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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 81

1 He said to me, 'Look closely, Enoch, at these heavenly tablets, read what is written on them, and pay attention to every detail.'⁠ 2 I examined the heavenly tablets, read everything written on them, understood it all, and read the book detailing all the actions of humankind and of all flesh that will exist on the earth for generations to come. 3 Immediately, I praised the great Lord, the King of glory, forever, for creating all the works of the world. I praised the Lord for His patience and blessed Him because of humanity. 4 Afterward, I declared, 'Blessed is the person who dies in righteousness and goodness, who has no record of unrighteousness written about them, and against whom no day of judgment will be held.' 5 The seven holy ones then took me and placed me on the earth before my home's door and said, 'Tell everything to your son Methuselah, and inform all your children that no one is righteous in the sight of the Lord,⁠ for He is their Creator. 6 'You will have one more year to live with your son, during which you must give your final instructions, teach your children, write it down for them, and bear witness to all your children; and in the second year, you will be taken from among them.'⁠ 7 'Let your heart be strong, for the righteous will share truths with the righteous; they will rejoice together, and congratulate one another.' 8 'But the sinners will perish with other sinners, and those who turn away will fall with other apostates.' 9 'And those who practice righteousness will perish because of the actions of humans and will be taken away because of the behavior of the godless.'⁠ 10 After they stopped speaking to me, I returned to my people, blessing the Lord of the world.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 81:1 and 2 Enoch 22:12

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

2 Enoch expands the idea of heavenly tablets from 1 Enoch by showing Enoch learning and writing from them in the seventh heaven. This develops an idea of divine knowledge, continuing a tradition of heavenly books based on ancient Near Eastern tradition.

Passages

1 Enoch 81:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 He said to me, 'Look closely, Enoch, at these heavenly tablets, read what is written on them, and pay attention to every detail.' 2 I examined the heavenly tablets, read everything written on them, understood it all, and read the book detailing all the actions of humankind and of all flesh that will exist on the earth for generations to come. 3 Immediately, I praised the great Lord, the King of glory, forever, for creating all the works of the world. I praised the Lord for His patience and blessed Him because of humanity.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

2 Enoch 22:12

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
11 And the Lord summoned one of his archangels named Pravuil, whose understanding was sharper and wiser than that of the other archangels, who wrote all the deeds of the Lord; 12 and the Lord said to Pravuil: 'Bring out the books from my storehouses, and a reed pen for swift writing, and give it to Enoch, and hand him the finest books, which bring comfort.'
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

References

"... Among the other notable parallels with the Astronomical Book is the theme of heavenly books, which is here situated in the seventh heaven—the location of God’s throne (2 Enoch 20:3) and the culmination of Enoch’s ascent in the short recension of 2 Enoch. There, God tells the angel Vereveil to “bring out the books from the storehouses, and give a pen to Enoch and read him the books” (2 Enoch 22:11), so that Enoch can be told “all the deeds of the Lord, the earth and the sea, and all the elements and the courses and the life, and the changes of the years and the movements of the days, and the earthly commands and instructions, and the sweet-voiced singing and the coming of the clouds and the blowing of the winds, and the Hebrew language ... everything that was appropriate to learn” (2 Enoch 23:1–2). This is said to take place in thirty days and nights of learning, and thirty days and nights of writing, and to yield 360 books. If such a description recalls the Book of the Watchers’ celebration of Enoch as “scribe of righteousness,” its language and details track even more closely with the Astronomical Book — where the process of revelation is described in totalizing terms as seeing, reading, and writing: not only is Enoch there shown heavenly cycles and heavenly tablets by the angel Uriel (1 Enoch 81:1), but he is explicitly described as stopping to write down what he has seen (1 Enoch 72:1; 74:2), so as to be able to pass his knowledge in writing to Methusaleh and future generations (1 Enoch 82:1) ..."
Annette Yoshiko Reed, “2 Enoch and the Trajectories of Jewish Cosmology: From Mesopotamian Astronomy to Greco-Egyptian Philosophy in Roman Egypt,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 22 (2014): 1–24.

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 81:1 and 2 Enoch 22:12

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