1 Enoch

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Chapter 35

1 And from there I went towards the west to the ends of the earth, and saw there three portals of heaven open,⁠ similar to those I had seen in the east, with the same number of portals and the same number of outlets.

Texts in conversation

Compare Job 38:19 and 1 Enoch 35:1

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

Summary

In Job, God asks whether anyone has seen the gates of darkness or knows where light resides, questions that mark the limits of human knowledge. 1 Enoch answers them, with Enoch taken to the western edge of the earth to see those gates himself.

Passages

Job 38:19

Hebrew Bible

16 Have you gone to the springs that fill the sea or walked about in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deepest darkness? 18 Have you considered the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know it all. 19 “In what direction does light reside, and darkness, where is its place, 20 that you may take them to their borders and perceive the pathways to their homes?

500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

1 Enoch 35:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

1 And from there I went towards the west to the ends of the earth, and saw there three portals of heaven open, similar to those I had seen in the east, with the same number of portals and the same number of outlets.

300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

... In this connection it seems to me important that Enoch visits some of the places that Job (chapter 38) knows he cannot. Thus, for example, in 1 Enoch 17:6-8 it is said that Enoch reaches the great darkness and goes 'where no flesh walks', that he sees the place where the waters of the deep pour out, the mouths of all the rivers and the mouth of the deep. This may be compared with Job 38:16-21: Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? ... Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness? ...

Michael A. Knibb, Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions, SVTP 22 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 108.

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

1 Enoch108 chapters

Compare Job 38:19 and 1 Enoch 35:1

Summary

Passages

Job 38:19

1 Enoch 35:1

References

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