Enoch

[Lil Red]

+JMJ+
How come Enoch was taken up by God?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

The story of Enoch is apocryphal to the Scriptures, although its mention in several times in Scripture seems to indicate that it was a part of the Hebrew Tradition we have inherited. That said, the Book of Enoch may or may not be entirely truthful, but we know it wasn't inspired (the Ethiopian Orthodox, however, do consider it inspired). It seems to contain a lot of Hebrew mythology which God may have used as a means to tell deeper truths (without the text actually being inspired). It does reference a number of things we accept as inspired and not as mythology (Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, as well as an early understanding of Satan). It seems to me that the text was probably meant as an uninspired commentary filling in certain details in the Old Testament, perhaps written by an Ethiopian after the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon (scholars have found it written in the ancient Ethiopian language, as well as Aramaic, Greek, and Latin). This might coincide with an ancient Ethiopian legend that Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had an affair which led to an Ethiopian prince (named Menelik) who later captured the Ark of the Covenant (which the Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims to possess), although the text is believed to have been written far later; still, the Ethiopians would have had a vested interest in filling in some of the details on what they would consider their own heritage as well. There is also a disputed Epistle of Enoch.

All that back story aside, it seems that he was taken up by God on account of his righteousness, similar to the Elijah. He would have resided in "Abraham's Bosom" or the "Limbo of the Fathers" until Christ opened heaven.

God bless,

Micah