1st Enoch: Book of the Watchers

The five books of Enoch are a collection of books written in Semitic languages, and often grouped together as the 'Book of Enoch,' or '1st Enoch.' The books were likely written at different points in time and different Semitic languages. The first book was the Book of the Watchers, which is generally considered to be the oldest book in the collection, however, the age of the book is debated. The book is now known to have originated long before Christianity since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, was lost for well over a thousand years to Europeans, and assumed to be a Christian-era work when the Europeans rediscovered it in Ethiopia. The five books of Enoch only survive in Ge'ez, the classical language of Ethiopia, however, do not survive intact, and some sections of text do not survive.

Most of the iconography in the Book of the Watchers points to a Canaanite origin, as does the astronomical references to the seven stars beyond the eastern edge of the world, which was the situation between 2300 and 2000 BC when the Pleiades star cluster was the morning stars. The Pleiades star cluster is a group of stars in the constellation of Taurus. They are easily seen in the northern hemisphere, as well as at equatorial latitudes, and have historically been widely used to navigate by. The Greek name is believed to derive from the word meaning 'sail' (πλέω). The name Pleiades appears in both the Septuagint and Masoretic Texts, which is one of the few times the two documents agree on the names of the stars. This indicates the name may not have been redacted in this case, however, it was likely the original term would have been Aziz, the morning star, as this star or group of stars is listed in contrast to the evening star. Throughout all of ancient history, the merchant season in the Mediterranean began with the helical rising of the Pleiades, which shows the importance of the star cluster to the Canaanites, and their ancient trading partners. The Pleiades were rising in the vernal equinox around 2300 years ago, which means they would have been seen as the 'morning stars' of their time. By 2000 BC the Pleiades would have no longer been the morning stars but did continue to be used for navigation throughout recorded history.