What is the Book of Enoch, and why is it not in the Jewish Bible?

Enoch in the Torah

Enoch was the seventh generation from Adam. Genesis says only: “Enoch walked with God, and he was no more, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). The brevity invited legends: that he ascended to heaven alive, or, in later mystical texts, that he became the angel Metatron.

The book

1 Enoch is a collection of visions about fallen angels (the “sons of God” of Genesis 6), heavenly journeys, astronomy and the end of days. Fragments in Aramaic were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, showing it was read by some Jewish groups in the Second Temple period. The full text survives in Ge’ez, the old language of Ethiopia.

Why it is not in the Tanakh

The books of the Bible were accepted as written with prophecy or divine inspiration, and the sages held that prophecy ended with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Later works were “outside books” (sefarim chitzonim). The Mishnah lists among those who have no share in the World to Come “one who reads the outside books”; the Talmud explains this refers to reading heretical works as if they were Scripture.

A Jewish reader today

Scholars read Enoch as a historical source for Second Temple Judaism. It has no authority in Jewish law or belief, and its ideas about angels are not Jewish doctrine. The Jewish tradition about Enoch comes from the Torah, the Midrash and the commentaries.