Enoch (Timeless)

We take a look at the pseudepigraphal work of Enoch.  How does it relate to actual scripture?  Why is it not in the Bible?  Who should read it?  What does it have to say about angels?  We answer those questions and much more as we explore this ancient work.

Thank you for listening!

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Transcript

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Dave [00:00:03]:
Oh, Greg? Greg just just had a heart attack.

Chad [00:00:07]:
Retraumatized. No.

Greg [00:00:09]:
I always had a heart attack. Turning red. My angel resuscitated me.

Dave [00:00:16]:
I see him. He's a he's a Canadian angel.

Greg [00:00:18]:
Yes. He's got maple

Chad [00:00:20]:
syrup. From his feathers.

Greg [00:00:21]:
His name is Nick.

Dave [00:00:24]:
And he just dripped holy Holy maple syrup into your mouth.

Greg [00:00:29]:
He revived me with his maple syrup.

Chad [00:00:59]:
Do we

Greg [00:00:59]:
have a country update?

Chad [00:01:01]:
No. No new countries.

Greg [00:01:02]:
No new countries. Yep.

Chad [00:01:03]:
We are

Greg [00:01:05]:
how many continents are we on?

Dave [00:01:08]:
Still 3. 3. Still 3 continents. We need Australia. No. We have Australia. Yeah. We have we need we don't have Asia yet.

Chad [00:01:18]:
Surprisingly enough, you're correct.

Dave [00:01:21]:
Given that I'm a missionary kid from Japan, you think I'd ever like to look.

Chad [00:01:24]:
I know.

Dave [00:01:26]:
I don't care about number. I just wanna hit the market, like, in one in each of the continents.

Chad [00:01:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave [00:01:31]:
Do we have an Alaska yet? In Saskatoon, might as well be Alaska.

Chad [00:01:35]:
Hold on. Let me check.

Dave [00:01:38]:
No Alaska. I'm disappointed. There's, like, a 1000000 people up there. We could get at least get one of them.

Chad [00:01:46]:
We had our verse we had our first download from The Villages in Florida. Oh, that's great. Village.

Dave [00:01:56]:
Is there advertisements around here for it?

Greg [00:01:58]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. When was that?

Chad [00:02:01]:
It's been within the last week.

Dave [00:02:03]:
Okay. Villages. Maybe somebody

Chad [00:02:04]:
else would award the villages.

Dave [00:02:05]:
Maybe it's a pickleball connection.

Greg [00:02:07]:
Maybe it's because someone was just in Florida.

Dave [00:02:10]:
Oh, good night.

Greg [00:02:11]:
Been talking to people.

Dave [00:02:12]:
Oh. Could be.

Greg [00:02:13]:
Oh, man.

Dave [00:02:13]:
Are you do you, like, wear one of those shirts, ask me about my podcast?

Greg [00:02:18]:
It just said, you know, you're curious.

Dave [00:02:20]:
Nice. There you go. Curious about Perfect. Oh, my podcast. That's funny. Or it could be the pickleball connection because there's a lot of pickleball people who are from the up here who who own homes and live half the time in the villages.

Greg [00:02:34]:
No. Actually In the villages.

Dave [00:02:36]:
Village or villages? The villages. The villages. Plural.

Greg [00:02:39]:
So my dad's in one of these 55 and up retirement communities. And Mhmm. And one day we were at the pool and, some older people older people

Dave [00:02:52]:
53 and older? Yeah. Technically, I qualify for that, by the way.

Greg [00:02:56]:
Oh. I wasn't gonna say anything.

Dave [00:02:58]:
Okay.

Greg [00:02:59]:
Okay. And, so I asked I I said, how come there's not a pickleball court here? And they got really salty about how noisy pickleball is. It is. And they didn't want anything like that around because it's too noisy.

Dave [00:03:13]:
That's because they don't play. People who play pickleball don't care about the noise because they're the ones playing it. It's the other people that don't like it.

Chad [00:03:21]:
Right.

Dave [00:03:22]:
Yeah. So true true story, though. If you could figure out how to make a paddle that plays well without making that noise or a ball that plays like a current pickleball that doesn't make the noise, you will be a billionaire.

Chad [00:03:37]:
Could you play it with koosh balls? That'd be fun.

Dave [00:03:39]:
No. It has to play the same. So that's the problem, and they're working on it. There's people working on it. The the problem is whoever gets there first is gonna capitalize and gonna be very, very wealthy. It's kinda like the, you know, the person who invented the OtterBox is a multibillionaire right now.

Chad [00:03:57]:
With so describe the pickleball ball. What what is that? Is it like a

Dave [00:04:01]:
soft hard wiffle ball.

Chad [00:04:02]:
Okay.

Dave [00:04:03]:
Yeah. It's not very soft.

Chad [00:04:04]:
Okay.

Dave [00:04:05]:
So and and then the paddles are graphite or some kind of a plastic. Oh. And so Okay. And so it actually it is significantly noisy. Noisy enough that certain of these communities have made rules you can't play after a certain time. Like, think about Arizona and Florida. The hottest times are when people don't wanna play. So they get up early in the morning and play pickleball, and then they stay up late at night playing pickleball.

Dave [00:04:31]:
And those are the 2 worst times for people who don't wanna hear the pop pop pop sound of pickle balls going off. And if you have a court if you have some of these courts are, you know, 30 courts. You have 30 courts versus people serving those pickle balls. It gets it gets very noisy if

Greg [00:04:48]:
you have

Dave [00:04:48]:
an apartment right next to it. No. It's it's really funny though that you get some of the people discussing those issues and they can get pretty heated. For real? I've seen I've seen some of the the, what do they call them, snowbirds? People that go back and forth, they hear some of the discussions they have about the controversies around pickleball and villages.

Chad [00:05:09]:
So they have hearing aids. They don't take them out.

Dave [00:05:13]:
Apparently, they can hear it well enough that it's keeping up waking them up in the morning. Okay.

Chad [00:05:20]:
I'm just

Dave [00:05:22]:
this is really gonna go on. I'm just I'm just

Greg [00:05:25]:
picturing a a Seinfeld episode of Jerry's parents in Florida complaining about the pickleball court.

Chad [00:05:31]:
Jerry, you won't believe the noise it makes. They're terrible, Jerry.

Dave [00:05:36]:
It's a tough life for for those snowbirds that have to go back and forth and Yeah. Deal with all the complaints about pickleball. The noble nomads of I 75. Yeah. Yep. Alright. That was interesting stuff.

Chad [00:05:54]:
Not really. No.

Dave [00:05:55]:
No. Yeah. I just wanna make sure that people heard from the last episode that I heard anyway, not the one that we recorded. Right. That just first of all, they really did think because of that one guy that Greg was my son. But I also want everybody to know that I did carry the day when we play. He was just he was just starting to pickleball. So if he played as much as I had, he'd been fine.

Greg [00:06:20]:
But Yeah. And, also, since Dave started playing, stock in Ben Gay has gone up 33%. Right.

Dave [00:06:27]:
That's true. Just in my lower back.

Chad [00:06:30]:
Yeah. No.

Dave [00:06:31]:
No. Actually, I do okay. I don't yeah. I have I have experienced 3 people pulling their pulling, tearing their ace Achilles tendon while

Greg [00:06:41]:
they're playing pickleball. It's a vicious, vicious sport.

Dave [00:06:44]:
Rough sport because people don't exercise a lot and then they get into pickleball and all of a sudden, bam, they they tear their Achilles tendon. And some of them go like, feels like someone shot me in the back of the leg or they'll be like, who kicked me in my back of my leg? It's like a the second time I heard someone say that, I was like, don't worry. You just tore your Achilles. You're you're gonna be fine.

Greg [00:07:05]:
Rub some dirt on it.

Dave [00:07:07]:
Yeah. They try. They and it doesn't hurt anymore, and then they try to walk on it, And all of a sudden, they can't walk. So good stuff.

Chad [00:07:16]:
Another pickleball pickleball injury. Right.

Dave [00:07:18]:
So I I'm I this is the 3rd time I've said this, but for different podcasts, but I'm really excited about this podcast. This is an interesting one. For 1, this is a requested topic.

Chad [00:07:31]:
That's right. This one's for you, Bubba. We are our 1st premium listener, followed our instructions and follow our followed our link in the bottom of every show note that says, if you really like this and wanna see us make more of these, Bubba stepped up, became our 1st premium listener, and went to buy me a coffee dotcom/catfishministry and ponied up some dough. So because of that

Dave [00:07:59]:
So so crass. Filthy Lucre.

Greg [00:08:02]:
Oh, yeah.

Dave [00:08:03]:
Filthy Lucre. Mhmm. Oh, that's funny. Well, what's the topic?

Chad [00:08:08]:
The topic is the book of Enoch. Bubba told me that he has a friend that, has been looking at the book, and he has read it himself. He finds it very interesting. This is kind of an area that I thought was very interesting as well because I I went through most of most of my life thinking there was the Bible. And then when I became a believer and realized that that, there were these extra works between the Old Testament and New Testament in some Bibles, the apocryphal works. Mhmm.

Dave [00:08:41]:
I was

Chad [00:08:41]:
like, what the heck is this? And then some churches have them and some don't. Enoch is one of these books. Right?

Dave [00:08:46]:
Well, so Ish. You wanna use your big big word for it?

Greg [00:08:51]:
Deuterocanonical. Deuterocanonical. Deuterocanonical.

Dave [00:08:55]:
So so there's the Apocrypha.

Greg [00:08:58]:
Extra points for spelling it.

Chad [00:08:59]:
Okay.

Dave [00:09:00]:
So there's the Apocrypha, which are those deuterocanon deuterocanonical books k. Which are included in, say, the Catholic and some some other denominational, texts even though guys like Augustine, who, of course, is one of the Catholics' favorite theologians, he said that they're not the same authority as the bible, but he he gave them strong spiritual weight. And then there's other books like the book of Enoch, which is actually, technically, I think, second Enoch because there's, like, 5 different books of Enoch. Okay. Those are pseudepigraphal. So think epigraphic, like, who's the author who signs it. So you've got somebody claiming to be Enoch writing this book during the 2nd temple period. And we probably should define 2nd temple period because we'll probably talk about it a lot tonight.

Dave [00:09:52]:
Okay. So that 2nd temple period, think of the return from the captivity in Babylon and the Mhmm. Refounding and making of the temple. Mhmm. That is the second temple, and that runs through all the way through to 70 AD, the destruction of the temple by Rome. I think Titus is the one that did it. Anyway, so came in and leveled the temple.

Chad [00:10:16]:
Now before

Dave [00:10:17]:
That's the 2nd temple period.

Chad [00:10:18]:
Now before before we get too far down this path, deuterocanonical. Mhmm. Right? Yep. Alright. What would the textbook definition of that be? Like, if I were to look it up and say, what does it mean?

Dave [00:10:31]:
So if you think about the canonical books, the canonical books are those which are included in the authoritative 66 books. So that's the canon or the authority. Those are called canonical books. Right? So deutero is means second, Right? So deutero canonical are the secondary canon or what's considered second tier authoritative, and that's really from stems from the Catholic church. K. Because you can't there's certain things that you get from, in Catholic doctrine that you can't find in the canonical books. And they have I wanna say it's maybe purgatory, I think, is yeah. It's purgatory.

Dave [00:11:14]:
Purgatory is one of the big ones. Big one. Yeah. That they find in there. And so that's so they make that deuteron canonical. And those books were added later kinda ex post facto after the doctrines were accepted. And then when the protestants complained, they kinda went, oh, well, we better put it in. Okay.

Dave [00:11:31]:
We better make them authoritative. So

Chad [00:11:33]:
Okay. So Enoch is something like Enoch would be found in the Catholic Bible. Is that correct?

Dave [00:11:38]:
Enoch would not be. Would not be found

Chad [00:11:39]:
in the Catholic Bible. Okay. So the

Dave [00:11:41]:
suit of part of

Chad [00:11:42]:
the apocryphal. Okay. Alright. Gotcha. Right.

Dave [00:11:46]:
But it's important, and it's it's important because it's actually quoted in June. Right. And it's rough what it I don't think it's fair to say it's at the very least, it has very common themes to several new testament references.

Chad [00:12:03]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:12:03]:
So some people would say, well, that came from the book of Enoch. We can talk more about that later. But so there's there's at least 4 or 5 passages that probably touch this well, that definitely touch the same material that Enoch would. It's the question is is where's the authority.

Greg [00:12:22]:
Right? Now there is one Christian branch that does recognize Enoch as as canon.

Dave [00:12:30]:
Okay.

Greg [00:12:30]:
And it's the Ethiopian Orthodox.

Dave [00:12:32]:
Oh, that's right. I didn't

Greg [00:12:34]:
read that. They recognized this particular book of Enoch as canon Okay. Because it's quoted in Jude. Yeah. Okay. So they recognize it as canon as part of scripture. Yeah. But only the Ethiopian Orthodox.

Greg [00:12:50]:
I know it's not big in America.

Chad [00:12:52]:
Right.

Dave [00:12:53]:
Yeah. Although it's getting bigger because if you go online right now, now, you go to YouTube, and you put book of Enoch, you will get a slew of YouTube videos with all sorts of different perspectives, everything from this was hidden from the Bible and this was right? So, 2 people saying, look, book of Enoch says this, but let's be measured about it. I see.

Greg [00:13:18]:
That little bit about the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, they didn't teach that at his Bible college. Oh, right.

Dave [00:13:23]:
Just I have my you picked that up at at yours? Yep. Yeah.

Greg [00:13:27]:
Did you really? Yeah. I

Dave [00:13:29]:
don't know about that. I have my doubts. What's the name of this? Oh. Oh. Got it from you. I did hear that.

Chad [00:13:36]:
For for our listeners, he has a pile of receipts.

Dave [00:13:40]:
I'm not sure if those it's just it's just a pile of papers. I don't know what that's from. Anyway, so that's that is interesting. So because there are no there are if I remember this correctly, there's no is it I don't think there's any Greek copies of it. Like, Ethiopia is 1, And most of the most of the copies of it are late. But that might be a good time to to since we're on canonicity or canonical status Mhmm. To talk about the dilemma that the book of Enoch caused the early church in terms of recognizing the canonicity of both Jude and or the book of Enoch. Do you mind if I jump in on this one, Greg? Or do you have something else you wanna share with us?

Greg [00:14:20]:
Jump in and interrupt yourself.

Chad [00:14:22]:
Yeah. I didn't realize you jumped out.

Dave [00:14:29]:
Okay. W I'm gonna w b.

Greg [00:14:31]:
We just needed some comedic relief

Dave [00:14:33]:
because we're getting I know. It's getting so serious here.

Chad [00:14:35]:
I know.

Dave [00:14:36]:
He uses such big words.

Chad [00:14:38]:
You have to understand there's only so serious I'm gonna let this thing go.

Dave [00:14:41]:
That's true. That's fair. Okay. So what were you talking about? Oh, Canada City.

Greg [00:14:44]:
Canada

Dave [00:14:45]:
City. Yeah. So so if you, for example, if you go to Jude verse either 12 or 14, I can't remember off the top of my head. I can pull it up. But Jude actually quotes the book of Enoch, and he says Enoch prophesies this. Right? And that I think it's God will come back with the myriad angels.

Greg [00:15:05]:
So can we back up even further maybe and just break down real simply what what is canon, who decided Yeah. And why it's important? Yeah. Yeah.

Dave [00:15:14]:
Yeah. That's that's totally fair. I'm good with that. You go for it.

Greg [00:15:16]:
So I decided, just so everyone knows.

Dave [00:15:19]:
No. You decided

Greg [00:15:21]:
wow. No. And so there was a council, and it was the council of? Nicene, isn't it? Yeah. It was the Nicene Council. Yeah. Back in I don't know if

Dave [00:15:31]:
you could

Greg [00:15:32]:
read it. Back in 300 and something 80, probably, like, 45.

Chad [00:15:37]:
Somewhere in

Dave [00:15:38]:
there. 3.40, then again.

Greg [00:15:39]:
It's closer to your birthday than mine. And but what's important to understand is that at this council, they didn't vote that and approve this as being canon. They just recognized what everybody had already accepted. Right. That these books were canon.

Dave [00:15:59]:
Correct. And that wording is really important.

Chad [00:16:01]:
Yes. Yes. And because I know a lot of people a few years ago that watched a certain movie with Tom Hanks in it that portrayed the council in I see Nicea and said, these are the people that gave you your bible. And, yeah, that is such a misrepresentation of what happened there.

Greg [00:16:20]:
Because it's not like looking at this book and saying, okay. Yes. This is bible. This one's not. This is. It just it was apparent, it was obvious, the testimony of these books had stood the test of time already. The testimony of the apostles, the testimony of the early Church was clear that these 66 books were the inspired word of God.

Dave [00:16:47]:
Yeah. Yep. And and the old testament in particular were already

Greg [00:16:50]:
They were already used

Dave [00:16:51]:
to. Part of the Junit part of the Jewish canon.

Greg [00:16:53]:
Yep. Yeah.

Dave [00:16:53]:
And then people out there might be going, well, why does that matter? We the distinction between establishing the canon versus recognizing the canon. And it's not that there wasn't some controversy on some of them, but the the term recognition is important because as protestants, we don't put the authority in the church. And so a lot of protestants have been swayed away from that towards Catholicism because they think that, well, my bible was determined by the early church, so therefore the church has the authority to determine these things, and now you have papal authority. Boom. Right? It's just an easy step for them. And that's why, I even remember my father talking about this and me. I was like, why, dad? Why are you worried about this? What? And later, I didn't I recognized why, but he very much emphasized the recognition versus the determining what the canon was. And there was discussion, and I wouldn't really I'm not trying to contradict you, but there there was some controversy about some of them.

Greg [00:17:57]:
Oh, yeah.

Dave [00:17:58]:
And Yeah. And so that's why the discussion took place. But yeah. So that that's kind of where we're have this canon now, but we're not relying on the the early church or the, you know, the 4th century church to be the ones who gave us the canon. They recognized the authority. And the standard is, was the book inspired? And we're just recognizing that because all scripture is inspired by God. Right? Right. For doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, righteousness.

Dave [00:18:25]:
Yep. And the reason I put that little caveat on there was because Jude quoting Enoch created a an early church kind of controversy over Jude and Enoch. Because if you have Jude quoting Enoch and saying Enoch prophesied and then quotes Enoch, So that brings up the possibility that now Jude is putting Enoch raising it to the level of scripture. Or if you don't like that, that then brings into question Jude. And is Jude non canonical because it's quoting Enoch?

Chad [00:19:03]:
Right.

Dave [00:19:04]:
Right? Which was not accepted in the Jewish canon. Early church fathers were split on this, and so some wanted to get rid of Jude because they didn't like that it quoted Enoch. And some wanted to include Enoch because they thought they agreed that Jude was a legitimate part of the canon. So when it quotes, then it puts you know, their perspective was that put its imprimatur on the book of Enoch. Mhmm. And so that became a dilemma. The church decided 2 things. 1, Enoch was not canonical.

Dave [00:19:36]:
They didn't recognize its candidacy. I almost said wrong there. Caught myself. 1, because it wasn't part of the Jewish canon, you know, they they couldn't demonstrate, apostolic any kind of apostolic authorship or, right, prophetic authorship. And the New Testament is full of quotations, not full, but it's it's full of quotations, yes, but it also has a number of secular quotations. Right. And that doesn't mean I forget the name of the the philosopher that Paul quotes in in the book of Acts. Yep.

Dave [00:20:07]:
And that doesn't mean he's right about everything. He's just quoting them. Or the easy one to for for me to remember for some reason is the one in Titus where, you know, even their own prophets, even their own poets, I think, say that the creeds are lazy bellies. Yeah. Right? And so is that mean that their prophets or their poets are inspired? No. That means Paul's quoting them. And even quotes people who talk about baptism for the dead in first Corinthians Right. 15.

Dave [00:20:35]:
And that doesn't mean those people are right about baptizing for the dead. He's just saying, look. How do you baptize for the dead if you don't believe in the resurrection? Right? And so he's using their arguments against them as it were. Basically, the early church said, okay. Enoch is not canonical. Jude, written by the brother of Christ probably, has has was fully recognized. And despite that, they did not recognize Enoch because Jude is free to quote Enoch without giving it a full imprimatur of of prophetic. And if you read the book of Enoch, it's kinda squarely.

Dave [00:21:06]:
Yeah. It does not fit with the rest of the old testament.

Chad [00:21:09]:
Real quick. That that's the other thing. I still have not read the book of Enoch because I kinda wanted to come into this cold and be able to ask some questions and and whatnot. I have read other apocryphal works. I've read other other extra biblical works like the gospel of Thomas and some other stuff. And I You went right for the heresy, didn't you? Oh, yeah. Right for the good stuff. Just for our listeners that have not read that stuff, there's a certain Christmas and literary quality to biblical texts that I just found missing in a lot of those works.

Chad [00:21:39]:
And I'm probably not using the right linguistic or theological words, but it's it's like you're reading and you're like, oh my goodness. This is just not. It's not the same. It's somehow Yeah. Something within me is telling me this is different than everything else I've ever read in the Bible.

Dave [00:21:57]:
Yeah. So I think there's some value to it. Mhmm. But I do agree with you that there's a there's there's a reason why it wasn't recognized. At this point, I don't know how much like, we've got a couple different directions we could go.

Greg [00:22:11]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:22:11]:
Either way, we'll hit some topics.

Greg [00:22:12]:
But Yeah. Well, Enoch, like, who was Enoch?

Dave [00:22:16]:
Mhmm. So Okay. So, yeah, so let's talk about the book of the second and the book of Enoch as we call it is what you'll see if you look online is actually the book of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th Enoch.

Greg [00:22:27]:
Oh, jeez. Did you did

Dave [00:22:29]:
your school not teach you this? Yeah. My thought it was second Enoch. For the truth, we never covered that in my college.

Greg [00:22:38]:
Yeah. You no. You didn't.

Dave [00:22:43]:
So but it is it's actually second Enoch.

Chad [00:22:46]:
Right.

Dave [00:22:47]:
And the first half of second Enoch is basically a commentary on Genesis, 6 1 through 4, purportedly written by Enoch who appears in chapter 4. And what's I know you're dying to say this, Greg. What is Enoch famous for in the bible?

Greg [00:23:07]:
He didn't die.

Dave [00:23:08]:
Yeah. So he walked with God, and he was no more. He was no more.

Greg [00:23:14]:
Yeah. That's what

Dave [00:23:14]:
he says. Really perplexing character. Right? Yeah. It's one of the

Greg [00:23:18]:
how many people.

Dave [00:23:19]:
1 of 2 people. Elijah. Right? Was it Elisha? No. It's Elijah.

Greg [00:23:22]:
Elijah and Enoch. Yep. That's why people some people say that in the end times, the 2 prophets are going to be Enoch and Elijah. But yeah. Because they are the people that didn't die, but it's appointed on demand to die once, so they still have to die because Mhmm. They never died so that they come back as the prophets. But that's a complete

Dave [00:23:42]:
That's a interesting side.

Greg [00:23:44]:
That's a completely interesting side note. But in Genesis 4, there's this man named Enoch, and it goes through all these this, genealogy going leading up to Noah and all these people. But Enoch is one of them, and it just says, he walked with God and then he was no more. Like, he didn't die. Everybody else died, but Enoch didn't. And then, so now we have the these supposed writings of Enoch, these books of Enoch. And this particular one, which is the second book of Enoch, goes into great detail writing about, Genesis chapter 6, these few verses, about the sons of God, and I think we're gonna read that now.

Dave [00:24:29]:
Yeah. The problem is I you could cut this out later, but I need Yep. You to put in your

Greg [00:24:34]:
No. I don't think we need to cut this out. Dave's trying to rely on, technology instead of the word of God. And Oh. And, he doesn't have Internet access, so he can't read his Bible. Oh.

Dave [00:24:45]:
I've pulled all these verses up.

Greg [00:24:46]:
So Genesis chapter 6 verse 1, reading from the elect standard version. Mhmm. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God, and there's that phrase that's important, the sons of God Yep. Saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. Verse 4, the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward afterward, when the sons of God came in to this the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Dave [00:25:37]:
Yeah. That passage ends up being one of the more controversial passages in all of the old testament, and it has to do with who the sons of God are. There's 2 prevailing views regarding who the sons of God are. The sons of God there are thought either to be there's there's some other variations on it, but either angelic beings. The book of Enoch calls them watchers, gives them the name watchers, which is actually a term that comes out of Daniel that refers to angels. But, the book of Enoch calls them watchers, and they're angelic beings who come down and basically abandon God and their duties and cohabitate with women and create this evil race of half human giants who, according to the book of Enoch, teach and corrupt man even worse than after the fall. So according to the book of Enoch, they taught them all sorts of things like how to how to use, basically drugs, like herbs and how to do charms and how to Witch spells.

Greg [00:26:45]:
Witchcraft and pharmacology.

Dave [00:26:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And and so that's the one view, and then the other view is a very, very late view. They can't find this view before 2nd or 3rd century AD or BC if you're if you're into that. AD. AD. I'm good.

Dave [00:27:06]:
Anno, don't mean the word you're of our Lord. And that view is that and it seems to be a reaction. I don't like the angelic view. And that view is that that's the godly line of Seth that's described earlier in the book of of of Genesis. That it's this line of Seth, the line of Cain is evil, the line of Seth seems to be godly, the The problem is it's a very late view. Problem is the new testament doesn't seem to support it. And further, the term son well, there's all sorts of other reasons, but the term sons of God is never ever elsewhere used non angels. This would be the only case that you could argue that these were human children.

Dave [00:27:51]:
Do you wanna talk about the biggest objection to this to the view of the angelic fallen angel view from a from a new testament perspective?

Greg [00:28:00]:
Well, so about the there's no marrying in heaven? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The idea in, in in it says that in yeah. Matthew 22 says that there's no marriage in heaven.

Dave [00:28:14]:
And then it talks about the angels not marrying in heaven.

Greg [00:28:16]:
Right. And and then you would deduce from that that there's no procreating there. So, therefore, you would draw the conclusion that the angels could not procreate with the women on earth. So, that would a big assumption. Yeah. It yeah. It's a big assumption.

Dave [00:28:33]:
Mhmm. Yeah. Now later we'll look at the passages that deal with that seem to look back at this event and seem to deal clearly that this is angels. But I I mean, I went to seminary with almost I only knew one of my professors that thought this was angels because it was a very out of vogue view. Yeah. Now it's hard to find anybody who doesn't think it because there's a swing back towards what I think is a more biblical view. But, I I would be interested in hearing some of my professors who are retired now and see what they think. They still think it's the southite view.

Dave [00:29:08]:
But yeah. So you've got those two views and it, look, this is not one of those things that is going to make a new denomination. What we're talking about today all plays out and it actually ends up affecting some things that you do. But I don't again, I don't think it's to create new denominations of this. So but anyway so that's the that's the starting point of what it's talking about. Do we wanna do we wanna kind of dig into deep on this now and then come back to some of the bigger, broader issues, or do do we wanna look at how the New Testament talks about it?

Greg [00:29:40]:
Yeah. The New Testament. No.

Dave [00:29:42]:
Okay. Yeah. Alright. So there's a number of passages that comment directly on it. Do we want to just kind of take different ones? You want to take 1 and I take 1? Or do you Yeah, go for it. Okay. So, I think the the most clear one in my mind is the one I'll take, and it's in first Peter chapter 3. So here here's what Peter says in first Peter, and he he talks about it again in second Peter.

Dave [00:30:07]:
But in verse 18, he said, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. So here you have this reference to when Jesus is dies on the cross, he goes to, according to this. Right? He says he went and proclaimed the spirits in prison. Now who are these spirits? Right? And the question becomes really who who are these spirits? The context seems to make it tie it tight tightly to to Genesis chapter 6. Some might say, well, that's just all the people dying waiting for Jesus, like all the old testament saints. If you're a sat that view, you're gonna have to say something like that. Right? But here's what he says in verse 20. Because they, that is the spirits in prison, formerly did not obey God, And when was this? When God's pay when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is 8 persons, were brought safely safely through water.

Dave [00:31:19]:
So you have this reference to to Jesus descending well, it doesn't say here descending, but elsewhere it's gonna say he descends into the abyss. And so when Jesus dies, he goes down to the spirits in prisons and declares to them that they are still being punished.

Chad [00:31:36]:
Right.

Dave [00:31:37]:
That he declares victory. And this is where the book of Enoch kind of has an interpretation of why he does that. I'm not saying this is why because the new testament never clarifies why. But according to the book of Enoch, what happened is in the old testament time period, those spirits who were imprisoned because according to the book of Enoch after after the Nephilim existed, Michael, Gabriel, and a few other angels that are mentioned went to God and said, look. You gotta let us imprison these guys underground. And so they they imprisoned him underground, and then later, those spirits who were imprisoned and they they actually have names for them, in the book of Enoch, but Azazel was one of them. But, Enoch was around, and so they begged Enoch because he was godly to go ask God to let them out because he basically says, look. I'm we're reformed now.

Dave [00:32:38]:
We get it. We were wrong. Forgive us. Mhmm. And according to the book of Enoch, Enoch goes and delivers a message saying, no. You're done. You're never gonna be forgiven for this. You've fallen, and that's it.

Dave [00:32:52]:
So what some New Testament commentators believe is that in parallel when Jesus goes down, he declares his victory to those spirits and he declares that that the death that they thought maybe was their victory that would get them out of prison Is there gonna be kept there until the till the final judgment? K. And so that that's why you can see the book of Enoch would be very appealing because it has some explanatory power for the specifics of why. Now we don't have anything in the New Testament that confirms that.

Chad [00:33:25]:
Right.

Dave [00:33:26]:
So I don't think we should ever preach that.

Chad [00:33:28]:
Right.

Dave [00:33:28]:
Right? Because that's non canonical. But it is it is an interesting view anyway. But, so that's one passage. Greg, do you want

Greg [00:33:38]:
to hit 1? In Revelation, it talks about in the end that there are angels who have been bound who are going to be set free, and it's referencing back to that. At some point, there are fallen angels who were bound. Mhmm. And it it goes back to this moment that probably happened that there were fallen angels were messing around with women. And God punished them and and bound them. And that's what Peter's talking about here.

Dave [00:34:05]:
Mhmm. So if you have the satellite view, you might say those spirits in prison were not demonic. They were just the spirits of humans waiting for redemption. Old testament saints as it were Right. Waiting for Jesus to finally pay for sin so that they could get out of prison as it were. Mhmm. Right? Well, if you go to Luke, and this is I I think this is a really fascinating one because most of us know the story of the of the, the legion, right, the demon that's cast out and thrown into the swine. Mhmm.

Dave [00:34:35]:
And I'm gonna steal the joke from John McArthur but and then they run down the hill and do a swine dive into the sea of galley. Oh. But and I want you to know John McArthur actually said that joke. So that's funny. It is pretty sad actually. What? Chug my card. I'm about to set a joke from the ball pit. That's crazy.

Chad [00:34:53]:
It's automatically funny. Yeah.

Dave [00:34:55]:
It has to be. Right? Just I know. Yeah. Wow. So in Luke 8, he's gonna cast them out, and they actually speak back to him, and Luke includes more information than the others. So verse 30, chapter 8 of Luke, Jesus then asked him, what is your name? And he said, legion, for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Right? And that's that's a reference to so in other words, the demons who are the legion.

Dave [00:35:30]:
Right? Right. Demons who are in this what is it? The Gadarene, whatever he is. Anyway, they say, please, just whatever you do, let us go into these pigs. Don't send us to the abyss, And he he ends up not. That is an explanation of, okay, the abyss is for demonic characters. It's not just for it's not just for saints and people waiting for for Jesus' death to cover their sins. So in 2nd Peter 3, we have another reference. And here, Paul Paul, sorry, Peter is comparing the punishment of false teaching so and he he says look if God punished the angels in the past certainly he's gonna punish these false teachers right so in verse 4 well, in chapter 2, right, it starts off with, but false prophets also rose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you.

Dave [00:36:32]:
Right? And so it talks about some of the characteristics, the destructive heresies, they didn't deny the master. Right? And but here's what's interesting. The false teachers that second Peter is dealing with, there's a sexual element to it. Right? Because in verse 2, many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of the troop will be blasphemed. Right? And and then it talks about greed and some other things. Right? But then the comparison then is, like, look. This does not please God. Right? Right.

Dave [00:37:04]:
And so to these people who are involved with sensuality, these false prophets who are bringing in sensuality, I think Jude has the same similar type situation. He says in verse 4, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell now hell here is not the lake of fire. It's actually the word Tartarus, which is basically the place of the dead, but it's also seen as being the imagery is underground, which is the same image as Enoch. He says, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, again, you have this tied directly to the Noah narrative. Mhmm. Right? So this seems to be a reference to these angels who fell, and the sensuality tie seems to be, look, there's a sexual component to both of these judgments. So if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with 7 others when he brought the flood upon the worlds of the ungodly, right, etcetera, etcetera.

Dave [00:38:03]:
So he uses them God's judgment of the ungodly line of Seth. Oh, I mean, the angels. Right? The sons of God, the angels, then he's gonna also punish these false teachers. Right. And that calls upon this imagery of the of the fallen angels of the past.

Greg [00:38:24]:
So I've also heard one other argument in here for this being that it's the angels Mhmm. In in that the is that Satan was trying to corrupt the seed of Adam. Mhmm. And Mhmm. And then later on, it says that I I think it's in verse 9 of Genesis, chapter 6, when speaking of Noah, it says that his generations were pure, and meaning that all the other lines had been corrupted by the fallen angels, and there was no pure line of Adam left for a messiah to come from and and that that was part of the evil that God was wiping out all of mankind as well.

Chad [00:39:12]:
That is interesting.

Dave [00:39:13]:
Which kinda makes sense. Right? It yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So do you see do you see in in Genesis 6 verse 3 where all of a sudden the the he says, I'm not gonna strive with man forever. They're gonna be a 120 years. You see that as judgment being proclaimed on the on humanity because of the corruption with the angels?

Greg [00:39:38]:
I'm not saying that I've that I believe that that argumentation for it. I was just pointing out that that's Good. That that's in there for it. Yeah. No. I'm I'm, convinced that the sons of man are are the or the sons of God are the angels. And I don't know about Enoch and how it like, it there's, like, this structure and hierarchy of angels that he goes into that goes into great depth in describing and Right. And I don't know about that.

Greg [00:40:06]:
There's probably some truth to it, but I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't read it for

Dave [00:40:14]:
Mhmm.

Greg [00:40:15]:
Gleaning that truth and understanding from it. I think it'd get it'd be dangerous to do so. Yeah.

Chad [00:40:20]:
So let me let me ask you guys this. Mhmm. Because, I I mean, just to kinda

Dave [00:40:25]:
Before you ask that, because I think you're gonna move us on, I think there's a couple more texts that are really interesting. Okay.

Greg [00:40:29]:
Sure.

Dave [00:40:29]:
Is that okay? Yep. Yeah. And we can edit if you want or what. I don't know. But so so the way I look at Genesis 6 is, you know, you've got chapter verse 1. This is Genesis 6 again. Man multiplies, daughters are born. Verse 2, the sons of God, what I would what we it seems like here would argue that those are angelic beings who have some responsibility on the earth because they're able to travel.

Dave [00:40:57]:
Right? They rebel against God's standard, and they cohabitate with women. They have these children. In verse 3, it says, then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be a 120 years. And then immediately, you know, there's different views on what that is. Let's focus on that for a second. I actually think that is the proclamation of judgment that the that the that Noah's flood is gonna come and destroy. At this point, humans have been living 100 of years.

Dave [00:41:24]:
Right. 120 years is a interesting number of years if you think that that's a reference to how long maximum humans will live from that point on.

Chad [00:41:34]:
Yeah. Because It doesn't work. People exceed a 120 years. It's

Dave [00:41:38]:
rare Yeah.

Chad [00:41:39]:
But it it has happened. Yeah.

Dave [00:41:41]:
So and then it talks about the Nephilim again.

Chad [00:41:43]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:41:44]:
And there's we need to like, there's so much about the the rest of the old testament that makes sense this this makes sense out of. So you hear you see references to Nephilim and the rest of the New Testament. So what seems to be clear is that the the flood destroys all the Nephilim. Mhmm. Right? But there also seems to be more Nephilim in the new in the old testament.

Greg [00:42:05]:
Yes.

Dave [00:42:06]:
Right? In the Rephidim and the Nephilim. And when you see so that that that would mean that more angels have cohabitated in a limited amount, it seems, and have created this, again, a giant race, if you will. Mhmm. And when those tribes are wiped out, there's a spiritual warfare element to that. Mhmm. So it's not just meaningless genocide in the old testament. If there's a reason why those lines are being cut off forever is because there has been this crossing the lines with these these sinful lines of of demonic, basically, what turns out to be demonic worship and interplay with the with the demonic realm. And so there's some explanatory power that makes that helps kind of explain other parts of the new of the old testament.

Dave [00:42:57]:
Excuse me. Mhmm. There are a couple more new testament passages that I think might be that are interesting. So, you know, if you think about Genesis 6, you have the reference to the angels. Let's just hit Jude 1 to kind of wrap up those passages, and there's a there's one more. But so Jude 1, there are numerous references to this. So Jude is probably one of those books we'd wanna do sometime because it's such a nice compact book, and it has such a really good content, kind of like we did in our Philemon book Right. Study.

Dave [00:43:30]:
But in verse 6, very similar to 2nd Peter, you have this description. Right? The book is, like, fight for the gospel. Right. If you're gonna fight for anything, fight for the gospel. Right? And you're gonna strive content for the gospel. And why? Because certain people have crept in unawares.

Chad [00:43:49]:
Right.

Dave [00:43:49]:
Right? So Jude wanted to talk about the beauty of the the salvation in the gospel, but he says, I'm gonna I want you to fight for that gospel that I don't have time to talk to you about in detail. I'm gonna talk to you about the false teachers. Right? And so in verse 4, it says, for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 5. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroy destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he kept them in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of that great day. So there's another reference to the angels, and it that's almost directly parallel to the wording of of second Peter.

Dave [00:44:44]:
Right. Right? And and it's very reminiscent of Enoch.

Greg [00:44:47]:
Yeah. I think this is the most convincing passage for me.

Dave [00:44:50]:
Do you really? Yeah. Yeah. I think first p to 3 is probably for me the most, but I I this is very close. And then and then, of course, we we should cite even though it's not about the angelic view, we should cite Enoch in verse 14. It was also about these that Enoch, the 7th from Adam, prophesied saying, behold, the lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly, all the deeds and the ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way. And that is a direct reference to the first chapter of Enoch where Enoch talks about God coming with his myriad of angels, and he's gonna destroy and judge. So, and that's the that's the one place that we can say that it's directly referred to in the Bible. Now there's one other really hard to understand but obscure passage that the understanding the angelic view of Genesis 6 might actually help with.

Dave [00:45:48]:
It's not gonna help a lot, and I don't think I would ever preach it, but it I might just kind of cite it on the side as a potential. This is a passage we've talked about in our small group. Okay. So, in first Corinthians, you have this argument for women and head coverings. Right? And Oh, he's gonna get

Greg [00:46:08]:
us in trouble. Yep. There we go. Here we go.

Dave [00:46:11]:
So so

Chad [00:46:13]:
here's here's where the outro music starts.

Dave [00:46:17]:
So it talks about the head coverings. Right? And the crisis ahead of every man. Oh, every man for a chapter. Verse here. Sorry, chapter 11 verse 2. Okay. First 11 verse 1 says, be be imitated and say as I am with Christ. Right? Then you have this reference to Christ as the head of every man, head of every wife is the husband, and the head of Christ is God.

Dave [00:46:42]:
Any man who prophesies or prays with his head covered dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head since it is the same as if her head were shaven. Now here's where it becomes interesting. Right? Verse 6, for if a wife does not cover her head then she had ever cut her haircut short, but it is a disgrace for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head. Let her head let her cover her head for a man ought to not cover his head since he is the image and the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. Right? So then you keep going and then there's this weird reference to symbol of authority. So verse 10, that is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. And then it just drops the topic and never discusses what the angels have anything to do with this.

Chad [00:47:30]:
That is interesting.

Dave [00:47:31]:
Right? So there's this there's this there's this need

Greg [00:47:37]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:47:37]:
For women to have this symbol of authority that shows that they're subjecting themselves to their husbands. Now I've lost the our 5 listeners who are super ultra feminist in life of feminism, but Mhmm. So the it says the head of the man is Christ, the head of the wife is a husband, and the women should have this sign of authority on their head because of the angels there are a number of explanations of this that tie back to genesis chapter 6. So if you think about Genesis chapter 6, half of the culpability in that relationship between the angels and the women Mhmm. Are the women. There's not a rape described there. And so you had the women going outside of the bounds that they were supposed to be going in and are involved sexually with the angels and create this offshoot brand of human half human, half angelic beings, the Nephilim. And some would suggest, and again, I would don't think I'm confident enough to preach this, but it does offer at least an explanation of, okay, so the reason why the women needed to have the sign of authority is to keep them from having angels who go, oh, I've got a I've got a mark here, and and here's the potential for me to do the same thing that happened back in Genesis chapter 6 if they choose to do so and seems to have been repeated throughout history.

Dave [00:49:08]:
So that's again, I would never preach this. Sure. Sure. But it's fun to think about and talk about as a possible reason why the angels.

Greg [00:49:19]:
Fun to think about.

Chad [00:49:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating.

Dave [00:49:24]:
I've got some other quirky ones that I could share, buddy.

Chad [00:49:26]:
Nope. That's enough. I know where you're going next. So nope. Not everybody.

Greg [00:49:31]:
So I just wanna go back real quick to the hierarchy of the the angels. Mhmm.

Dave [00:49:35]:
And, oh, you mean from Enoch or from

Greg [00:49:39]:
the Well, so Enoch describes a hierarchy. Yep. The Bible doesn't really go into much detail about a hierarchy.

Dave [00:49:46]:
Mhmm.

Greg [00:49:47]:
Other than this, I I just wanna point out, like, if you think about the fallen angels, obviously, Satan is the the leader. He's the Christians believe that, you know, Satan is powerful. He prowls like a lion, seeking whom he may devour. But when you read in in Revelation chapter 20, when Satan's cast into the lake of fire, who does it? Is it,

Chad [00:50:18]:
Gabriel or Michael the archangel?

Greg [00:50:20]:
It it says an angel.

Chad [00:50:22]:
An angel. Yeah.

Greg [00:50:23]:
It's it's not God. It's it's not Jesus, the holy spirit. It's I'm just I'm gonna say just an angel. Another created being. Another created being

Dave [00:50:33]:
Yeah.

Greg [00:50:34]:
Who is more powerful than Satan who takes him and cast him in. And I don't know if that's because God grants this angel the authority or because that's a hierarchy issue that there is an angel more powerful. But

Chad [00:50:50]:
that is interesting. I've never I'd probably read that 30 times and never

Greg [00:50:54]:
That just stands out to me that it doesn't need like, it it's just it's an angel that does it. Yeah. Obviously, God tells him to. Mhmm. But it's an angel that does it.

Dave [00:51:03]:
Yeah. It's awesome.

Greg [00:51:05]:
Like, all this fear that we have of Satan, and it's just an angel that cast them into the lake of fire at the end.

Dave [00:51:11]:
And the reason we don't have to fear them anymore is because the death of Christ and the victory that Christ proclaims over them. Yeah. And it's interesting. I don't this maybe it's a good segue to this if if we're getting ahead of ourselves. That's okay. You can stop me. But the book of Daniel really describes some fascinating things. First of all, he there's this description of the watchers.

Dave [00:51:34]:
Right? These are angels, and and that's where Enoch seems to pick up his terminology. Right? Is that Enoch seems to be reflecting a prophetic view of the future as as he's reading in the prophets in the old testament prophets, particularly if using the term watchers from Daniel, which secular scholars will say Daniel was written after Enoch, but that's because they don't like the fact that there's predictive prophecy that comes true in Daniel. But, but anyway, so you also have this interesting interplay where I forget. It's either Gabriel or Michael. Shoot. There's Gabriel. I'm just gonna say Michael and it's probably Gabriel. If I said Gabriel, it was probably Michael.

Dave [00:52:15]:
But so Daniel is waiting on the interpretation of a prophecy, and and an angelic figure has prohibited, I'm just what did I say, Michael, from from being able to deliver it, and he literally had to go and get some angelic help to be able to get through to Daniel. So what seemed and he's called the king of Persia, I think it is. Right? I remember that correctly? Yep. And and so that actually seems to make sense out of Deuteronomy 32 where it says god says where when when when I divided up the lands, I he places different angelic beings over them. And then in some places, those angels fell

Greg [00:53:08]:
Right.

Dave [00:53:09]:
And corrupted themselves. So the I used to think there was one fall of the angels. Mhmm. Right? And then and the the typical description when I was young was a third of the angels fell.

Chad [00:53:21]:
Right.

Dave [00:53:22]:
Yep. And and then locked them into eternal condemnation. And then from that point on, you don't see any kind of more falls of the angels. Right. Right? That doesn't seem the picture in the Bible, actually. You Yeah. You have people or people angel angelic beings, right, called Elohim, right, divine creatures, who were who were over certain geographical areas, and some of those fell. And it explains why some of those areas went so scripturally or or, you know, from from a biblical perspective, so vile and corrupt in their religion.

Dave [00:54:00]:
Yeah. And they abandoned Yahweh. And they were allowed to continue to reign over those geographical or national areas, and you see that played out in Daniel. Yeah. And and that's why what's interesting is when it when when Paul in Romans I mean, excuse me. Like, Ephesians 1 talks about the principalities and powers and authorities, those are references, it seems, to those different kinds of regions or or if you wanna call them levels of angelic authority that exist, and we used to have to fear them. Mhmm. But because of Christ, we don't have to fear them anymore.

Dave [00:54:36]:
Mhmm. And so it really adds an interesting element to our angelology to understand that.

Chad [00:54:40]:
Now real quick, did did did you say it was Gabriel or Michael?

Dave [00:54:45]:
Which one was it? It's probably neither. In Daniel. Well, which one? Weren't you just looking? Oh, no. No. No.

Chad [00:54:51]:
It's Michael.

Dave [00:54:52]:
Okay. Yeah. Whichever I said it was. Yeah. No. I did say Michael. I did. You said both at one point.

Dave [00:54:57]:
I did say both, but I I landed on Michael. Did you? Yeah. I just I don't know.

Chad [00:55:01]:
I got tape on it.

Dave [00:55:02]:
Yeah. We can rewind.

Chad [00:55:03]:
And I and I receipts. And I've got an editing button.

Dave [00:55:06]:
So Oh, that's awful. I won't approve. That's funny. Yeah. So, that with this with preparing for this and I've been doing a lot of work on Jude and because of that kind of touching the book of Enoch just because you can't read a good commentary on Jude or second Peter without reading about the book of Enoch. Right. And I've been trying to watch some of these, like, squirrely Enoch videos. But, anyway, what's what this process have done has done for me is it's really given me an appreciation for the reality of the spiritual realm and that there are demons active in the world.

Dave [00:55:49]:
I don't need to fear them, but they are playing their influence in our society and in our cultures. Absolutely. And they they are they're who was the one who said was it Paul that says they teach the doctrines of demons? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So there's false and, I mean, you just see it.

Dave [00:56:06]:
We see it all in the culture.

Greg [00:56:08]:
You do. And outside of reading the bible, if you wanna read something about doctrine of demons, like understanding angels, Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis.

Chad [00:56:20]:
Yep. I'll I'll tell you what. My oldest son read the Screwtape Letters, fairly recently. He was quiet for a few days, which is unusual. And he was like, that was really freaky. He he's like,

Dave [00:56:36]:
it made me think about

Chad [00:56:37]:
stuff and, yeah, that was that that was pretty interesting. So, that's kinda what

Dave [00:56:43]:
I feel like the book of Enoch is going through though right now.

Chad [00:56:46]:
Yeah. I think so. So, this is kinda where we started was the book of Enoch, and that's what that's what Bubba wanted. Hopefully, Bubba's liking what Bubba got. But I I have some I have a few a a few quick hit questions to kinda Mhmm. To kinda close this out because we're getting close to time. Number 1, who should read Enoch? What types of folks should should read Enoch? Because, you know, I have never read the book of Enoch, and I didn't read it before the show, and I still don't know if I'm going to.

Greg [00:57:19]:
So I think a a Christian who's, who is firmly grounded in in their understanding of the word of God and their doctrine and and isn't easily disrupted by trends and by catchy teachers and things like that who understands what the book of Enoch is, what its place is, what its purpose is as a piece of literature, as a deuterocanonical book, who can then read it as that should should read it. I think that a new Christian saying, why? I'm really curious about this. It could really cause some confusion there.

Chad [00:57:59]:
Yep.

Greg [00:58:00]:
It it it really could trip you up if you if you start to confuse this book with with what is the word of God because it's talking about angels, and it's talking about God, and it's talking about spiritual things, and it just starts to blur together what is what is real? What is the Bible? What is truth? This sounds like truth. Could it be truth? And, and when you don't have those markers real clear in the first place, it could be a dangerous thing for you.

Dave [00:58:30]:
Yeah. K. I agree with you. I think I think if you're a new testament scholar, you need to read it, but it's how you read it. Let me kinda use an illustration from, say, the middle ages or the reformation. The way to read Martin Luther isn't, hey. This is the guy that got it perfectly right. Right? Or Zwingli or, you know, Calvin, whatever.

Dave [00:58:53]:
Read those guys. Don't read those guys as, hey. This is the authoritative interpretation, but read it as, hey, this is how this generation viewed and read the scriptures.

Greg [00:59:06]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:59:06]:
Right? If you think of Enoch as how do people in the early second temple period read their old testament, that's a really good what do you call that? It's kinda like fan fiction based on Genesis 6 1 through 4.

Chad [00:59:22]:
I like that. Right?

Dave [00:59:23]:
And it's a it's a expansion, and it's a it has an imaginary component to it that doesn't belong in in our in our thinking about the new testament.

Chad [00:59:32]:
It's a software add on.

Dave [00:59:34]:
Yeah. So and just give me another like, there is an apocryphal. That was pseudepigraphal. Sorry. I just said apocryphal. But, like, there are new testament phrases that you actually find more in the 2nd temple literature than you do in the old testament. For example, you guys know, to me, the present evil age, the ages come, this overlapping of the ages concept is really big in the New Testament. Well, that concept exists in the Old Testament conceptually, but it doesn't use the phrase the present evil age and the age to come.

Dave [01:00:11]:
That is found, I think, in wisdom of Solomon, and I know for sure because I've read it myself and I've got passages underlined where that phrase, the present evil age and the age to come, are all over second estrus, which is in the Apocrypha. Right. Right? And so, if you think about if you think about the Apocrypha and some of those pseudepigraphal books as, hey, how did the the second temple people right up to the new testament partially overlapping with the new testament think about the old testament? You get some insight and you get so so that gives you the cultural background that the people are reading the new testament under. But if you look at that part of 2nd Esdras, 2nd Esdras has some weird stuff in it. But in terms of that present age and the age to come, you find that all throughout old testament prophetical literature. Right? So you you just because that phrase was used from 2nd address, that means it was a popular phrase that the apocryphal writing writers had influenced the early, right, 2nd temple period, and that carried forward so much so that Paul was able to use those phrases, and that meant something to his readers. That doesn't make second Esdras Esdras authoritative, and it also doesn't mean you need to read second Esdras. Right.

Dave [01:01:33]:
Right? So so but if you do choose to read it, read it as that, a commentary on that time period. What's happening in some of these videos is you get well, there's this you get this really fantastical treatment, and that gets talked about as its authoritative because Yeah. Like, there's a number I think I think there's, like, 12 demons names that are listed in in in, in second Enoch, and one of them is Azazel, and it's a big deal. And, you know, different demons teach different things and have different and you I actually that's kind of coming into some of the nomenclature in certain churches and there's there's a couple of scholars who, one scholar in particular, who's passed away in the last few years, but he really like, he's an expert on Enoch, and and he doesn't believe this that second Enoch is authoritative, but I think people misunderstand him. And they're starting to talk like it's authoritative because a lot of what he says is, look, 2nd Enoch and the old testament, 2nd Enoch and the new testament. And so he doesn't actually say that's equal, and he actually deny I've heard him actually deny that it's equal or should be considered authoritative. Right. But the way he talks sometimes, it's it's kind of I think it's got some people thinking otherwise.

Dave [01:02:51]:
So Yeah. Yeah. So I do think I do agree. I think to add to maybe the category. So I definitely if you're a New Testament scholar, if you're a pastor who is dealing with a lot of apologetics or if you have people on the interwebs, which all of pastors seem to do these days, you probably wanna, like, be at least fairly conversant in it. Yeah. But I in terms of if you're a new believer and you've not read through your old new testament 5, 6 times

Greg [01:03:21]:
Yeah.

Dave [01:03:21]:
You probably don't need to be reading the Enoch. You'd be way better off reading through your bible. Right. That's how I would deal with it. Alright. Very cool.

Greg [01:03:30]:
And just for giggles, it does look like there are 8 Ethiopian Orthodox churches in our state. Oh, there are. Yeah. If we wanted to go check them out one day.

Dave [01:03:39]:
Yeah. Now they're gonna Google.

Greg [01:03:42]:
Oh, I wonder how many states have 8. Well, you know, if I zoom in We're gonna

Dave [01:03:47]:
have to just blank the number out. You know there's Yeah. Churches.

Greg [01:03:51]:
Oh, no. No. Now that I zoom in, it might be 9, might be 10.

Dave [01:03:55]:
Could be 12, 15, 75.

Chad [01:03:57]:
Yeah. Could be just 1 depending on how bad the Zoom is.

Greg [01:04:01]:
Yeah. But there are some Ethiopian Orthodox churches in our state.

Dave [01:04:06]:
Interesting.

Greg [01:04:07]:
Some within 60 Mile Drive.

Dave [01:04:12]:
Yeah. Road trip?

Greg [01:04:15]:
We can find when they're preaching on, Enoch. K.

Dave [01:04:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. If if you do want a interesting, And, again, I'll anything that we say, listen to and read and whatever with discernment.

Chad [01:04:29]:
Yes.

Dave [01:04:30]:
Right? But there's a really interesting I actually think Corbin Burnson is a Christian. Do you remember who Corbin Burnson is?

Chad [01:04:37]:
LA Law?

Dave [01:04:37]:
The guy from LA Law who then was on psych, the dad on psych.

Chad [01:04:41]:
Oh, yeah. That's right.

Dave [01:04:42]:
He narrates a he narrates, YouTube 45 minute hour long special called on on the unseen realms. Right? And, and the unseen realms deals with this kind of Enochian view or the the the angelic view of Genesis 6, 1 to 4. Mhmm. And it does touch some of the the stories of the watchers, but it actually does a fairly good job of explaining the Old Testament from an evangelical perspective Mhmm. But has a a very well laid out biblical angelology. It doesn't go I don't think it goes too far astray. There may be things here and there that I don't really Yeah. Agree with on it, but the funniest part for me was Corbin Burdson was Yeah.

Dave [01:05:34]:
Was talking like a believer Yeah. And describing the unseen realms, and he's kind of the narrator through the whole thing, which is fascinating.

Chad [01:05:42]:
Jon Lovitz is in a bunch of Christian movies all of a sudden. Have you noticed this?

Dave [01:05:47]:
I thought he died. No. Oh, he replaced Phil Hartman in in, in the radio program. What was the name of that show?

Chad [01:05:56]:
Oh, yeah.

Dave [01:05:56]:
Well, Phil Hartman News radio? News radio. Yeah. That I think that was one of the greatest TV shows. Oh, I know. That was incredibly funny.

Chad [01:06:04]:
But yeah.

Dave [01:06:04]:
And John and John Lovett was in there. Yeah. But he's in Christian films. Is it because he's Christian or he's desperate to be an actor?

Chad [01:06:11]:
I don't know. Brutal. But That was

Dave [01:06:14]:
that was snarky Dave coming out.

Chad [01:06:16]:
That's right.

Dave [01:06:18]:
Anti anti establishment Dave just came out.

Chad [01:06:21]:
Imagine how insane with power he's gonna go when we have a 100 listeners.

Dave [01:06:24]:
Woah. Woah.

Greg [01:06:27]:
Not at the rate he's insulting sports programs.

Chad [01:06:29]:
I know. Cleveland, we love you.

Dave [01:06:31]:
We love Cleveland, just not the Browns. That's the one

Greg [01:06:34]:
I remember. Rocks.

Chad [01:06:36]:
It's true. Just wanna thank you for your time. We hope you've enjoyed this. A reminder that if you want to hear a particular topic, reach out to us at the fish at catfishministries.com. Once again, the fish at catfishministries.com. And we'll remind you, be like Bubba. If you go

Dave [01:06:57]:
They are evil.

Chad [01:06:57]:
To buy me a coffee.com/catfishministry and you do become a premium listener and support us, you do move to the top of the stack for consideration in, what we're gonna talk about next. So

Dave [01:07:09]:
But even if you don't support us, send us such suggestions too.

Chad [01:07:13]:
But it helps.

Dave [01:07:14]:
It does put you to the top of the list. It does.

Greg [01:07:16]:
And I think we're not gonna deal with apocryphal books for a little while. Probably not. Probably not.

Dave [01:07:20]:
That was pretty good stuff, though.

Chad [01:07:21]:
That was good. We may have to do a following episode on spiritual warfare. Perhaps. Perhaps. No.

Dave [01:07:30]:
I know we can I'll read Peretti in preparation for this. Oh, Greg. Greg Greg just just had a heart attack. We traumatized. No.

Greg [01:07:40]:
I almost had a heart attack. This is turning red. But my angel resuscitated me.

Dave [01:07:47]:
I see him. He's the he's a Canadian angel. Yes.

Greg [01:07:51]:
He's got maple

Chad [01:07:52]:
syrup from his feathers.

Greg [01:07:53]:
His name is It's

Dave [01:07:56]:
like And he just dripped holy holy maple syrup into your mouth.

Greg [01:08:01]:
He revived me with his maple syrup.

Chad [01:08:04]:
Alright. This is Chad signing off for Greg and Dave saying thanks again for listening to Catfish Ministries.

Dave [01:08:10]:
We know you're curious. I still wanted to say that.

Chad [01:08:30]:
Thanks for joining us at Catfish Ministries. We hope you learned something with us and maybe had a laugh or 2 while you're at it. Please subscribe and leave a 5 star review. If you really like what you heard and wanna help us make more of these, look us up on buy me a coffee dot com. We can't wait to talk to you again next time. This is Chad for Greg and Dave signing off and saying remember America, it's always a great day to get catfished.