Enoch, the son of Jared, a great-grandfather of Noah, and father of Methuselah (Genesis 5:1-18).[1] It is stated in numerous Jewish, early Christian, and mediaeval Muslim sources, that he was taken away by God because he was a good man, thus avoiding death at the age of 365, and according to a few Kabbalistic sources, became known as the angel Metatron. He is also identified as the apostle Idris (Arabic: ????? ). The only recorded words of Enoch surviving in the European Bible are his prophesying about men, whereby God shall be coming with His saints to judge and convict them (Jude 1:14-15). [2] According to some Muslim scholars, he earned his livelihood as a tailor and is also considered to be the inventor of the eyed metal needle used in sewing. He is the protagonist of several apocryphal books of the Old Testament:
3rd Book of Enoch, a Kabbalistic Rabbinic text in Hebrew, attributed to Kohen Gadol Yishmael (90-135 AD).
An extended amplification of this Enoch story is found in the Pearl of Great Price (Latter Day Saints)'s Book of Moses produced by Joseph Smith, Jr., which in 6:21 – 8:19 presents an astonishing amount of detail absent from, or only found in fragmentary form in other accounts — such as about Enoch?s translation without tasting death, and an extensive cosmic apocalypse with content paralleling materials only found elsewhere long after Smith?s death.
Enoch, son of Cain[3], after whom Cain named the first city he founded, is not the same Enoch son of Jared (Genesis 5:18).
Note: Enoch is often confused with Enos (or Enosh). Enos is recorded as a grandson of Adam (Genesis 5:5-6), and great grandfather of Enoch (Genesis 5:18).
People
Other people named Enoch include:
Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer, Reedeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG)
Enoch, the leader of a fictional criminal organization in the animated series, Ben 10
Enoch Emery appears in The Peeler by Flannery O'Connor and in O'Connor's Enoch and the Gorilla, a short story that eventually became part of O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood.
Enoch Snow, a supporting lead role in Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "Carousel"
Metatron, the regent to The Authority, is said to have once been Enoch, the son of Jared, in Phillip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, the third book in the His Dark Materials trilogy.
Places
Mt.Enoch, Victoria, Australia
Enoch Reserve, an aboriginal settlement located west of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Katherine Enoch, extensively written about in A Cornish Shopkeeper's Diary (R Glynn, 1843) as someone who loved a drink, leading to the author's expression of drunken abandonment 'I was enoched, not a muscle would move nor the gods awaken me.'