The Book of Enoch is somewhat controversial. Obviously there are different ideas among Christians about the book of Enoch.
I'm going to share a video that's an excellent presentation on the Book of Enoch. But for those who don't want to watch an hour-long video, I'll post a few points that are brought up in this video.
What Christians think about the Book of Enoch can be summed up into 3 basic views...
- There is the view that the entire Book of Enoch is pseudepigrapha, in other words not actually written by Enoch, and therefore not trustworthy.
- There is a second view, on the other extreme, that all of it is actually from Enoch, and therefore authoritative and trustworthy.
- And the third view is that some of it (at least the first 19 chapters) is authoritative, because the Bible itself attests to it, and many early church fathers also attest to it.
I personally think the best and safest view is the third view, that some of it, namely the first 19 chapters, IS authentic and therefore authoritative.
Why should any Christian hold that view, if this book was not included in the Canon?
Well, for one thing, many Christians hold an outdated view that the entire book of Enoch is pseudepigrapha, because before 1976, that was the near-consensus position.
However, ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that changed. Why? Because before 1976, the Book of Enoch was thought to be newer than the New Testament. But then in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a manuscript was found that predated the entire New Testament, so that showed that the previous position was exactly backwards.
The Epistle of Jude, which previously was thought to be the basis for 1 Enoch is now best understood as a clear testimony for the authenticity of the Book of Enoch.
Also, many of the early church fathers attested to the authenticity of the stories in the Book of Enoch, such as the position that Genesis 6 refers to the angels who sinned and mated with human women, which created the Nephilim (giants.) In their writings, these church fathers treated the Book of Enoch as authoritative.
In fact, although in today's world many Christians hold the view that the "Sons of God" in Genesis 6 refers to the line of Seth, the view that the Sons of God were angels (who fell from grace) is the view of antiquity, it was the near-unanimous consensus prior to the 5th century, when the Sethite view started. You can read more about that in
this article.
There's much more that can be said here, but for anyone who is interested in this topic, I highly recommend watching the video I'm going to post below.
Why does this even matter? Well, the book of Enoch talks about a number of very interesting things, including the Nephilim, and the origin of many practices that people (including Christians) partake in every day, without even knowing the origin of those practices. So, if we hold the position that the book of Enoch is at least partially authentic, which is the most logical position for Christians to hold, since Jude and Jesus Himself attest to it, then I believe Christians should not reject it, or avoid looking into it because they don't know what to think about it.
I don't want to do it now but later I want to bring up something that is referenced in the Book of Enoch that is very important because it has to do with something people do everyday. I'm actually putting together a video on that, so when it's done I'll share it here for anyone who is interested.
I don't expect the non-believers here to believe the Book of Enoch, but for the Christians here... what are your thoughts on the Book of Enoch? Again, I really hope you take the time to watch this video, as Craig goes into it in much more depth, and in a very clear, methodical way.
(The first few minutes is just announcements and stuff, and also waiting for the livestream to start, so I'm going to skip that part and embed this video starting a few minutes into the video)
