Enoch
ENOCH, or, in Hebrew, Ḥanokh (from a Hebrew root meaning "consecrate, initiate") was the son of Jared, according to biblical tradition; righteous antediluvian; and the subject of substantial hagiography in the Jewish and Christian traditions.
In the Hebrew Bible
Genesis, in listing the descendants of Adam until Noah and his sons, mentions Enoch, the seventh, in ways distinct from the others: Enoch "walked with God"; he lived only 365 years, a considerably shorter time than the others; and at the end of his life he "was no more, for God took him" (Gn. 5:21–24). Modern scholars agree that a fuller tradition about Enoch lies behind the preserved fragment. They disagree, however, on whether that tradition can be recovered from depictions of Enoch in postbiblical Jewish literature of Hellenistic times and from parallel depictions of antediluvian kings, sages, and flood heroes in ancient Mesopotamian literature.
In Jewish Literature of Second Temple Times
The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Bible, c. 250 BCE), Ben Sira (c. 190 BCE), and the Jewish Antiquities by Josephus Flavius (37/8–c. 100 CE) all state that Enoch was taken by or returned to the deity. The Wisdom of Solomon (first century BCE) explains that God prematurely terminated Enoch's life on earth so that wickedness would not infect his perfect saintliness.
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