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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 55

1 After that, the Head of Days felt remorse and said:⁠ 'In vain have I destroyed all who dwell on the earth.'⁠ 2 He swore by His great name: 'From now on, I will not act this way towards all who dwell on the earth, and I will set a sign in the heavens: and this will be a pledge of good faith between Me and them forever, as long as heaven is above the earth. This is according to My command.' 3 Whenever I wish to take hold of them by the hand of the angels on the day of trouble and pain, because of this, I will make My punishment and My anger rest upon them, says God, the Lord of Spirits. 4 You mighty kings who dwell on the earth, you will witness My Chosen One, how he sits on the throne of glory and judges Azâzêl, and all his companions, and all his armies in the name of the Lord of Spirits.'

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 8:22 and 1 Enoch 55:1

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

1 Enoch 55 combines the Genesis 8 post-flood response with the divine regret of Genesis 6, placing that regret after the flood. This change resembles Mesopotamian flood traditions and moves the divine sorrow from the cause of judgment to its aftermath.

Passages

Genesis 8:22

Hebrew Bible
20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done. 22 “While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

1 Enoch 55:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 After that, the Head of Days felt remorse and said: 'In vain have I destroyed all who dwell on the earth.' 2 He swore by His great name: 'From now on, I will not act this way towards all who dwell on the earth, and I will set a sign in the heavens: and this will be a pledge of good faith between Me and them forever, as long as heaven is above the earth. This is according to My command.'
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

"... Other passages in 1 Enoch that refer to the Flood Narrative confirm this pattern. They are found in the second part, the first-century BCE “Book of the Parables” (1 Enoch 37–71), and in the second-century BCE “Dream Visions” (1 Enoch 83–90). One passage presents an interpolation describing the obliteration of all who dwell on earth by opening the chambers of the male waters above heaven and the female waters beneath the earth (1 Enoch 54:1–55:2). The cosmological distinction in gender most likely refers to the sons of God (in heaven) and the daughters of men (on earth) in Genesis 6:1–4. A remarkable feature in this passage is the divine response to this destruction. The “Head of Days” repents, saying: “In vain have I destroyed all who dwell on earth” (1 Enoch 55:1). This verse changes the image of God in the Flood Narrative by combining Genesis 8:20–21 and 9:11 with the divine pain and regret in response to the propagation of human violence in Genesis 6:6. If 1 Enoch no longer holds human beings fully accountable for the violence on earth, one might ask why humankind as a whole was obliterated. The fact that the divine regret comes after the flood – in some way resembling the divine reaction to the deluge in the Mesopotamian flood traditions – answers this question ..."
Koert van Bekkum, “Violence in the Flood Narrative: Text and Reception,” in Violence in the Hebrew Bible: Between Text and Reception, ed. J. van Ruiten and K. van Bekkum (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 67–96.

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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Genesis 8:22 and 1 Enoch 55:1

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