The first comprehensive examination of the Book of Enoch and its prophecies, origins, and history

• Examines in depth Enoch’s full story of the Watchers, the fallen angels who came to Earth and shared corrupting forbidden knowledge

• Explores how Enoch was a vital component of Second Temple messianic Judaism, speculative Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, and Gnostic mythology

• Investigates the entire history of the Book of Enoch and its important esoteric offshoots, including the later 2 Enoch (the Slavonic “Book of the Secrets of Enoch”) and the so-called Hebrew “Book of Enoch” (3 Enoch)

Said to have been written by the prophet Enoch, great-grandfather of Noah, the first Book of Enoch disappeared for many centuries, except for one place: the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which held it as canonical.

Revealing the profound influence of Enoch on world thought over the past two thousand years, Tobias Churton investigates the entire history of the Book of Enoch and its important esoteric offshoots, including the later Enoch II (the Slavonic “Book of the Secrets of Enoch”) and the so-called Hebrew “Book of Enoch” (Enoch III). He explains how Enoch was taken to heaven where he received personal instruction from God and examines in depth Enoch’s full story of the Watchers, the fallen angels who came to Earth and shared corrupting forbidden knowledge. He explains how the Enoch tradition was a vital component of Second Temple messianic Judaism and speculative Jewish mysticism, playing a key role in the development of both the Kabbalah and Gnostic mythology. He also shows how Enoch is a key figure in Western esoteric traditions.

Informed by up-to-date studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Churton provides the first comprehensive examination of the Book of Enoch, clarifying and refuting many errors of understanding about Enoch’s apocalyptic and sometimes sensational prophecies.