John.
Scholars of Judaism's influence on early Christianity disagree over the amount of influence that Enoch's revelation had over St. John's Revelation. (Here it should be noted that the "St. John" to whom the revelation is attributed is probably not John the Apostle, just as the Enoch of 1 Enoch refers to Noah's Grandfather, but was not written by Noah's grandfather!4) Couliano cites the work of Ithamar Gruenwald in positing that though "a theory of Judaic origin would explain many Gnostic motifs.the Gnostic use of Jewish material.may include a mere echo, or indirect reflection of Jewish ideas and biblical reflections." (Couliano 1991) Gruenwald seems to believe that though Revelation is clearly influenced in some part by Jewish apocalyptic literature, the influence may not be "an actual borrowing from Jewish sources." It can be attributed to "other factors, besides Judaism, that contributed to the formation of Gnosticism." (Couliano 1991) Indeed, when reading the two texts, though definite echoes of Enoch exist in Revelation, it is clear that the similarity in motifs superficially masks deep divides over the importance of punishment and reward in the afterlife. David Frankfurter, in his article entitled "Early Christian Apocalypticism5" agrees with the Gruenwald analysis that Revelation does not rely very heavily on Enoch for it's theological findings and literary style. He writes "we might be led to expect in The Revelation to St. John a literary grounding in Jewish apocalypses.but in fact we find the Christian interest in apocalypticism characterized not by the search for eschatological details, but rather by an attraction to heavenly revelation." (Frankfurter 1995) Although parts of Enoch are indeed characterized by the same attraction to heavenly revelation cited by Mr. Frankfurter as an important part of Christian apocalyptic literature, there are several important differences in the kind of mysteries revealed in the two works that shall be analyzed in subsequent arguments.
