Research source

Thus “the times and periods of the course of the world’s history have been predetermined by God

Date of account: Composite work, broadly c. 300 BCE to 100 BCE
Source: The book of Enoch
Reference: The book of Enoch · selected passage 2
Rights: public_domain
Language: Ge'ez preserved in complete form; translated from earlier Semitic and Greek textual traditions
Translation: R. H. Charles, with W. O. E. Oesterley
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Thus “the times and periods of the course of the world’s history have been predetermined by God. The numbers of the years have been exactly fixed. This was a fundamental postulate of the Apocalyptists, who devoted much of their energy to calculations, based upon a close study of prophecy, as to the exact period when history should reach its consummation ... the underlying idea is predestinarian.”[2] But all these things, according to the Apocalyptists, were divine secrets hidden from the beginning of the world, but revealed to God-fearing men to whom was accorded the faculty of peering into the hidden things of God and of understanding them; upon these men was laid the privilege and duty of revealing the divine secrets to others, hence their name of Apocalyptists or “revealers.” It was because the Apocalyptists believed so firmly in this power which they possessed of looking into the deep things of God that they claimed to be able to measure the significance of what had happened in the past and of what was happening in the present; and upon the basis of this knowledge they believed that they also had the power, given them by God, of foreseeing the march of future events; above all, of knowing when the end of the world would come,

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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