Jude and 1 Enoch (page 3)

stevenyc

Excellent essay Leolaia, Thank you for the time and effort you put in and sharing you research.

With regard to he official canon, I'm currently doing some research and this reminded me of something CT Russel wrote in Zions Watchtower July 1896: (highlight and underlining mine)

But, says one, you seem to take no notice of that remarkable passage so frequently quoted by our Faith Cure friends, "These signs shall follow them that believe, In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."--Mark 16:17,18.
Yes, we are aware of this claim, but we have two objections to urge. First, neither observation nor history attests the fulfillment of such a statement. Of one thing we all have evidence; viz., that those signs do not now accompany belief in Christ. Nor is there evidence that they extended beyond the apostles' days and the time of the miraculous gifts. Even then, we have no record of all these things being fulfilled in all that believed.
Second, the oldest and most authentic Greek manuscripts (the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS.) do not contain these verses at all, but end at verse 8. It seems evident that Mark's gospel was originally incomplete and that some one undertook to finish it for him about the fifth century; for the Alexandrine MS., written in the fifth century is the oldest Greek MS. which contains the last twelve verses. Read these spurious verses carefully, note the marginal reading in the Revised Version, note their untruthfulness in the light of facts, and mark them in your Bible.

So it appears Paster Russell didn't hold to those untruthfull scriptures. However, the NWT does.

P.S. I think they're removed in the upcoming "Newer World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" 2007 (Patent Pending).

Steve.

Steven..The NWT, as all modern translations I know, acknowledges the lateness of the manuscript evidence for the conclusions to Mark. They do not necessarily endorse as Markan by including the varients as footnotes. Russell interestingly however actually made statements to the effect that there are 'errors in the Bible'. Quite surprising for an adventist. Since Russell, the WT has subtly admitted the same but would never come out and say it for fear it's members would take an interest in higher critism and come away with a more educated view of the Bible.

Nate Merit

Hello Leolaia

This is the most fascinating essay I have ever read concerning Enoch and Jude. I'm storing this essay on my computer as well.

Nate

AlmostAtheist

Pretty sweet stuff, Leo! Thanks so much for making me stay up an extra hour to read it! (And now I'm supposed to sleep?!?)

Really, really great work. Much appreciated! (Sorry I missed it the first time around!)

Dave

stev

peacefulpete writes: Russell interestingly however actually made statements to the effect that there are 'errors in the Bible'. Quite surprising for an adventist. Since Russell, the WT has subtly admitted the same but would never come out and say it for fear it's members would take an interest in higher critism and come away with a more educated view of the Bible

Question: Where does Russell says that there are errors in the Bible? Can someone verify this? peacefulpete?

Steve

stev

BIBLE--Re Its Inspiration. ::Q41:3:: QUESTION (1911)--3--Do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible?

ANSWER. --I do believe in the inspiration of the Bible.

BIBLE--Infallibility. ::Q41:4:: QUESTION (1911)--4--Do you believe the Bible infallible?

ANSWER .--I believe the Bible as God gave it is without error. It would not he grammatical to say that the Bible is infallible. I will say that the Bible is unerring. Only a person can be infallible, you know, and I will make the explanation here that there are passages in the common version of the Bible that are not in the old manuscripts of the Bible, and some of these passages have caused confusion.

BIBLE--Re Being Without Error. ::Q42:1:: QUESTION (1911)--1--Do you believe the Bible absolutely devoid of error?

ANSWER .--There are certain parts of the Bible that are purely historical. The Books of `Kings` and `Chronicles` and the books of `Matthew`, `Mark`, `Luke` and `John`, are purely historical, and there is no particular need of inspiration in regard to these, unless it would be that divine providence would guide them so that they would not leave out what should be in. But where a history is written, it is not of necessity that it should be inspired, because all truth is good. If Saint Matthew, for instance, wrote that Jesus said thus and so, he is merely telling what he heard, what he knew to be the facts. He did not need to be inspired to tell the truth, any more than you need to be inspired to go out of here and tell what I have said: you should tell it straight; so there is no need of any inspiration about it. Now, I would say there are passages in `Kings` and `Chronicles` where evidently an error has been made. These are historical books, and there are little slips somewhere in the way the thing has been recorded. Both books cover the same period of time, but one gives it a little different from the other. We may see some day just how they can be harmonized, but at present we do not.

Enigma One

Holy cow girl! Talk about in-depth. LOL

I read the book of Enoch a few years ago and thought it was a very interesting read. Whenever I brought it up to a JW, they'd be all mamby pamby about it not belonging in the bible, yet couldn't give me good reasons why.

I'm going to print out your post and read it on my lunch break tomorrow. My brain is too tired to understand the full import of your writings this evening. But thanks for all the hard work!

yaddayadda

The book of Enoch is full of visions about a burning hell and so forth, so it is clearly not inspired because we know that there is no such place. In this respects it is like most of the gnostic gospels. The paganised concepts of hell had clearly crept into the thinking of many Jews and pseudo-Christians and this is reflected in so much of their books and 'gospels'.

However, the truth nearly always lies somewhere in the middle, and more than likely this is the case with 1 Enoch. That book evidently contained a mixture of truth and falsehood. Jude quoted what he knew or felt was true.

badboy

VERY INTERESTING INDEED

drew sagan

Excellent post, I was just talking to my wife about this the other day.
It's funny the distorted image JWs get of the first century Christian community. Since it is allways referenced to the modern organization they have a hard time understanding what those times where really like.
This one time an Elder was talking about a guy he was talking with in field service (who also came to the meetings a few times). The guy was from another Church and was trying to help him see the error of the WTS. To make a long story short the guy eventually showed him a book that was talking about afterlife belief in the first century jewish and christian communities. The Elder actually thought it was all just a bunch of lies because 'people back then didn't believe in the afterlife'. My goodness.

Jude and 1 Enoch

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