Enoch Was Not: The bogus book quoted by New Testament Writers

Enoch, a man who walked with God (Gen. 5:24), was the seventh from Adam.  His walking with God indicated his faithfulness to God, because he walked with God, God took him.  Evangelicals like to think of Enoch as the first person to be raptured, taken up to heaven body and soul.  Somewhere in the cosmos or in another dimension, Enoch and Jesus exist body and soul.  Elijah can be added to the group--he was taken up in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11).

In the few centuries before Jesus, the character and story about Enoch fascinated the Jewish people.  Many scholars believe that pious scribes, zealous for the law, believed the characters found in the Book of Genesis knew many details of the law that would later be given to Moses.  These early pious characters surely were prophets, they believed.  We don't really know how long the stories existed, eventually they were written, or invented and written, during the Hasmonean Dynasty ruled by the Jewish priest-kings in the mid-2nd century BCE.  The intention of the authors was to stem the cultural tide of Greek influence in Palestine (Hellenization). All Jewish literature at that time was religious, Yahweh was always part of the story line together with angels and demons with names and ranks (something the Jews picked up in Babylon).  Most notable among the books written were Enoch, The Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book of Jubilees (attributed to Moses).

Of course, Enoch was not the author of the book bearing his name.  No one believes that today; many Jews and Christians before and after Jesus believed it was Scripture and that Enoch really did write it. Today the book is consider by all (even Fundamentalists) to be both apocryphal (not Scripture) and psueopigraphal (a complete fake). By the time of the Hasmonean Dynasty, the priests (who pretty much controlled all Jewish life) forbade any more prophets bearing new messages from Yahweh--there were enough prophecies already and, besides, the Law was sufficient.  A good Jew only need obey the law, attend the feasts and observe the temple sacrifices.  This may have been the reason why pious scribes who believed there was yet another message from Yahweh, attributed a new prophecy to a revered Jewish character long since dead.

So what was the prophecy of Enoch?  The writer was very preoccupied with exhorting the Jews to faithfully observe all the commandments of the Lord, especially in avoiding sexual promiscuity and adultery.  The writer focused on the brief and bizarre story recorded  in Genesis 6:1-4.  Before we get into that story I want you to notice that Noah was introduced in the last verse of Chapter 5--"And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth." The account about Noah picks up again in 6:9.  And so the account from 5:1-8 is an introduction inserted  into the story about Noah and the flood.

Now you know the story about Noah--God told Noah to build the ark large enough to hold him, his wife, his three sons and their wives and select animals.  When the ark was finished and they were all safe and snug inside (can you imagine the smell), God would send a flood to wipe out all life on earth. The rain continued until the waters cover the tops of the highest mountains.  Why did God bring the flood?  "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them" Gen. 6:5-7.

But how did people get so wicked?  What happened to cause that?  The answer is found in the introduction to flood in Gen. 6:1-4.  This is was happened.  The Sons of God (bene-elohim) saw the daughters of men (adam) that they were fair (good ones) and so they took whomever they chose and had children by them.  The offspring became the giants (nephilim) who became men of renown (masterful men, warriors).

That drove God to say, enough is enough, and he wiped them out by the flood.

It is a very vague passage of Scripture, so vague that orthodox and evangelical commentators don't know what to say about it, but that doesn't stop them from offering suggestions.

After all, who or what were the sons of God who took the daughters of man?

Enter the Book of Enoch.  The writer believed he had the answer.  Enoch, the righteous man who lived during the time described in Gen. 6:1-4 observed the wickedness that was being committed.  Through his prophecy he is able to tell us who/what the Sons of God were.  God also revealed to him the prophecy about what would become of those wicked Sons of God together with many exhortations to people how they show flee from the wickedness of the Sons of God.

Here is the true story God revealed to Enoch.

The Sons of God were angels who were called watchers. The watchers saw the daughters of men and lusted after them; they forcibly took them as their wives so they could have sex with them.  The result was the birth of children who were not quite right--they were half angel and half human.  The sin of the watchers was lust.  God responded by cursing the watchers and condemning them to a place with falling columns of fire (fiery water fall?).  That would be their future destiny (after their death?).  But the watchers were not done, they taught humans all kinds of wicked practices.  God had enough, and so he brought the flood to wipe out the watchers, their perverted offspring and all the people on earth who had been corrupted by them.

That is the Prophecy of Enoch in a nutshell.  Of course, the prophecy rambles on and on, describing their sexual perversity, all the wickedness they sponsored and the kinds of punishments God had in store for them.

All of it was bogus.  Even though it was popular among the people.  Even the Christian apologist, Justin Martyr (150 CE) believed its authenticity and used it to explain human sinfulness.  Enoch was eventually rejected by the bishops and church councils in the 4th century, but not before it left a lasing impression on Christians and their theology.

Jude--in the Book of Jude in the New Testament--quoted Enoch's bogus prophecy (Jude 14,15 compare with Enoch 1:9, an exact quote). 

What does that make of the Book of Jude.

But wait, there's more.  The writer of 2nd Peter also quoted from Enoch (2 Peter 2:4).  The Book of Revelation is full of quotes from Enoch, it reads just like the Prophecy of Enoch.  Even Jesus used expressions and terms found in Enoch. 

Theologians converted Enoch's story of the rebellious angels and used it to explain the origin of Satan and his legions of demon, even though Satan was not the leader mentioned in Enoch (Samlazaz and 9 other leaders-- they are later called satans, accusers).  Theologians connected this incorrectly to Isaiah's prophecy of the destruction of the king of Tyre and of Tyre itself (a city-state on the Mediterranean adjacent to Israel): "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"  The king of Tyre was given the name Lucifer (Son of the Morning).  It really had nothing to do with the devil.  Doesn't matter, Christian today believe Lucifer was the most beautiful angel God created who then led the other angels in rebellion against God.  Lucifer (Satan) then tempted Eve to rebell, etc. It became a the theme of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Christian do not even know the story non-biblical.

 The Book of Enoch, edited by Joseph B. Lumpkin, can be purchased from Amazon for your Kindle for .99 cents.  I have quoted from the Hebrew Book of Enoch which is the oldest version.

Why Cathedral In the Sky

Granted, this book has a strange title that is also confusing.  “What do you mean by ‘Cathedral In The Sky’?” I have been asked.  Cathedral in the Sky is a metaphor I used for the Judeo Christian faith.  The medieval cathedrals scattered across Europe are impressive, elaborate, complex, ornate edifices that took hundreds of years to complete. They were built to overwhelm the senses and the imagination, creating the illusion of drawing nearer the throne of God. Generations of masons and laborers toiled on those structures; bishops, priest and ruler inherited and continued their construction, each generation adding new space and making changes according to the needs of their time.  Maintenance and improvements are never ending and continue to this day, hundreds of years later.  The Christian religion is like that; it is an impressive and ancient institution. Like the great cathedrals—elaborate, complex, and ornate, designed to inspire the imagination, creating the illusion of a god who is omnipotent, immutable and complex, a god who demands obedience and justice. It took hundreds and thousands of years to build, generations of priests, scribes, prophets, prelates and scholars have contributed to its construction, with each generation making changes in doctrine and practice according to the needs of their time. 

While the cathedrals of Europe in all of their beauty, intricacy and grandeur are real structures to be admired, the Judeo-Christian religion, while intricate, involved and grand, is, nonetheless, false, an illusion maintained by the faithful. It is not what it claims to be and it leads people to believe what is not true.