Enamored of Enoch

Yes, I have read the Book of Enoch. No, it is not supposed to be in the canon of Scripture.

I first read Enoch when I was living in Israel in 1977 and borrowed it from a friend. I thought it might be a rare book and unavailable in the U.S., so I wrote down notes summarizing the entire content of the book. Recently while flipping through my files looking for some other document under “E,” I happened to see those old notes. As it turned out, I didn’t need to write all those notes in 1977, because sometime in the 1980s I saw a copy of Enoch and bought it and read it a second time. Recently I read it a third time.

I enjoyed reading it the same way I enjoy reading any other poetic literature. It reminds me of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, or Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. But the Book of Enoch is not authoritative inspired canonical Scripture any more than is The Prophet, or Paradise Lost, or the Talmud, or the writings of the Early Church Fathers, or the commentaries of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, or Wesley.

Regardless of what uninformed, strongly-opinionated, hyper-independent Facebook theologians say, Enoch is not supposed to be in the Bible. If Enoch was meant to be in the canon of Scripture, it would be in the canon of Scripture.

The Jews were authorized by God to preserve the Word of God. Romans 3:2 says that “unto them [the Jews] were committed the oracles of God.”

“But Daniel, Jude quotes from Enoch! Doesn’t that prove that the Book of Enoch is inspired and authoritative and should be in the Bible?”

No. I explain this in my book Hermeneutics. New Testament writers quoted from lots of extra-Biblical books. Paul even quoted pagan Greek writers four times. Jude quoted Enoch the same way a contemporary preacher today might quote a famous Christian, or even a line from a well-known song or movie to illustrate his point.

The task of determining which books to include in the canon of Scripture was given to the Jews, not to you. “It appertaineth not unto thee.”

Letting each individual decide for himself which books make up the canon of Scripture would be like telling a crew of carpenters that they can each individually decide how to mark their own personal tape measure the way they prefer, that they can decide for themselves what they personally think an “inch” and a “foot” and a “yard” ought to be. A house built by this crew of carpenters would be a disaster. And any work for the Lord that lets each individual decide which books should be in the Bible will likewise be a disaster.

| DB