The Book of Enoch was not written by one identifiable author. Tradition attributes it to Enoch, the ancient patriarch named in Genesis; historical-critical scholarship understands 1 Enoch as a collection of writings by multiple unknown authors, composed over time and placed under Enoch’s literary authority.
Why is the Book of Enoch attributed to Enoch?
Enoch is the work’s central voice and source of authority: the collection presents its revelations and visions as his. That traditional attribution is different from a historical claim that the biblical patriarch personally wrote the surviving book. Scholars infer multiple authors because 1 Enoch brings together distinct compositions rather than reading as a single work written at one time.
Encyclopaedia Iranica describes at least five separate compositions loosely joined in the received work; a Brigham Young University overview likewise treats it as composite. The individual authors are not identified by the evidence cited in those accounts. There is no established single writer to name, nor a sufficiently supported editorial history to explain exactly who assembled the sections and when.
What are the five parts of 1 Enoch?
The familiar outline divides 1 Enoch into five major sections. The order in the book is not a chronology of composition.
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| Section | Chapters | What can be said about its date |
|---|---|---|
| Book of the Watchers | 1–36 | Among the collection’s earlier sections; the BYU overview places the earliest sections in third-century BCE Palestine. |
| Book of Parables, or Similitudes | 37–71 | Its narrower dating is not settled by the cited overviews. |
| Astronomical Book, or Book of the Luminaries | 72–82 | One of the constituent compositions; the broad third-century BCE date applies to the earliest sections, not necessarily to every chapter. |
| Book of Dreams | 83–90 | A distinct section; the cited overview does not give it a precise date. |
| Epistle of Enoch | 91–108 | The BYU overview places the latest section or sections before or during the first century CE, without assigning that range precisely to this section alone. |
These dates are broad estimates for parts of a collection, not one composition date for the whole book. The Parables’ dating in particular remains unsettled in the accounts cited here.
When was the Book of Enoch written?
There is no single date because the sections were composed separately. The BYU overview places the earliest sections in third-century BCE Palestine and the latest before or during the first century CE. The present arrangement of the sections is not chronological.
A date assigned to a surviving manuscript is a different kind of evidence: it indicates that a text or form of the text existed by the time the manuscript was copied, not necessarily when its section was first composed. Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that some Aramaic Qumran manuscripts are reported to date to the third or even fourth century BCE. That evidence helps establish the early circulation of Enochic writings, but it does not by itself date every section’s original composition.
What language was 1 Enoch written in, and what survives?
The complete surviving text of 1 Enoch is in Ethiopic (Ge’ez), but it is not the earliest textual witness. Fragments in Aramaic among the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with Greek fragments, preserve earlier evidence. Encyclopaedia Iranica also notes Syriac and Latin fragments.
The BYU overview describes the scholarly reconstruction that the components were probably composed in Aramaic, translated into Greek, and then into Ethiopic. This is a reconstruction of transmission, not a complete original manuscript that survives today. The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve fragments from most sections; they do not contain a complete copy of the Ethiopic collection.
Is 1 Enoch the same as the other books of Enoch?
No. “1 Enoch,” also called the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, is distinct from 2 Enoch. Encyclopaedia Iranica treats them as separate surviving works and notes that “3 Enoch” is a modern misnomer. The title “Book of Enoch” can therefore be ambiguous unless it specifies which work is meant.
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Why is the Book of Enoch not in most Bibles?
Canon—the list of books a religious community recognizes as scripture—differs among traditions. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church includes Enoch in its Old Testament canon; its official canon page lists the book and describes the Ethiopic tradition’s preservation of it. That establishes the church’s position, not a universal one: other Jewish and Christian traditions have different canons.
The text was known in early Jewish and Christian settings. The BYU overview notes that the New Testament letter of Jude uses material from 1 Enoch 1:9. Its influence and its presence in one community’s canon do not mean every tradition adopted it, and the sources cited here do not support a simple explanation in which one council or event alone determined its reception.
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