heifer, then two more bulls: one black, one red; the black bull gores the red one, who disappears, while the black bull and heifer multiply, until the heifer bears another white bull who in turn fathers many more white bulls.
Chapter 85 opens the Animal Apocalypse (85-90), the longer of the two Dream Visions, which retells the span from Adam to the end times entirely through livestock symbolism. The white bull is Adam, the heifer Eve, and the two bulls born after them map onto Cain and Abel: the black bull "gored the red one and pursued him," after which "I could no longer see that red bull," a near-exact echo of Cain rising up against his brother and slaying him.
The white bull born afterward, who becomes "a great white bull" and fathers many white bulls resembling him, stands for Seth and the line through him: the same line Genesis traces from Adam through Seth toward Noah. The animal code is simple by design: color marks moral character, white for the righteous line, and the narrative committed to it runs for six more chapters.
This kind of symbolic history-telling has no real parallel inside the 66 books, but its instinct, that a nation's whole story can be preached back through a single extended picture, sits beside prophetic vision-cycles like Daniel's beasts, where extended figures likewise carry real history under fixed symbols.
Doors into the 66
- Genesis 4:8 — "Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him" is the history this chapter's black bull and red bull retell in animal code.
- Genesis 5:3 — Seth, born to Adam in his own likeness, begins the line this chapter's second white bull and his many offspring represent.
Teachers on this ground
R. H. Charles
The Book of Enoch (1917)
The public-domain translation this shelf reads, with the critical introduction the field still builds on.
Johnny Enlow
The Book of Enoch: Paraphrase and Commentary (2025)
A living teacher's paraphrase of the whole book with his own running commentary, from the prophetic stream.
1And after this I saw another dream, and I will show the whole dream to thee, my son.
2And Enoch lifted up (his voice) and spake to his son Methuselah: ‘To thee, my son, will I speak: hear my words—incline thine ear to the dream-vision of thy father.
3Before I took thy mother Edna, I saw in a vision on my bed, and behold a bull came forth from the earth, and that bull was white; and after it came forth a heifer, and along with this (latter) came forth two bulls, one of them black and the other red.
4And that black bull gored the red one and pursued him over the earth, and thereupon I could no longer see that red bull.
5But that black bull grew and that heifer went with him, and I saw that many oxen proceeded from him which resembled and followed him.’
6And that cow, that first one, went from the presence of that first bull in order to seek that red one, but found him not, and lamented with a great lamentation over him and sought him.
7And I looked till that first bull came to her and quieted her, and from that time onward she cried no more.
8And after that she bore another white bull, and after him she bore many bulls and black cows.
9And I saw in my sleep that white bull likewise grow and become a great white bull, and from him proceeded many white bulls, and they resembled him.
10And they began to beget many white bulls, which resembled them, one following the other, (even) many.
The language it was written in
Aramaic (the Qumran fragments' language); parts possibly Hebrew. The Parables (chs. 37–71) have no Qumran witness and their original language is debated.
What survives, and where
Aramaic: Dead Sea Scrolls
Eleven fragmentary manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4 covering every section except the Parables (3rd c. BC – 1st c. AD).
Greek
Substantial portions: chs. 1–32 (Codex Panopolitanus), quotations in Syncellus, and the Chester Beatty papyrus of the Epistle.
Ge’ez (Ethiopic)
The only complete text, preserved by the Ethiopian church, whose canon receives the book; the base of every full translation.
What you are reading here
R. H. Charles's 1917 English translation, made from the Ge’ez against the Greek and Aramaic evidence then known — public domain, quotable in full.
No tagged word floor exists for the Aramaic or Ge’ez text; word-by-word study on this shelf awaits a future ingest. What stands here is the manuscript story itself.