Cultish: The Book of Enoch - Discerning Fact from Fiction, Pt. 2

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Here's to living out freedom. Welcome back to Coltish everybody, where we enter into the kingdom of the

Colts. Uh, it is me flying solo again. We're doing our book of Enoch series.

This is the second episode. The first episode, we did a great historical analysis of the book of Enoch, which is,

I think, extremely helpful for individuals just because it helps demystify the book of Enoch.

So typically when we think of the book of Enoch, at least me, I think of a YouTube videos going down a spiraling rabbit hole.

Uh, but I think understanding the history can really help us think critically, uh, about the book of Enoch without trying to fall prey to mysticism essentially.

But I'm joined again with Wes. How are you doing Wes? I'm doing well. If we didn't confuse everybody in the first episode, we'll confuse them in the second episode.

So that's right, man. That's, that's right. I'm glad to have you back and quickly, where can everyone find your information?

Yep. So if you're interested in what I do and my ministry, my academic work, I, you can find that at wesleyhuff .com

or apologeticscanada .com. Um, all of my infographics and videos and blog posts are on my website.

Um, but if you want to know what I'm up to in terms of my speaking schedule and some of the, the practical ministry stuff that we speak here up in Canada at conferences and churches and university campuses, you can find that at apologeticscanada .com.

Perfect. Perfect, man. Yeah, we're, we're going to get into it this episode. We're going to talk about the Nephilim, the watchers. We're going to go to Jude and maybe some other allusions, uh, in the new

Testament to the book of Enoch. So I'm going to start off by reading a section of scripture for you, uh,

Wes, and I want to get what you think about it. Okay. So I'm going to start off in Genesis six and I'm going to read verses one through eight, okay, and this is from the

ESB states, when man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives, any they choose.

Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever for his flesh. His day shall be 120 years.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them.

These were the mighty men who are of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and he grieved him to his heart. So the

Lord said, I will blot out man whom I've created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.

But Noah found a favor in the eyes. Of the Lord. So how is this section of scripture relevant first to the book of Enoch?

Well, the book of Enoch is basically at least a portion of it is an explanation as to what is going on leading up to Genesis chapter six in the flood.

What are the sons of God who saw that the daughters of men were desirous and bore children to them?

Who are the Nephilim? Who are these characters? And how do we understand this kind of cryptic, maybe even supernatural spiritual language?

So that's what's going on. It's kind of a like a behind the scenes picture as to this event.

It's just kind of matter of fact, we have this leading up to the flood. The flood is the major story. So this is just the, this is the prelude, but in terms of, okay, well, how do we find, how do we find the camera rolling on the events leading up to that?

Part of Enoch is an explanation. That's right. It is.

Okay. So thinking about Enoch and the explanation, what is the explanation that they give with the

Nephilim? Yeah. So there are a number of different interpretations from the

Genesis text, from the Genesis chapter six text. The book of Enoch takes a spiritual approach and definitely views these things as supernatural.

And that was kind of the primary ancient Jewish understanding for a long, long time, when you get into the early church period, there's kind of a distancing from that, especially with,

I think it's Julius Africanus is the first guy who kind of pulls back and tries to find more of a, if we want to call it a natural explanation, and then certainly

Augustine came up with a naturalistic explanation for this. And then,

I mean, Augustine was so prominent that he led a lot of the interpretation for the next, you know, arguably, you know, thousand years.

And so recently though, I mean, there's kind of been a back and forth. And I know you guys at Caltish are familiar with Michael Heiser and the unseen realm, and he's really kind of brought to prominence a lot of the more of, okay, well, what are we seeing here?

Well, the naturalistic explanation doesn't really make sense. And I think he's right there.

And I think he actually changed my mind in terms of some of these things. I think I would have, especially when

I went through seminary, in one of my Old Testament classes, we went through this, we read a number of different interpretations and commentaries, and I thought, okay, yeah, you know, there's this kind of Sethite interpretation that these are the descendants of Seth, and there's their marrying with the daughters of the pure line from Adam and this kind of thing, and their interpretations.

And I think it was actually Heiser who, along with a friend of mine who is a big Heiser fan, constantly borderline harassing me to read the unseen realm, for good reason,

I think he's right. I think it's a good book to read. I don't agree with everything, but it's a good book to read. And they kind of changed my interpretation.

So let's go through what's going on. So one theory of the Genesis chapter six, particularly verse four that you read,

Andrew, with the sons of God is that they're fallen angels who took on physical form and mated with human females, who possessed human males, who then mated with human female demons, who mated with human females.

And these unions resulted in these kind of extraordinary offspring, the

Nephilim, who were, as it says, heroes of old, men of renown, of giant size, and apparently enhanced physical capabilities.

Now, one of the things that we run into later on is the problem of the fact that the word

Nephilim in Hebrew is the word for giant. And so they're not destroyed during the flood.

Because when later on, when they go into the promised land, when the

Israelites go into the promised land, who do they run into? Well, they run into giants,

Nephilim. They say, you know, we don't want to go into the land because they're full of giants. And so we do have to kind of navigate the fact that this was a standard word in the

Hebrew language for giant. But if demons were involved in producing the Nephilim, it's likely those demons are the ones who were judged by God and are now kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day, which

Jude refers to in Jude chapter one, verse six. So assuming that the Nephilim were a spawns of demons, why would demons want to cohabitate with human women to produce offspring?

Well, some scholars have come up with the speculation that demons were attempting to pollute the human bloodline in order to prevent the

Messiah from coming. Now, is that speculation? Yes. But it's an interesting one that God had clearly promised this

Messiah who would one day crush the head of the serpent, which is Satan, right? Genesis chapter three, verse 15.

And that demons in Genesis chapter six were possibly attempting to prevent the crushing of the serpent to make it impossible for a sinless seed of the woman to be born.

Now, there are at least two objections to that theory, that the Nephilim were demon -human hybrids.

And the first is that nothing in the text expressly identifies the sons of God as angels.

And second, the Bible never indicates that the angels are physiologically compatible with women and can procreate with them.

The others though, I've suggested that the sons of God might be fallen angels who possessed men, as in the theory that this phrase, sons of God, could still refer to fallen angels.

The difference being that demons were using mortal men to accomplish their goals. Now, there's a lot of things that are going on here that I don't claim to understand, but either way, what we can say is that the

Nephilim were giants. They were unusually big people who lived there.

And that simply means that everyone was big and tall and mighty who fit in this category.

Genetically, humanity was still, you know, there was this aspect of, you know, the, after coming out of the garden, there was this nearly pristine condition.

And the sons of God, I think being simply men, which is one explanation,

I don't think necessarily accounts for everything that's going on. Now, the fact that the

Nephilim were still around sporadically after the flood as an indicator of giants like Goliath is an interesting one, but those

Nephilim are not described as supernatural, where it seems that the Nephilim in Genesis chapter six are, but this is where we get into the book of Enoch, because according to the book of Enoch, the

Nephilim were a unique race of giants and almost like superheroes who committed acts of great evil.

And actually, if you've seen the 2004 movie, Noah, starring Russell Crowe, I know, right?

You might've regretted seeing it, but you did see it. Yes. It kind of pulls from this and it pulls from this idea of the

Nephilim are fallen angels encased in a rock. And the idea of that comes from Enoch where it says that they were, they were cursed to the earth.

And so they kind of take artistic license for that and they make them these kind of like, almost like transformer -esque rock beings.

I mean, I like the way that CSB puts it, powerful men of old, men of renown, right?

And I mean, there's lots of, you can talk about the Nephilim, there's lots of theories about them being angels or aliens or, you know, those kinds of things.

But either way, I think personally, I think there probably is something supernatural going on here.

And later Moses addresses the people of Israel before they enter in Canaan and he, he mentions them as the son of Enoch.

It's in Deuteronomy 9, one to two. Let me just read that for you. Cause I have it pulled up here. You are now about to cross the

Jordan to go in and dispose nations greater and stronger than you with large cities that have walls up to the sky.

The people are strong and tall. Anakites, you know about them and have heard it said, who can stand up against the

Anakites? And these giants were destroyed by the Israelites with God's help, right?

In Deuteronomy 3, we see that in Joshua 11 and 1 Samuel 17. So, you know, it's a mysterious, it's a strange passage in Genesis chapter six, that states that the

Nephilim were in the land in the days before the flood. And the passage, what we can say explicitly is that these things were giants and they existed.

And so I think in terms of an interpretation one way or the other, I think it, there is kind of hermeneutical license, but I think personally, what

I see there is there being at least enough ground to say that there's something supernatural going on.

I may not understand it, but there's something supernatural going on there that resulted in these kinds of Nephilim creatures.

And at least Michael Heiser argues that part of the flood was trying to eradicate these spiritual hybrid beings that existed.

I don't totally know what to do with all of that. I mean, he then argues from some of the intertestamental literature that demons are the disembodied spirits of Nephilim.

I also don't know what I entirely understand about that, but either way, these are the types of questions.

I mean, we read that and we go, okay, what's going on here? The ancient Jews are reading that and they're going, okay, what's going on here?

And that's what results in the book of Enoch. That's what gets us to our topic is that the questions we're asking from Genesis six are the same types of questions the ancient

Israelites and ancient Jews are asking. And so the product of that is this kind of, okay, let's expand this literature.

Let's try to figure out, let's flesh this out. How do we understand these things? Okay. And the resultant literature is the book of the watchers.

Wow. Okay. So now, now let's get into, well, the watchers, for example, I have it pulled up here right now in Daniel four, 13 through 17.

I don't need to read all of it, but that's where the watchers are mentioned. I'll, I'll, I'll read verse,

I believe 17 right here. It says the sentences by decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones to the end, that the living may know that the most high rules, the kingdoms of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.

So what, what are the watchers according to the book of Enoch and what do you think the watchers are personally? Yeah, that's a, that's a,

I don't know if I know, I mean, um, the, the watchers appear to be some type of spiritual being.

Um, and we know that there is a hierarchy of spiritual beings.

Uh, we sometimes get tripped up because we think of God as being described as Elohim, Elohim is kind of a designation of supernatural beings.

So when the Bible says that there is no God, but God, there is no Elohim, but the

Elohim. It's kind of setting God up as a, as a, the head of the category, but the category of spiritual beings, which includes seraphim, which includes cherubim, which includes, um, angels, um, either, uh, uh, you know, in the, in the

Greek it's angelos, which is messenger. So in that sense, an angel is not what it is.

It's his job description. It's a messenger. And so it appears at least that we see these passages in places like Daniel, where it includes other, at least at face value, um, spiritual beings, the, the decree of the watchers, or, uh, that's how the, the

ESV, um, translates it. Let me, let me pull up the Hebrew.

It says, uh, yeah, it uses a word that, yeah, you would translate as the watchers.

So what does, what does that mean? Well, I don't know if I know, or it's clearly clear.

Um, I mean, ear is the Hebrew word. It could be watchers. It could be waking or wakeful ones.

Um, I mean, some translations do translate it as just angels or messengers.

I don't know if that's super accurate, but this is the decision and it's the announcement in Daniel of these creatures, right?

The decision of the word of the holy ones to the end that the living may know that the most high rules.

So they're, they're decreeing this thing. Um, who they are, I think is at least to me is unclear.

Uh, but once again, that's what, that's what something like first Enoch is trying to flesh out.

Right. Yeah. So, yeah, when I'm looking at it, it's as Nebuchadnezzar's like second dream within the context.

It appears that it's like a watcher is the one coming and delivering this dream, uh, to him essentially.

Right. Whereas this, uh, yeah, yeah. So it would be a messenger of some sorts. Uh, the sentence by the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones to end to the end that the living may know that the most high rules the kingdom of men.

Yeah. I mean, that, that makes sense to me. And I mean, if we think about even like a hierarchy of these types of beings, well, we know that by Lucifer, right.

He was supposed to be one of the highest of this, this type of messenger. And, uh, he, he fell from heaven.

So, so yeah, quick question for you. So if we take the book of Enoch out of the equation, uh, would it be possible to come up with a conclusion specifically from the

Bible to interpret Genesis six, uh, as angel human hybrids?

Um, yep. Yeah. I think, I think some have alone because the sons of God is this category.

You know, there are many sons of God in the sense that individuals are described as sons of God, but the way that it appears to be describing it there does appear to be something different.

The sons of God seeing the daughters of men and, and they're kind of put in different categories and that they're desirous.

Um, now, uh, I, you know, in the new Testament, it says, uh, when, when Jesus is asked about marriage, he says that, um, you know, angels aren't given to marriage.

You know, he's asked about the resurrection. So you'll be like the angels. You won't be, you won't be given to marriage. Um, and I know

I've, I've heard that being used as an argument that, well, obviously angels can't procreate, but we do see angels at least temporarily taking human form in the old

Testament. So Genesis 18, we do see there are two angels and then

Yahweh and Yahweh is appearing in human form and there are two angels and they are appearing in some sort of human form.

And, um, so at least in that, and they eat, they eat with Abraham. So there's at least the capability for these spiritual beings to take on a physical quality in some sense.

And so does that cancel out the fact because Jesus says that, well, you know, they can't be given and taken in marriage.

I don't, that they can't then procreate with the sons of, or the daughters of men. I don't know, but I don't think so.

And I think the text seems to indicate, at least in those who interpret it this way, that something very unusual and, uh, even, um, perverted is going on.

It is debased, right? Perverted in the sense of it's a perversion. It's not what the natural intention of, of human procreation is intended to be.

And that results in these, these creatures, these, these Nephilim, these, you know, men of renown, that there's something more going on with the offspring than is, is natural for a human being.

I mean, you even had C .S. Lewis, I mean, this is obviously conjecture, but C .S. Lewis argued that, uh, some, these stories that we hear about the, the

Greco -Roman gods, and even some of the Babylonian gods, and maybe even the Norse gods, that these are echoes, these are echoes of a, a remembrance within the human, uh, mind frame of these heroes and men of renown, that they had at least some sort of a conscience, conscious remembrance of creatures of a people who had what were understood as superhuman capabilities.

And that's where you got the idea of Hercules, not that Hercules actually existed, but that these were kind of the downward, um, the, the downward shadow of, of maybe the echo of a story of someone who did exist.

And, and that's what he argued, um, that, hmm, these myths had kind of a shell to them and that, that, that, that shell went back to the

Nephilim. So yeah, I think, I think outside of, you know, you could definitely get a supernatural view, and I think that that was kind of in, in the

Jewish understanding, um, even aside from Enoch, but, but it was particularly kind of articulated and fleshed out in Enoch.

Yeah, no, that's a, that's a good description. I listened to this, uh, talk from Ken Ham's son -in -law,

Bode Hodge, and speaking about like, uh, Hercules or these, these gods, uh, in a sense that these people worshiped, he brought it back to the table of nations after, uh,

Noah, and he gave a very interesting perspective on how there were people that were living much longer, uh, than their great grandchildren, right.

And people would travel, essentially, he used the names of the individuals from the table of nations, uh, to talk about even names of rivers that are in England and all of this different stuff.

But essentially there was like the very first starts of ancestor veneration, and it can be tied back to even some, uh,

Roman gods or Greek gods and things of that nature. Cause I mean, if you're, uh, the great, great grandson of an individual and that person's still, or that person's still alive while you're dying off.

I mean, people are like, what in the world is going on? I don't know, uh, what the answer is.

Uh, but it's very interesting stuff, you know, cause we look through the lens, we look through the past through a lens darkly.

So if angels can take on human form, uh, I don't know about the procreate part, but in Genesis 19, we have an example of people that saw these angels and they wanted to have intercourse with them, you know, right.

It's in the Bible. So those are the things that even I'm wrestling through as I'm looking through, uh, the word of God right now.

And like, and there's verses that make me think of specific things like talking about the flood. It almost seems like the, the point of the flood was to destroy these things.

So it's hard for me to see, well, how did God fail in that? And if I look at like an unclear verse in Genesis six, but I go to, maybe you can help me think because even

Peter can be kind of confusing, but first Peter three 20, it says, uh, because they were formerly did not obey when

God's patients waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through the water.

Um, I guess it doesn't say that, uh, These Nephilim weren't brought through safely through the water, but it appears to me that only these people are the ones that survived, but.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where I'm at on it was. So I'm still thinking through that myself. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah. No, I think, I think that's fair. I think these are, these are very confusing passages. Let's be honest, like what's intended to be clear in scripture is clear, but there's a lot of stuff that, you know, there's a reason why

I have an entire shelf of commentaries behind me, right? Yeah. Like I've hundreds of pages of commentary.

It's because some of these things do take a lot of focus and a lot of study and a lot of reflection.

And I think we, we can, the gospel is clear. Salvation is clear.

Depravity is clear, but there are things in scripture that are not as clear as others. And so sure, you know, there are interpretations and there's room for error and, and, um, thank

God that those are secondary issues because I haven't figured out a lot of them either.

And I think there's room for interpretation and grace to say, okay, you know, there, there are differences here because there are just some things in particularly the old

Testament, although not limited to it, because. Oh, you read that passage in Peter where it's like, okay, yeah, we, we're not entirely sure what's going on here either.

Um, that we can say, okay, yeah, let's, let's talk about these things. Let's have grace with one another and let's give interpretive room because there's, there's a lot going on in some of these passages.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's, let's have you put that pastoral hat on them for a second. I think that's a cool way to, uh, think about it. What's the danger then in, um, not allowing for that interpretive freedom on those unclear passages or just taking something like Genesis six and then, uh, going down the rabbit hole of the book of Enoch and that becomes your whole world.

Like what are the dangers with that? I think you can really major on minors and, and make things important that scripture itself does not make a first importance.

I mean, even Peter says that a lot of things that Paul says are hard to understand and so it's not like,

I think, you know, if God wanted to be absolutely crystal clear in everything, he could have, he certainly could have, it's not beyond the reasonable scope of divine revelation, but I think what, what

God intends to be clear on, he is intended to be clear on and so I think when people try to make certain aspects of scripture, which are up for interpretation, uh, primary, so the, the technical term for this is adiophora.

There's like a, there's a category of things which fall outside of salvation. And this is why, you know, why even in the ministry

I work for, Apologetics Canada, our speaking team has differences of opinion on a number of things.

I mean, I'm a pretty conservative Baptist. I come from a reformed perspective.

Um, yeah, 1689, um, perspective, but Mike, I work with individuals who are definitely not on the same page on that regard.

Um, one of the people I work with is, is quite charismatic in the grand scheme of things. Um, another one is kind of in a, in a different place, more of an

Armenian perspective, but we focus on the gospel and we're able to work together despite those differences.

And I think that's a Testament to the body of Christ. Doesn't mean those things aren't important. I'm sure.

I think a lot of them are very important, but when we start to take some of these things or even taking the book of Enoch and saying, well, this is our interpretive lens for a lot of stuff that happens in the new

Testament, I think we might be going astray a little bit because those things might give, they might give background and interpretive lens to some of the things that we read about in scripture, but if we start to make them the lens by which we read, then, then we're going to go in a place which the new

Testament authors themselves don't go. And I think that's where we can get in trouble.

When Paul stands on Mars Hill and he talks to the pagans, what does he say?

Well, he proclaims the gospel and he uses their paganism against them.

He's not debating about, I don't know, particulars within the old

Testament narrative. They might need to figure those things out later, but what is of importance?

Well, like Christ died according to the scriptures, he was buried, and then he rose according to the scriptures on the third day, and so those things are clear.

And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be reading things like Enoch. I think we probably should be because they give a frame of reference and historical background and things like that, but they're not necessary.

They're useful, but they're not necessary. That's good, man. That's good. Well, let's have fun speculating for a minute, because these are some of the things that I think of when

I'm talking, when I'm thinking about the Nephilim. Let's say that they were an angel -human hybrid.

Would that mean, do you think that there could be people today that share, that have

Nephilim blood? Oh, I don't know the answer to that. We see interesting things with people that seem or appear to be giant, much taller than we are, you know?

Like there's that one guy we've all seen, like the black and white photos of him. Again, this is pure speculation.

In all reality, I would say that person looks like a giant. Did he have Nephilim blood?

And then this is where my brain goes to Wes. I go, well, then when I'm thinking about God's elect, am

I like, and I'm thinking if these people have Nephilim blood and God wanted to destroy these people off the face of the earth, just because you have

Nephilim blood, does that make you part of the not elect? Or here's the other question.

Does God's blood, Jesus's blood, even save those with Nephilim blood?

Like it's that much more powerful. Wow. We're really in the speculative now. Yeah. I mean, I would say, I don't know, but I would never want to say that the blood of Christ could not cover

Nephilim blood. There we go. Me too, man. Weird as that, as weird as that sentence sounds, I have no idea how

I would quantify that. I think I would, I would go as far as saying that the gene pool at this point, there's none of that, but I don't know.

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No, no, it's, it's, it's fun to speculate. Those are the, some of the things that my brain just, uh, thinks about, but let's get, let's get back into the conversation.

So what are some examples then in the new Testament, uh, concrete examples, number one, where the book of Enoch has bled in to the new

Testament, uh, using words, I believe from Michael Heiser right there. I was listening to some of his interviews. Yeah.

So, I mean, the longest and only unambiguous quotation in the biblical epistle of Jude is not from the old

Testament, but from the book of Enoch. And so the question then is why did

Jude quote it? Did he think it was scripture? And I think I can say, no,

I don't think he thinks it was scripture. And I think I can say that confidently because it would have been very unusual in his day for him to think of it as scripture because every other conversation within ancient

Judaism at the time excludes it from being scriptural. What I think is clear is that Jews at the time read sections of what we now refer to as Enoch and read it as useful.

So a book doesn't need to be inspired to be useful. And Enoch appears to be both, uh, common enough for Jude to quote it in his epistle, assuming his audience knew what it was talking about.

And then the stories within it contain kernels of truth that Jude is willing to draw from.

And so I think, you know, if Jude were alive today or if not, yeah, if Jude were alive today, would it be that unusual for him to make a point from a piece of literature that we would have been familiar with?

I mean, if he quoted Spurgeon, if he quoted, um, Lewis, if he quoted

Calvin. Lord of the Rings. Yeah, that's, that, that's actually a better one.

That's a better one. Lord of the Rings. If he quoted, uh, Aragorn, does that mean that Tolkien is inspired?

Well, I don't think so. I think he's making a point. I think he's, he's, he's taking something that his audience is familiar with from a source that's recognized.

And he's drawing from that to make a bigger point. So based on that, should he not be in our

Bibles? I think the answer is clearly no. But the reason we know that is because we know when it was written.

We know to a large degree why it was written. And, uh, neither of those answers to those two questions give any indication that it was holding any level of authority as scriptural, as holding that kind of level of inspired in the

Israelite imagination. And so when we look at the New Testament and particularly the period that the

New Testament is written in, Jude is drawing from something just as when

Paul quotes pagan philosophers on Mars Hill, it doesn't mean that pagan philosophers are, are inspired.

He's drawing from what his audience would have understood. And he's making an argument or, or making a point based on that.

So what scripture is and why we can have confidence that what we do have are the right books in our modern

Bible is because of both the historical information that we have and because of the way that those books are treated within scripture.

And Jude does not, he doesn't quote, uh,

Enoch and say, you know, as it says in the scripture or thus say it, the Lord, those kinds of statements as it is written, he, he, he's, he's not using those kinds of prefaces for Enoch, but he is making an argument based on the text of Enoch.

So I think, I think people who want to use Jude as a proof text.

And that's the only unequivocal, uh, citation of, of Jude. And it is unequivocal.

He's definitely quoting Enoch there. I think there are others, uh, throughout the gospels and some of the epistles that people try to allude to.

I think those are far more ambiguous. I think, especially with the, with the language that's being used there, there are, are other possibilities there need to be careful of parallel parallelism.

Yeah. Um, but Jude is certainly quoting Enoch there. And I think he's quoting

Enoch for no other reason than I think he's drawing on a popular piece of literature.

He's making an argument from it and it's useful. It's useful. It's not inspired, but it's, it's making a point that his audience would have understood.

Yeah, no, that's good. And what, what do you think about like the oral tradition of the, um, prophecies of Enoch or for example, uh,

I've seen that it's recorded in Deuteronomy 33, one and two, uh, I'll read it. I'll read it to you. It says, now this is the blessing, which with Moses, uh, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death.

And he said, the Lord came from Sinai and he dawned on them from Seir. He shone forth from Mount Peron and he came with 10 thousands of saints from his right hand, came a fiery law for them.

Uh, just in terms of like some of the language, what's interesting to me is that Deuteronomy even, you know, of course it predates, uh, the book of Enoch.

So is it a possibility that there was some type of oral tradition, uh, that was carried down through the generations and then eventually recorded in the book of Enoch and there's like some sort of evidence in that in Deuteronomy?

Um, I, I don't think so. Uh, I think, you know, there, there are sections of the book of Enoch, um, that indicate that Enoch is probably drawing on Deuteronomy, not the other way around.

I mean, Enoch makes allusions to content that we can find in Daniel, Jeremiah and Isaiah, and, um, it also contains themes from the

Hellenistic period of timekeeping. And particularly due to the Greek mathematics of timekeeping, there, there are certain aspects.

I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I remember there were a number of papers written that argued that, and I think very, very convincingly that, that what we see in the way that Enoch is categorizing time, that there's a

Greek influence on there, not to mention that that first Enoch bears no markers, once again, a paleo

Hebrew origination, but, uh, it even appears to, I think at, at one set, in one instance,

Enoch paraphrases Deuteronomy 30, 33 and numbers 24, and even mentions

Mount Sinai, which would certainly not have existed in Enoch's day, right? Pre -flood, why would you mention

Mount Sinai? Yeah. Right. That's not true. Huh. So, so I, I think we can see, we can see at least that any illusion that we want to take on Deuteronomy and read it back on Enoch, I think is probably, we're probably doing things backwards.

I think Enoch is probably drawing from, from, uh,

Deuteronomy more realistically than Deuteronomy is drawing from Enoch in the same way that there was a document that sort of more in my area of specific expertise, there was a document that came out, it was called the, the

Gospel of Barnabas, and it kind of made some waves for a little while, and then someone pointed out,

Hey, this, this, there's some stuff in here in the Gospel of Barnabas that sounds like, it, it really sounds like Dante's Inferno and they did a linguistic comparison and they found this is actually paraphrasing

Dante's Inferno. And so what's more likely that a first century

Gospel of Barnabas is paraphrasing Dante's Inferno or Dante's Inferno and Dante had some document within his scope that he had a first century copy of the

Gospel of Barnabas. Well, obviously I think we can tell what's going on there. So I think from what's more, what's the higher probability of what's going on,

I think based on the content and the origination and the language of Enoch, I think we can say that it's probably drawing from Deuteronomy rather than the other way around.

All right, let's get into one of those illusions, uh, that people are trying to find the book of Enoch in the

Gospels and specifically from Jesus. I'm not sure if you've, if you're familiar with this argument, I've heard it and I've seen it online.

I want to know what you think about this. Okay. In Matthew 22, 29 through 33, we have

Jesus arguing, uh, with regards to marriage in the afterlife, right?

So this is what it says. It says, but Jesus answered them, you are wrong because you neither, you know, neither the scriptures nor the power of God from the resurrection.

They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven as for the resurrection of the dead.

Have you not read what was said to you by God? I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.

So people will argue, uh, with regards to the book of Enoch about, uh, Jesus saying that the book of Enoch is scripture because they believe that Jesus is actually quoting from first Enoch 15, six through seven, which states, but you, from the beginning were made spiritual, possessing a life, which is eternal and not subject to death forever.

Therefore, I made not wise for you because being spiritual, your dwelling is in heaven.

What do you, what do you think about that? I know it's not the typical argument because people will go to, you know, Matthew 22, uh, to try to disprove the

Nephilim angel hybrid, uh, species, but actually people are also going to Matthew 22 here to try to prove that the book of Enoch is indeed the scriptures.

What do you, have you ever heard that one before? I have. Yeah. I think what's probably going on more likely is that Jesus is kind of playing off of the

Sadducees. It's a trick question, right? Cause the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection.

They kind of had a more of a hierarchical view of Old Testament scripture where they held the

Torah, the first five books of the Bible, you know, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers as having a level of inspiration that superseded the other writings.

And so anything that talked about the resurrection, which is specifically mentioned in the prophets, they, they kind of poo -pooed, um, that they didn't see as authoritative.

And so they, they really didn't believe in a resurrection. And so Jesus understands that, that that's what they're, they're, they're, they're playing a trick on him in the fact that they're asking questions that they don't even really believe the answer anyways.

And so, because they did not think about the implication of the resurrection, they, they weren't even looking for an answer.

They were, it was, it's a rhetorical question more in their mind. And so I think what's going on is, uh, more likely that is

Jesus quoting or at least referencing Enoch? Um, I don't think so.

I mean, the book of Enoch was discussing angels and then made the statement that you read and the author claimed that Jesus was the, at least not the author.

Sorry. The person who's making this argument is arguing that Jesus was quoting the book of Enoch, but I don't,

I don't think he is. I think he's probably addressing specifically that the

Sadducees, Sadducees failed to understand what was scripture.

And so Jesus' comment about the angels was new revelation provided by Jesus himself. So he was constantly providing new revelation in his teaching.

He did the same thing in Matthew 22. And so I would say that the book of Enoch is fiction in the sense that it's the

Jews trying to flesh out these things. And the fact that the Jews did not consider

Enoch scriptural doesn't mean that they thought that what was going on there was true necessarily, but the

Sadducees certainly thought that what they believed about the resurrection was true. And so in the immediate context,

I think it's far more likely that Jesus is playing on their misunderstanding of the scriptures rather than a book that neither

Jesus nor the Sadducees would have considered scripture. Yeah, that's good, man. I, I I'm seeing that as well.

I remember when the first time I came across that argument and I was like, man, I think I'm seeing some of the similarities here.

But when you're really looking at it, I do believe as well that Jesus is number one giving new revelation because he's God and he did that.

Number two, he doesn't fall prey to their gotcha questions. He doesn't fall prey to anyone's gotcha questions. I love in the

Bible, my favorite, excuse me, one of my favorite moments is when, uh, the Pharisees are challenging

Jesus and they're like, uh, how could you be the son of David? Essentially. And Jesus looks at them.

I call it the first like reformed thug life moment in the Bible where Jesus looks at them and he says, well, how come is it that, uh, the

Lord said to David, uh, and he quotes Psalm 110 one and they have no idea how to answer, uh,

Jesus. And it says from then on, they never asked him any more questions. He says, why does he say to David, the Lord said to my

Lord, said in my right hand, like put all of your enemies under your feet. And they're just like, I have no idea.

It's essentially Trinitarian in nature and they didn't know God, you know? And he's always doing that, but I love how he does that.

But that's a good explanation. Uh, thank you, Wes. So, so what about first Peter three, 19 through 20 or second

Peter two, four through five? Um, you would say that those aren't like hardcore quotations from the book of Enoch, but maybe illusions.

Yeah. I, I think, um, that's the Tartarus, uh, passage, right?

Yes. Yes. That would be second Peter two, four through five, I believe. Yeah.

I think, um, what he's talking about there, he's making a broader argument and he's using that as a specific reference.

Um, he, he might, I, I, I'm willing to grant that he's drawing on those types of traditions that that certainly was in the psyche of the understanding of particularly the afterlife in terms of, you know, where these, uh, the, the fallen angels or what have you would have gone to.

Um, but like Jude, uh, even if he's drawing on them directly, I think it's, it's in order to make a bigger argument rather than to specifically give credence to the book of Enoch itself.

These, these were ideas that were floating around within the psyche of the Jewish people in terms of their understanding of how the spiritual realm operated, how the afterlife worked.

And so it wouldn't have been outside of the realm of possibility of Peter, who is, you know, this is the milieu of first century

Judaism to be articulating these particular perspectives and drawing from them for an audience, because remember the vast majority of the early

Christians were Jews believing in the Jesus as the Messiah, um, to then draw on what was the major conversations within Jewish literature at the time.

Uh, does that mean that he's directly quoting from Enoch? Um, maybe, but he, not necessarily.

And even if he was, I don't, I don't think it would that be, it would be that big of a problem. No, I understand.

Uh, thinking about the apostles and even some allusions or quotations from the book of Enoch, it also seems that the apostles warn people from falling into a cleverly devised myths or endless genealogies.

There's like a balance that we can see in scripture to not let these types of things rule our lives.

Do you think in one hand they would quote possibly or, uh, allude to the book of Enoch to make larger argument arguments, but then also warn people from taking things like the book of Enoch as actual scripture with some of those warnings?

Yeah. Don't major on the minors. I think, I think, I mean, obviously the apostles would not have put it in that way, but, but yeah,

I think they're, they, especially in the establishment of the new covenant that they see the priority of spreading the gospel and that coming with it, you know, that there's something new now and it's important and we need to tell people about it and hell is on the line.

And so don't get bogged down. You know, there are important things and especially with things that our society, um, will prioritize.

We need to make sure that we're speaking into, we're answering the questions that people are actually asking, but in some way or another, the gospel is going to be the answer.

And so that's, that's, I think, yeah, the, the, the apostles are, are focusing on, you know, don't get bogged down with all of these, you know, um, superstitions and, and things that could easily, uh, draw your attention away from working faithfully for the, the message of the gospel and sanctification in your own life.

Yeah. That's good stuff. Um, thinking about, uh, first Enoch and it's apocalyptic, apocalyptic narrative, uh, we have first Enoch 71, 13 through 14, which seems to be the climax really of what's happening within a

Enoch's life. Can you give us just a context real quick of, uh, what's going on prior to that, uh, leading up to first Enoch 71 and then

I'll read the actual text and ask you some questions about it. Yeah. So that's, that's really the, the kicker, isn't it?

Because first Enoch 71, 13 to 14 has Enoch being declared as a son of man and calls himself the

Messiah. And so, um, it says identifies himself in, in prophesying as, as being the son of man of Daniel seven.

So why don't you read that for us and then we can talk about it. Yeah. So we have kind of a angelic proclamation on, on Enoch and he identifies himself.

And I think this is one of the key areas where I would actually say a proper interpretation of Daniel seven for your

Bible believing small or orthodox Christian would mandate that you have to throw out first Enoch as heretical.

The reason I say that is because Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the son of man from Daniel seven, not

Enoch. And so this specific passage in first Enoch 71 identifies, and I think, and I've tried to go to the original language and then look at it as well, but I think it is identifying

Enoch as that character. And so because it identifies Enoch as that character, it's either

Enoch or it's Jesus. And I think it's Jesus unequivocally. And so in that sense, anybody who wants to argue for the book of Enoch as being scriptural,

I think runs into a pretty serious wall with this section where you have to either choose one or the other.

Jesus can't be the Messiah, the son of man from Daniel seven and Enoch be that individual because Jesus' audience, when he was on trial in Mark's gospel and he says, you shall see the son of man riding on the clouds of heaven, they have no allusion as to what he's saying.

They tear their robe and say, you've heard the blasphemy. And so there's no blasphemy.

There's no law. They say by our law, he must die. There's no law against calling yourself a son of God or a son of man, but there's a blasphemy of calling yourself the son of man because the one who rides on the clouds of heaven in ancient original literature is

God. And so there's this very close connection between the ancient of days and the son of man in Daniel seven, and they seem to be at least both holding divine authority.

And so to claim to be that individual is a claim of divinity. And so in one sense, this gives us context to say, you know, it wouldn't have been that foreign to understand the

Messiah as holding a divine quality. However, given that, even though it's not foreign to the first century context, you can't be both

Enoch and Jesus at the same time. And I think from everything we see in scripture, particularly

Jesus' death and resurrection, Jesus is that son of man from Daniel seven. That's right.

I'll read Daniel seven, 13 through 14. It says, I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.

And I believe Luke echoes this in the book of Acts chapter one, when Jesus ascends up in terms of stating

Jesus is that Messiah. Jesus is the son of man, that son of man in whom righteousness dwells on,

I would say would be more correct for first Enoch to point. But again, they may be taking their own interpretive liberty of Daniel when they're writing this in the book of Enoch.

But in reality, it's Jesus. So one question is, do you think there were people then living at that time frame who were expecting

Enoch to return or was it like the same type of thought maybe that, you know, John the

Baptist was in the spirit of Elijah, like Jesus or this man would return almost in the spirit of Enoch?

Or is that not possible to think that way within the book of Enoch because it's literally supposed to be Enoch? I think

I don't know if I have a straight answer for that. I don't think anybody was expecting

Enoch to come back as the Messiah. I think the genre of apocalyptic literature makes this more tricky because apocalyptic literature, as I said before, is so full of symbolism that it could be using

Enoch as an archetype, especially because Enoch was, you know, it says in Genesis that he walked with God and he talked to God and then he was no more.

Him and Elijah being the only ones who were physically taken up to heaven in the Old Testament, they have this kind of quality to them, which is why you see the prophetic word of Elijah coming back, because there's something about these individuals.

And Enoch appears, at least from the text, to be taken up in bodily form. It's kind of alluded to more than it's directly said, like it is with Elijah.

But so Enoch is kind of this very elusive character. And so when you get to the book of Enoch and you get these kind of expositions of who he was, he's already given this kind of level.

There's also writings about Melchizedek in the same way, not exactly, but everybody's trying to figure out these characters who are very, they're very elusive in the

Old Testament. You have Enoch who is taken to heaven directly, at least it appears to be.

You have Melchizedek, who's a high priest of Yahweh. But I mean, he's not a part of the nation of Israel, right?

He's not, or at least this is before Israel, but with Abraham. Yeah. He kind of appears on the scene. And so there are conversations that what's going on with these characters?

And so the apocalyptic nature of first Enoch, I don't think we can say, well, that the people reading it would have expected

Enoch to come back. I think there's kind of a broader apocalyptic maybe motif that's right on top of that.

Either way, it's problematic, I think. And I think it's meant to be a little bit elusive, as the book of Revelation is a little bit elusive in the sense that the bigger theme is the triumph of God over the powers that are desiring to oppress

God's people. And so it's trying to flesh out some of those ideas. I mean, was there anybody running around who thought that Enoch would literally be coming back?

I don't know, but I don't think so based on the genre of literature.

I think it's probably meant to be more symbolic than it is meant to be literal.

And that's not to say that all apocalyptic literature is more symbolic than it is literal, but based on apocalyptic literature more generally, the motifs kind of indicated that way.

Yeah, that's good, man. So when you read through Enoch, was there any form or allusions to like a gospel presentation?

Like when I'm looking back in Numbers, I can see, you know, Moses lifting up the serpent on a staff in the wilderness, and I can see

Christ in that because Jesus in John 3 then tells us that that was a foreshadowing of him, right?

And the people looked at it and they were healed. Is there anything like that at all within the book of Enoch?

Because I think even with canon from the Old Testament, we can find Christ everywhere, like beautifully pictures of the gospel in scripture because it was all pointing to Christ.

And then, like you said, we have the new covenant after Christ, and then we have the scriptures that are binding of that new covenant.

Is there anything like that in the book of Enoch? Or is it just purely an apocalyptic narrative?

Because I don't see anything about the son of man in 1 Enoch 71 sacrificing himself for the people, you know?

Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, if I went back and read it again, maybe I could find something, but I don't think that's the purpose.

I think the purpose is to kind of flesh out these ideas of the ancient pre -flood era.

And I think the theological significance for us as Christians is the insights into the theological conversations happening during this important time of history, of those reading and interpreting the

Old Testament, and particularly the Genesis narrative, that can give us kind of a background as to, you know, what were

Christians thinking, or what were Jews, rather, what were they thinking? What did they believe about supernatural beings?

I don't think it's as, I don't think the Christological motifs are there because I don't think,

A, it's not scripture, and scripture obviously has those clear Christological motifs, and B, the purpose is very different.

It's trying to flesh out ideas of supernatural entities and what was going on.

And so I think it can help us to look at things like concepts of the

Messiah prior to the New Testament itself, and help us as Christians to say, okay, any accusation of people saying, well, the

Messiah was never meant to be God. Well, that's tricky. That's tricky when you get to Enoch, because there do appear to be those types of motifs.

So we can at least say that if we're talking about a Christology, that there are ideas of the

Messiah being more than simply a man, but how much should we put our stock in that?

I think probably very little other than it gives us a frame of reference to say to skeptics, no, you're completely off base if you think that people are inventing a divine

Messiah, that there was already an understanding of a divine Messiah. It might not have been the mainstream understanding, but it was there.

And so because it was there, we can proceed as Christians and say, man, all these accusations of Trinitarian theology being written onto the

New Testament or a divine son of God as a pagan concept being written onto the

New Testament. Well, no, we actually have a frame of reference and we have a body of literature that would actually give us context to merit saying those things coming directly out of first century

Second Temple Judaism. Man, that's good stuff, man. I think that's a great place to end it. We've went through a lot, man.

We went from Nephilim to watchers to quotes from the Bible. How are we supposed to view those types of things from the first episode of historical analysis?

Like this has been a wild ride. You even got me thinking some things, questioning my own point of view, which is always a good thing.

We should always challenge ourselves. But I'm thankful for you, Wes. I'm thankful for your time. Where again, can everyone find you or how can they get to support you in your ministry?

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I appreciate it every time you guys ask me to be on because it's always a pleasure and always a fun conversation.

If people want to know more about me, as I've said in the last few episodes, you can find me at WesleyHuff .com

or ApologeticsCanada .com, especially if you're in Canada, make sure to check us out because we have a number of conferences coming up and so we want to make sure that you're aware of those and you're coming out and you're learning and really digging into the stuff that matters with us.

So make sure to go to ApologeticsCanada .com and click that events tab and see where the next time we're in your neighborhood is, or even, you know, invite myself or one of our speaking team out, that'd be great as well.

We'd love to do that. That's awesome. We'll have links to all of that in our show notes. So you can check that out, click on those leaks.

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