Someone sent me this link today, knowing I’ve spent a good deal of time studying 1 Enoch. The book of 1 Enoch is now the basis for an impending X-Box video game (there is a sample trailer at the link – Japanese version).  Check it out. What I saw looks cool, but I’d say a more appropriate description would be “very loosely based” on 1 Enoch. For instance, it was *not* Enoch’s mission to bring the fallen angels back to heaven. In the story he was sent by God to tell them they were toast and would never be coming back — having been asked by the offending angels to try and soften up God on their behalf.

As far as the link goes, there’s also some paleobabble to that. The blog calls 1 Enoch “heretical.” I guess he’s unaware that the Qumran sect were very theologically conservative, that 1 Enoch was known and used in Judaism outside Qumran, and that the NT imbibes on its content in various ways. It was never considered canonical in the Church (though it had its defenders in the early church, namely Origen), but that does not mean it is heretical. The book was well-respected in early Judaism and Christianity, despite not being bumped up to the level of canon.  It was only with Augustine (who knew neither Hebrew nor Greek, and so should not be considered a biblical theologian) that 1 Enoch fell into disrepute, no doubt due in part to Augustine’s own falling out with the Manicheans, who revered 1 Enoch.

I would suggest that blogger (and anyone else so interested) try to obtain the following for reading:

Studies in 1 Enoch and the New Testament: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Meeting of the New Testament Society of South Africa (Stellenbosch, 1983)

R. H. Charles’ commentary on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Charles notes OT and NT connections all the time).

Parables of Enoch, Early Judaism, Jesus, and Christian Origins, ed. Darrell Bock and James H. Charlesworth

1 Enoch, Enochi Motifs, and Enoch in Early Christianity,” Chapter Two in The Jewish apocalyptic heritage in early Christianity, by James C. VanderKam