What was the language that Enoch spoke and did the Book of Enoch get written 3000 years BC is there any proof or carbon dating of that?

Upvote:0

The original book of Enoch was written in Geez (ancient Ethiopic language.) There were 3 books of Enoch. The first recorded in Geez, the second in Aramaic and third in Hebrew. It's important to note that Geez (Afro-Asiatic) is the oldest semitic language. They have the written-law (Torah) called the Orit. This is the first 5 books all written in Geez. In Ethiopian traditions, Enoch was an Ethiopian prophet, and his father Jared originated from the highlands in the northern Ethiopian region. Furthermore, St. Jared is also known as the father of Ethiopian music.

Upvote:1

Enoch was the great-great-great-great-grandson of Adam and lived more than 4,000 years ago.

After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away (Genesis 5:22-24).

This Enoch lived before the Flood and the construction of the Tower of Babel when God confused the language of man (Genesis 11:1-10). The Bible does not say which language was spoken from the time of Adam to the Tower of Babel.

The Bible book of Jude, verses 14-15, quotes from the Book of Enoch:

"Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’”

The "Book of Enoch" refers to 1 Enoch, which is wholly extant only in the Ethiopic language.

Upvote:5

What was the language that Enoch spoke and did the Book of Enoch get written 3000 years BC and is there any proof or carbon dating of that?

Let us start with what language Enoch possible spoke.

There is no firm proof of what language Enoch actually spoke. But several hypotheses do exist.

One possible hypothesis comes from what else Wikipedia:

The Adamic language is, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden. It is variously interpreted as either the language used by God to address Adam (the divine language), or the language invented by Adam with which he named all things (including Eve), as in the second Genesis creation myth (Genesis 2:19).

In the Middle Ages, various Jewish commentators held that Adam spoke Hebrew, a view also addressed in various ways by the late medieval Christian writer Dante Alighieri. In the early modern period, some authors continued to discuss the possibility of an Adamic language, some continuing to hold to the idea that it was Hebrew, while others such as John Locke were more skeptical. More recently, a variety of Mormon authors have expressed various opinions about the nature of the Adamic language. - Adamic language

The Book of Enoch is regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Thus the traditional Ethiopian belief is that Enoch spoke the Ge'ez language.

It is wholly extant only in the Ge'ez language, with Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few Greek and Latin fragments. For this and other reasons, the traditional Ethiopian belief is that the original language of the work was Ge'ez, whereas modern scholars argue that it was first written in either Aramaic or Hebrew; Ephraim Isaac suggests that the Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew.[5]:6 No Hebrew version is known to have survived. It is asserted in the book itself that its author was Enoch, before the Biblical Flood. - Book of Enoch (Wikipedia)

It seems almost everyone had a view on this subject:

The nature of that original language remains controversial, interpretations showing many nationalist flavours:

•Traditional Jewish exegesis such as Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 38) says that Adam spoke Old Hebrew or rather its linguistic ancestor Proto-Canaanite, because the names he gives Eve – “Isha” (Book of Genesis 2:23) and “Chava” (Genesis 3:20) – only make sense in Hebrew.

•Traditional Christians based on Genesis 10:5 have assumed that the Japhetite, or Indo-European, languages are rather the direct descendants of the Adamic language, having separated before the confusion of tongues, by which also Hebrew was affected.

1.Early Christian fathers claimed that Adam spoke Latin to explain why God would make it the liturgical language of his Church, although “Latin” here would be a loose way of referring to its ancestor, Proto-Italic or older Europe’s Indo-European.

2.Modern traditional Catholics follow Anne Catherine Emmerick’s revelations (1790), which stated that the most direct descendants of the Adamic language were Bactrian, Zend and Indian languages (i.e., the Indo-Iranian languages), associating the Adamic language with the then-recent concept of the “common source” of these tongues, now known as Proto-Indo-European:

This language was the pure Hebrew, or Chaldaic. The first tongue, the mother tongue, spoken by Adam, Shem, and Noah, was different, and it is now extant only in isolated dialects. Its first pure offshoots are the Zend, the sacred tongue of India, and the language of the Bactrians. In those languages, words may be found exactly similar to the Low German of my native place.

From Adamic or the language of the Garden of Eden until the Tower of Babel: the confusion of tongues and the earliest dialects attested

Now for something about the Book of Enoch itself:

The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; Ge'ez: መጽሐፈ ሄኖክ maṣḥafa hēnok) is an ancient Jewish religious work, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. Enoch warrants special attention for the unique material it holds, such as the origins of supernatural demons and giants, why some angels fell from heaven, details explaining why the Great Flood was morally necessary, and prophetic exposition of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah.

The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) of the text are estimated to date from about 300 BCE, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably to the 1st century BCE. - Book of Enoch (Wikipedia)

Thus we see that oldest portion of the Book of Enoch I placed at about 300 BCE and not 3,000 BCE as is mentioned in the question. That simply does not mean that older texts at one time did exist or that Enoch is not the author. It is the oldest copy we have. It seems history may have passed into legend and we may never know the truth.

Upvote:12

Just because it's called the Book of Enoch doesn't mean it's written by him. It's considered one of Pseudopigraphical book, literally "false attribution" (See: Pseudepigrapha (Wikipedia).

The subsequent description was taken from the IVP Dictionary of New Testament Background, Entry title: Enoch, Books Of.

1 Enoch consists of 5 distinct compositions:

  1. Book of the Watchers (Chapter 1-36) : oldest Aramaic fragment is Dead Sea Scrolls dated first half of the 2nd century BC. Scholars believe the book took shape in the 3rd or early 2nd century BC.

  2. The Similitudes (Chapter 37-71) : no fragments have been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some scholars suggested it was a late 3rd century AD Christian composition, but some dated it to the early 1st century AD prior to 70 AD.

  3. The Astronomical Book (Chapters 72-82) : oldest Aramaic fragment have been dated to the 3rd century BC.

  4. The Book of Dreams (Chapters 83-90) : scholars believe it was written at the time of the Maccabean revolt (167 BC)

  5. The Epistle of Enoch (Chapters 91-105): scholars have dated it to the early 1st century BC; others dated it to the early 2nd century BC

Almost all of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection is housed in the Shrine of the Book (part of the Israel Museum) in Jerusalem: Dead Sea Scrolls. See the wikipedia article about Radiocarbon and Paleographic dating.

More from IVP Dictionary of NT Background article on how the book is regarded by Qumran, rabbinic Judaism, and the early church fathers:

The Status of Enochic Writings

Since multiple copies of several of the component writings of 1 Enoch were preserved at Qumran, it is quite possible that they were regarded as Scripture by the Dead Sea sect. It was not preserved by rabbinic Judaism, but it enjoyed high status in some Christian circles. The epistle of Jude in the NT alludes to the story of the Watchers and seems to regard the story as authoritative (see DLNTD, Jude). This is also the case in the Epistle of Barnabas (see DLNTD, Barnabas, Epistle of). First Enoch was still cited as authoritative Scripture by Tertullian at the end of the second century A.D. Tertullian addresses the status of 1 Enoch explicitly. He acknowledged that the authority of Enoch was not acknowledged by all and that some people doubted whether it could have been transmitted from before the flood. Tertullian countered that Enoch was grandfather of Noah and that Noah would have preserved the tradition. Moreover, the Spirit could have restored the book through inspiration (VanderKam 1996, 52). Eventually the Enochic writings were rejected by the Western church and were lost to a great extent. They were preserved, however, in Ethiopia, where they were regarded as sacred Scripture.

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