Page 12 - Look inside update

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In 1773, rumors of a surviving copy of the book drew Scottish explorer James Bruce to Ethiopia. True to
hearsay, the Cepher Chanok had been preserved by the Ethiopic church, which put it right alongside the
other books of the Bible. Bruce secured not one, but three Ethiopic copies of the book and brought them
back to Europe and Britain. When in 1821 Dr. Richard Laurence, an Ivriyt (Hebrew) professor at Oxford,
produced the first English translation of the work, the modern world gained its first glimpse of the
forbidden mysteries of Chanok. Many scholars say that the present form of the story in the Cepher
Chanok was penned sometime during the second century B.C. and was popular for at least five hundred
years. The earliest Ethiopic text was apparently made from a Greek manuscript of the Cepher Chanok,
which itself was a copy of an earlier text. The original was apparently written in Semitic language
(possibly Paleo-Ivriyt (ancient Hebrew). The Laurence text is the underlying basis here.

Though it was once believed to be post-Christian (the similarities to Christian terminology and teaching
are striking), recent discoveries of copies of the book among the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran prove
that the book was in existence before the time of YAHUSHA HAMASHIACH. But the date of the original
writing upon which the second century B.C. Qumran copies were based is shrouded in obscurity. It is, in
a word, old. Some historians claim that the book does not really contain the authentic words of the
ancient biblical patriarch Chanok, since he would have lived (based on the chronologies in the Cepher
Bere’shiyth (Book of Genesis) several thousand years earlier than the first known appearance of the book
attributed to him. Such a conclusion would render the book pseudepigraphal – that is, of a pseudo
epigraph (attribution to an author not actually writing the book).

Despite its unknown origins, many followers of YAHUSHA once accepted the words of this Cepher Chanok
as authentic Scripture, especially the part about the fallen angels and their prophesied judgment. In fact,
many of the key concepts used by YAHUSHA HAMASHIACH himself seem directly connected to terms
and ideas in the Cepher Chanok. Thus, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that YAHUSHA had not only
knowledge of the Cepher Chanok, but also respected it highly enough to adopt and elaborate on its
specific descriptions of the coming Kingdom and its theme of inevitable judgment descending upon “the
wicked” - the term most often used in the Old Testament to describe the Watchers.

There is abundant proof that YAHUSHA approved of the Cepher Chanok. Over one hundred phrases in
the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) find precedent in the Cepher Chanok. Another remarkable bit of
evidence for the early followers of YAHUSHA’S acceptance of the Cepher Chanok is found in an accurate
translation of Luke 9:35, describing the transfiguration of Messiah: And there came a voice out of the
cloud, saying, 'This is my yachiyd: hear him.” Apparently the translator here wished to make this verse
agree with a similar verse in Matthew and Mark. But Luke's verse in the original Greek reads: This is my
yachiyd, the Elect One (from the Greek ho eklelegmenos, lit., "the elect one"): hear him. The "Elect One" is
a most significant term (found fourteen times) in the Cepher Chanok. If the cepher was indeed known to
the apostles of HAMASHIACH, with its abundant descriptions of the Elect One who should "sit upon the
throne of glory" and the Elect One who should "dwell in the midst of them," then great scriptural
authenticity is accorded to the Cepher Chanok when the "voice out of the cloud" tells the apostles, This is
my yachiyd, the Elect One - the one promised in the Cepher Chanok.

The Cepher Yahudah (Jude) makes mention in verse 14 that Chanok, the seventh from Adam, prophesied...
Yahudah makes reference in verse 15 of chapter 2, verse 1 of the Cepher Chanok (2:1), where he writes,
to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are wicked... The time difference between Chanok and
Yahudah is approximately 3400 years. Therefore, Yahudah’s reference to the Chanokian prophecies
gives credence to the idea that these written prophecies were available to him at that time.

Fragments of ten Chanok manuscripts were also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The famous scrolls
actually comprise only one part of the total findings at Qumran. Much of the rest was Chanokian
literature, copies of the Cepher Chanok, and other apocryphal works in the Chanokian tradition, such as
the Cepher Yovheliym (Jubilees).
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