Why Is The Book Of Enoch Not In The Bible? by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Reason 1: It Came Too Late and Was Not Written by Enoch

Enoch lived before the flood. Yet the book bearing his name was written long after the flood — probably between 200 and 100 BC. There is no way it could have been authored by him.

Scholars classify it as pseudepigrapha — from the Greek pseudos meaning false. The pseudepigrapha are a collection of ancient Jewish religious texts from roughly 200 BC to 200 AD, written under the names of biblical figures but not actually by them. The term literally means "false writing claiming a famous name to gain attention." Early scholars recognised this and rejected the book on that basis.

Reason 2: Imagination Over Revelation

The content of the book of Enoch mixes truth with superstition and mythology. It gives detailed names to angels and demons and describes heaven in strange symbolic ways. Genesis 6 briefly mentions sons of God and daughters of men — the book of Enoch builds entire fantasy-like stories around those few verses.

The danger is that it presents imagination over revelation.

A key question is this: Enoch lived before the flood. Why, then, is the book describing things that happen during and after the flood in vivid first-person detail — including the names of the demons, what they were doing, and how they were entering the daughters of men? That level of specificity is suspicious, not inspired.

Reason 3: Not Regarded in the Jewish or Early Christian Canon

The Jewish people — who were extraordinarily careful with sacred writings — never treated Enoch as part of the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus and the apostles quoted many Old Testament books. They never quoted Enoch as scripture. The early church fathers also rejected it as uninspired.

Only Jude makes reference to it — and he references a single line to support a point about angels. Jude quoting a line does not make the whole book scripture. Paul quoted Greek poets in Acts 17:28 — "In him we live and move and have our being." That did not canonise those poems. Jude simply referenced a known saying to make a point — not to endorse the whole book.

The book has too many mythical exaggerations. It can be read out of curiosity — but it must not be read as doctrine, and probably should not be read at all, given reports of people who begin experiencing strange dreams and demonic encounters after reading it.

Other Books Not in Protestant Bibles

Other books in the Good News Bible (recognised by Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches) but not in Protestant Bibles include: Tobit, Judith, First and Second Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch. These are sometimes called the deuterocanonical books. Their canonical status is a matter of historical church tradition and council decisions, not universal agreement.