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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 104

1 I swear to you, that in heaven the angels remember you for good before the glory of the Great One: and your names are written before the glory of the Great One.⁠ 2 Be hopeful; for previously you were shamed through suffering and affliction; but now you shall shine as the lights of heaven,⁠ you shall shine and you shall be seen, and the portals of heaven shall be opened to you.⁠ 3 And in your cry, cry for judgment, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited on the rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you. 4 Be hopeful, and do not cast away your hopes for you shall have great joy as the angels of heaven. 5 What shall you be obliged to do? You shall not have to hide on the day of the great judgment and you shall not be found as sinners, and the eternal judgment shall be far from you for all the generations of the world. 6 And now, do not fear, you righteous, when you see the sinners growing strong and prospering in their ways: do not be companions with them, but stay away from their violence; for you shall become companions of the armies of heaven. 7 And, although you sinners say: 'All our sins shall not be searched out and written down,' nevertheless, all your sins shall be recorded every day. 8 And now I show you that light and darkness, day and night, see all your sins. 9 Don't be godless in your hearts, and do not lie nor alter the words of uprightness,⁠ nor charge with lying the words of the Holy Great One, nor take account of your idols; for all your lying and all your godlessness do not result in righteousness but in great sin.⁠ 10 And now I know this mystery, that sinners will alter and pervert the words of righteousness in many ways, and will speak wicked words, and lie, and practice great deceits, and write books concerning their words. 11 But when they write down truthfully all my words in their languages, and do not change or diminish anything from my words but write them all down truthfully - all that I first testified concerning them. 12 Then, I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. 13 And to them the books will be given, and they will believe in them and rejoice over them, and then all the righteous who have learned from all the paths of uprightness will be recompensed.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 104:2 and Daniel 12:3

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Daniel 12 describes the wise shining like the brightness of the stars, a theme echoed in 1 Enoch 104, which also describes the righteous shining with the stars. Both build on traditions based on the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East.

Passages

1 Enoch 104:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 I swear to you, that in heaven the angels remember you for good before the glory of the Great One: and your names are written before the glory of the Great One. 2 Be hopeful; for previously you were shamed through suffering and affliction; but now you shall shine as the lights of heaven, you shall shine and you shall be seen, and the portals of heaven shall be opened to you. 3 And in your cry, cry for judgment, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited on the rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Daniel 12:3

Hebrew Bible
1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who watches over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress unlike any other from the nation’s beginning up to that time. But at that time your own people, all those whose names are found written in the book, will escape. 2 Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake—some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence. 3 But the wise will shine like the brightness of the heavenly expanse. And those bringing many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever.
200–101 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Daniel

References

"... The idea that human beings can be transported to the world of the gods is an ancient one, in the Near East as well as in Greece. One can think, for example, of Utnapishtim in Mesopotamia, or of Enoch and Elijah in the biblical tradition. In ancient Israel, however, such exaltation was exceptional. It is only at the end of the biblical period that the idea takes hold that righteous human beings, or at least righteous Israelites, would join the heavenly host after death. In Jewish tradition, this belief is first attested in the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Enoch, in the early second century BCE ..."
John J. Collins, "The Angelic Life" in Seim, Turid Karlsen and Økland, Jorunn. Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 291.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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1 Enoch 104:2 and Daniel 12:3

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