Introducing Inspiring Motivation

Please welcome a new YouTube channel Inspiring Motivation! This features Enoch-themed videos, including readings of chapters and documentaries debunking claims referencing Enoch, like on the Noachian Deluge and flat earth.

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Inspiring Motivation

Peter Gentry on Enoch in Jude

 

My comments:
First, Jude appears to be referring to 1 Enoch in other places besides 14-15, specifically Jude 6 to 1 Enoch 10:12-13, and the list of natural elements in Jude 12-13 to 1 Enoch 80:3, 4, 6, 7. Thus, with three textual matches, the earliest representation of which being the texts of 1 Enoch, a common source explanation appears less likely. Additionally, what about portions of 1 Enoch that are reflected outside of Jude in the rest of the NT, including Peter and Revelation?

Second, while 1 Enoch lists names of demons, can it really be said that this is a genealogy? Hebrew genealogies list ancestry, whereas the lists of demons in 1 Enoch are just that, a long list of names.

Third, the Greek of Jude 14-15 does not need to match the Greek of 1 Enoch 1:9, especially if it was likely recited from memory.

Lastly, even though 1 Enoch is not canonical and has misinterpretations,^[1] as it is an amalgamation, parts of it are more appropriate for reading than others. It was evidently an important text as reflected in its presence in Qumran Cave 4.

Anyway, I really like Peter Gentry, and am grateful to Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy for introducing me to him.

To repeat and emphasize:

The whole reason behind the “common source” is to protect Jude from quoting a non-canonical book at 14-15. But as 1 Enoch is an amalgamation, parts of it are safer to refer to than others, like Enoch’s pronouncement at 1 Enoch 1:9. The likelihood that Jude’s audience was familiar with this is enough reason to quote it.

Also, where is the “common source”? Currently the earliest source is 1 Enoch as witnessed in the DSS. Lastly, it is more than just Jude 1:14-15 that refers to 1 Enoch, that only does so by direct citation and quotation.

Footnotes:
^[1] See: Were the sons of God in Genesis 6 fallen angels? Who were the Nephilim? by Peter Gentry.

Why Tongues of Fire?

By Dr. Nicholas J. Schaser

On the first Pentecost (or Shavuot [שׁבעות], the Feast of Weeks) after Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit visits the Jesus-followers in Jerusalem: “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound of a mighty rushing wind… and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each of them” (Acts 2:1-3). Of all the ways that God could have shown divine power on Pentecost, why “tongues” of fire? The most obvious reason is that these tongues lead to the disciples speaking in “other tongues” (Acts 2:4), but the imagery has precedent prior to this Pentecost. The Hebrew Bible refers to God’s consuming fire as “tongues,” and other Jewish literature before the New Testament describes tongues of fire in the heavenly realm. Therefore, it is fitting for these fiery tongues to appear on Pentecost as a manifestation of God’s holiness on earth.

The notion of heavenly tongues of fire appears first in Israel’s Scriptures. In response to the peoples’ waywardness, the prophet Isaiah declares, “As a tongue of fire (לשׁון אשׁ; lishon eish) devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so [Israel’s] root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the Law of the Lord of hosts” (Isa 5:24). This prophetic poetry suggests that just as a tongue of fire would lick at the dry ground to start a conflagration, so will God visit the people of Israel as a purging fire.

Isaiah’s reference to a single tongue of fire reappears as multiplied fiery entities in the Second Temple text of 1 Enoch (c. 300-200 BCE). Insofar as Genesis notes that Enoch “was no more for God took him” (Gen 5:24), later Jewish readers assumed that the Lord had taken Enoch to heaven, and they compiled various narratives about the biblical figure’s apocalyptic visions. Speaking of his heavenly tour, Enoch explains, “I approached a wall which was built of white marble and surrounded by tongues of fire… and I came into the tongues of fire and drew near to a great house…. And behold there was an opening before me: a second house which is greater than the firmer and everything was built with tongues of fire” (1 En 14:9-10, 15). This apocalyptic passage describes God’s heavenly Temples consisting of tongues of fire. Equipped with this background, the reader of Acts can see that the “tongues as of fire” (γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρός; glossai hosei puros) that arrive on Pentecost are the building blocks of God’s Temple in heaven—the divine structure on which the earthly Temples in Jerusalem were patterned. These tongues of fire are pieces of God’s dwelling place. God dwells in the Temple (both on earth and in heaven) and the fiery arrival of the Holy Spirit underscores the Lord’s continued dwelling among the followers of Jesus.

Why Tongues of Fire? - Israel Bible Weekly (israelbiblecenter.com)

The Book of Enoch Examined

Were the sons of God in Genesis 6 fallen angels? Who were the Nephilim?

Peter J. Gentry (PhD, University of Toronto) is a professor of Old Testament interpretation. He was interviewed in the 2019 theatrical documentary Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy. Here he relates his understanding that the author(s) of the Watchers portion of 1 Enoch made a common misinterpretation that continues to this day:




See also:

• Who was Melchizedek? https://youtu.be/hKPqNgCI5F4

Misquoting Enoch in a Debate

Dr. Dustin Smith in a debate with David Barron over Jesus’ Preexistence misquoted 1 Enoch 69:28 in his rejoinder to David’s use of 1 Enoch in the same debate.

This debate occurred on April 9, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. Dustin is a Biblical Unitarian, a Christian who denies Christological Preexistence, that Jesus came from Heaven. David was arguing for Christological Preexistence.

As seen here: youtu.be/EQ1RkLEBIEE?t=46m40s (46:40-47) Dustin claimed that 1 Enoch 69:28 states “The Son of Man will never pass away or perish from the face of the earth.” But it says no such thing, in fact it says regarding the demons that “all their works [will] vanish from the face of the earth.” Quite the opposite then, and not even referring to the Son of Man. However, the Son of Man is referred to in the surrounding verses of 26, 27 and 29, but not in the verse 28 he referred to. But there’s more: ironically, it is this chapter 69 in verse 29 which says the Son of Man has “appeared,” which I think may be referring to a resurrection, in the very chapter that he claimed from his misquote that there was no death and resurrection in. (The passage in chapter 69 verses 26-29 is a fragment of a lost longer passage that was tagged onto the end of 69.)

• Read the whole passage from 1 Enoch (R. H. Charles’ translation) here: www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe072.htm
• Compare the “chains” to the chains of 54:3-5 for the demons.
• So it’s talking about punishing the demons.

As far as I am aware, Dr. Dustin Smith has never issued a retraction for his smithed quotation. He did his audience a grave disservice and hurt his own academic credibility. This is a scholastic disgrace.

What Dr. Dustin Smith says 1 Enoch 69:28 says:
“The Son of Man will never pass away or perish from the face of the earth.”

What it actually says:
“With chains shall they be bound,
And in their assemblage-place of destruction shall they be imprisoned,
And all their works vanish from the face of the earth.”

A Second Look

As shown above in the website presenting Charles’s translation, the relevant text is in the Close of the Third Parable:

26. And there was great joy amongst them,
And they blessed and glorified and extolled
Because the name of that Son of Man had been revealed unto them.

27. And he sat on the throne of his glory,
And the sum of judgement was given unto the Son of Man,
And he caused the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from off the face of the earth,
And those who have led the world astray.

28. With chains shall they be bound,
And in their assemblage-place of destruction shall they be imprisoned,
And all their works vanish from the face of the earth.

29. And from henceforth there shall be nothing corruptible;
For that Son of Man has appeared,
And has seated himself on the throne of his glory,
And all evil shall pass away before his face,
And the word of that Son of Man shall go forth
And be strong before the Lord of Spirits.

It seems to me that Dustin took the “Son of Man” and “pass away and be destroyed from off the face of the earth” from verse 27, and associated it with the similar closing language of verse 28 “all their works vanish from the face of the earth.” He then appears to have amalgamated these expressions into one with his personal twist going from the curse on the Son of Man’s enemies ‘passing away and being destroyed from off the face of the earth’ to a blessing upon the Son of Man himself to “never pass away or perish from the face of the earth,” and then assigning his new text as verse 28.

Him playing fast-and-loose with this text raises a disturbing question. If he is this careless with a non-canonical text in a debate, crafting a quote solely for the purpose of appearing to gain a foothold, how can he be trusted when confronted with scriptures inconducive for non-Preexistence?

Another point of irony is that, in the debate Dustin referred to contemporary Jewish works like the Talmud and to the Apocrypha as it was in the LXX that he said Christians viewed as scripture, (and the Testaments, 4 Ezra, Philo, Josephus) but he denied David’s use of the contemporary Jewish work of 1 Enoch even though we know Jude 14-15 is very similar to 1 Enoch 1:9. This is academically appalling.

See another critique of one of his debate tactics in the same debate:

• Isaiah 44:24 - Jehovah alone made all things, and both Unitarians and Trinitarians get it wrong.
  youtu.be/RVCBoyMDcPM

George W. E. Nickelsburg on "The Temple According to 1 Enoch"

This is a presentation by George W. E. Nickelsburg (Emeritus Professor of Religion at the University of Iowa) on “The Temple According to 1 Enoch” at the conference “Enoch and the Temple,” on February 19, 2013, at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He is a renowned scholar of 1 Enoch and is responsible for the Hermeneia commentaries on it.

His comment about Enoch being identified as the “Son of Man” is from 1 Enoch 71:14. He does not add though that this text clarifies that the Son of Man “was born for righteousness.” This is the only time in the Parables where the Son of Man is spoken of as being born. I therefore think it may cryptically mean that the Son of Man would be born from Enoch. Interestingly, the messianic genealogy in Luke 3:23-38 includes Enoch in Luke 3:37. (As this genealogy has 77 names with Enoch at the seventh place, that would make Jesus the 70^th from Enoch.)