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2 Enoch

Secrets of Enoch

About this book
Chapter 30

1 And then I created all the heavens, and the third day was. Tuesday. On the third day I commanded the earth to grow great and fruitful trees, and hills, and seed to sow, and I planted Paradise, and enclosed it, and placed flaming angels as armed guardians, and thus I created renewal. 2 Then evening came, and morning came, the fourth day. Wednesday. On the fourth day I commanded that there should be great lights on the heavenly circles. 3 On the first uppermost circle I placed the stars, Kruno, and on the second Aphrodit, on the third Aris, on the fifth Zeus, on the sixth Ermis, on the seventh the lesser moon, 4 and adorned it with the lesser stars. 5 And on the lower I placed the sun for the illumination of day, and the moon and stars for the illumination of night. 6 The sun, so that it would go according to each animal, twelve, and I appointed the succession of the months and their names and lives, their thunderings, and their hour-markings, how they should succeed. 7 Then evening came and morning came the fifth day. Thursday. On the fifth day I commanded the sea, that it should produce fish, and feathered birds of many varieties, and all animals creeping over the earth, moving over the earth on four legs, and soaring in the air, male and female, and every soul breathing the spirit of life. 8 And evening came, and morning came, the sixth day. Friday. On the sixth day I commanded my wisdom to create man from seven substances:⁠ one, his flesh from the earth; two, his blood from the dew; three, his eyes from the sun; four, his bones from stone; five, his intelligence from the swiftness of the angels and from cloud; six, his veins and his hair from the grass of the earth; seven, his soul from my breath and from the wind. 9 And I gave him seven natures: to the flesh, hearing, the eyes for sight, to the soul, smell, the veins for touch, the blood for taste, the bones for endurance, to the intelligence, sweetness. 10 I devised a skillful saying to express this: I created man from invisible and from visible nature, from both come his death and life and image, he knows speech like some created thing, small in greatness and again great in smallness, 11 and I placed him on earth, a second angel, honorable, great and glorious, 12 and I appointed him as ruler to rule on earth and to have my wisdom, and there was none like him on earth among all my existing creatures. 13 And I appointed him a name, from the four component parts, from east, from west, from south, from north,⁠ 14 and I appointed for him four special stars, and I called his name Adam,⁠ 15 and showed him the two ways, the light and the darkness, and I told him:⁠ 'This is good, and that is bad,' so that I might learn whether he has love toward me, or hatred, so that it would be clear which of his race love me. 16 For I have seen his nature, but he has not seen his own nature, therefore through not seeing he will sin worse, and I said: 'After sin what is there but death?' 17 And I put sleep into him and he fell asleep. And I took from him a rib, and created him a wife, 18 so that death would come to him through his wife, and I took his last word and called her name mother, that is to say, Eva.

Texts in conversation

Compare Jubilees 7:26 and 2 Enoch 30:15

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

Jubilees and 2 Enoch apply the tradition of the “two ways” from Deuteronomy to earlier figures, with Jubilees using it with Noah and 2 Enoch with Adam. Both believed that this moral choice was so important it must have existed before the Torah.

Passages

Jubilees 7:26

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
25 And the Lord destroyed everything from the surface of the earth; because of the wickedness of their deeds, and because of the blood which they had shed on the earth He destroyed everything. 26 'And we were left, I and you, my sons, and everything that entered with us into the ark, and I see your works before me that you do not walk in righteousness: for in the path of destruction you have begun to walk, and you are separating from one another, and are envious of one another, and (so it comes) that you are not in harmony, my sons, each with his brother. 27 For I see, and the demons have begun (their) deceptions against you and against your children and now I fear on your behalf, that after my death you will shed the blood of men upon the earth, and that you, too, will be destroyed from the face of the earth.
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

2 Enoch 30:15

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
14 and I appointed for him four special stars, and I called his name Adam, 15 and showed him the two ways, the light and the darkness, and I told him: 'This is good, and that is bad,' so that I might learn whether he has love toward me, or hatred, so that it would be clear which of his race love me.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

References

"... In the Book of Jubilees 7:26 it says ... The sharpness of the opposition between the good and evil way also appears in 2 Enoch (or the Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch) 30:15 ... So far, we have seen the Two Ways metaphor couched within polar tendencies of good and evil, moral and immoral qualities, and righteous and wicked people ..."
Huub van de Sandt and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Section 3: Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature 5 (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2002), 146.

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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Jubilees 7:26 and 2 Enoch 30:15

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