Enoch in Jubilees (& Beyond)

The Genealogy of Adam

A week or so ago we had our first look at Enoch in the book of Jubilees. We saw there, in James Kugel’s translation from Outside the Bible (do explore the “Excerpt and Resources” on that page):

^{Jubilees 4:17} This one was the first who learned writing and knowledge and wisdom,* from (among) the sons of men, from (among) those who were born upon earth.

Shortly after that, we encountered Enoch the Sage. A sage is a חכם ḥakham, and what a ḥakham has is חכמה ḥokhma ‘wisdom’. So now let’s follow that asterisk from Jub 4:17 into Kugel’s notes:

“This one” refers to Enoch. Mentioned in passing in Gen. 5:18–24, he became the subject of much speculation in Second Temple times. Because of the phrase “for God had taken him,” this biblical passage suggested to some that Enoch had ascended to heaven while yet alive, where he continued to live eternally next to God’s heavenly throne. As a result of this tradition, a number of books containing Mesopotamian science and lore were attributed to Enoch’s authorship (as a resident of heaven, he must have been privy to many secrets hidden from ordinary humans’ eyes), including the various parts of our current 1 Enoch.

If we continue looking through Jubilees after Enoch marries and fathers Methuselah, we find this:

²¹And he was therefore with the angels of God six jubilees of years. And they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, the dominion of the sun.* And he wrote everything, ²²and bore witness to the Watchers, the ones who sinned with the daughters of men because they began to mingle themselves with the daughters of men so that they might be polluted. And Enoch bore witness against all of them.