June 22, 2025
The book contains several visions of Enoch which tell of fallen angels, a coming messiah, the future state of the faithful, and God’s justice winning out in the end.
The discussion of fallen angels has been the matter most discussed in recent times. On that connection, the book speculates on who the sons of God were in Genesis 6:1-4. Further how their intermarriage with the daughters of men led to the rise and activities of the Nephilim. Curiosity seekers are drawn to these questions and eager to believe that this book has answers provided by a reliable person who was there when it happened. The problem of course is that Enoch was long gone before someone assumed his name and wrote an imaginary version of events.
This document gained enough popularity to be included in the collection of works
among the dead sea scrolls. Fragments of it were found in Cave 4 at Qumran along with
fragments from 574 other manuscripts. It was part of a library that included portions of
Biblical books, Biblical commentaries, Apocryphal books, books on Jewish law, prayers,
sectarian documents and others.
The book is also quoted by some early church fathers again indicating familiarity with, and popularity among, not just ancient Jews but also ancient Christians.
This brings us to our second point of discussion why does Jude quote it?
Jude is writing to warn of false teaching and further to encourage the faithful to defend the truth (Jude 3-4). He offers a series of warnings giving examples of those who have abandoned God’s truth down through history. Then beginning in verse 8 Jude starts to describe the nature of these people.
As a final warning Jude makes the point that Enoch seventh from Adam prophesied about these people saying “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgement on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
~ Kevin Cleary