“... the verse regarding Enoch differs: “Enoch walked with God after he begot Methuselah 300 years,” and instead of the usual “then he died,” we find: “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him” (verses 22, 24). It appears that the Pentateuch responds here, with an ambiguous, partial concession, to a tradition of Enoch’s immortality. The avoidance of any explicit and unambiguous statement in Enoch’s story, this hesitancy, bears witness to the Pentateuch’s effort to silence the tradition of Enoch’s ascendance to heaven. But it did not eradicate it—it could not, due to the tradition’s widespread popularity. Instead, it enshrouds the tradition in ambiguity, leaving exposed only brief and equivocal references. Despite these efforts, the tradition that Enoch didn’t die continued to be told, and it found its way to the rich literature about Enoch that emerged during the Second Temple period and even to the New Testament (“By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death” [Hebrews 11:5]) ...”