Some historical background to Enoch, of the Book of Enoch. Sumerian was the only language in the region where Enoch lived several generations before the Flood. So writings of Enoch would have been written in Sumerian. Writing in Sumerian was just becoming commonplace around Enoch’s time, written mainly using a stick to press marks into clay, then drying the clay. It is called cuneiform writing. The first records of lists of kings of the people who spoke Sumerian before and after the Flood were written down up until the time of Abraham in cities such as Abraham’s city, Ur. These records are known today having been found in archaeological digs since the 1920s. They are called The Sumerian King Lists. They mention Noah, calling him Zuisudra and Utnapishtim. Mostly writing started in Sumerian cuneiform but after the Flood a new language developed called Akkadian, starting from around 2500 BC. The Sumerian started to be replaced by Akkadian from around 2200 BC onwards, but Sumerian still survived like Latin, Sanskrit and Ge’ez survive today, mainly for religious use as a language for official sacred writings. The first kings documented in the lists of kings after the Flood are not corroborated yet by archaeologists so they tend to be doubted as historical by historians. The first king in the lists to be corroborated is a contemporary of Noah after the Flood named Enmebaragesi. He is usually dated by modern historians to 2700 or 2600 BC, which means the Flood would be dated around 2800 BC to 2700 BC, although its historicity is doubted by historians today. So essentially, although records go back to times of Adam, through to times of Enoch, through to times of Noah, no person mentioned is usually regarded by modern historians as historical unless they are corroborated by extant archaeological finds from the time. This means that Enoch, although mentioned in Genesis and possibly tied to the Enmenduranki mentioned in the Sumerian King Lists (predecessor of predecessor of predecessor of Noah), is not regarded as historical (yet). If he were (and he might be if more discoveries are made), historians might date him to around 3000 BC.
