Does this mean you support canonization of Enoch?• The Essenes were a Jewish sect that existed before Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
• Fragments of The Book of Enoch were found with The Dead Sea Scrolls:
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/scr3.html
• Church Father Quotes about The Book of Enoch:
• Tertullian, an early church father and founder of Latin Christianity, wrote a few positive things concerning the Book of Enoch. Tertulian writes as follows in his 2nd century work, On the Apparel of Women I 3:1-3.
“I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has ***igned this order of action to angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either. I suppose they did not think that, having been published before the deluge, it could have safely survived that world-wide calamity, the abolisher of all things. If that is the reason for rejecting it, let them recall to their memory that Noah, the survivor of the deluge, was the great-grandson of Enoch himself; and he, of course, had heard and remembered, from domestic renown and hereditary tradition, concerning his own great-grandfather’s ‘grace in the sight of God,’ (Genesis 6:8) and concerning all his preachings; since Enoch had given no other charge to Methuselah than that he should hand on the knowledge of them to his posterity. Noah therefore, no doubt, might have succeeded in the trusteeship of his preaching; or, had the case been otherwise, he would not have been silent alike concerning the disposition of things made by God, his Preserver, and concerning the particular glory of his own house.
“If Noah had not had this conservative power by so short a route, there would still be this consideration to warrant our ***ertion of the genuineness of this Scripture: he could equally have renewed it, under the Spirit’s inspiration, after it had been destroyed by the violence of the deluge, as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of it, every document of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been restored through Ezra.
“But since Enoch in the same Scripture has preached likewise concerning the Lord, nothing at all must be rejected by us which pertains to us; and we read that ‘every Scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired.’ (2 Timothy 3:16) By the Jews it may now seem to have been rejected for that very reason, just like all the other portions nearly which tell of Christ. Nor, of course, is this fact wonderful, that they did not receive some Scriptures which spake of Him whom even in person, speaking in their presence, they were not to receive. To these considerations is added the fact that Enoch possesses a testimony in the Apostle Jude.” (Jude 1:14-15)
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0402.htm
http://torahdrivenlife.com/articles/...book-of-enoch/
Why I do not support canonization:
1. Enoch is clearly post-exilic in text style; my sources put the writing at about 150 BC. Wikipedia states "although modern scholars estimate the older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) to date from about 300 BC, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably to the first century BC."
2. Enoch is called pseudoepigrapha because the writer is not Enoch, but claims to be.
3. Gen. 6:4 says "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." which clearly indicates that since the giants (nephilim) were there before the event, they could not have been the offspring of that union. Therefore, the basis of the nephilim origin in Enoch is not Biblical.
4. There are indications within Enoch that imply its fictional nature, such as: (1) Giants 3000 els in height, which would put them 4500 ft. tall. (2) he saw a vision in the land of Dan, which didn't exist until about 1500 years after Enoch.
5. The idea of a union between angels and women is problematic in scriptures such as Mat. 22:30 and Heb. 1:5.
Some people claim that Jude quoted Enoch, and therefore validates Enoch as canon. I differ with this, as Jude may have quoted an oral tradition as an original source, which could have been the same oral tradition that the writer of Enoch quoted. Some false writings do the same in an attempt to validate themselves. Even if Jude paid attention to the Enoch quote in the book of Enoch (as it stands today), it does not necessarily validate Enoch as canon, because truth can be quoted from fiction material and still be truth. I'll bet I can get some good truth quotes from Moby Dich.
TD