A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Part 1

By Hugh Nibley Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University Certain visions once given to Moses were also revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, in June, 1830. 1 In December of the same year, The Writings of Moses were also revealed, comprising what are now chapters two to eight of the book of Moses. (See the chapter headings.) This purports to be the translation of a real book originally written by Moses: And now, Moses, my son, I will speak unto thee concerning this earth upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write the things which I shall speak. And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of menamong as many as shall believe. (Moses 1:40-41.) In his writings Moses renewed the revelations and carried on the books of earlier prophets, according to our text, which also includes what the Prophet Joseph entitled Extracts from the Prophecy of Enoch. Of this, B. H. Roberts explains: It will be understood that the Prophecy of Enoch itself is found in the Writings of Moses, and that in the text above [Moses, chapter 7 Moses 7] we have but a few extracts of the most prominent parts of Enochs Prophecy. 2 What was given to the Church in 1830 was, then, not the whole book of Enoch but only a few extracts, a mere epitome, but one composed, as we shall see, with marvelous skill; five years later the Saints were still looking forward to a fuller text: These things were all written in the book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time. (D&C 107:57.) The Enoch sections of the book of Moses were published in England in 1851 under the heading, Extracts from the Prophecy of Enoch, containing also a Revelation of the Gospel unto our Father Adam, after He was driven out from the Garden of Eden. 3 The revelation of Adam also went back to a written source, for, speaking of his ancestors, Enoch is reported as saying that, though they are dead, nevertheless we know them, and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam. For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God. (Moses 6:4546.) Enoch, we learn, had this book of Adam, and read it to the people, and handed it on with his own writing in that corpus which Moses later edited and Joseph Smith finally translated: Soon after the words of Enoch were given, the Lord gave the following commandment [December 1830]: Behold, I say unto you that it is not expedient in me that ye should translate any more until ye shall go to the Ohio. (D&C 37:1.) 4 The excerpts from the works and days of Enoch found in the Pearl of Great Price supply us with the most valuable control yet on the bona fides of the Prophet. What has confused the issue all along in dealing with the Book of Mormon and the book of Abraham as translations is the question of the original documents. Almost all of the time and energy of the critics has been expended in vain attempts to show that Joseph Smith did not translate correctly from certain ancient manuscripts, or that such manuscripts did not exist. This has been a red herring, since nobody has been able to prove yet that Joseph Smith claimed to be
Hugh Nibley, A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Part 1, Ensign, Oct. 1975, 78