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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 46

1 And there I saw One who had a head of days, and His head was white like wool. With Him was another being who had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels.⁠ 2 And I asked the angel who accompanied me and showed me all the hidden things, about that Son of Man, who he was, where he was from, and why he accompanied the Head of Days? 3 The angel answered and said to me: 'This is the Son of Man who possesses righteousness, with whom righteousness dwells, and who reveals all the hidden treasures, because the Lord of Spirits has chosen him, and his status is foremost before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness forever.'⁠ 4 'And this Son of Man whom you have seen will raise up the kings and the mighty from their seats, and the strong from their thrones, will loosen the reins of the strong, and break the teeth of the sinners.'⁠ 5 'And he shall depose the kings from their thrones and kingdoms because they do not praise and honor Him, nor humbly acknowledge where the kingdom was bestowed upon them.' 6 'And he shall humble the faces of the strong, and fill them with shame. And darkness shall be their dwelling, and worms shall be their bed, and they shall have no hope of rising from their beds, because they do not praise the name of the Lord of Spirits.' 7 'And these are those who judge the stars of heaven, and raise their hands against the Most High, and tread upon the earth and dwell upon it. And all their deeds manifest unrighteousness, and their power rests on their riches, and their faith is in the gods which they have made with their hands, and they deny the name of the Lord of Spirits.' 8 'And they persecute the houses of His congregations, and the faithful who depend on the name of the Lord of Spirits.'⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 46:1 and Revelation 1:13

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

Revelation describes Jesus as a shining figure whose hair is white like wool, resembling 1 Enoch 46 where the Head of Days is described with similar features. Both follow a Jewish apocalyptic tradition based on texts like Ezekiel and Daniel.

Passages

1 Enoch 46:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And there I saw One who had a head of days, and His head was white like wool. With Him was another being who had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels. 2 And I asked the angel who accompanied me and showed me all the hidden things, about that Son of Man, who he was, where he was from, and why he accompanied the Head of Days? 3 The angel answered and said to me: 'This is the Son of Man who possesses righteousness, with whom righteousness dwells, and who reveals all the hidden treasures, because the Lord of Spirits has chosen him, and his status is foremost before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness forever.'
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Revelation 1:13

New Testament
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day when I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 11 saying: “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches—to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.” 12 I turned to see whose voice was speaking to me, and when I did so, I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands was one like a son of man. He was dressed in a robe extending down to his feet, and he wore a wide golden belt around his chest. 14 His head and hair were as white as wool, even as white as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. 15 His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His face shone like the sun shining at full strength.
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... It is necessary to pay close attention to the movement of this short but absolutely crucial text, for it enables us to see in microcosm the way that the simile becomes a Redeemer. We can observe three syntactically and semantically differing usages of the term and concept, “Son of Man”, in the space of three sentences. The first two sentences are simply a gloss, or even midrash, on our Daniel text, 7:9, 10, 13. There are here, just as in Daniel and in almost the same wording, two divine figures, one again who is ancient and one who has the appearance of a man, the appearance of a “son of man”, a young man, according to my hypothesis. Enoch feels a necessity to understand this appearance. It is clear that he knows exactly who the “Head of Days” is but wonders who is that Son of Man ... The text goes on to describe the messianic and other activities and traits of the Son of Man, activities and traits that draw, as we shall see, from several aspects of biblical tradition, and which are familiar from the figure of Jesus as well. This Son of Man text is, however, typologically earlier than the Gospels in that the close connection with the exegetical source in Daniel is maintained throughout. Let me make clear what I mean by this by citing another clear and well-known example: In the canonical book of Revelation 1:12-14 ... Note that for the writer of Revelation, as in the book of Daniel itself, “One Like a Son of Man” is merely a simile, a figure of speech to indicate the countenance of a divine figure. The book of Revelation is almost certainly chronologically later than the canonical Gospels, but in its use of the Daniel passage here, it is closer to the original ..."
Daniel Boyarin, “How Enoch Can Teach Us about Jesus,” 2.1 (2011): 58–60.

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 46:1 and Revelation 1:13

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