Enoch’s words are not recorded in the Old Testament, which also doesn’t describe him as a prophet. But Jude cites Enoch and refers to his words as a prophecy (Jude 14–15).

Enoch was the son of patriarch Jared (Genesis 5:18) and his name (ḥănôḵ) means ‘dedicated’. Although not much space in the Bible is allotted to him, Enoch is one of only eight named ancestors of Jesus held up as examples in the ‘hall of faith’ chapter, Hebrews 11. (Another Enoch was the only named son of Cain. Cain built a city and named it after him (Genesis 4:17).)

1. Enoch Never Died

Jared and Methuselah were the only pre-Flood patriarchs that outlived their sons—Enoch and Lamech respectively. Enoch “walked with God” (Genesis 5:22) and was one of two people who never saw death:

“By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him” (Hebrews 11:5).

This New Testament verse explains what the Old Testament means with “and he was not” (Genesis 5:24). The other, more renowned Old Testament figure who was taken up by God is given greater coverage in the Bible. In 2 Kings 2:9–12 we read how the prophet Elijah “went up by a whirlwind into heaven” and his successor Elisha “saw him no more”.

Because Enoch was ‘only’ 365 when he was found no more (some use the term ‘raptured’), he truly was an exception among the other pre-Flood patriarchs. They all walked the earth more than twice as long as he did. The next ‘youngest’ patriarch, his grandson Lamech, died aged 777.

2. Seventh from Adam

Adam was the first man and, together with Eve, the first generation of humanity. Enoch was the seventh patriarch (Jude 14). This means there are no gaps in the chrono-genealogy (a time-stamped family tree) found in Genesis 5. Many who seek to add more time into the Bible argue that there are generations skipped. That doesn’t help their cause, though, since the text clearly states the age of one patriarch when the next patriarch was born. Adding more generations in-between doesn’t increase the total time.

Think of it this way: the distance ‘as the crow flies’ between London and Edinburgh is some 530 km (330 miles). Arguing that other places exist between the two is of course true, but it does not change the distance between the two cities. Neither will adding generations to the genealogies increase the time between the birth of one patriarch and the birth of the next one mentioned.

Read More