Unit 8 · Enoch and the Watchers

Genesis 5 is a genealogy, a list of family lines. It runs from Adam to Noah. Each entry follows a pattern. A man lives, has a son, lives more years, and then the text says, "and he died." The line repeats like a drumbeat through the chapter.

Enoch breaks the pattern. Genesis 5:21–24 says he had a son named Methuselah. Then he "walked with God" for three hundred years. His whole life was 365 years. The text does not say "and he died." It says he "was not," for God took him. Counting Adam as first, Enoch is the seventh name in the list.

Those few words made readers curious for centuries. What did it mean to walk with God? Where did Enoch go? Because Genesis says so little, later writers filled the gap. Many Jewish books told more stories about Enoch. The biggest of these is the book now called 1 Enoch.

The phrase "God took him" is short, and readers have understood it in more than one way. Many Jewish and Christian readers believed Enoch went to God without dying. The New Testament book of Hebrews reads it this way. Hebrews 11:5 says Enoch was "translated," or carried away, so that he would not see death.

Other readers thought the phrase could be a gentle way to describe a death. They pointed out that Enoch’s life of 365 years is short compared with the others in Genesis 5. Some ancient Jewish interpreters leaned toward this view. The text itself does not explain what happened, so each reading fills a silence.

Later Jewish books made Enoch a great teacher and writer. The book of Jubilees, from around 150 BCE, says Enoch was the first person to learn writing. It says he wrote down signs of the heavens and testified against the Watchers. In these books Enoch becomes a scribe who sees heavenly things and reports them.

Because Genesis says so little about Enoch, writers in later centuries wrote books in his name. Scholars number them to keep them apart. They are 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch. The numbers do not mean they are volumes of one series. They are three separate books from different times and places.

1 Enoch is the oldest. Its earliest parts come from about 300 BCE. It survives whole in Ge’ez, the old language of Ethiopia, so it is sometimes called Ethiopic Enoch. 2 Enoch survives in Old Church Slavonic, a language of early Slavic churches, and is called Slavonic Enoch. 3 Enoch is written in Hebrew and comes from much later Jewish writers.

When the New Testament letter of Jude quotes Enoch, the words match 1 Enoch. When scholars write about Enoch and the Watchers, they almost always mean 1 Enoch. So in this unit, "the Book of Enoch" always means 1 Enoch. Knowing which book is meant is the first step in checking any claim about it.

Open 1 Enoch and you will find 108 chapters. But scholars see that it is not one book written at one time. It is a collection of five parts. Each part has its own style and its own main subject. Later copyists put them together under Enoch’s name.

The first part is the Book of the Watchers, chapters 1–36. It tells of heavenly beings who came down to earth. Next come the Parables, chapters 37–71, visions of a heavenly judge. The Astronomical Book, chapters 72–82, is about the sun, moon and a calendar. The Dream Visions, chapters 83–90, retell history as a dream. The Epistle of Enoch, chapters 91–108, is Enoch’s advice to his children.

Knowing the five parts helps you read carefully. A claim about 1 Enoch might be true of one part but not another. For example, the story of the Watchers comes from the first part. The Parables are the part missing from the Dead Sea Scrolls. You will learn more about that in a later lesson.

Scholars date ancient books by clues. They look at the oldest copies, at the events a book seems to know about, and at its language. For 1 Enoch these clues point to a long period of writing. The parts were written over roughly three hundred years.

The Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book are the oldest. Many scholars date them to around 300–200 BCE. The Dream Visions seem to know about the Maccabean revolt, a Jewish uprising in the 160s BCE. So they are dated to about that time. The Epistle of Enoch is probably from the 100s BCE.

The Parables are the youngest part. Many scholars date them to the late first century BCE or the first century CE. That is close to the time of Jesus. Scholars still discuss the exact dates, so books give ranges. When you read a date for 1 Enoch, ask which part it describes.

1 Enoch is written as if Enoch himself is speaking. Enoch lived before the flood in the Genesis story. But the book’s oldest parts come from about 300 BCE. So most scholars think later Jewish writers composed it and put it in Enoch’s voice.

Writing in the name of a famous figure from the past was common in the ancient world. Scholars call such books pseudepigrapha, which means "falsely titled" in Greek. The word is a technical label, not an insult. Writers used a great name to show that their message fit an honored tradition. Other examples include books written in the names of Moses, Baruch and Ezra.

Why choose Enoch? Genesis says he walked with God and was taken. That made him a perfect person to tell heavenly secrets. A man who had been close to God could describe heaven, angels and the end of days. Readers today can study the book while knowing who probably wrote it and when.

Ethiopia has one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world. Its church became Christian in the 300s CE. Early on, Christians there translated many books into Ge’ez. One of those books was Enoch. Scholars think it was translated from a Greek version, perhaps around 400–600 CE, though estimates vary.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church counts 1 Enoch as part of its Bible. So does the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Scribes there copied it by hand, generation after generation. Because they kept copying it, the whole book survived there when it was lost elsewhere.

A book that belongs in a church’s Bible is part of its canon. Different churches have different canons. Ethiopian Christians read 1 Enoch in their worship. For them it is not a lost book or a strange book. It is part of the Scripture they have always had.

Before 1773, European scholars knew only bits of 1 Enoch. They had the quotation in Jude. They had Greek passages copied by George Syncellus, a writer from around 800 CE. The rest seemed lost. Then James Bruce, a Scottish traveler, returned from Ethiopia with copies in Ge’ez.

Few people in Europe could read Ge’ez, so translation took time. In 1821 Richard Laurence, a scholar at Oxford, published the first English translation. Later the Irish scholar R. H. Charles studied many more manuscripts and made a careful new translation. He published it in 1912, and a popular edition followed in 1917.

Charles’s 1917 translation is now in the public domain. That means anyone may copy and quote it freely. This course uses it when it cites chapter and verse in 1 Enoch. Modern translations exist too, based on even more manuscripts, including pieces found later in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Between 1947 and 1956, people found ancient scrolls in caves near Qumran, by the Dead Sea. These are the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most were torn into small pieces. In Cave 4, found in 1952, scholars identified pieces of about eleven copies of Enoch writings, written in Aramaic.

Aramaic was a common language of Judea in that period. Scholars think Aramaic was probably the original language of much of 1 Enoch. The scholar J. T. Milik published these Aramaic pieces in 1976. Some of the copies are among the oldest scrolls found, from around 200 BCE.

One part was missing. No piece of the Parables, chapters 37–71, has been found at Qumran. Scholars treat this as one clue that the Parables are later than the other parts. The finds showed that Jewish readers knew the Book of the Watchers well before the New Testament was written.

1 Enoch is not in the Jewish canon, the Hebrew Bible. It is not in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant Bibles either. It is canonical only in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo churches. Other communities read it as an important ancient writing, not as Scripture.

Still, New Testament writers knew it. The letter of Jude, verses 14–15, quotes 1 Enoch 1:9. Jude calls Enoch "the seventh from Adam" and repeats his warning that the Lord comes with many thousands of holy ones. Richard Bauckham studied this closely in his commentary Jude, 2 Peter (1983). Readers disagree on what Jude meant by quoting the book. Some say he honored it; others say he used a line his readers knew.

Early Christian writers also disagreed. Tertullian, around 200 CE, defended the book in his work On the Apparel of Women. Augustine, in The City of God (book 15), did not accept it as Scripture. Over time most churches left it out. The debate shows that deciding a canon was a long conversation, not a single moment.

Start with two short New Testament passages. Jude 6 speaks of angels who did not keep their first place and are held in chains until the great day. 2 Peter 2:4 says God did not spare the angels that sinned. He cast them into Tartarus and kept them in chains of darkness for judgment. Neither passage says who these angels were or what they did.

1 Enoch tells that story in full. So many scholars read it as background. It was written in the Second Temple period, about 500 BCE to 70 CE, when the second Temple stood in Jerusalem. George Nickelsburg’s commentary (2001) traces how the book shaped later Jewish and Christian writing. Annette Yoshiko Reed, in Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (2005), follows how the Watchers story was read and later set aside by many teachers.

Michael Heiser wrote on the same question in Reversing Hermon (2017) and A Companion to the Book of Enoch (2020). He said plainly that he did not treat 1 Enoch as Scripture. He argued that the New Testament links to it are many and important. Other scholars think the links are fewer and looser. You can test the idea by reading the passages side by side.

Genesis 6:1–4 comes right before the story of Noah. People were growing in number. The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they took wives. Then God said that humans would live 120 years. The passage ends by mentioning the Nephilim and the mighty men of old.

The passage is short and puzzling. Who are the sons of God? The Hebrew phrase is bene ha’elohim. In Job 1:6 and 38:7 the same kind of phrase clearly names heavenly beings. The oldest Jewish readers, and many scholars today, read Genesis 6 the same way. In that reading, heavenly beings crossed a line between heaven and earth.

Who are the Nephilim? The Hebrew word is not fully clear. Some connect it to a verb meaning "to fall." When Jewish scholars translated Genesis into Greek, in the Septuagint, they used the word gigantes, meaning giants. That is why the King James Version says "there were giants in the earth in those days."

The Book of the Watchers retells Genesis 6 at length. In 1 Enoch the heavenly beings are called Watchers. The name also appears in Daniel 4, where a watcher, a holy one, comes down from heaven. In 1 Enoch the Watchers who came down are heavenly beings who leave their proper place.

Genesis 6:2 says the sons of God took wives. 1 Enoch 6–8 adds a leader, an oath, a mountain, a number and a list of names. It adds what they taught. It adds what happened to the earth. Then chapters 9–11 tell how heaven responded. This kind of retelling is called an expansion.

Other ancient books retell the same scene. Jubilees 5 says the angels of God saw human women and took wives. Jubilees 4:15 adds a twist: the Watchers first came down in Jared’s days to teach people justice, and only later went wrong. Most scholars think Genesis 6 is older than both books. Reading them side by side shows how Jewish writers in the Second Temple period understood Genesis 6.

The oldest readings see heavenly beings. 1 Enoch and Jubilees tell it that way. The Jewish historian Josephus, around 94 CE, wrote in his Antiquities of the Jews (1.3.1) that many angels of God joined with women. The Christian writer Justin Martyr, in the 100s CE, gave a similar reading in his Second Apology.

Later, other readings grew popular. Julius Africanus, in the 200s, and then Augustine, in The City of God (book 15), read the sons of God as godly men from the family of Seth, Adam’s son. In this view the daughters of men came from Cain’s family. Genesis 6 then describes two human families mixing. This is often called the Sethite view.

Some rabbinic readers, in midrash and in the Aramaic translations called targums, read the sons of God as rulers or the sons of nobles. In that view, powerful men took any women they wanted. That is sometimes called the royal view. Each reading tries to fit the passage with the rest of the Bible.

Modern scholars still divide. Many hold the heavenly-beings reading, pointing to Job and the Septuagint; Michael Heiser argued for it at length. Others keep the Sethite or royal view. Each side gives reasons from the text.

1 Enoch 6 names the leader of the Watchers. Charles’s translation spells his name Semjaza. Many scholars write it Shemihazah, closer to the Aramaic. He fears he alone will be blamed. So all the Watchers swear an oath together, binding each other to the plan.

The book says there were two hundred of them. They came down in the days of Jared, Enoch’s father. The Hebrew name Jared sounds like the verb yarad, "to go down." They came down on Mount Hermon. The book links the name Hermon to a Hebrew word for a solemn oath or ban.

Mount Hermon is a real mountain. It rises about 9,200 feet at the north edge of ancient Israel, on today’s border of Lebanon and Syria. It is often covered with snow. Deuteronomy 3:8–9 names it and says the Sidonians called it Sirion. Ruins of ancient temples, many from Roman times, stand on its slopes.

In 1 Enoch the Watchers do more than marry. They teach. Chapter 8 names Azazel, also spelled Asael. He teaches people to work metal and to make swords, knives, shields and armor. He also teaches jewelry-making, makeup for the eyes and the use of colored dyes.

Other Watchers teach other things. Shemihazah teaches charms and the cutting of roots. Some teach how to read signs in the stars, the moon and the sun. In the book’s view, this knowledge was given before people were ready. It spread harm, because weapons made fighting easier.

The story is not saying that metal, jewelry or learning are bad in themselves. The book’s worry is about knowledge given the wrong way, by the wrong teachers, for the wrong reasons. Scholars call this theme forbidden knowledge. Many ancient stories, from Greece to Mesopotamia, ask where human skills came from.

1 Enoch 7 says the Watchers’ wives had children who grew into giants. The book links them to the Nephilim of Genesis 6. The giants ate everything people had grown. When the food ran out, they turned against people and creatures. The book describes the earth as suffering under them.

The story’s main point is not the giants’ size. It is how the world went wrong. In the book, the earth itself is like a person crying out for help. Violence spreads, and people call to heaven. This helps explain why, in Genesis, God saw the earth "filled with violence" before the flood (Genesis 6:11).

Other Jewish writings of the time also mention the giants. Jubilees retells the story. A scroll found at Qumran, called the Book of Giants, tells more about them. J. T. Milik first published pieces of it in 1976. Loren Stuckenbruck studied it closely in The Book of Giants from Qumran (1997). These texts show how widely the story was known in the Second Temple period.

1 Enoch 9 turns to heaven. Four angels look down and see what is happening on the earth. Charles’s translation names them Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel. They hear the cry of people and bring it before God. They say that God knows everything and ask what should be done.

Two of these names are in the Hebrew Bible. Michael appears in Daniel 10 and 12 as a great prince. Gabriel appears in Daniel 8 and 9 and again in Luke 1. Raphael appears in the book of Tobit, which is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. Uriel appears in 1 Enoch and other Jewish writings.

In 1 Enoch these four are faithful angels. They stand in contrast to the Watchers who broke God’s order. Psalm 82 and 1 Kings 22 picture God among a heavenly court. Scholars call this the divine council; E. Theodore Mullen studied it in The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (1980). In 1 Enoch, loyal and rebel members of that heavenly world are shown side by side.

In 1 Enoch 10 God answers. An angel is sent to warn Noah that a flood is coming, so he can be kept safe. Raphael is told to bind Azazel and place him in darkness in the desert. Michael is told to bind Shemihazah and the others. They are held under the earth for seventy generations, until the day of judgment.

Gabriel is sent against the giants, and the book says they destroy one another. Then the earth is to be healed. The chapter looks ahead to a time when the earth is clean, people are righteous, and the land gives plenty. The tone moves from sorrow to hope.

The New Testament uses similar pictures. Jude 6 speaks of angels who did not keep their first place, held in chains until the great day. 2 Peter 2:4 says God put sinning angels in chains of darkness in Tartarus. Richard Bauckham, in Jude, 2 Peter (1983), traced how Jude draws on the Enoch tradition. Other readers think these writers simply shared common Jewish language.

In chapters 12–16, Enoch enters the story. The Watchers, now facing judgment, ask him to write a request to God for mercy. Enoch writes it. He goes to the waters of Dan, near Mount Hermon, reads it, and falls asleep. Then he has a vision.

In the vision Enoch is taken up to heaven. Chapter 14 describes a great house of fire and ice and a high throne. God speaks to Enoch. The answer is that the Watchers will have no peace. They were meant to live in heaven, but they left their place. Enoch must carry the answer back to them.

Here Enoch acts as an intercessor, someone who pleads for others. His request is refused. 1 Enoch 15 adds that when the giants died, spirits went out from them. Archie Wright’s The Origin of Evil Spirits (2005) studies how this passage shaped later Jewish ideas. The scene also shows Enoch as a trusted messenger near God’s throne, which fits Genesis 5:24.

Long before 1 Enoch, people in Mesopotamia told stories about a great flood. Mesopotamia is the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in today’s Iraq. Their stories also told of the apkallu. These were seven wise beings who lived before the flood. They were said to have taught people how to build cities and live in an orderly way.

In Mesopotamian art, apkallu often appear as men wearing fish-skin cloaks, or with bird heads and wings. A Babylonian priest named Berossus, writing in Greek around 290 BCE, described a fish-like teacher called Oannes. He said Oannes came up from the sea and taught people writing, farming and law.

Some Mesopotamian texts also say that after the flood, later sages were said to be partly human and partly apkallu. In those stories, wise beings and humans mixed. The apkallu were seen as sources of the knowledge that made kings great. Babylon’s kings were proud of this heritage.

Put two texts side by side. Berossus says Oannes came from the sea before the flood and taught people writing, farming and law. 1 Enoch 8 says Azazel and other Watchers came down before the flood and taught metalwork, charms and star-reading. Both tell of heavenly teachers who bring knowledge to people before a great flood.

Amar Annus, in "On the Origin of Watchers" (2010), compared the Watchers with the apkallu. He argued that Jewish writers knew these traditions and retold them so that the teachers became rebels. Michael Heiser built on this in Reversing Hermon (2017). He called Genesis 6:1–4 a polemic, a text that argues against another view. In this reading, Babylon’s proud learning came from a rebellion.

Not every scholar agrees. Some think the similarities are loose or come from shared ancient ideas. Nickelsburg suggested the warring giants may echo the wars among the generals who split Alexander the Great’s empire. Others point to Greek parallel stories, such as the Titans. Modern claims that these texts describe aliens or pyramid-building giants are not taken seriously by these scholars. The way to test any idea is to read the ancient texts carefully.