See my previous articles Did the prophet Enoch write the Book of Enoch? and 1, 2, 3 Books of Enoch and Methuselah. As well as my Book of Enoch in the early church articles part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
Regarding the building of Noah’s ark, the Bible tells us that it was, in fact, Noah who built it:
“Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch”…Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did…Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made (Genesis 6:14, 22, 8:6).
By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith (Hebrews 11:7).
Yet, 1 Enoch 67:1-3 states:
And in those days the word of God came unto me, and He said unto me: “Noah, thy lot has come up before Me, a lot without blame, a lot of love and uprightness. And now the angels are making a wooden (building), and when they have completed that task I will place My hand upon it and preserve it, and there shall come forth from it the seed of life, and a change shall set in so that the earth will not remain without inhabitant.”
Thus, the Book of Enoch’s “Similitudes”/“Parables” section contradicts the Bible.
Regarding the state in which the fallen angels are bound the Bible states:
And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day (Jude 1:6).
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment (2 Peter 2:4).
I referred to the “state” in order to emphasize that they are said to be in darkness. Now, as a side note and so as to clear up any potential confusion: they are said, by Jude, to be in darkness until “the judgment of the great day.” Peter writes that they were cast into “hell” but they are there in darkness “reserved for judgment.”
The common term in the New Testament for “hell” is genna (Gehenna) and is, as in Matthew 5:22, “the fiery hell.” What Peter is referring to is tartaroō (Tartarus) which is a subterranean region. Thus, they are in the subterraneous region in darkness and not, as of yet, in fire (fire would logically give off light).
In counter-distinction to this 1 Enoch, gleaning from chapters 18-19 states:
And I saw a flaming fire…I saw a deep abyss, with columns of heavenly fire, and among them I saw columns of fire…I saw there seven stars like great burning mountains, and to me, when I inquired regarding them, The angel said: “This place is the end of heaven and earth: this has become a prison for the stars and the host of heaven”…
And Uriel said to me: “Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons as gods, (here shall they stand,) till the day of the great judgment in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of.”
So the Book of Enoch’s “Watchers” section contradicts the Bible or, at least, one its sections does. Note also that 1 Enoch 10:12 has fallen angels bound “in the valleys of the earth” (perhaps Tartarus) but stated that they are bound in “the end of heaven and earth.” Or are they at “the valleys of the earth” at “the end of heaven and earth”?
Regarding the place to which the dead went before the Messiah Jesus’ resurrection, the Bible states:
Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried…between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us (Luke 16:22 and 26).
Thus, there are two compartments and yet, in 1 Enoch 22:1-14 it states:
…I went to another place, and the mountain [and] of hard rock. And there was in it four hollow places, deep and wide and very smooth…Then Raphael answered, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: “These hollow places have been created for this very purpose, that the spirits of the souls of the dead should assemble therein, yea that all the souls of the children of men should assemble here. And these places have been made to receive them till the day of their judgment and till their appointed period [till the period appointed], till the great judgment (comes) upon them.”
Moreover, this four chambered place is said to be divided as follows, chapter 22:
These three have been made that the spirits of the dead might be separated. And such a division has been made (for) the spirits of the righteous, in which there is the bright spring of water. And such has been made for sinners when they die and are buried in the earth and judgment has not been executed on them in their lifetime. Here their spirits shall be set apart in this great pain till the great day of judgment and punishment and torment of those who curse for ever and retribution for their spirits.
There He shall bind them for ever. And such a division has been made for the spirits of those who make their suit, who make disclosures concerning their destruction, when they were slain in the days of the sinners. Such has been made for the spirits of men who were not righteous but sinners, who were complete in transgression, and of the transgressors they shall be companions: but their spirits shall not be slain in the day of judgment nor shall they be raised from thence.
Of interest is that the forth (of the three) divisions is for “the spirits of men” whose “spirits shall not be slain in the day of judgment nor shall they be raised from thence.” Thus, clearly, that segment will be their eternal estate. However, according to the Bible all will be judged and either live eternally in the new heavens and the new Earth or in hell:
And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds (Revelation 20:12-13).
By the way, “Hades” is the name of one of the chambers mentioned in the Luke text, the other side was “Abraham’s Bosom.”
Another issue appears to be inconsistency in the fact that chapter 10 states that the fallen angels will be imprisoned “for seventy generations,” chapter 18 states that it will be “even for ten thousand years” and chapter 21 specifies that it will be “ten thousand years.”
In Genesis 5 we learn that “Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah…So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.”
Then, “Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech. Then Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.”
Moreover, “Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah…”
God took Enoch when he was 365 years of age.
1 Enoch (aka Fragment of the Book of Noah) 107:2-3 has Enoch speaking to Methuselah and stating:
“And now, my son, go and announce to thy son Lamech, that this son who is born is really his, and that this is not a falsehood.” And when Methuselah had heard the words of his father Enoch—for he had shown him everything that was secret—he returned, after his having seen him, and called the name of that son Noah, for he will make glad the earth for all destruction.
This text has Enoch speaking to Lamech about Noah over a millennia after Enoch was no longer on the Earth, “for God took him.”
Lamech was afraid of his son and stated the following to his own father Methuselah:
I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth. And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee that thou mayest go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels.
You can see why the Book of Enoch is enticing; it is colorful and interesting. In fact, it states that when Lamech son was born, the baby “opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright” which sounds as if it was the inspiration for the scene in the X-Men movie wherein the birth of the character Cyclops is shown: at his birth he opened his eyes and he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright—with the addition that the energy was so that it actually blew the roof off, literally.
Lamech asks Methuselah to “go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels.” And so even in this text, Enoch was already wherever God is supposed to have taken him. His “dwelling-place is amongst the angels” which is actually at “the ends of the earth” as this was where Methuselah went to find him. So “God took him” (Bible) to “the ends of the earth” where the angels dwell (Book of Enoch).
Lastly, note that Enoch 6:6-7 lists the 19 fallen angels who were the leaders of the 200 total who fell: 1) Semiazaz, 2) Arakiba, 3) Rameel, 4) Kokabiel, 5) Tamiel, 6) Ramiel, 7) Danel, 8) Ezeqeel, 9) Baraqijal, 10) Asael, 11) Armaros, 12) Batarel, 13) Ananel, 14) Zaqiel, 15) Samsapeel, 16) Satarel, 17) Turel, 18) Jomjael, 19)
Sariel.
Enoch 69:2 not only has a different number of angel leaders, 21, but different names (note that some names are not actually different but simply different transliterations such as Semiazaz and Samjaza):
1) Samjaza, 2) Artaqifa, 3) Armen, 4) Kokabel, 5) Turael, 6) Rumjal, 7) Danjal, 8) Neqael, 9) Baraqel, 10) Azazel, 11) Armaros, 12) Batarjal, 13) Busasejal, 14) Hananel, 15) Turel, 16) Simapesiel, 17) Jetrel, 18) Tumael, 19) Turel, 20) Rumael, 21) Azazel.
A final point of interest, though not necessarily a contradiction, may be that Dead Sea Scroll fragment 4Q201 is called Enoch or Hanokh is presumed to have been copied circa 200-150 BC; fragments B (trans by J. T. Milik and J. C. Greenfield):
[They (the leaders) and all … of them took for themselves] wives from all that they chose and [they began to cohabit with them and to defile themselves with them]; and to teach them sorcery and [spells and the cutting of roots; and to acquaint them with herbs.] And they become pregnant by them and bo[re (great) giants three thousand cubits high …]
Reckoning a cubit as 18 inches would make these giants 4,500 feet tall. This is also found within 1 Enoch as then being “thousand ells is their height” (7:2) and while it is thought that an ell ranges from 27-45 inches this rage results in then being 6,750-1,1250 ft. or 1.29-2.13 miles tall. Of course, since it is so preposterous some claim that the text should actually read 300 rather than 3,000 and yet, 300 ells equals 675-1,125 ft.
In other words, impossibly tall based on physics as their skeletons would lack structural integrity.
Dead Sea Scroll 1 Book of Enoch fragment
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