Latter-day Saint apologetics is strongest when it presents evidence that is not merely defensive.
The Book of Moses and ancient Enoch traditions provide one of those cases.
Genesis gives Enoch only a few verses. Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses expands Enoch into a major prophetic figure with visions, preaching, cosmic revelation, giants, wickedness, a city of Zion, and ascent.
Later-discovered Enochic literature contains surprisingly elaborate traditions about Enoch too.
Did Joseph Smith restore genuinely ancient material?
Joseph Smith’s Enoch expansion
Joseph Smith produced the material now called the Book of Moses during his inspired revision of Genesis beginning in 1830.
Moses 6–7 dramatically enlarges Enoch’s story. The text describes Enoch’s prophetic call, opposition from the wicked, visions of human history, giants and violent peoples, covenant preaching, Zion as a righteous community, the earth mourning, divine weeping, and Enoch’s people being taken into heaven.
This is much more than paraphrase of Genesis 5.
Ancient Enoch literature really exists
Ancient Jewish literature surrounding Enoch is extensive.
1 Enoch is a collection of writings from the Second Temple period. Fragments of multiple Enochic works were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Another work, commonly called the Book of Giants, develops traditions about giant offspring, dreams, judgment, Enoch, and the world before the Flood.
These discoveries demonstrate that ancient Jews really did expand Enoch far beyond Genesis.
That alone makes the comparison worth studying.
Why LDS scholars find the parallels impressive
LDS researchers have identified similarities involving Enoch as visionary prophet, cosmic journeys, wicked societies, giants, heavenly books, divine judgment, Enoch functioning as mediator or authoritative interpreter, and several more specific proposed names or motifs.
Because much of the Dead Sea Scroll material became available only in the twentieth century, such correspondences can seem extraordinary.
The strongest LDS argument is not simply that Joseph wrote about Enoch and 1 Enoch exists. It is that Joseph produced detailed Enoch material before modern recovery of several ancient Enochic texts, and some later-discovered features resemble his account.
That deserves a serious response.
Was 1 Enoch available before Joseph Smith?
Yes.
Richard Laurence published an English translation of 1 Enoch in 1821, before Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses material.
Critics sometimes treat that fact as if it completely solves the issue. It does not.
The important historical question is whether Joseph actually possessed or used Laurence’s translation.
Evidence for direct access during the production of Moses 6–7 is not strong. BYU scholarship itself notes that no concrete evidence proves Joseph borrowed from Laurence.
A careful critic should not assert direct literary dependence as fact.
But Enoch was not culturally invisible
The opposite apologetic exaggeration is also weak.
Nineteenth-century Christians knew that biblical traditions existed outside the canonical Bible. Enoch, giants, apocrypha, lost books, ancient patriarchs, and speculative pre-Flood history circulated in sermons, encyclopedias, histories, and religious literature.
The existence of a pre-1830 English 1 Enoch matters even if Joseph cannot be shown to have read it.
It demonstrates that “only supernatural revelation could possibly have supplied any Enochic expansion” is too strong.
General parallels and specific parallels
Not all parallels have equal evidential value.
A story about Enoch containing angels, visions, giants, judgment, and heaven is not surprising because those themes belong to known biblical and apocalyptic traditions.
A rare name, unusual narrative sequence, or highly specific conceptual correspondence would be more significant.
Evidence therefore must be weighted by specificity.
LDS apologetics is strongest when it concentrates on correspondences difficult to explain through general biblical imagination. Critics are strongest when they show that proposed matches depend on flexible wording or broad thematic resemblance.
The Book of Giants
The Book of Giants is particularly interesting because important fragments came to light through the Dead Sea Scrolls long after Joseph Smith.
LDS scholars have proposed parallels involving Enoch’s role, giant figures, dreams, names, and motifs.
These cannot simply be dismissed.
Several cautions remain.
The Book of Giants survives only fragmentarily. Reconstruction involves scholarly judgment. The Book of Moses is not a direct line-by-line equivalent. Proposed parallels are selected from two large bodies of material. The more themes available, the easier it becomes to discover partial correspondences.
And much of the detailed apologetic comparison comes from confessional LDS scholarship. That does not make it false; it means independent evaluation matters.
Does an ancient parallel prove restoration?
No.
Suppose Joseph Smith independently produced a motif also found in ancient Enoch literature.
Several explanations remain possible: genuine divine restoration, direct or indirect cultural influence, shared dependence on biblical motifs, convergent religious imagination, or chance resemblance.
The existence of a parallel increases the need for explanation. It does not automatically tell us which explanation is correct.
What would stronger evidence look like?
A much stronger case would involve an ancient manuscript matching a substantial sequence from Moses 6–7, unique names and events in the same order, or linguistic correspondences impossible to derive from English biblical culture.
No such manuscript exists.
Ancient Enoch literature supports the general proposition that Jews elaborated Enoch traditions. It does not independently identify Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses as one of those ancient texts.
LDS apologetics should still get credit here
This topic is different from the Book of Abraham problem.
With the Book of Abraham, surviving Egyptian papyri create a direct translation test.
With Enoch, the evidence is more open-ended.
Joseph’s text genuinely intersects with an ancient world of Enochic expansion in ways that can surprise modern readers.
Christians should not fear conceding that. A strong worldview does not depend on pretending rival religions have zero interesting evidence.
The broader historical pattern
The Book of Moses also fits Joseph Smith’s creative scriptural environment.
His Bible revision frequently expands, harmonizes, and reframes biblical narratives. He believed lost truths could be restored through revelation without manuscript evidence.
The Book of Moses therefore makes sense both inside an LDS restoration model and inside Joseph’s broader nineteenth-century revelatory practice.
Ancient parallels cannot decide between those frameworks by themselves.
The Christian question
Historic Christianity does not need to deny 1 Enoch or other Jewish apocalyptic writings.
The New Testament itself reflects Second Temple Jewish ideas and even quotes 1 Enoch in Jude.
Ancient Enochic literature is valuable for reconstructing the world of early Judaism and Christianity.
But Christianity does not treat every later text with Enochic parallels as restored scripture.
Canon requires more than thematic resemblance.
The Book of Moses entered the world through Joseph Smith alone, without an ancient manuscript tradition, known ancient language, or independent pre-1830 witness to its text.
Final Verdict
The Book of Moses contains genuinely interesting parallels with ancient Enochic traditions, and Christians should not dismiss them as imaginary.
An English translation of 1 Enoch existed before Joseph Smith’s Enoch material, but direct borrowing has not been demonstrated. Later-discovered Book of Giants material creates additional intriguing comparisons that deserve case-by-case evaluation.
Yet parallels are not the same as provenance.
No ancient manuscript of Moses 6–7 has been recovered. The proposed correspondences vary in specificity, and several natural explanations remain available besides supernatural restoration.
The Enoch evidence is therefore one of the stronger positive arguments worth granting to LDS apologetics.
It is not enough to establish Joseph Smith as a prophet—or to overcome the much broader historical and theological evidence separating Mormonism from apostolic Christianity.
Key Sources
- Book of Moses 6–7: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/moses?lang=eng
- BYU Religious Studies Center, “Joseph Smith’s Developing Relationship with the Apocrypha”: https://rsc.byu.edu/approaching-antiquity-joseph-smith-ancient-world/joseph-smiths-developing-relationship-apocrypha
- BYU Studies, “The LDS Story of Enoch as the Culminating Episode of a Temple Text”: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-lds-story-of-enoch-as-the-culminating-episode-of-a-temple-text
- Interpreter Foundation / ScholarsArchive, study of Book of Giants parallels: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/interpreter/vol48/iss1/8/
- Dialogue, “Revisiting Joseph Smith and the Availability of the Book of Enoch”: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/revisiting-joseph-smith-and-the-availability-of-the-book-of-enoch/