Editing Book Of Enoch Science and Astronomy

[[Category:Ancient Text]]
[[Category"Book Of Enoch]]

---

aliases: [Book_Of_Enoch]
subject: [Book_Of_Enoch]
tags: [Book_Of_Enoch, Christianity, Ancent_Text]

---
  
'''Some interesting science and astronomy found in the Book of Enoch'''


There seems to be a few types of material in the Book of Enoch. He was taken to visit the Watchers, probably only for a few days, and then he was taken back home again and told to spend a year writing the book. Clearly there were some parts that needed to be exact, such as the message to the fallen angels, and the prophetic sections, so he must have been given notes to copy for these. Then there were some parts where he was making his own notes, from what he was being told, and from the "tablets", possibly some of the things he saw were on screen, and some parts of the book were just done from memory.  
I was interested to find parts where Enoch relates some details of accurate science but it is clear that he doesn't understand it and he has just copied it out from his notes as best he can. This shows that Enoch was being informed by people who really knew stuff and it wasn't simply imaginative creative writing like some people seem to assume.  
In particular I like the part where one of the angels tries to explain to Enoch that the [thunder and lightning](http://www.bookofenoch.org/enoch70-71.htm) are one process. Enoch assumes that you hear the thunder instantly, when it happens, and has absolutely no concept of there being a speed of sound.


* 60.13 And the thunder; according to the places where it falls. And all the divisions that are made in lightning; so that it may flash. And its hosts; how they quickly obey.  
* 60.14 For the thunder has fixed intervals, which have been given to its sound, for waiting. And the thunder and the lightning are not separate; although not the same. Through a spirit, the two of them move inseparably.  
* 60.15 For when the lightning flashes, the thunder utters its voice, and the spirit, at the proper time, causes it to rest, and divides equally between them, because the storehouse of the times, for their occurrence, is like that of the sand. And each of them, at the proper time, is held by a rein, and turned back by the power of the spirit, and likewise driven forward, according to the number of the regions of the Earth.


The mention of "the sand" is probably a reference to a timer where sand runs through a small hole, and the number of "regions of the earth" is the distance. So there is an attempt to explain the time and distance relationship but it doesn't really fly.  
Enoch also mentions that the planets which he calls "powers of heaven" [rotate in their orbits](http://www.bookofenoch.org/enoch72-80.htm). Since he clearly thought the earth is flat and that the sky "heaven" is a dome supported on pillars, it is surprising he would say planets rotate in their orbits.


* 82.8 And He has power in Heaven, over night and day, to cause light to shine on men; the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, and all the Powers of Heaven, which rotate in their orbits.


There is also a mention that [the earth has an axis](http://www.bookofenoch.org/enoch72-80.htm) of rotation, although once again I don't think Enoch understood what his notes really meant.


* 75.8 And I saw chariots in Heaven, running through the region above those Gates, in which the stars that never set, rotate.  
* 75.9 And one is bigger than all the others. And it goes round through the whole world.