I have emphasized the importance of this book repeatedly in this forum, as it was probably the most important book (or rather, a collection of books) written in the last three centuries before Jesus, aside from Daniel, and in fact the two books share a lot in common (e.g. written in Aramaic, referring to angels as Watchers, prophecy via dream visions, animal/horn symbolism, the use of the 360+4 calendar, etc.). It is impossible to understand the Judaism of Jesus' day without understanding 1 Enoch. It sheds much light on the Essene branch of Judaism and anticipates many later "Christian" ideas (such as the more developed apocalyptic "Son of Man" figure, Judgment Day, eschatological judgment by fire, demons as the giants who drowned in the Flood, the notion of the binding of angels in an abyss, etc.). It was also quoted as inspired "prophecy" in the NT and in the second century Christians occasionally quoted from it as scripture. It is still canonical scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Its use faded in Western (Roman) Christianity when ideas of canonicity shifted from the earlier Essene/Christian model (which had an open canon recognizing many pseudepigrapha) to the normative Pharisee/rabbinical model which prevailed in the Judaism of the third and fourth centuries AD (which had a closed canon limited to the Tanakh), although ideas varied on whether a deuterocanon (limited to the Apocrypha and a few pseudepigrapha like 2 Esdras) ought to have secondary status.
