Why was the book of Enoch not canonized and does Jude’s quoting from it necessarily mean he endorsed it?
The “book of Enoch” is one of the books in the infamous Apocrypha. The word Apocrypha refers to “written works that are of unknown authorship, or of doubtful authenticity, or spurious, or not considered to be within a particular canon.” In the case of the “book of Enoch” scholars are agreed that it does NOT belong in the Canon of Scripture because some of its historical content is inaccurate.
The question above assumes that Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch, but there are credible Bible scholars who believe otherwise. Mr. William Kelly, a renowned scholar from the 19th century, had this to say, “It [the book of Enoch] has every mark of having been written subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem [and therefore after Jude’s Epistle was written], by a Jew who still buoyed himself up with the hope that God would stand by the Jews.” Others agree with Kelly, believing it was written AFTER the book of Jude and thus instead of Jude quoting from the book of Enoch, the author of the book of Enoch quoted from the book of Jude.
Let’s read Jude 14-15, “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” We learn from Genesis 5:22 and 24 that Enoch “walked with God”; we learn from Hebrews 11:5 that Enoch walked “by faith” and that “he pleased God”; and here in Jude we learn that he was a “prophet.” Because of Enoch’s faithful walk with God, he became the first prophet on record in Scripture. His prophecy will find its final fulfillment in a future day when Christ returns to earth as the “King of kings, and Lord of lords” to judge the wicked, but it no doubt had a partial fulfillment when God judged the ungodly in Noah’s day when the wicked were cut off from the earth by the flood that destroyed all that were outside the Ark of safety.
How did Jude learn of this prophecy? Some believe the news of this prophecy was passed down through the ages by oral tradition. Others believe that the book of Enoch was written BEFORE the book of Jude and that Jude quoted from it. And still others believe that Jude may never have heard or read anything about Enoch’s prophecy and that he was given this knowledge directly from the Holy Spirit. We must remember that Jude was divinely-inspired to write his epistle and 2 Peter 1:21 assures us that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” But even if the book of Enoch was in existence and Jude was inspired to include the prophecy of Enoch from that book, it does NOT mean that everything written in the book of Enoch was true, or that it should have been included in the Canon of Scripture. In Titus 1:12-13 the apostle Paul wrote, “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true.” So, Paul was inspired to quote from a Cretian poet named Epimenides, but he was not endorsing the whole book and it certainly wasn’t included in the Canon of Scripture. He was affirming the truth of that one statement, and this may have been the case with Jude. If he did quote from the book of Enoch, he was only crediting the validity of Enoch’s prophecy and NOT the whole book. (165.5) (DO)