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The book of Enoch (a non-canonical pseudopigraphal book) is a wild story that expounds on the strange events of Genesis 6:1-4 and is quoted by Jude and Peter. T
by waynecochran 4y ago
The book of Enoch (a non-canonical pseudopigraphal book) is a wild story that expounds on the strange events of Genesis 6:1-4 and is quoted by Jude and Peter. The fact that some of the DSS versions contain forgeries is interesting. I have always suspected there were a very ancient Enoch texts that are now lost and what we do have contains many forgeries.
- Minor49er 4y ago"The Books of Enoch" by Paul C. Schnieders is an interesting read if you're curious about their contents. The general consensus from my understanding is that none of the ones we have today are the one referenced in The Bible
- waynecochran 4y agoThanks for the reference. I have read Enoch 1 and it is a wild story that in my view is pure fantasy (e.g., giants were 300 cubits tall!?). I have always just assumed that Jude and Peter were quoting some authentic version from earlier and the version I have read was the creation of an imposter.
- lisper 4y agoRight. Because everything in Genesis makes perfect sense.
- lo_zamoyski 4y agoThat depends on interpretation.
- chickenimprint 4y agoYou concluded a biblical text was fantastical, due to it's literal reading being physically impossible?
- Mikeb85 4y agoI mean, Genesis has people that are 900 years old, a talking serpent, a boat that can fit every type of animal, and you take issue with giants lol?
- waynecochran 4y agoThe style of the first 11 chapters of Genesis is very different than the remainder of the book. For instance, Genesis 3 is not meant to be historical prose like chapter 12 and following. Projecting my 21st century world view on an ancient text describing deep mysteries about creation and the fall of man is pure arrogance. For instance, the author of Genesis 3 doesn't expect the reader to think the serpent was merely a biological snake. This is a condensed poem that conveys truth in a much deeper way.
- Mikeb85 4y agoI'm not making any judgements either way. Just saying that Enoch is no more fantastic than parts of Genesis. Also, Genesis references Enoch.
- waynecochran 4y agoHave you read Enoch 1? Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him. He is seventh from Adam and the first man to break the pattern of death.
- Mikeb85 4y ago> Have you read Enoch 1? Yes, among many other religious texts (whole Orthodox Biblical canon + a bunch of pseudoepigraphical works, most of the Buddhist canon, Taoist and Hindu works, some ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, Quran, etc...). Got way too sidetracked in University. It's interesting though. > Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him Of course he was a character mentioned in Genesis but references to things from the book of Enoch (Nephilim/Giants/half-god humans) are more interesting.
- Minor49er 4y agoNot to mention that the nephilim may not have even been giants to begin with. They are ambiguous
- EdwardDiego 4y agoMy pet theory is that the Nephilim are a folk memory of the last Neanderthals.
- bmitc 4y agoAren’t Neanderthals much shorter than humans?
- EdwardDiego 4y agoThey were, but also stronger, IIRC. I figured "giant" could be a metaphor, after all it's in a collection of traditions of pastoralists, wherein God rejects the agriculturalist's offering, who then kills his sheep herding brother. Then the farmer builds the first city, and his descendents are the first blacksmith, the first musician, the first dancer (debateably), and the first animal farmer - who also often conflicted with semi-nomadic herders. Great metaphor for the Iron Age equivalent of the Range Wars.
- Minor49er 4y agoCould Neanderthals be described as "heroes of old, men of renown"?
- EdwardDiego 4y agoIn my head canon, some Neanderthal managed to find acceptance in Homo sapiens societies through prodigious feats of strength or bravery. We know we interbred (although IIRC, DNA evidence suggests that mainly Neanderthal male and Homo sapiens female births were viable) And IIRC, Neanderthal were far stronger than us. Mind you, could be that they're where folk memory of dwarves arises, short, strong, like living underground. Maybe elves were Homo floriensis? I love speculating like this because it's entirely unprovable, much like evolutionary psychology.
- akomtu 4y agoEnoch is not a man. Enochion was the name of the famous third-eye that supposedly (if we believe the story in the book) existed in the pre-atlantian era of the super-giants, cyclopes, who peacefully co-existed with giant reptiles. The eye allowed them to see things thru, so it was called the eye of wisdom. As the civilization progressed and got immersed in sin, the visions that the eye saw became intolerable, and over time it had lost its function, depressed into the center of the brain and became hypophysis.
- colineartheta 4y agoHave you read the Bible? Or the book being referenced at all? Enoch is very clearly a man. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch
- akomtu 4y agoIt's a common technique to invent personalities to describe things you don't want to put in plain writing. Literal reading of the Bible, and similar books, won't reveal much.
- colineartheta 4y agoIt would be greatly appreciated if you could provide any scholarly evidence, or even a cited critical reading of the Book of Enoch, showing that this character (whom has been a noted point of contention and much thought and writing amongst theologians and secular researchers alike for millennia) is intended to be an invented metaphorical personality of the type that you described.
- moloch-hai 4y agoThey are all metaphorical. No one seriously imagines Adam, Noah, or Moses as historical, flesh-and-bone, people, any more than we imagine that of Paul Bunyan, Slue-foot Sue, or Hamlet. Jesus, too, BTW. Everything written as if of real events came at least two generations after the cult began.
- komali2 4y agoOh shit I've never heard of this, I wonder if this is from where the recurring character in Neal Stephenson's books takes his name, "Enoch Root."
- DontchaKnowit 4y agoEnoch is mentioned in the bible already
- andrewflnr 4y agoYeah, but just a couple lines. Most of the mystique is probably from the Book of Enoch et al.
- bentley 4y agoThe Book of Enoch certainly has mystique, but even the brief mentions of Enoch in canonical scripture attract a lot of commentary, because they say he never died: “Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:5, ESV) “Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:8, ESV) “Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:11, ESV) “Thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:14, ESV) “Thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:17, ESV) “Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:20, ESV) “Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:23–24, ESV) “Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:27, ESV) “Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.” (Genesis 5:31, ESV) The Bible only describes one other human, Elijah, as leaving Earth without having died. (Even Jesus died!)
- Eleison23 4y agoTechnically, Jesus rose again and left Earth alive, without dying again. The Blessed Virgin Mary is certainly mentioned in the New Testament, and her death is an open question, but her assumption into Heaven is a fact.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoThe Catholic Church at the Council of Rome formally defined what books were considered authentic and which ones were not (and this list was, with some reduction, also used by Protestants). The Book of Enoch was a bit contentious because of the quotation in an inspired book - but it was ultimately determined to be not inspired, and the quotation not necessarily either. (I.e. Imagine if scripture quoted a Roman decree - the decree is not inspired in spite of the quote.) Despite this, the Book of Enoch and other rejected books do appear in some Bibles, with a warning about how they are apocryphal. Just because they aren’t inspired though (officially-speaking) doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting.
- lapestenoire 4y ago[flagged]
- NateEag 4y agoNaturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition. If you want to live your life via the scientific method, awesome - it's a really powerful technique for refining the accuracy of predictions. It can't ever rigorously conclude whether anything was ever divinely inspired, though.
- lapestenoire 4y agoThe burden of proof rests on those who make fantastical claims, not on everyone else to disprove their claims.
- generalizations 4y agoThe point is that science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim, except to note that it’s outside its purview. Burden of proof is a whole different discussion.
- 4y ago
- smeagull 4y agonon-canonical by a few churches. In my head canon it's the only one that is true.
- waynecochran 4y agoI don't know of any church that considers it canonical. I think it certainly reflects what folks thought about the enigmatic Genesis 6:1-4 text before and around the time of Christ.
- wl 4y agoThe Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches consider it canonical, which is why we still have complete copies of it, albeit in Ge'ez.
- waynecochran 4y agoInteresting. I wonder if the translation is much different in content than the English versions. It's a wild read.
- DontchaKnowit 4y agoThe Tewahedo church in Ethiopia considers it cannon. There is no english translation of their bibles currently but wiki says a translation project is underway. Can I ask - are you a biblical scholar? Reading a different bible each year us impressive
- waynecochran 4y agoJust a layman. I only read English translations (I don't know Greek or Hebrew) Just finished the Orthodox Study Bible Old Testament which is based on the Greek Septuagint. I read Brenton's translation about 10 years ago. Anyway, I having picked out a Bible for this next year.
- andrewflnr 4y agoDon't feed the troll.
- Beltalowda 4y agoThis got me thinking: what exactly defines a forgery here? Ancient Jewish texts were almost certainly based on previous oral tradition and underwent all sorts of changes over the years before they came to be written down as the texts we know today, and there were probably different versions of the written texts too – the non-canonical ones just got mostly lost as they didn't get copied so much (or at all). So is a text from, say, 200 B.C. that changes some things from an older version from 300 B.C. a forgery? Or is it just a different version of the same story and is neither more authentic than the other (the 300 B.C. version may not be the true original either)? It seems to me that something is only a forgery if, say, someone in the year 500 invents an entire new text whole-cloth and then tries to pretend it's actually from 200 B.C. But if it originates from the same culture and traditions as the Hebrew bible then it's one version of an authentic text. And even someone invents something whole-cloth – like, say, claiming to find golden plates with Egyptian hieroglyphs in the US – then can we define this as a "forgery"? It quickly becomes a matter of faith.
- verisimi 4y agoYes - there is a presumption that someone has the truth, and we can all go and check against it. When in reality it is very hard to know truth, even in the present time, even in one's own experience. So, if that is the case, why make such an outlandish claim? Well, there is value to someone if they can say 'I have the truth' and other people believe them. The initial lie, once believed, takes on a life of its own thanks to the belief that becomes invested in it, especially when it is under someone's external control.
- hef19898 4y agoWe are talking about religion, so in all practical terms a form of propaganda. In a historical context, a text becomes truth if enough people believe it. The question of forgery is relevant to find out whom and when created said forgery.
- hef19898 4y agoToo late to edit, but I think this passage from the article fits here quite well: >> Take the story of a group of fallen angels who descend to earth to seduce beautiful women. Using his new technique, Langlois discovered that earlier scholars had gotten the names of some of the angels wrong, and so had not realized the names were derived from Canaanite gods worshipped in the second millennium B.C.—a clear example of the way scriptural authors integrated elements of the cultures that surrounded them into their theologies. The priests from the new religion wrote a text portraying the ancient gods as "evil". Sounds like an efficient use of propaganda to me. And that is something that makes historical research of religious texts very worthwhile.
- Maursault 4y agoPretty sure the story includes Enoch transforming into an angel and there after was called Metatron, i.e. Enoch effectively became God. That is pretty wild.