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.
ChatGPT with Stephen D Green, 2025
