Abstract: In this article, we offer a general critique of scholarship that has argued for Joseph Smith’s reliance on 1 Enoch or other ancient pseudepigrapha for the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses. Our findings highlight the continued difficulties of scholars to sustain such arguments credibly. Following this general critique, we describe the current state of research relating to what Salvatore Cirillo took to be the strongest similarity between Joseph Smith’s chapters on Enoch and the Qumran Book of Giants — namely the resemblance between the name Mahawai in the Book of Giants and Mahujah/Mahijah in Joseph Smith’s Enoch account. We conclude this section with summaries of conversations of Gordon C. Thomasson and Hugh Nibley with Book of Giants scholar Matthew Black about these names. Next, we explain why even late and seemingly derivative sources may provide valuable new evidence for the antiquity of Moses 6–7 or may corroborate details from previously known Enoch sources. By way of example, we summarize preliminary research that compares passages in Moses 6–7 to newly available ancient Enoch texts from lesser known sources. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of findings that situate Joseph Smith’s Enoch account in an ancient milieu. Additional work is underway to provide a systematic and detailed analysis of ancient literary affinities in Moses 6–7, including an effort sponsored by Book of Mormon Central in collaboration with The Interpreter Foundation.

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Both in the expansive nature of its content and the eloquence of its expression, Terryl and Fiona Givens consider the account of Enoch in chapters 6 and 7 of the Book of Moses as perhaps the “most remarkable religious document published in the nineteenth century.”2 It was produced early in Joseph Smith’s ministry — in fact in the same year as the publication of the Book of Mormon — as part of a divine commission to “retranslate” the Bible.3 Writing the account of Enoch appears to have occupied a few days of the Prophet’s attention sometime between 30 November and 31 December 1830.

According to Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Joseph Smith’s “Book of Enoch” provides “eighteen times as many column inches about Enoch … than we have in the few verses on him in the Bible. Those scriptures not only contain greater quantity [than the Bible] but also … contain … [abundant] new material about Enoch on which the Bible is silent.”4 Current scholarship casts doubt on the assertion that this new material w...