Have you ever stumbled across a verse in your Bible that stopped you cold—not because it was too beautiful, but because it raised a question you weren’t sure how to answer? For many believers, Jude 1:14–15 is exactly that kind of verse. There, tucked inside one of the shortest letters in the New Testament, the apostle Jude quotes a passage that does not come from the Old Testament. It comes from a Jewish writing called 1 Enoch. And for readers who care deeply about the authority of Scripture—as every disciple of Jesus should—that can feel, at first, like standing on uncertain ground.
It doesn’t have to. Read the source article from The Gospel Coalition for a thorough introduction to what 1 Enoch is and how Jude uses it. What we want to do here is go deeper—to let this fascinating question draw us closer to the God who inspired Scripture, the Christ who fulfills it, and the life of confident faith we are called to live.
The 400 Silent Years and the World Into Which Jesus Was Born
When we flip from Malachi to Matthew in our Bibles, a single page conceals roughly four centuries of history. During that intertestamental period, Jewish writers produced a rich body of literature—often called Second Temple Jewish literature—that reflected on the promises of the Old Testament and the longings of God’s people. One of the most significant of these writings is 1 Enoch, a compilation of five independent works built around the mysterious figure of Enoch, of whom Genesis simply says,
