In the past six weeks, three different people have brought up the Book of Enoch in totally separate conversations. I’m still pretty new to all of this. I bought my first Bible about two years ago, only recently started going to church. So maybe this is way more common than I realize.
What do Christians believe about the book of Enoch and shouldn’t it be part of the Bible?
Most Christians see the Book of Enoch as an interesting ancient Jewish writing, not inspired Scripture. That’s why it isn’t in Protestant or Catholic Bibles (the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the main exception).
Jude quotes Enoch. But Paul quotes pagan poets too, and nobody thinks that makes them Scripture. The early church weighed these books over centuries before the canon was settled.
I read parts of Enoch out of curiosity. It’s a strange read. Feels more like speculative writing building on Genesis 6.
Most Christians treat the Book of Enoch as ancient Jewish literature, not Scripture. It’s a collection of apocalyptic writings that came together long after the Enoch in Genesis would have lived.
It does give some background on ideas about angels and judgment that were common in New Testament times, so it’s useful for that. I wouldn’t use it to support beliefs the Bible doesn’t clearly teach.
It comes up more in side conversations than in church. Most Christians believe Enoch walked with God and was taken, that part is in Genesis and Hebrews. KJV vs NKJV Bibles? The Book of Enoch itself came much later and nobody’s required to believe it.
No, it shouldn’t be in the Bible. It’s full of angel names and a long story about the Watchers and giants. It even runs on a 364-day calendar. Churches don’t teach it and it’s not part of what we confess. Respect Enoch the man and leave the book on the shelf.
Strange is putting it kindly, since Genesis 6 gives us four verses and Enoch turns them into giants eating everything in sight, including each other.
That’s how my pastor put it too, good ancient reading but not Scripture, though the Ethiopian Orthodox Church does include it in their canon.
Nobody at my church has ever mentioned the Book of Enoch from the pulpit. But it comes up in my small group, usually because someone watched a YouTube video about the Watchers and the giants and got curious.
I wouldn’t say to leave the book on the shelf though. I read through a chunk of it and came away appreciating the canon more. Seeing the elaborate angel names and that odd 364-day calendar stuff next to Scripture made it obvious why the church never accepted it. Read it like any other ancient background material, with your Bible open next to it.
Reading it as a way to see what makes Scripture different hadn’t occurred to me at all.
I’m still finding my footing with the Bible itself (slowly), so I’ll probably wait a while before picking it up. When I do, I’ll try keeping the Bible open next to it like you said. Thanks, @Aunty-Emma.
The whole Bible points to Christ, Old Testament and New. That’s the heart of why Enoch didn’t make the cut for the canon.
We can’t verify Enoch wrote it. Same deal as the Gospels of Thomas or Mary Magdalene, which claim famous names but weren’t written by them.
It might have some useful or interesting material in it, but without that Christ-centered message running through it, the early church left it out.
That’s how I see Enoch anyway. It’s helpful context, but not Scripture. It fills in gaps in our understanding of biblical history, kind of like instructions that come with a toy. Having that extra context makes the bigger picture clearer.
One thing bugs me about treating Enoch as canon. It shifts the blame for humanity’s corruption onto the rebelling angels, since they supposedly taught us weapons and warfare, when Genesis 4 credits Tubal-cain and Lamech with that. Humans, not angels.
That distinction matters because it protects the core teaching that we’re inherently fallen and in need of a Savior.
The parts that line up with Scripture, like the verses Jude quotes, carry weight. Beyond that, it reads like ancient speculation to me.
I’m in a similar spot. Trying to get grounded in the New Testament first before branching out to other ancient texts.
I went through Enoch a while back and it didn’t feel like it was helping me grow closer to God or figure out how to walk with Him daily. Maybe I’ll come back to Enoch later, but right now the standard canon is where I need to be.
The Ethiopian Bible is about 1,500 years old, written on goat skin and preserved by the arid climate, so it shows what early believers used. Most churches today don’t treat Enoch as canon.
I wouldn’t build doctrine on the Book of Enoch. It’s interesting as background reading, though. The Bible is comfortable acknowledging that ancient peoples believed in all sorts of spiritual beings, even if we don’t take every one of those beliefs at face value today. Enoch expands on ideas about heavenly beings that were circulating in biblical times. It shows Jewish writers wrestling with Genesis 6 and the spiritual world.
I lean toward Enoch being inspired. Maybe even one of those books Scripture says was sealed until the last days. It’s still canon in some traditions, too.
What made it into the Bible and what didn’t often came down to scholars working from their own understanding rather than any clear divine direction.
Not a hill worth defending. Even if every word of Enoch proved accurate, it adds nothing vital to salvation. It’s blending speculation with the truth we already hold.
The early church didn’t reject the book lightly. Tertullian, writing around AD 200, argued for accepting it. Augustine and Jerome disagreed, and the rest of the church went with them.
1 Enoch also isn’t in the Apocrypha of Catholic or Orthodox Bibles, so this wasn’t just a Protestant call. Except for the Ethiopian church, every other Christian tradition and Judaism left it out of the canon.
A coworker asked me your exact question. His argument was that Jude 14-15 quotes Enoch word for word, lining up with 1 Enoch 1:9, so doesn’t that make it Scripture?
My small group leader pointed out that Paul quotes Greek poets too, Aratus in Acts 17:28 and Epimenides in Titus 1:12.
Jude was writing to readers who knew and loved Enoch, so he borrowed something familiar to make his point about God judging the ungodly.
Worth separating the man from the book.
Enoch himself shows up in Scripture. “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). Hebrews 11:5 adds that he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
The book that carries his name came centuries later, around 300 BC, from authors no one can identify. That’s why scholars label it pseudepigrapha, writings credited to a famous figure who never wrote them.