I would like to step outside of the Bible in order to step back into
the Bible - well sort of something like that. I’d like to start by stating
these basic principles that I believe most everyone would agree with. The
Bible was written by an ancient people of a different time, culture and
mentality than us. We know and understand that there are many things we
struggle to understand in the scriptures because of this fact. And because of
this, we take to the study of ancient writings, people and times. But, as we
know, not everyone does this sadly.
The battle continues over the opinions on the creation account and the
book of Genesis. Studies in the writings from the surrounding nations at the
time period of the writing of Genesis give scholars insight into the types of
writing styles and language use for the period. Through this, alternative
meanings can be discovered for words we thought we understood already.
The same principle is applied to our study of Scripture elsewhere - we
have to understand the culture and it’s use of phrases, idioms and terminology,
in order to best understand what was written in Scripture at the time.
I wish to take a look at one piece of influential literature, an
ancient writing that you have probably at least heard of its name - the Book of
Enoch. I hope to show you how this writing, which was lost or ignored by the
church for nearly two thousand years, was actually a key influential writing
that had a big impact upon our New Testament Scriptures.
Now, when it comes to the discussion of extra-biblical literature like
this, people tend to have different reactions. Mention something like the
Apocrypha to a Protestant - their instinct is to raise their fists in
preparation for a fight. When you bring up Jewish writings that come from the
biblical period, people either simply ignore or dismiss them as useless, or
simply deny they contain any truth at all, and think instead that they contain
error and myth.
We may hold to inspiration of Scripture, and we believe all of Scripture
is true, but such a view does not require that we view everything outside the
Scripture as necessarily false. Some people do exactly that, particularly when
it comes to other scripture-like material from days of old. “If it was true,
why did the early church not include it in the canon?” some may ask.
The Book of Enoch is understood by scholars to be one of the many
apocalyptic writings that came out of the second temple period of Hebrew
history. Part of what makes these books relevant to those who study the Bible
today, is the fact that they are written in a similar manner as our New
Testament, containing similar language, terminology and doctrines.
Most scholars also classify many of these writings as pseudepigraphal
- pseudo meaning not genuine. This is because it seems to have been a common
practice, they say, to find writings penned under the names of a famous or
widely known figures from the past. There are many reasons why this practice
was supposedly done, and so they believe these writings are not actually
written by Enoch, since he lived several thousand years earlier than they have
dated this book.
Well, for the larger part of church history, the Book of Enoch was
lost to the church. The early church period after the Apostle had it, with even
some sects of the church, like the Ethiopic branch, holding it as indeed sacred
and part of their canon. It was considered as scripture in the Epistle of
Barnabas and by many of the early Church Fathers, such as Athenagoras, Justin
Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Irenaeus and Tertullian, who
called the Book of Enoch “Holy Scripture,” and wrote c. 200 that the Book of
Enoch had been rejected by the Jews because it contained prophecies pertaining
to Christ.
In looking at another of the reasons why the book was rejected by
some, I found what I think is an amazing quote from author Joseph Lumpkin, who
is not a preterist, but states this about church history:
Since any book stands to be interpreted
in many ways, Enoch posed problems for some theologians. Instead of reexamining
their own theology, they sought to dispose of that which went counter to their
beliefs. Some of the visions in Enoch are believed to point to the consummation
of the age in conjunction with Christ’s second coming, which some believe took
place in AD 70 (in the destruction of Jerusalem). (Joseph B. Lumpkin - The Books of Enoch: The Angels, The Watchers
and The Nephilim, p 16)
His implication here seems to be saying that some in the early days of
the church believed the second coming was in AD 70. Sadly he does not develop
that or explain any further as to where he is pulling this tidbit of
information from.
He does go on to mention that the “70 generations” discussed in Enoch
was a problem for scholars too, because they thought it indeed could not be
stretched beyond the first century. Kind of like what troubles people about
Daniel’s 70 weeks. So in the end, we find it to begin being discredited after
the Council of Laodicea and then later church fathers denied the canonicity of
the book. Some even considered the letter of Jude uncanonical because it refers
to this "apocryphal" work. The book eventually fell from view for
almost two thousand years, and was only rediscovered and published in English
around the turn of the nineteenth century.
A short side note. When I was researching some additional info on the
70 generations mentioned in Enoch, I stumbled upon a general forum discussion
on religion, and found someone who was struggling with this issue. He said:
In Enoch, it predicts the Messiah will
arise 70 generations after Enoch, 'seventh from Adam.' This in itself would be
harmless if Enoch was just a fairytale, but in Luke's genealogy of Jesus there
are indeed 70 from Enoch to Jesus!
It seems that (a) Enoch correctly
predicted it, (b) Luke modified the genealogy here and there to make it match
Enoch, (c) Enoch is again taking from it (Luke). Something is going on here! If
Luke just made something up like that, how can we be sure he didn't just make
up or borrow things from older non-inspired texts as he saw fit?
What also seems a bit troubling is that
Enoch says the judgement will occur 70 generations after Enoch; at the time of
Christ. Christ says he would return before the generation had passed away, again
fitting in with Enoch. So here we have another conundrum: either (a) Christ was
a false prophet or (b) the Preterist interpretation is correct and he somehow
returned before the generation ended. (www.city-data.com, post 3/9/2010
by Trimac20)
Two things to note - he may indeed be correct in implying that Luke,
as a first century writer, may have been borrowing from the Book of Enoch, as
we will be looking into further as we go. Secondly, it is worth noting that
based on his study of the book he was beginning to show leanings towards a
Preterist understanding of things.
Back to the topic, after falling from view for almost two thousand
years, when the Book of Enoch is rediscovered, it was actually assumed that it
must have been a writing that was penned some time after the Christian era. The
main reason for this was because it had so many quotes, paraphrases and
concepts that were found within the New Testament. However, this view changed
after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Ten fragments of the Book of Enoch
were found among these scrolls which lead some scholars to believe the book may
have been used widely as a prayer book, teacher’s manual or study text. But its
inclusion within the Dead Sea Scrolls reveals that the book was actually in existence
before the time of Christ. As Lumpkin puts it:
These (Dead Sea) scrolls force a closer
look and reconsideration. It became obvious that the New Testament did not
influence the Book of Enoch; on the contrary, the Book of Enoch influenced the
New Testament. (Joseph B. Lumpkin - TheBooks of Enoch: The Angels, The Watchers and The Nephilim, p 11)
There are actually three books of Enoch that you will find out there,
but I will only be discussing the first of those three - commonly known as the
Ethiopic Book of Enoch, or 1st Enoch. It contains 107 chapters which scholars
divide the book into 5 main sections.
The first 36 chapters is commonly known as the Book of the Watchers, and
describes the activities surrounding the Genesis 6 procreation between the sons
of God and the daughters of men and Enoch being taken to heaven in relation to
the judgment for that.
Section two is chapters 37-71, referred to as the Book of Parables, and is
usually the center of debate among scholars. It relates to the Book of
Watchers, but it contains the development of ideas surrounding the final
judgment of those even outside of the fallen angels discussed in section one.
It is also where we see the appearance of a person referred to with the terms
“Son of Man,” “Righteous one,” “Chosen one,” and “Messiah.”
Chapters 72-82 are known as the Astrological Book, as it describes
the knowledge revealed during Enoch’s trip to Heaven regarding the movements of
the heavenlies bodies, the firmament, and the Solar calendar.
Chapters 83-90 are referred to as the book of Dream Visions, and
describes visions of the history of Israel down through the intertestamental
period. It is for this reason that many scholars conclude that the book of
Enoch - or at least this section of it - must have been written during the
intertestamental period, and not earlier, since it contained history only up
until that time. The Ethiopic church though, held this book was indeed written
before the flood, and that this section was indeed prophetic visions of things
to come.
Chapters 83-84 deal with the first vision, dealing with events
surrounding the deluge, and 85-90 is the history of the world up through the
establishment of the Messianic kingdom.
The final chapters, 91-107, are referred to as the Epistle
of Enoch, or the Book of Warnings and Blessings of Enoch,
are is usually further broken down into five covered topics: Exhortation,
Apocalypse of Weeks, Epistle, the Birth of Noah, and the Conclusion.
As I mentioned earlier, the Book of Enoch is considered one of the
writings known as apocalyptic. There are many such Hebrew writings that are
outside the canon of scripture. As writer Michael Stone puts it:
Many of these writings were very much
concerned with eschatological matters, the imminence of the end of days and the
way men should act in this last period preceding that end. Moreover, the end of
days was not just seen as a chance event, but was understood as having been
fixed in advance, as had the whole course of history from creation. (Michael
Edward Stone - Scriptures, Sects andVision: A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish Revolts, Pg. 61)
So, for a those who thrive in eschatological type studies, these types
of books should sound fascinating to us, right? I admit that is one of the key
reasons I started looking in to them.
Let me take a brief stop here to chase a rabbit trail. There is a
doctrinal theory out there that states the Bible does not teach a determined
set plan of Yahweh, but that things are open ended, dependent on man’s actions
and reactions, and that many results are not even totally known to Yahweh. This
is basically the view known as Open Theism.
A few months ago I was in a discussion on Facebook with someone that I would have considered to be well read. He was
espousing this view of Open Theism, going on about how the Hebrew people didn't
believe in a view of Yahweh as being a deterministic God who knew everything
about the future. I granted to him that maybe while strictly considering it
from only the canon of Hebrew Scriptures his view may appear to have credence,
but that it fails miserably to be so in the light of the even larger amount of
ancient Hebrew writings like those pseudepigraphal and intertestamental
writings. His response was that he had never read any of them.
So here is a person, spouting off and belittling others - especially
those holding to predestination type views - and speaking in an authoritative
manner about the historic beliefs of the Hebrews, yet by his own admission, he
is ignorant of all but a few of their writings. Real scholarship comes about by
a fairly thorough look at a wealth of such information before coming to such
concrete conclusions as he was doing.
If the Hebrews indeed had a totally open view of history and Yahweh’s
knowledge of it, then the whole realm of prophecy is almost useless, as it is
always subject to change due to man thwarting the hoped for outcome. This
fellow even stated that if Yahweh had been unsuccessful in convincing Moses to
act on his behalf, then he would have raised up someone else to do the task. I
don’t know about you, but I find such a view to be extremely radical and
thoroughly unbiblical.
Author Michael Edward Stone summarizes the position by somewhat
agreeing that looking strictly at some of the Hebrew Scriptures, events of
history appear to be contingent on the action of men, but he then continues:
In many of the Pseudepigrapha, however, a
determinism is clearly presented. God fixed the times in advance; they can be
calculated (by Him at least); human action is of no weight in determining the
course of history. Moreover, these views were conceived under the very strong
impression of the dualistic opposition of the world to come and this world.
(Michael Edward Stone - Scriptures, Sectsand Vision: A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish Revolts, pg 62)
So, either Yahweh’s people had a total flipping of opinion in their
view and writing on Yahweh over time, or the deterministic nature of the Hebrew
scriptures have been misunderstood by us. I am one who already sees much
determinism throughout the Scriptures already, so finding it in these other
writings is not such a change of position for me at all.
More to come!
View the other parts of the topic
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |
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