Book of Enoch

This is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic religious text. The author of this book, by tradition, is the patriarch Enoch. Enoch was the dad of Methuselah (the oldest man in the Christian & Hebrew Bible) & the great-grandpa of Noah.

The Book of Enoch has some quite unique passages on the origins of demons & the Nephilim, why some angels fell from Heaven, an explanation of why the Genesis Flood was morally necessary, & a prophetic explanation of the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah.

3 books are traditionally attributed to Enoch, including the distinct works of 2 Enoch & 3 Enoch.

1 Enoch isn’t considered to be canonical Scripture by most sects of Judaism & Christianity. Although it’s a part of the biblical canon used by the Ethiopian Jewish community, Beta Israel. As well as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church & the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

The older section of 1 Enoch is dated to circa 300-200 BCE. The latest part (Book of Parables) is probably from circa 100 BCE. It’s believed that Enoch was originally written in either Aramaic or Hebrew. The 1st languages used for Jewish texts. No Hebrew version is known to have survived.

Copies of the earlier sections of 1 Enoch were preserved in Aramaic among the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran Caves. The full Book of Enoch survives in its entirety only in the Ge’ez translation. Ge’ez is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originated from what’s known as Ethiopia & Eritrea.

The 1st part of the Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who sired angel-human hybrids called the Nephilim. The rest of the book describes Enoch’s revelations & his visits to Heaven in the form of travels, visions, & dreams.

The book consists of 5 major sections:

• The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36)
• The Book of Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-71; sometimes called the Similitudes of Enoch)
• The Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72-82; sometimes called the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries or Book of Luminaries)
• The Book of Dream Visions (I Enoch 83-90; sometimes called the Book of Dreams)
• The Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91-108)

The most extensive surviving early manuscripts of the Book of Enoch are in Ge’ez. Also, there are manuscripts used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church to prepare the deuterocanonicals from Ge’ez into the targumic Amharic in the bilingual Haile Selassie Amharic Bible.

Judging by the number of copies found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch was widely read during the Second Temple period. Today, the Ethiopian Beta Israel community of Haymanot Jews is the only Jewish group that accepts the Book of Enoch as canonical & still preserves it in its liturgical language of Ge’ez. It plays a central role in worship.

However, the Book of Enoch was excluded from both the formal canon of the Tanakh (the Jewish/Hebrew Bible) & the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament, the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew). Also from the writings known today as the Deuterocanon.

By the 5th century, the Book of Enoch was mostly excluded from Christian biblical canons. It is now regarded as Scripture only by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church & the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

The Book of Enoch was considered as Scripture in the Epistle of Barnabas & by some of the early Church Fathers (like Clement of Alexandria & Tertullian) who wrote circa 200 that the Jews had rejected the Book of Enoch because it purposely contained prophecies about Jesus.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) don’t consider 1 Enoch to be part of its standard canon. Although it believes that a purported, “original” Book of Enoch was an inspired book.

The Book of Moses (1st published the 1830s by the Mormon Church) is part of its standard works & has a section that claims to contain extracts from the “original” Book of Enoch.

This section has a number of similarities to 1 Enoch & other Enoch texts, including 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch, & The Book of Giants. The Enoch section of the Book of Moses is believed by the Church to contain extracts from “the ministry, teachings, & visions of Enoch.”

Though it doesn’t have the entire Book of Enoch itself. The Mormon Church considers the potions of the other texts that match its Enoch excerpts to be inspired while not rejecting but withholding judgment on the remainder.

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Mercy Seat

This is known in Hebrew as the kapporet.

This was the solid gold lid put on the Ark of the Covenant. It had 2 cherubim at the ends to cover & make the space in which Yahweh/God appeared & lived. It holds major significance in Judaism & minor significance in Christianity. The Ark of the Covenant is mentioned only once in the Quran.

The design of the Mercy Seat was heavily detailed in the Book of Exodus (25:17-22). The space between the 2 cherubim was considered the earthly throne of God, the place where His presence (often described the Shekinah glory), where He would live & commune/communicate with Moses.

The Ark & Mercy Seat were kept in the Holy of Holies. This was the Temple’s innermost sanctuary which was separated from the other parts of the Temple by a thick curtain called a parochet. The Holy of Holies could only be entered by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. This is the holiest day of the year in Judaism.

The ritual described, in detail, in Leviticus chapter 16. The High Priest would sprinkle the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the Mercy Seat as an atonement for the sins of his own & his family. A sacrificial goat would be for the sins of the people of Israel. This act of sprinkling the blood would be a symbolic covering of the sins of the people. This allowed for a temporary reconciliation between a holy God & His sinful creation. The blood was a substitute representing a life given in place of the lives of the people who transgressed against God’s law.

For Christians the Mercy Seat is seen as a powerful foreshadowing of Jesus. The New Testament, in Hebrews & Romans, draws a direct & profound connection between the Old Testament ritual & Jesus’ work on the cross.

Jesus on the cross was a greater atonement & the formation of a New Covenant (Hebrews 9:3-15). The continual sacrifices for sin under the Mosaic Law/Covenant became obsolete following Jesus’ one-time sacrificial death, as the Lamb of God.

The author(s) of Hebrews explains that Jesus is the ultimate High Priest (Hebrews 9:11). Unlike the Old Testament priests who HAD to offer sacrifices for sins, Jesus was without sin (or original Sin for that matter) & offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice “once for all.”

The blood of the bulls & goats could only give a temporary “covering” of sin(s) (Hebrews 10:4). Jesus’ own blood, that was shed on the cross, is presented as a perfect & final atonement. THis provides a permanent solution to the problem of sin & guilt.

At the moment of Jesus’ death, the veil of the Temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the building was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). This is understood as a symbol that the separation between God & humanity had been removed. Thus through Jesus’ sacrifice, believers now have direct access to God’s presence.

The Greek word for Mercy Seat used in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) is hilasterion. This is a term that carries the idea of an atoning sacrifice. In Romans 3:25, the Apostle Paul uses this exact word to describe Jesus: “…whom God puts forward as a propitation (or Mercy Seat) by His blood, to be received by faith.” This verse teaches that God’s righteous wrath against sin satisfied God’s justice in the Old Testament.

In this way, Jesus is seen as a fulfillment of everything the Mercy Seat represented. The place where God’s holiness & justice meet His mercy & love & the means by which humanity can be reconciled with God. The Mercy Seat was a physical representation of a spiritual truth, one that Christians believe was fully realized in the person & work of Jesus.

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