Why the Book of Enoch Didn’t Make It Into the Bible
The Book of Enoch is a collection of ancient Jewish religious texts with a fascinating history. While highly influential on early Jewish and Christian thought, it was not included in the biblical canon of most major denominations. Its exclusion, like that of the Gospel of Nicodemus, was based on several key factors.
Here is a list of reasons why the Book of Enoch was not included in the Bible.
- (❌) Uncertain Authorship and Date: The book is not a single text but a compilation of five different sections written by different authors. The earliest parts are thought to date back to the 3rd century BC, and the latest parts were written in the 1st century AD. This patchwork authorship and long composition period made it difficult to attribute it to the biblical figure of Enoch, a direct descendent of Adam.
- (❌) Lack of Widespread Recognition: While the Book of Enoch was popular in some early Christian circles, particularly in Ethiopia, it was never universally accepted by the broader Christian Church. Many Church Fathers, including Augustine and Jerome, questioned its authenticity and reliability. The New Testament books, by contrast, had widespread and early acceptance across different Christian communities.
- (❌) Theological Conflicts: The book contains several theological ideas that conflicted with the developing Christian doctrine. For example, it introduces a unique cosmology with seven heavens and a detailed angelology that is more complex than what is found in the biblical canon. It also contains an extended narrative about the “Watchers,” a group of fallen angels who had relations with human women, a concept that is only briefly alluded to in Genesis 6.
- (❌) Extrabiblical Speculation: The Book of Enoch is filled with speculative and detailed accounts of cosmology, prophecy, and eschatology (the study of the end times). While interesting, these elaborate narratives are not found in the canonical books and were viewed as going beyond the scope of divine revelation. They contain detailed descriptions of the sun, moon, and stars, and a complex system of angelic beings that seemed more like mythological speculation than genuine prophecy.
In summary, the Book of Enoch was excluded from the Bible primarily because of its questionable authorship, late and fragmented composition, limited acceptance in the early Church, and its inclusion of theological and mythological concepts that did not align with the core doctrines of the developing biblical canon.