"Enoch, the seventh from Adam"

One of the most noteworthy finds of the Dead Sea Scrolls were fragments of the Book of Enoch, or 1 Enoch. Included in this cache of scraps of text were remains of 1 Enoch 1:9,^[1] a prophecy that was recorded in Jude 14, 15. This demonstrated once and for all that this prophecy found also in 1 Enoch predated Jude, and even Christianity itself.

Could a common source, an authentic depository of Enoch, account for both 1 Enoch and Jude having a prophecy from Enoch? Unfortunately for those who wish that was the case, Jude seems to refer to 1 Enoch in other verses besides 14, 15, namely in Jude 6, 12, 13, and possibly even the introduction in 14a. Additionally, there are other places in the Christian Scriptures that also seem to unmistakably refer to 1 Enoch. Thus it seems that the solution is this: the textual matrix of 1 Enoch contains authentic material from Enoch as well as commentary that harmonizes with divine revelation. So while 1 Enoch as a whole lies beyond the boundary of the canon of Scripture, it seems it does contain some factual and useful information.

How this non-canonical production could have preserved some of the authentic words of the historical, Biblical Enoch may be due to either of these options:

1. It is a corrupted book of Enoch that was preserved through the Noachian Deluge and copied, or
2. It is a text restored at a later date under divine inspiration and then corrupted and infused with uninspired material.

Regarding the later, it is noteworthy that it was first postulated by Tertullian when he wrote:

"If (Noah) had not had this (conservative power) by so short a route, there would (still) be this (consideration) to warrant our assertion of (the genuineness of) this Scripture: he could equally have renewed it, under the Spirit’s inspiration, after it had been destroyed by the violence of the deluge, as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of it, every document of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been restored through Ezra."^[2]

Thus he allowed for the possibility of it being restored through divine inspiration, perhaps by Noah or Ezra. In any event, the option of restoration seems more likely than preservation as the book of Enoch was not mentioned by any Bible writer.

Footnotes:
^[1] See: http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-284648, the first three lines of the uppermost fragment. Also the appendix: An Aramaic Witness for 1 Enoch 1:9.
^[2] Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 4, 15-16, seen here: http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1976&layout=html#chapter_192213