Everyone knows the Book of Revelation, with the Four Horsemen and the Great Whore of Babylon, but that’s not the only Apocalypse out there. In fact, there was a whole literary movement, Apocalyptic Literature, which flourished between 200 BC and 100 AD.
The Apocalyptists were both nihilistic (the world sucks so much that it must be destroyed…) and hopeful (… and then God will make a whole new one without those pesky sinners!). They were also incredibly devoted to measurements and calculations so they could pinpoint the exact time when this great change would occur. I know all this because I did some intensive research and… no, I actually took this from the introduction to The Book of Enoch. FYI: I’m basing this review on the Dover Publications 2007 edition, which is itself a republication of the 1917 edition published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. So, if any of this information is wrong, it’s their fault.
The parts that compose The Book of Enoch are all dated BC and there’s a Homer situation regarding who wrote it. Since Enoch was Noah’s great-grandfather, it definitely wasn’t him. The book is a mashup of different versions of the same text, some more detailed than others. When you compare them, it really feels as if someone picked up various drafts and stitched them together without bothering to edit them. Or maybe it was a To Kill a Mockingbird / Go Set a Watchman situation and the ancient translators just fucked it up because they didn’t bother establishing a clear separation between the final version and the earlier drafts. Things are made more complicated by the fact that we can’t just compare The Book of Enoch that reached modern times with the original because it’s been lost and only survived through these different, later translations. Most of the book describes Enoch’s visit to Heaven and all the secrets he was shown by the angels and God himself. There are also two fragments of The Book of Noah, which focus on the Deluge, so you get 2 Apocalypses for the price of 1! Halfway through the main story, there’s a whole section devoted to establishing the number of days per year, the duration of seasons, and the movements of the Sun and Moon, to make sure everyone was observing the religious rites on the appropriate dates (because if they weren’t, they’d be screwed come Judgement Day). These interludes of extreme boredom (though no doubt of extreme interest to historians) show up in other places in the book, but I’m just going to ignore them because I’m not here for the Astronomy.
The most well-known story in The Book of Enoch is that of the group of angels (the Watchers) who pissed off God by getting girl cooties all over their holy selves when they had children with human women. These half-human hybrids grew up to be cannibal, blood-drinking giants who started eating people after running out of regular food and may have engaged in bestiality (at least that’s what “and they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish” sounds like). As if that wasn’t bad enough, those same angels taught humans forbidden knowledge, like magic, making metal weapons, bracelets, dye fabric, and “the beautifying of the eyelids”. Makeup tutorials?! Curse you, Azâzêl! This is probably why God always mentions him by name when ordering the punishments of the Watchers (which, by the way, consist of being bound, dumped in a hole, and covered with rocks until Judgement Day, after which they’ll be chained and dumped in a fiery pit with all the human sinners for all eternity). They also showed humans how to make lead and tin, which apparently come from a fountain guarded by a pre-eminent angel. Well, he didn’t do a very good job guarding it, now did he? Anyway, this led to so much war and fornication that God had no choice but drown everyone. Frankly, I blame the eye shadow.
Enoch’s visions show him a perfect future when all that is wrong in the world has been corrected and the righteous live forever in bliss. Aw, that’s nice. But Enoch’s Apocalypse isn’t just about good people finally getting what they deserve, it’s also about punishing the wicked. In fact, like ninety percent of this book consists of promises of doom for all the sinners. He really, really, REALLY wants to see them suffer. According to Enoch, Humankind didn’t learn their lesson after they were all wiped out save for Noah and his ark. Sinners have multiplied, “content to eat and drink, and rob and sin, and strip men naked, and acquire wealth”. He doesn’t give any context to the “strip men naked” bit, which could make things difficult for married straight couples if we were dealing with those nit-picking Pharisees. Fortunately for all you heterosexual married fornicators, the Apocalyptists were more into the spirit of the law, so you’ll probably be fine. Unfortunately for all you unmarried hoes of various sexual orientations, you won’t be able to claim innocence by having the men strip themselves naked. Clearly, the only way to make things right is for God to come down to Earth, lay waste to the godless works of the sinners (such a Taliban move), build a new home for the righteous, and judge EVERYONE.
In case you’re worried that some of those “ungodly sinners” may be able to escape their godly punishment, know that the angels have been measuring everyone’s righteousness with their special ropes and keeping records of every bit of wickedness so that when it’s time for God to judge everyone, he’ll know EXACTLY who to punish. Those Apocalyptists really love their measurements and calculations, don’t they? Oh, and don’t think being dead will stop you from taking part in this, because “in those days shall the earth also give back that which has been entrusted to it” (oho, zombies!). Enoch also encourages the righteous to snitch on the sinners. As for those gentiles who aren’t that bad, they’ll be fine if they convert. And what kind of punishment does God have in mind for the sinners? Well, it’s mostly a generic throw them into a fiery pit, but there are some specific details sprinkled here and there.
Enoch states more than once that the mighty and powerful sinners will be handed over to the righteous for a little good, old-fashioned lynching: “know that ye shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous, and they shall cut off your necks and slay you, and have no mercy upon you”. It’s important that the sinners see everything they got in life destroyed and it’s important that the righteous witness that. Who doesn’t like a little schadenfreude? We’re also told that it’s not just the sinners who are going to die, but their children, too, which sounds a little bit genocidal. At one point, Enoch sees the “angels of punishment (…) preparing all the instruments of Satan (…) for the kings and the mighty of this earth, that they may be destroyed”. He doesn’t give us a full description of these instruments, but they’re likely quite pointy.
Since this book is pre-Christian, there’s no Jesus. Instead, there’s the Son of Man, who was chosen by God to do his work. And what is this Son of Man going to do? Basically, upend the unjust social order and “break the teeth of the sinners”, which weirdly sounds more aggressive than the usual smiting. It also makes him more relatable than Jesus, with his special heritage. Not everyone can be the Son of God, but everyone can break some teeth. In fact, the Apocalypse in The Book of Enoch is a mixture of the divine and the mundane. God coming down to Earth with his army of angels is needed for the global destruction of cities, but not for unseating the powerful. The French and Russian revolution proved that, as did Cromwell in England. Angry peasants storming the czar’s palace even seemed to be a regular occurrence in Russia before the monarchy became more stable. Of course, at the time this book was written, the situation might’ve seem more desperate, but the insistence in having the mighty being handed over to the righteous brings to mind a simple angry mob rather than some magnificent holy judgement.
Enoch describes the Heaven in great, very repetitive detail. There are many fragrant trees and mountains behind mountains leading to other mountains and look, even more mountains. There’s also fire. Lots and lots of fire: “flames of fire”, “flaming fire”, “tongues of fire”, “streams of flaming fire”, “a great fire”, “river of fire”, “a burning fire”, “a mountain range of fire”. That’s a suspiciously high amount of fire for Heaven. Are we sure Enoch didn't end up somewhere else? You know, somewhere considerably warmer?
And now for that part of the book that more than any other will make you wonder how faithful are the translations that made it to modern times: The Second Dream-Vision of Enoch: the History of the World to the Founding of the Messianic Kingdom. If you wanted to read the Zootopia version of the story of the Watchers, you got it. Bulls and cows lived peacefully, until stars fell from the sky and started to infiltrate the herds: “and they became bulls amongst those cattle (…) and behold they all let out their privy members, like horses, and began to cover the cows”. Later, four beings came from Heaven and “gathered and took all the great stars whose privy members were like those of horses, and bound them all hand and foot, and cast them in an abyss of the earth”. Anyone disappointed that there isn’t a third version combining the two because they were hoping for some horse dick bulls/human women interspecies naughtiness should probably pay a visit to Amazon’s taboo erotica section. There’s no way at least one person didn’t think of that already. After the Deluge, the bulls are replaced by sheep, and we’re treated to an ovine version of Jewish history. It’s a succession of woolly flocks being led astray or done wrong and later finding the right path or being avenged somehow.
So, this is the END… of this post. I hope ye have been steadfast and done the commandments of the Lord, instead of drinking wine in large bowls, practicing reproaches and wickedness, or worse, fulminating anathemas which cannot be reversed. Otherwise, come Judgement Day, ye will have to deal with the angels of punishment and the pointy instruments of Satan, which doesn’t sound very pleasant.
By Danforth