(Ḥanokh). Biblical figure. Enoch was the son of Jared (Gen. 5:18), the seventh generation after Adam. In contrast to the other antediluvians, Enoch lived only 365 years (the number of days in the solar year). The Bible declares that he "walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him" (Gen. 5:23).
This unusual description of Enoch's death sparked the imaginations of the writers of pseudepigrapha and the rabbis of the later Midrash. Thus, two pseudepigraphic books are ascribed to him, while for the midrashic rabbis, Enoch's translation to heaven (interpreted as a bodily assumption) betokened his role there as heavenly scribe. According to these sources, Enoch was the inventor of all sciences and knowledge since he was privy to the secrets of God and could decipher the writing on the heavenly tablets. These and similar legends are to be found throughout the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (see also I Enoch; II Enoch).
In sharp contrast, there is not a single reference to Enoch in the whole range of tannaitic literature. Early Christian sources, however, contain many legends about Enoch. The silence of the early rabbis regarding Enoch is attributable to the New Testament's citation of Enoch and Elijah as two witnesses to the truth of the ascension of Jesus to heaven (Revelations 11:3). Perhaps as a reflection of this, an early Midrash declares that Enoch vacillated between being a righteous man and a sinner. God, therefore, "took him" before he could relapse into sin.
It was only after the threat of early Christianity to the integrity of Judaism had come to an end that Jewish authors began to weave legends around Enoch. A late Midrash asserts that Enoch ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot drawn by a fiery steed. Furthermore, he was one of nine righteous men who did not suffer pangs of death and entered paradise alive. The Zohar, as well as earlier mystic literature, takes up many of the early legends centering on Enoch.
