identified as First Enoch, was first brought to the attention of modern biblical scholarship when it was published at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Later, fragments of the book were found in a Greek version, which was the basis for the Ethiopic version. Copies in Aramaic have also become available. Among the discoveries made in the caves near the ruins of Kirbeth Qumran by the Dead Sea, fragments of the book were found in Hebrew. These fragments have been most diligently studied because they are in the book’s original language. The full text of First Enoch in our possession, however, is found only in Ethiopic. After two centuries of intense study by biblical scholars, it is agreed that First Enoch is not one book, but a collection of five independent books, which are themselves editorial compilations of different earlier texts. The five separate compositions have been identified as follows: The Book of the Watchers (chaps. 1-36), The Parables [or Similitudes] (chaps. 37-71), The Book of the Luminaries [or The Astronomical Book] (chaps. 72-82), The Book of Dreams (chaps. 83-90), and The Epistle of Enoch (chaps. 91-108).
The discovery of fragments of First Enoch at Qumran in the 1950s greatly strengthen the dating of its two earliest documents before the Maccabean revolt in 167-164 B.C.E. These are the Book of the Luminaries and the Book of the Watchers. The first is primarily concerned to defend the authority of a 360-day yearly calendar against various others being used by Jews at the time. This was very important because the proper celebration of the festivals and the keeping of the Sabbath depended on following the “correct” calendar. Thus, The Book of the Luminaries serves purposes similar to those of the book of Jubilees, which comes from about the same time. The establishment of the right calendar became necessary after Hellenistic culture and greater travel opportunities gave the Jews access to the lifestyles of other societies with more accurate calendars.
The Book of the Watchers, is of special interest to the theme of my book on account of two reasons. One is that it predates the book of Daniel, which was published at the time of the Maccabean revolt (167-164 B.C.E.). Thus, it contributes to our understanding of the transition from prophetic to apocalyptic literature, even if it did not become part of the Jewish canon of Scripture at the Council of Jamnia in the second century C.E. The second reason is that it was extremely popular and considered authoritative by Jews and early Christians before their respective canons were established. That it was considered Scripture by early Christians is evident by the adoption of some of its peculiar features by the authors of First Peter, Second Peter, Jude and Revelation. The author of Jude specifically identifies Enoch, the seventh from Adam, as the author of the book, thus taking at face value the pseudonym used by the author to establish his authority. Jude says that Enoch prophesied that the false teachers among the early Christians were going to be “wandering stars … for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved for ever” (Jude 14). First Peter says that when Christ was crucified he was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went to preach to the spirits in prison who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark” (1 Pet. 3:18-20). Second Peter exemplifies God’s willingness to punish rebels, among others, by the fact that he “did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment” (2 Pet. 2:4). Revelation reports that the martyred saints’ clamor for revenge from under the altar, and issues a blessing on those who keep the words of its prophecy (Rev. 6:10; 22:7). That angels who sinned and were cast down from heaven are prisoners kept in gloomy, dark pits waiting for their final judgments, and that the dead clamor for God to hear their plea are prominent features of the Book of the Watchers. The use of the Book of the Watchers by these authors tells us that early Christians recognized it as authoritative.
As demonstrated earlier, it is possible to reconstruct with some confidence the historical circumstances that inform the prophetic oracles. Ezekiel had to deal with fellow Israelites in exile who thought their condition revealed an unjust God, and had to answer charges made by Israel’s neighbors that their God was weak. Zechariah had to deal with people who had to accept the leadership of a High Priest with a dubious reputation once their hopes for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy had become unrealizable. The hopes they had placed on Zerubbabel faded as their hero disappeared from the historical record. Rather than a kingdom ruled by a descendant of David, the people had to build the temple and be led by a High Priest. As will become evident in the next chapter, the editors of the book of Daniel had to deal with people who were tempted to adopt the lifestyle and the worship of a more cosmopolitan Greek culture and encourage those with a firm allegiance to the Law of Moses and their ancestral customs to remain faithful when facing severe punishments and even death. In contrast to these books, the author of The Book of the Watchers does not seem to be addressing a specific historical situation. His message does not seem to be linked to particular circumstances. He is concerned with an intellectual problem: Why do people act in ways that God does not approve? This had been a problem already faced by the prophets. This problem was to become the central concern of the authors of apocalypses. What causes people to rebel against God? Why do righteous people suffer without cause? To the apocalypticists these became big problems due to their belief that all human activity is determined by God. Facing these problems, Ezekiel taught that God is the source of both good and evil. But that solution was not accepted by all. Then, how is the presence of evil in God’s world to be accounted for? If God is not the source of evil, where does evil come from? This is the problem being addressed by the author of The Book of the Watchers. It is a problem especially for those who hold that God is in control of this world. As such, it is a problem that transcends specific circumstances.
To deal with this problem, the author of The Book of the Watchers, the first 36 chapters of First Enoch, resorts to accounts of the beginnings of human life. He is aware of the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. It brought about the opening of their eyes to realize their nakedness, and resulted in their expulsion from the garden of Eden. No canonical book of the Old Testament, besides Genesis, contains a reference to the sin of the first human pair in the garden of Eden. All the prophets consider the worship of the golden calf at Sinai the paradigmatic sin that stamped Israel as a rebellious people. Beside the sin of the first pair in the Garden, the author of The Book of the Watchers also knows that Noah was told ahead of time to prepare for the survival of his family and be saved from the coming destruction, and that Enoch is the father of Methuselah, who is the father of Lamech, who is the father of Noah. More than anything else, he knows that “when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose” (Gen. 6:1-2). The Book of the Watchers is an expansion of this text in Genesis. Thus, the author does not claim to have received a Word of the Lord. Rather, as noticed already in Zechariah, guided by an angel, he delivers an interpretation of a previous word of the Lord. He calls “watchers” the angels who watched the daughters of men and desired them. His reaching back to ancestral pre-historic narratives is a most significant move in the direction later taken by apocalyptic authors.
The book opens with the blessings Enoch has for the elect and righteous who “will be living in the day of tribulation.” His use of Enoch as a pseudonym and the projection of his message to a time of trouble in the future anticipate practices that became common among the apocalypticists. The author, identifying himself as Enoch, is not writing for Enoch’s contemporaries, of course. He is writing “not for this generation, but for a remote one which is to come” (1 En. 1:1-2). In this way the author, while writing for the benefit of his contemporaries, accommodates his appeal to the authority of an antediluvian patriarch who was in heaven. The opening announces that “the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on Mount Sinai … and all shall be smitten with fear, and the Watchers shall quake.” God will be coming with “ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all” (1 En. 1:4-9). Without any introductory remarks, divine judgment is the center of attention. Then, the author shifts gears and follows the example of Jeremiah, wondering why while in nature everything acts according to the laws established to be followed by them, human beings do not follow theirs. The luminaries, the seasons, the sea, the rivers, they do not deviate from their appointed roles; among them, “according as God has ordained so it is done, … but you – you have not been steadfast, nor done the commandments of the Lord”
