Are the legends of Enoch actually true?  Were angel-mortal half-breeds a real piece of history?  Or is this all just fiction?  Most scholars think the book of Enoch did not exist until just a couple centuries before Christ.  The problem is, the book records events that allegedly happened more than 2,000 years earlier – at the time of the Flood, long before the book was written.  And, although the oral tradition upon which the book is based is more ancient than the book itself, still, one must consider the probability that oral tradition could have preserved Enoch's story with complete accuracy for 2,000 years, before it was finally written down.  The probability is not entirely favorable.  For this reason, it is best to use discretion when interpreting Enoch, for although the general plot of the story is well established in other ancient writings, it would be naive to accept every detail in the book as absolute fact.

     Archaeology has demonstrated that some legends from the ancient Middle East have retained the same basic plot for millennia, yet with minor changes in detail.  Perhaps the best example is the Flood story.  Archaeological excavations have uncovered layers of clay that suggest flooding occurred in Mesopotamia about the time of Noah; yet the flooding was regional, not worldwide.[1]  The Flood story is recollected in both Genesis and in the much more archaic Sumerian story of Gilgamesh.  The Gilgamesh account of the Flood starts with a man named Utnapishtim, who is warned by the god Ea that "the gods will bring a deluge."  Ea tells Utnapishtim to "take down your house and make a ship."  As in Genesis, the exact dimensions of the ship are given.  Utnapishtim recalls, "I made all the fertile animals I owned board the ship, and I made my family and kin board the ship, and I caused game animals and all the beasts of the field, together with skilled workers, to board the ship."  A massive thunderstorm poured down rain, and "people were like a school of fish in the ocean."  The storm lasted six days and six nights, and then the flood waters receded.  The ship came to land on a mountain.  Utnapishtim sent out three birds from the ship.  The third bird did not return, so he came out of the ship.  Then he made a sacrifice to the gods.  Finally, like the rainbow in Genesis, Utnapishtim states, "Just as I will not forget the lapis lazuli on my neck (i.e. – a blue-violet stone), I will not forget this day."[2] 

     The similarities with Genesis are numerous:  the divine warning, the boarding of animals, the boarding of family, the rain, the flood waters, landing on a mountain, sending out the birds, the sacrifice, and the vow never to forget – all these are found in Genesis. 

     Yet some details are different.  The hero is Utnapishtim, not Noah.  The god is Ea, not Yahweh.  Polytheism is espoused, not monotheism.  More than just one family is saved, the name of the mountain is not the same, and the vow is made on a colorful stone instead of on a rainbow.  Notwithstanding, the core plot of the story is the same as that of the Genesis Flood, despite the differences in detail. 

     The lesson to be learned from comparing Gilgamesh to Genesis is that despite roughly 1,500 of evolving oral tradition, the basic plot remained almost the same.  Minor details did change.  Memories got fuzzy over 1,500 years, especially with regard to nonessential parts of the narrative.  The theological motifs also differed.  But the sequential underpinnings of purported historical events remained surprisingly constant. 

          Therefore, if it were possible to compare the extant book of Enoch to the actual events of circa 2,500 BCE, we should expect to see a similar phenomenon.  The basic plot of the story would be confirmed to have been authentically preserved over time, but the details in the original would be somewhat different, yet not in such a way as to seriously undermine the historical reality of the story.  The theological lessons to be drawn from the story might also change.  This, I think, is the most appropriate way to view both the book of Enoch and Noah's Flood, and indeed much of ancient holy writ:  to acknowledge that the details of the legends have been altered, and that theologies have been erroneously ascribed to it; nevertheless, ancient legends from holy writ generally preserve a skeleton of constancy concerning real historical events.