We have seen how the Biblical book of Enoch tells us that evolution happened by means of fallen angels, or aliens, who bred with animals, and of how other ancient Christian texts tell the same story.

     Some may ask, if Enoch was such a great book, then why isn't it in the Bible today?  There must be a reason why the churches ultimately rejected it, right?

     Actually, Enoch still is in the Bible.  The Ethiopian Christians still hold Enoch sacred.  This is a crucial point, because Ethiopian Christianity traces its roots to apostolic times, and it was relatively free from the pagan influences which adulterated Christian tradition within the Roman Empire.  Since Ethiopia was never part of the Roman Empire, Constantine’s mixing of pagan sun worship with Christianity never had an impact on the development of the faith.  Therefore, Ethiopian Christianity is more trustworthy than Roman Christianity.  Ethiopia accepts Enoch, so Christians outside Ethiopia should accept Enoch too.

     Now, for why it was rejected:  The Old Testament in most modern-day Bibles contains the same scriptures as the Jewish Bible.  Although the books are arranged in different order, nothing is lacking in one that is in the other, so they may be considered essentially the same.  Why are they the same?  During the Protestant Reformation, Luther argued that no scripture should be permitted into the Old Testament unless the Jews included it in their Bible.  That is why the Jewish Bible and the Protestant Old Testament include the same books.

     But the Jewish Bible was not finalized until sixty years after Christ, at the Council of Jamnia about 90 AD.  Moreover, Jamnia was a council that was dominated by Pharisees – a sect which Jesus Christ did not particularly care for.  Consequently, there is no reason to assume that Jesus Christ would have agreed with the council's decision.  On the contrary, there is every reason to believe Jesus would have protested Jamnia, and therefore, Jesus would also protest the contents of the Old Testament if he were here today. 

     Prior to Jamnia, there was widespread disagreement among Jews about which books should be in the Bible.  The Sadducees only accepted the first five books.  The Pharisees of Palestine may have accepted a canon similar to the Old Testament of today.  The Greek speaking Jews of the Diaspora accepted a larger Old Testament called the Septuagint, which contained more books.  Some of these books made it into the deuterocanon, also called the apocrypha, which Catholic and Orthodox Christians accept but Protestants do not.  The Essenes, as we saw earlier, had still another canon, which contained Enoch and Jubilees.  Consequently, it is superfluous to argue that we cannot accept Enoch just because it is not in our Bible today.

     Which of these Bibles would Jesus have been most likely to accept?  Jesus had ties to the Essene community who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls; therefore he would have been most likely to choose the Essene canon, thereby including Enoch and Jubilees in the Bible.  There is no reason to think he would accept the Catholic/Greek Old Testament, because Jesus was not a Greek Jew, and he never made any statements suggesting he favored Greek Judaism over Palestinian Judaism.  Neither would he have accepted the Protestant Old Testament, because it is based on the Council of Jamnia, which was a council of Pharisees.

     Besides this, the early Christians supported the canonization of Enoch despite Jewish rejection of it.  Early 3^rd century Christian writer Tertullian commented on the Jews rejection of Enoch as follows,

 

Since Enoch, in the same Scripture, also taught about the Lord, then it should not be rejected by us… but it appears that the Jews rejected it specifically for that reason, just like they do almost every other part that foretells Christ.[1] 

 

Indeed, it is true that the Jews corrupted their own scriptures to take Jesus out of the Old Testament.  One example is Psalm 22:16.  It reads "They pierced my hands and my feet."  That is what the Septuagint and Syriac versions say.  Christians take this as a prophecy about the crucifixion of Christ.  But the Jewish Bibles say "Like the lion my hands and my feet."  Which is correct?  To answer the question, we should look to the oldest manuscript evidence, which is the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Dead Sea Scrolls favor the Christian version.

     According to this line of thinking, the Council of Jamnia was in error because it allowed an anti-Christian prejudice to influence the decision regarding Enoch’s canonicity.  If this is the case, then Luther was certainly wrong in allowing Jamnia to decide his Old Testament canon.

     Another reason for why Enoch was rejected from the canon is because later church leaders found the story of angels having sex with humans too fantastic.  Julius Africanus was one of the first to reinterpret Genesis 6 and thus cast a shadow over Enoch.  Around 245 AD, he said,

 

In my opinion, what the Spirit is trying to tell us is that the descendents of Seth are the sons of God because of the godly men and patriarchs who descended from them, all the way down to the Savior himself, and that the descendents of Cain are the spawn of men and have nothing from God in them.[2] 

 

At the beginning of the dark ages, this interpretation regarding the good sons of Seth versus the evil sons of Cain became quite popular, thanks to revisionist theologians like Jerome.  Popular literature such as The Life of Adam & Eve also promoted the sons of Seth versus the sons of Cain opinion.[3]  Although The Life of Adam & Eve may go back to the 1^st century BC, it is obviously fictional and contains so many variant readings between copies that it cannot be trusted.  No ancient Christian canon list included it. 

     The book of Enoch was ultimately rejected in 364 AD at the Council of Laodicea.  The fact that this act of betrayal against the earlier traditions happened in the church of Laodicea is stunningly prophetic, for the Prophet of Revelation has more harsh words for Laodicea than any other church in Asia,

 

I will spit you out of my mouth… You are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked… be zealous, therefore, and repent.[4]

 

Discontented by this critique of their town, Laodicea tried to remove Revelation from the Bible too, in addition to Enoch, but the Council of Carthage superceded them.  Should we allow these Laodicean heretics to have the final say on Enoch?  More and more Christians are saying No!