The Book of Enoch
Attributed to Enoch; translated by R. H. Charles, 1917
An ancient Jewish apocalyptic work describing the fall of the Watchers, cosmic journeys, and visions of judgment. Quoted in the New Testament epistle of Jude, preserved complete only in Ethiopia.
- Composed
- 3rd to 1st century BCE
- Original language
- Geʿez (from Aramaic and Hebrew originals)
What this text is
The Book of Enoch, also called 1 Enoch, is a collection of ancient Jewish writings attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, who "walked with God, and was not, for God took him." It describes the descent of the Watchers, angels who took human wives and taught humanity forbidden arts, the birth of the giants, Enoch’s journeys through the heavens, and detailed visions of the coming judgment.
The book was cited by early Christian writers and is quoted directly in the New Testament epistle of Jude, yet it was excluded from most biblical canons. Only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church preserved it complete, in the ancient liturgical language Geʿez. European scholarship recovered it in the eighteenth century, and fragments later found among the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed its antiquity.
Why researchers read it
Enoch sits at the junction of several questions SOL investigates: how ideas about rebellious heavenly beings, hidden knowledge, and world ages moved between cultures; why some texts were kept inside the canon and others pushed out; and what the earliest layers of apocalyptic writing claim about the structure of the cosmos. Its calendar chapters also preserve one of the oldest surviving astronomical systems in religious literature.
Research that draws on this text
Inside SOL
From public source to working investigation
The public page gives you a question and a source trail. Membership turns that starting point into work you can examine, challenge, and continue.
Read the complete source
Open The Book of Enoch in the member Library, inspect the passage in context, and keep the named translation or edition visible while you compare interpretations.
Test it with Prism
Bring the passage or Research record into a source-grounded conversation. Ask for competing translations, supporting evidence, objections, and what remains uncertain. Prism can still make mistakes; the visible source trail is how you check it.
Follow the connections
Use Connections to examine how the source and Research record relate to other claims, evidence, objections, and open questions.
Read and search the complete text inside SOL
Members read The Book of Enoch in full, search it alongside more than a thousand other works, and follow its ideas across traditions with SOL's research tools. SOL is invite-only right now; join the waitlist to be notified when access opens.