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.)

1 Enoch and the Noachian Deluge

Does 1 Enoch identify the kinds of animals that died in the Noachian Deluge?

1 Enoch 89:5 states that cattle drowned and verse 6 adds that “bulls and elephants and camels and asses” also drowned. However, we must be careful for this passage is in the Animal Apocalypse where animals symbolize people. This is seen in 89:1 where one of the bulls became a man and built the ark, obviously as a man, Noah, and not as a bull. Then three other bulls, clearly representing his three sons, joined him on the ark.

Regarding the “elephants and camels and asses” mentioned in verse 6, these same animals were first introduced in 86:4 as being clear references to the Nephilim, the product of fallen stars who became bulls and conceived the “elephants and camels and asses” from cows. Regarding this verse, one commentator said that:

The names of these three animals in Aramaic are puns on “Nephilim,” “Giants” (gibborim), and “Elioud,” the three types mentioned in Enoch 7:2 (Milik 240). (Olson, Daniel. Enoch: A New Translation. 2004. 190)

Another commentator elaborated:

The particular species may be used as symbols because of the similarities between the two sets of Aramaic words: pilin (“elephants”) = neplin; gamilin (“camels”) = gibborin (“giants”); ‘arodin (“wild asses”) = “Elioud.” Footnote: See Milik, Enoch, 240. (Nickelsburg, George. 1 Enoch 1 Hermeneia Commentary. 2001. 373)

Milik’s book is The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments from the Caves of Qumran. (1976)

With that said, I’m afraid that the scholarly consensus, and the text itself, does not readily support a literal identification with actual animals, however tempting to make such a literal identification may be.

The Book of Enoch in the Early Church

Podcast brought to you by The Naked Bible Podcast, a podcast disseminating the observations of Dr. Michael Heiser. Podcast link: www.nakedbiblepodcast.com/naked-bible-93-the-book-of-enoch-in-the-early-church

An Aramaic Witness for 1 Enoch 1:9

An Appendix to: "Enoch, the seventh from Adam"

One of the most noteworthy discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls was identifying pre-Christian Aramaic portions of 1 Enoch, including the passage of Enoch's eschatological prophecy in chapter 1 verse 9, the same prophecy that Jude recorded in his epistle in verses 14-15. These were found among the scrolls in Cave 4, see Figure 1.

Figure 1
Interior of Qumran Cave 4

Thus, we were finally able to move beyond the Ethiopian, Greek and Coptic manuscripts of 1 Enoch that post-dated Jude and peer into material as it would have appeared to Jude. These Cave 4 discoveries were published in 1976 by Josef Milik in The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4. By far the most remarkable of these is the scroll fragment codified as 4Q204, and by Milik as 4QEn^c 1 i, for this shows a portion of text identified as 1 Enoch 1:9-2:3. Shown below is the relevant part of Plate IX from The Books of Enoch, and an enlarged view^[1] below that. Note lines 15-17:

(Enlarged view)

Below is a translation distinguished in bold type with the missing text tentatively restored:

[Look! He comes with] the myriads of His holy ones, [to execute judgement against all; and He will destroy all the wicked, and will convict all] flesh, with regard to [all their] works [of wickedness which they have committed in deed and in word, and with regard to all] the proud and hard [words which wicked sinners have spoken against Him.

While 4QEn^c 1 i only has twenty-six letters on three lines preserved for 1 Enoch 1:9, this was enough for Milik to appraise it as an Aramaic witness for 1 Enoch 1:9, and, significantly, to say regarding line 17: “The quotation from Jude is closer to the [Aramaic] original than the text of C [Cairo papyrus Greek parchment codex] and E [Ethiopic version].” (Page 186.) Thus, at the very least, Jude had this type of Aramaic text of 1 Enoch 1:9 available to him.

Now, as Jude and other contributors to the Christian Greek Scriptures did not quote this book unreservedly or give it the stamp of approval like they did with books in the Hebrew Canon, it appears they were selective in referring to 1 Enoch. What drove their powers of discernment to identify what was authentic and trustworthy was inspiration from holy spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:13-6) Thus, Jude did not include in his famous quote the anachronous reference to Mt. Sinai in 1 Enoch 1:4, as Enoch would not have known about that mountain.

In conclusion, these are exciting times of discovery and realization, and this is now the best time to study the issues presented here.

Footnote:

^[1] Enlarged view copied from: http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-284648.
See also the original here: http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-359527. Black-and-white version: http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-359528. Notice how illegible the writing is that has been enhanced though photography.