Faith
Who Is Enoch Mentioned in the Book of Genesis?
Question
Hello, honored rabbi!
As is well known, when the Sages established the books to be included in the Tanakh, they included certain books that we know today, but there were books that were not included in the collection of Tanakh books. My questions are:
1. Which books were these that were not included, and why were they not included? I would also like a brief explanation of each book.
2. Why were books such as the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, and other sacred books that are not part of the Tanakh but were written before the Tanakh was sealed not included in the collections?
3. Do the Dead Sea Scrolls have religious significance? As is known, some of the writings in the scrolls differ from the texts we know today in the Tanakh.
4. I was interested in learning about a man named Enoch mentioned in the Book of Genesis (the sixth generation from Adam, if I am not mistaken). Very little is written about him, but I learned that there are three books in his name whose sources in Hebrew were lost, and that only sources in Ancient Greek and Old Church Slavonic remain. I would like to receive more detail about him and about the books, and why they are not given importance in Judaism, as I understand it.
Thank you in advance, and sorry for the length of the questions!
Answer
Hello.
Good questions. It is impossible to detail all the external books, because there are very many of them, and on Wikipedia, under the entry external books, there is a complete list. The Sages did not include in the collection of Tanakh books anything other than books written with Divine inspiration; this is not the case with the external books, which are not written with Divine inspiration.
Sefer Yetzirah and the Zohar, etc., were written after the sealing of the Tanakh. Even if Sefer Yetzirah began with our father Abraham, everything was oral, and it was written down at a later time.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which differ from the writings we know today in the Tanakh, have the same status as other external books, and likewise. [There are also scrolls there from the Tanakh with slight and minor changes, and they are sacred, but we rely on our tradition regarding the versions and textual forms.]
The books of Enoch are also included among the external books, and likewise. See Wikipedia, entry for the Book of Enoch.
It should also be noted that any book that has come down to us through tradition from our ancestors over the generations is sacred to us, but books that we did not receive through tradition, we do not assign the quality of sanctity and religious elevation. All of Judaism depends on the tradition of our ancestors and our rabbis.
Blessing and success,
Yaakov Moshe
Good questions. It is impossible to detail all the external books, because there are very many of them, and on Wikipedia, under the entry external books, there is a complete list. The Sages did not include in the collection of Tanakh books anything other than books written with Divine inspiration; this is not the case with the external books, which are not written with Divine inspiration.
Sefer Yetzirah and the Zohar, etc., were written after the sealing of the Tanakh. Even if Sefer Yetzirah began with our father Abraham, everything was oral, and it was written down at a later time.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which differ from the writings we know today in the Tanakh, have the same status as other external books, and likewise. [There are also scrolls there from the Tanakh with slight and minor changes, and they are sacred, but we rely on our tradition regarding the versions and textual forms.]
The books of Enoch are also included among the external books, and likewise. See Wikipedia, entry for the Book of Enoch.
It should also be noted that any book that has come down to us through tradition from our ancestors over the generations is sacred to us, but books that we did not receive through tradition, we do not assign the quality of sanctity and religious elevation. All of Judaism depends on the tradition of our ancestors and our rabbis.
Blessing and success,
Yaakov Moshe
