In a recent video, Michael Brown tries to answer the question of why 1 Enoch is not part of the canon. One can find the video here. While I agree with Brown that 1 Enoch (quoted in Jude 14) should not be part of the canon, a number of his arguments were not persuasive. One of his arguments against the book is that it had a history of textual development and redaction. However, this argument is a two-edged sword. If we are to reject 1 Enoch due to his redactional history, we will have to reject the Torah. Even bracketing the JEPD hypothesis, consider the following which shows that the Torah has been redacted by post-Mosaic editors:
· Gen 12:6; 13:7 were written from the perspective of someone living in a time when the Canaanites were no longer in the land.
· The list of Edomite kings in Gen 36
· The phrase "before there reigned any kings over the children of Israel" (Gen 36:31), indicating that the author was living at a time when kings were part of Israel's history (a note which would have been unnecessary during the time of Moses and his contemporaries)
· The statement "No prophet ever again arose in Israel like Moses" in Deut 34:10
· Reference to the "book of the wars of the Lord" (Num 21:14) as an account corroborating a geographical description (Moses would not have needed to write this to an audience contemporary with these events and the geography thereof)
· The parenthetical note in Deut 2:20-23 is from an author later than Moses, explaining the presence of the Ammonites in the and, and why God had instructed Israel (through Moses) not to fight them.
· Use of the place name "Dan" in Gen 14:14--this place was originally known as Laish, and was not captured by Dan until the time of the Judges.
· The explanatory note "Kiriath Araba (that is, Hebron)" in Gen 23:2--this change of place name did not happen until the time of Joshua.
· The use of "Bethlehem" as a place name in Gen 35:19; 48:7.
· Repeated explanations of where certain places are, showing the reader was not going to be familiar with them (unnecessary for anyone living during Moses' or Joshua's time)--the wilderness of Zin, identified for the reader as being between Elim and Sinai (Exo 16:1; Num 33:36); Ijeabarim, identified as being near Moab (Num 21;11); Arnon, identified as the border of Moab (Num 21;13); a clarification necessary because previously it belonged to the Amorites (Judges 11:22-26); Etham, identified as being on the edge of the wilderness (Num 33:6); Jebus being identified as Jerusalem (Joshua 18:28; Judges 19:10).
· Reference in Gen 10:12 to "the great city of Calah" which did not exist until the ninth century BC.
