Book of Enoch and Noah
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Book Of Enoch And Noah ‘Enoch lived three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him’ (Genesis 5:23 & 24). ‘By faith, Enoch was taken so he would not see death, and he was not found (on earth) because God translated him. Enoch has the testimony given to him, before his translation he had been well pleasing to God’ (Hebrews 11:5). ‘Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying, "Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the blasphemous things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him’” (Jude 1:14 & 15). This quote in Jude was a prophecy written by Enoch about the final judgement of all mankind. About 300 BC, the Jewish group called the Sadducees removed from the Tenach (Old Testament), the Book of Enoch. During that time, much of the Old Testament was translated into Greek for the Greek-speaking Jews. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection or life after death (Matthew 22:23; Luke 20:27), putting the Sadducees at odds with the prophets, because the Book of Enoch majors on the Godly being resurrected to eternal life with God, and the ungodly being resurrected to damnation, as is also written in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 12:2). Jesus warned the Jewish people living in His day, not to accept the wrong teaching, or the ‘leaven’ preached by the Sadducees (Matthew 16:6). The Pharisees and the Jewish group called the Essenes, from where Yeshua (Jesus) came from, continued to use the Book of Enoch. The Essenes were the people who hid the ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ in caves where the Book of Enoch was uncovered last century. Yeshua, the Apostles and other disciples read the Book of Enoch and frequently quoted from it, as we can read in the above verses written by Jude, who was a half-brother of Yeshua (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3). When the Tenach (Old Testament) and the B’rit Hadashah (New Testament) were being translated from Hebrew to Greek during the days of Constantine (circa 300 AD), the two books were re-named Byblos meaning ‘the Book’, from where we now have the word Bible. The ‘church fathers’ wanted to completely omit the Book of Enoch, the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation from the Bible, because the ‘church fathers’ believed these three books were too deeply spiritual in a time when the church was spiritually dying and the church had turned against the Jewish believers, ostracising them and persecuting them, even sometimes murdering them as anti-Semitism swept the earth. Just as the translators divided up the Bible into chapter and verse, so they also divided up the Book of Enoch into chapter and verse before they omitted it from the Bible. The Lord must have wanted the book written by Enoch to be read by His people because quite miraculously, it has been preserved intact and it can be read today. It was the very first book of the Bible written by Enoch and Noah for future generations. It was written long before Moses wrote Genesis. The Book of Enoch is quoted throughout the Bible. The Prophets, Yeshua and all the apostles quoted Enoch. King David was inspired to write many Psalms based on the written words of Enoch. Solomon quoted Enoch in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Many verses in the Bible are quotes or experiences taken from the Book of Enoch and Noah. Like the Books of Ezekiel and Revelation, much of the Book of Enoch is a deeply spiritual book. Enoch was alive during the very beginning of mankind when it was still quite normal for angels to walk on earth with people; he was alive before the wickedness on the earth brought about Noah’s flood. Enoch prophesied about Messiah Yeshua, calling Him King of kings and Lord of lords. To remove such an important book from the Holy Scriptures was perfidious. This is a modern English translation of the Book of Enoch, showing some of Enoch’s words quoted in the Bible by Yeshua, the prophets and apostles, plus the many parallels between the experiences of Enoch and what the prophets and apostles experienced, presented in brackets ( ). Enoch’s visions of his travels were a divine revelation from God just as the visions written by the prophets and apostles were divine revelations. During his visions, the Prophet Daniel was often with the angel Gabriel who looked remarkably like a man (Daniel 8:15 & 16). Apostle Paul did not know if what he saw was a vision or if he was really in heaven (2 Corinthians 12:1 to 4). Apostle John knew he was ‘in the Spirit’ when he saw his visions and he was accompanied by holy angels (Revelation 1:10). Enoch was shown visions of the future of the earth that would be taking place after Noah’s flood changed the earth forever. The flood is our ancient history, but for Enoch, the flood was in the future. We need to keep in mind as we read the Book of Enoch, when Enoch wrote his book the earth was still a perfect setting with a heavy mist watering the whole earth each night (Genesis 2:6), with the perfect amount of sunshine, night and daylight. The whole earth was covered with thick vegetation. There were waterfalls, pristine streams and rivers. It was the time before rain, storms, strong winds, dark freezing winters, snow or hail, before earthquakes shook the ground and before volcanoes rose to the surface. The only lava flows were underground. Enoch describes lava flows like ‘a river of fire from where the fire flows like water and discharges itself into the sea’. It was the time before animals became carnivorous. There was enough protein in some vegetation so animals did not need to kill for food. No animals were at that time toxic, aggressive or poisonous. No plants were toxic, poisonous or harmful. Alcohol as a drink did not exist. The earth was so perfect, fermentation could not happen and was only discovered by Noah by chance when he accidentally drank too much fermented wine and became drunk (Genesis 9:20 & 21) and that could not have happened before the flood changed the earth. Enoch saw ‘great beasts’ or what we now call dinosaurs and a vast array of bird life. Some of the larger beasts that now live in the oceans once roamed the earth but after the flood, they could no longer live on land, as we will read later in Enoch’s book. Although many hundreds of species of animals and birds were rescued in the Ark, they became extinct after the flood because the earth changed too much for them to survive. Although there was sin, before the flood came the earth itself was still perfect. Enoch marvelled at the beauty of creation. He praised and blessed the Lord for all the things He has done on earth to make it suitable for mankind. Through a vision, Enoch saw the earth as it would be after the flood and he was horrified at what he saw. Enoch was seeing into the future; into the time after Noah’s flood that caused the earth to reel off it’s perfect axis, which caused the whole structure of the earth to change to what we have now. The earth’s current weather patterns and many other situations did not yet exist, and only came to pass after the earth was flooded, but through divine revelation Enoch was able to describe in much detail, the earth in the altered state it became after the flood. Enoch described the world in its pristine condition as it was before sin and before the flood. He was able to describe the new heaven and the new earth the Lord promised to create (Isaiah 65:17) to replace this earth because it has been so defiled by sin and death (Isaiah 24:1 to 6, 19 & 20). When Enoch walked ‘through’ the earth it is possible he walked safely through a huge cave and came out the other end of the cave into a forest, as he describes during his journeys. He was always accompanied by several angels, which was normal for that time in history. Enoch describes the Garden of Eden long after Adam and Eve were evicted, when they were aged but still living. At the time Enoch was shown the overgrown Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve would have been about six hundred years old. Enoch often wrote about going to the ‘ends of the earth’, meaning he travelled beyond the place that had been an horizon landmark when he began walking. Some of his journeys may have been real travels and some may have been visions but the spiritual content of Enoch’s pilgrimage journeys is unmistakable. Enoch had experiences many of us can only dream about. He was truly a remarkable, righteous and devoted man of God. One year before Enoch was taken to heaven, he was instructed to write down everything he had been shown in visions and in reality, for future generations. Enoch was shown the Ten Commandments written on ‘heavenly tablets’ hundreds of year before Moses was born. Enoch’s book was taken on the Ark with Noah. This book reveals the loving closeness of the family of Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah.