by cameo-d 12 Replies latest watchtower bible
but if we stay strictly biblical and not traditional 'Archangel is only mentioned twice in the bible, once in reference to jesus and once in reference to michael. 1 thess 4:16 jude1:9
anything refering to archangel outside of these two is extra-biblical
Isn't Gabriel in there?
Isn't Gabriel in there?
Yeppers
I cannot see how we can reasonably goto Enoch for extra information if jude only allows for that one bit however men liked it at the time, it could be a complete work of mens fiction with only a few titbits of truth in it.
This is special pleading, plain and simple, aimed at harmonizing the author of Jude's very different concept of canon with your own. He incorporates content from multiple apocryphal books (1 Enoch and the Assumption of Moses), and by no means was he using just a "tidbit" from 1 Enoch -- the whole epistle brims with allusions and resonances with this book. Verse 6 embodies a uniquely Enochic concept about the fallen angels being bound in punishment, and the wording has verbatim resemblance with 1 Enoch 10:4-12, 12:4, and 15:3-7 (all from the Book of Watchers). The reference in v. 7 to Sodom and Gomorrah sharing the same punishment of "eternal fire" evokes the eschatological punishment by "blazing fires worse than fire" in 1 Enoch 100:4-9 and 103:7-8 (from the Epistle of Enoch), and the comparison between Sodom and the angels before the Flood is found in Testament of Naphtali 3:4-4:1 which itself cites the "writing of Enoch" as his source. The next verse, v. 8, has close parallels in 1 Enoch 15:3-4 (the same passage with parallels to Jude 6) and 99:7-8 (from the Book of Dreams). The string of metaphors in v. 12 (clouds without rain, trees without fruit, the sea with its waves, wandering stars imprisoned forever in darkness) clearly alludes to 1 Enoch 18:14-16, 21:6, (from the Book of Watchers), 80:2-6 (from the Book of Luminaries), 88:1-3 (from the Book of Dreams), and 101:2-6 (from the Epistle of Enoch). Verses 14-15 contain an explicit quotation of 1 Enoch 1:9 (from the prologue to the Book of Watchers) and the aberrant reference to Enoch as the "seventh from Adam" (when he was actually the sixth) reflects the same wording in 60:8 (from the Book of Parables). Finally the statement in v. 16 that the sinners "utter proud words with their mouth" is an allusion to 1 Enoch 27:2 (from the Book of Watchers) and 101:2-3 (the same passage that underlies Jude 8). So the very short epistle of Jude reflects familiarity with almost every major section of 1 Enoch, and shows that the writer's thinking was strongly shaped by the pseudepigraphon. And by no means did the author think that his source was "uninspired". He quoted 1 Enoch 1:9 as what Enoch had "prophesied", and prophecy specifically was thought to be given under inspiration (cf. 2 Peter 1:21).
I know this goes against your own intuitive sense of what constitutes "Bible canon" but this canon did not exist at the time when the author of Jude wrote. And the same attitude was common in the second century AD. Tertullian even quoted 2 Timothy 3:16 as proving that "the scripture of Enoch" was written "under the inspiration of the Spirit", and mentioned Jude as providing a tetimony as to its genuineness (De Cultu Feminarum, 1.3). It was when Christians realized that the book wasn't in the later rabbnical Jewish canon (whereas earlier it had been canonical for the earlier Essenes) that they rejected it as genuine. Because Jude accepted it as genuine prophecy, that led many to reject Jude as well: "Jude the brother of James left a small epistle which is one of the seven Catholic epistles. And because he inserts in it a passage from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, it is rejected by many" (Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, 4; cf. also Commentarium in Epistula ad Titum, 1.2).
it talks of jesus/son of man being a separate being from God quite literally in the JW sense, So it's a book niether JWs want because it talks of loads of archangels thus not backing the claim of Jesus being michael and a pain for catholics in not backing the trinity. also there is the slight problem of 350 feet high giants
1) I didn't realize that the JWs believe that Enoch is the Son of Man. Because that is how the Son of Man is conceptualized in the Book of Parables. Of course, Enoch himself was "separate from God". There isn't any "Jesus" in 1 Enoch, as it is a pre-Christian Jewish work.
2) I already discussed the height of the giants in an earlier post; this is a later scribal corruption of the text -- it is not original to 1 Enoch. It is missing in the Greek translation of Syncellus and the original Aramaic, it varies in form between the Greek translation from Akhmim and the Ethiopic (the height ranging between 300 and 3000 cubits), and it is also missing from the earliest witness of 1 Enoch 7:2 in Jubilees 7:21-25 (written in the middle of the second century BC). On account of this, the new translation by Nickelsburg renders the passage as "And they were growing in accordance with their greatness", as it is in the original Aramaic.
