The pseudepigraphon "Epistle of Enoch" (EpEnoch) is fragmented in Aramaic in 4QEne, 4QEng and currently found in scrambled and heavily-interpolated form in Ge'ez in Ethiopic Enoch 91-105 - from a Greek translation. The "Epistle of 1 John" is likewise a jumbled and not wholly coherent document. We call both epistles, but in structure they are really testaments: teachings from the wise man to the community.
This project explores their relationship.
The "children of righteousness" of EpEnoch (Eth. Enoch 93:1) saw themselves as the "elect ones of righteousness from the elect plant of righteousness" (Eth. Enoch 92:10), that is, they had already separated themselves from other Jews. According to Gabriele Boccaccini, EpEnoch is dependent on Jubilees and the Damascus Document in turn depends on it. That puts it around the time of the Temple Scroll 11QT and 4QMMT at the turn of the first century BCE (very roughly). (Boccaccini goes further and places EpEnoch between 11QT and 4QMMT; I discuss that here.)
A Child of Righteousness was to "love uprightness" and "walk in righteousness... and it shall lead you... and righteousness will be your friend" (91:4). They looked for the day "the Righteous One shall awaken from his sleep; he shall arise and walk in the ways of righteousness... [The Holy and Great One] will be generous to the Righteous One, and give him eternal uprightness; he will give authority... and they [MS B: he] will walk in eternal light" (Eth. Enoch 92:3-4). Enoch's words had been "testified to [the sinners] from the beginning" (104:11) - "love righteousness and walk in it" (94:1).
Deuteronomy 5:33 does say, "walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you", but using a different word than 1 John - poreuw. Apart from that, one will not find the following in the Bible, nor Jubilees, nor 4QMMT, nor the Temple Scroll: "Righteous One", "child of righteousness", "walk in light" (let alone "eternal light"). In Qumran, following the Damascus Document, one finds in place of a "child of righteousness" a "child of light"; and the "Righteous One", famously, the "Teacher of Righteousness".
Likewise, 1 John promises his "children of God" "eternal life" if they believe the testimony they have heard from the beginning (2:25). Also shared are the light/dark dualism, and the affinity between both and the so-called Two Ways teachings, which will become so important for 4Q473, Barnabas, and the Didache. Another minor theme of 1 John is that one "walk in the light" (peripatw, 1:7) "just as he walked" (2:6, meaning Jesus), and not "walk in the darkness" (1:6, 2:11). In addition, in neither 1 John nor EpEnoch does the Righteous One actually have to do anything other than walk righteously and glow.
There are differences, but they are trivial. 1 John's "testimony" derives from god and man, not Enoch (1 John 5:9-11). He also demands that his readers walk in the light now, perhaps because for him the "Righteous One" has already arrived, whereas Enoch was purporting to predict events far in the future.
1 John ignores the "plant of truth" (Eth. Enoch 93:1; c.f. 93:5,10), but his community tends the "true vine" in the Johannine Gospel, chapter 15.
The Gospel 10:3 also notes that Jesus calls his sheep out "by name". This is beyond the purview of the Epistle of Enoch. This is closer to the Damascus Document, CD 2:11 (Boccaccini p. 123). Superficially it is like the biblical term "by My name", as seen in Genesis 48:16, 2 Isaiah 43:7, and 2 Chron 7:14, but here it is God making His choice, one by one.
Likewise the focus on works of God and evil is also found in the Damascus Document and other Qumran literature, but not in Enoch or Jubilees; and John 12:36's "sons of light" is mirrored in the Damascus Document (4Q266 fragment 1).
1 John is close to EpEnoch, and the Gospel of John to the Damascus Document. The community of 1 John had compared EpEnoch 94:1 with Deuteronomy 6:5 ("love God") and concluded that God was righteousness. They became children of God and abode in God. This is what they had agreed on before 1 John was written (see here). The Johannine innovations never touched Qumran nor the Damascus Document. In like manner 1 John and his community apparently ignored that community and that piece of paper.
But the Gospel of John took 1 John's message and appears to have attracted followers of the Damascus Document as well. Both the Gospel and the Document agreed that God has chosen them, one by one, and had written off mainstream Judaism.
Now, before anyone faints, no, I don't think that 1 John and the Gospel are B.C. documents. The evidence is hardly conclusive in this matter. I think it more likely that when life was good, 1 John's community accepted the love of God and rejected those who feared Him; but when the community got booted out of the synagogue, they returned to the exclusionary paranoia of the Damascus Document. Either way, the Johannines were tied to the Essenes in a way that other Christian communities were not.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 11 July 2000, as part of "Walking in the Light". 12-14 July, showed that the Epistolary parallels in 1 John are unlikely to derive (directly) from anything else. This occasioned a new, Enochian project, so I added a link to that in 25 Nov. 14 Jan 2001, noted that neither "epistle" is really an epistle. 1 April 2002, created this, separate project: had to deal with the gospel & Damascus Document.