There was a time when Enoch had visions of a great flood of wrath from God tearing up the planet and killing virtually everyone except just a few. Enoch’s book never says it actually happened centuries after Enoch wrote and spoke about it. It only foretells it in horrifying detail. That Flood was a huge part of Noah’s life and Noah was a great grandson of Enoch (Enoch’s son was Noah’s grandfather) but although Noah wrote a small part of the collection of books we call the Book of Enoch, started by Noah’s great grandfather, edited with additional sections by Noah’s grandfather, even with a small section about Noah’s father, the actual event of the flood actually happening is not mentioned at all in these texts. The later writings of descendants of Noah do mention it, perhaps in texts started even in Noah’s lifetime (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, a giant descending from Noah but with reportedly an angelic father). This is entirely consistent with the narrative in the Book of Enoch that it was all a collection of texts collected mainly by Enoch’s son Methuselah who died before the Flood happened. The implications are severe. It leads to a conclusion that the texts are truly from that time, having been completed before the Flood and surviving it, perhaps by Noah keeping a copy on the ark. No known extant artefact texts of it date from that period yet its existence in later antiquity and the detailed and accurate historic record of events centuries leading up to the Flood point to its authenticity. The genuine spirit of its prophecies was attested in Early Christianity, even by Jesus and brother Jude. So it provides a terrible warning that apocalyptic events we start to see around the world in our times and our children’s times are consistent with the wrath of the same God foretold in Enoch’s time and fulfilled awfully in Noah’s time. God is not joking or teasing or mocking us when He warns of things to come which will cause hearts to fail. He means it. The Book of Enoch, now made more certain, tells of ways to be kept from God’s wrath, turning from violent ways, seeking to live according to the Holy Spirit of God instead of mere pleasure and lusts, and seeking the help of the Son of Man who is God’s Son. We do well to pay attention to it in these times and look ahead to the dawning of a better day when the darkness has passed.
