The Book of Enoch’s cosmology employs symbolic and experiential language rather than a systematic or scientific model. It refers to phenomena like the “storehouses of the winds” and “portals” for celestial bodies, and it describes the paths of the sun and moon in terms of movement or “orbits.” These descriptions suggest an observationally grounded worldview rather than a doctrinaire cosmology like a flat Earth. There is no explicit claim in the text that the Earth is flat, and its references to orbits and predictable solar movement are more consistent with a phenomenological perspective rooted in observation than a schematic flat-Earth model. Thus, the claim that Enoch promotes a flat Earth seems to misread the text’s rhetorical and mythic language.
When it comes to the giants or Nephilim mentioned in Enoch, their presence is a central part of the narrative’s explanation for the corruption of the world before the Flood. However, archaeological expectations for discovering remains of such beings are extremely limited. Given the world population in 3000 BC and the small proportion of individuals whose remains would be preserved and discovered, even the presence of zero to one giant skeletons would fall within the margin of expected finds. Isolated claims such as a large femur from Castelnau have occasionally raised speculation, but no confirmed physical evidence exists to support the literal presence of such beings. Therefore, the absence of archaeological confirmation does not definitively rule out ancient textual traditions of giants but instead highlights the rarity of human remains from that time overall.
Enoch’s references to early technologies—such as metalworking, cosmetics, writing, and weaponry—closely align with what archaeology has revealed about the innovations of the late 4th to early 3rd millennium BC. These include the metallurgy and ritual objects of Nahal Mishmar (~3500 BC), early writing in Uruk (~3200 BC), and the cosmetics and mirrors found in Predynastic Egypt (~3500 to 3000 BC). The book’s naming of these technologies as being introduced by the Watchers suggests an understanding of a time of sudden or mysterious technological expansion, which corresponds with the archaeological record of rapid cultural and material development in the Near East during this period. This implies that the source materials or traditions behind Enoch reflect accurate and specific knowledge of that transformative era.
While technologies such as copper smelting, ink or pigment use, and cosmetic application persisted well beyond 3000 BC, the historical memory of their invention often did not. By the time of the Hellenistic period (around 200 BC), such specific dating or origin details would have been obscure or lost to most writers, especially outside scholarly priesthoods. Figures like Berossus or the compilers of later myths might preserve vague allusions to ancient knowledge, but precise awareness of the invention dates of tools or rituals would be unlikely without access to old texts. This limits the likelihood that someone in 200 BC could write a text with the detailed technological memory seen in Enoch unless they were drawing on much earlier preserved sources.
This accurate portrayal of early technological innovation in Enoch thus supports the idea that its core material draws from very early sources—possibly even contemporaneous with early texts like the Instruction of Shuruppak. That text, dated to around 2500 BC, is widely recognized as a rare example of pre-Flood wisdom literature that preserves oral or written traditions from before the historicized Flood became a widespread theme. Enoch’s alignment with this genre, and its focus on divine judgment, ethical warnings, and pre-Flood corruption, makes it likely that the original source material is from a similar time frame, even if the current form was redacted later.
The treatment of the Flood in Enoch is especially telling. Unlike the Epic of Gilgamesh or Genesis, Enoch never describes the Flood as a past historical event. Instead, it is consistently presented as an impending divine judgment. Noah appears in the text, but only in the context of his life before the Flood, never as a survivor reflecting on it afterward. This strongly contrasts with the post-Flood narratives of other ancient texts and indicates that Enoch’s content was fixed—or at least developed—before the Flood was widely historicized in literature. This narrative positioning supports the argument that Enoch preserves a genuinely antediluvian perspective.
Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king of the 7th century BC, claimed his royal library included writings “from before the Flood.” These texts, likely copied onto clay or stone tablets, would have been preserved and recopied by scribes across generations. Modern archaeology has uncovered tablets from the Fara Period (early 3rd millennium BC) that may include copies of very ancient oral or written traditions. The Instruction of Shuruppak is among the clearest examples, and there may be others awaiting decipherment. This confirms that ancient traditions—especially those of ethical or technological instruction—could have survived long enough to influence texts like Enoch.
Given that the Epic of Gilgamesh clearly places the Flood in the past and presents a post-Flood worldview through the character of Utnapishtim, Enoch’s consistent framing of the Flood as future stands out. Its failure to corroborate its prophecies with any known post-Flood narrative further suggests that it belongs to a much older narrative layer. It does not draw on the “settled history” of the Flood that later Mesopotamian and biblical texts do. Rather, it stands with the few works, like Instruction of Shuruppak, that preserve a worldview in which the Flood has not yet occurred.
This makes Enoch one of the few known works whose contents align not only thematically but chronologically with what archaeology tells us about ancient technological and cultural shifts. It preserves ancient knowledge without retroactively historicizing it in the way post-Flood literature does. Taken together, these features suggest that the Book of Enoch, or its core traditions, may derive from the same early scribal and oral traditions that shaped the earliest wisdom texts, before the great Flood narrative solidified in Mesopotamian and biblical tradition.
The structure and worldview of the Book of Enoch share notable similarities with early Mesopotamian wisdom literature, particularly the Instruction of Shuruppak. That text, dating to the Fara Period (ca. 2600 to 2500 BC), is among the oldest known examples of didactic prose and centers on moral, social, and practical instruction from a father to his son. Importantly, it is set in the antediluvian world, referencing figures like Shuruppak (the father of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Flood hero), and does not treat the Flood as a past event. Enoch, likewise, presents a world on the brink of divine judgment, with its ethical focus and prediction of the Flood echoing similar concerns. This stylistic and narrative alignment with Shuruppak supports the idea that Enoch draws on a genre of literature that was established before the Flood tradition was historicized, possibly reflecting a cultural memory from that earliest period of recorded prose.
The idea that Ashurbanipal’s library contained texts from before the Flood may no longer be seen merely as royal hyperbole. Archaeological excavations at Nineveh uncovered tens of thousands of tablets, and while most are from the 1st millennium BC, many are copies of much older Sumerian and Akkadian works. Some of these, like parts of the Sumerian King List and flood-related myths, suggest that earlier material was preserved in scribal schools and periodically recopied. Ashurbanipal claimed he could read both "the dark and light script," likely a reference to ancient and modern (at the time) forms of writing. His statement that he had access to texts “from before the Flood” may reflect genuine awareness of extremely ancient sources that were by then seen as primordial. If Enoch stems from this legacy of inherited, ancient material, its association with pre-Flood themes would not be an invention, but a continuation of a real literary lineage.
The Book of Enoch’s references to knowledge being revealed by divine or semi-divine beings (the Watchers) parallels the broader Near Eastern mythological pattern in which cultural advancements are attributed to supernatural or semi-divine figures. In Mesopotamian mythology, gods like Enki or Apkallu sages are said to have imparted civilization’s arts—writing, measurement, agriculture, and ritual practice—to humanity. Enoch follows this same template, attributing the origins of weapon-making, cosmetics, astronomy, and herbal knowledge to the fallen Watchers. From a literary and cultural standpoint, this suggests that the Enochic tradition is embedded within an older mythological framework that explained the dawn of civilization through divine instruction, not merely through human invention. This reinforces its alignment with early Bronze Age cosmology and ideology, rather than with a later Hellenistic rationalism.
What sets the Book of Enoch apart is that it does not integrate later developments that we find in texts like Genesis or the Epic of Gilgamesh. Whereas those texts incorporate genealogies, post-Flood worldviews, and divine covenants, Enoch halts its narrative before the Flood and offers no reflection upon it as a historicized past. Even Noah, an essential character in later flood traditions, is depicted only in his early life and not as a Flood survivor. This omission is striking, especially if one assumes the book was composed in the 2nd or 3rd century BC, when post-Flood traditions were widespread and well-established. The failure to engage with those narratives may suggest that Enoch originates from or preserves a phase of tradition prior to the dominance of the postdiluvian framework. It gives the impression of a time capsule—a record of how ancient people viewed the world and its coming judgment before the Flood was retroactively integrated into a broader historical arc.
The archaeological convergence between the items mentioned in Enoch and those uncovered from the late Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age Near East provides material support for the plausibility of ancient origin. For instance, the complex copper and ceremonial objects found at Nahal Mishmar date to around 3500 BC, exactly the period during which Enoch’s Watchers are said to have introduced forbidden knowledge. Likewise, early cosmetic use in Predynastic Egypt, including mirrors, malachite, and kohl, corresponds to the beautifying arts condemned in Enoch. The appearance of these specific technologies and cultural artifacts in a text that frames them as early innovations lends credibility to the idea that the tradition behind Enoch was grounded in real cultural memories, and that these memories persisted through long scribal transmission. The correspondence between the text and archaeology is unlikely to be coincidental if the book were a purely Hellenistic invention. Instead, it suggests that Enoch’s deeper layers preserve authentic echoes of ancient knowledge.
The discovery of Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch in Cave 4 at Qumran shows that the book was actively transmitted and copied by Second Temple Jewish sectarians. The fragments include large portions of the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36) and parts of the Astronomical Book, suggesting that these sections were not late compositions but were already seen as authoritative and worth preserving. However, the mere presence of Enoch at Qumran does not require that its content originated in the 2nd century BC; rather, it confirms that it was already considered ancient and valuable by that time. The Qumran community often prized texts they believed contained primordial, divine knowledge—especially esoteric or revealed wisdom linked to angels, astronomy, and judgment, all of which are central in Enoch.
What becomes striking in this context is that the Enochic literature was not simply innovative apocalypticism, as some scholars once proposed. Instead, its form and themes—including divine judgment on corrupt semi-divine beings, the origin of forbidden arts, and the coming of the Flood—follow a much older mythological structure. The Qumran preservation of the book seems less a point of origin than a stage of transmission. The scribes were custodians, not necessarily originators, of the tradition.
In fact, the Qumran sect's interest in Enoch may reflect an attempt to reclaim and restore ancient teachings that had been neglected or marginalized in other Jewish circles. If, as our earlier discussion suggests, the Book of Enoch preserves genuinely early memories or texts that echo a pre-Flood tradition—much like the Instruction of Shuruppak—then the Qumran copies are part of a much longer arc of preservation. Just as Ashurbanipal claimed to have texts from before the Flood, the Qumran scribes may have seen themselves as guardians of a similar inheritance.
Moreover, the version of Enoch found at Qumran is in Aramaic, which was the lingua franca of the Near East from around 600 BC onwards. This indicates that earlier traditions had been translated or adapted into the dominant vernacular for continued transmission. This process of translation does not reduce the antiquity of the original material; rather, it reveals how that material was preserved across cultural and linguistic transitions. We have parallels in Mesopotamian literature: for example, Sumerian myths were translated into Akkadian long after Sumerian ceased to be spoken, but their content still derives from much earlier oral and written traditions.
In light of this, the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contradict the argument that Enoch derives from very ancient material. On the contrary, they demonstrate that such material could be actively transmitted across millennia by scribal communities. The presence of Enoch at Qumran helps bridge the gap between early third-millennium themes and their preservation into the Hellenistic period. This is analogous to how the Instruction of Shuruppak, first composed around 2500 BC, was copied and recopied into the first millennium, even though its narrative setting remained firmly in the antediluvian world.
Thus, the Dead Sea Scrolls’ preservation of Enoch strengthens the case for its antiquity. They demonstrate that ancient texts could be treasured, transmitted, and adapted through centuries without fundamentally altering their core structure or worldview. Enoch’s consistency in portraying the Flood as a future event, its focus on pre-Flood corruption, and its detailed knowledge of technologies known from archaeology—all of which appear intact in the Qumran fragments—support the argument that it descends from a genuinely ancient stream of tradition, reaching far back into the dawn of literate civilization.
ChatGPT with Stephen D Green
