Enoch in Peter and Jude (Part 1)

Tidings Magazine - Bible Study November 2000

In July, 1932, Bro. W.H. Boulton published an article in The Testimony Magazine (pp. 214-218), entitled the "The Book of Enoch," in which he argued that the words of "Enoch" recorded in Jude 14 were not the words of the Enoch of Genesis but were from The Book of Enoch (I En.1:9), one of the oldest Jewish pseudepigrapha. At the time this was difficult to accept, as the oldest Greek manuscript of The Book of Enoch dated only to the 8th century, and Bro. Boulton’s argument was weakened by the fact that I En.1:9 could, it was argued, have been copied from Jude14 rather than vice versa.

In 1948, however, seven Aramaic copies of I Enoch surfaced among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q201-2, 204-12) including the words of "Enoch" found in Jude 14. These Aramaic copies are considerably older than Jude (some possibly 200 years earlier), so it appears Bro. Boulton was right after all.

Enoch and the angels that sinned

The Book of Enoch is an imaginative expansion on the sons of God and daughters of men in Genesis 6:1. The story goes as follows:
In the days of Enoch’s father, Jared, a group of 200 angels led by the archangels Shemihazah and Azazel descend onto the earth where they take human wives and father a race of giants, or Titans. These angels are sometimes also called the "Watchers" -- the reference being to the watchman of a city who abandons his post. For this sin, Shemihazah and his followers are bound in Tartarus to await judgment for 70 generations. Azazel is separately punished for having taught mankind various secret arts. The 200 angels ask Enoch to make intercession on their behalf, but Enoch’s requests are refused. The angels’ children, the giants, cause havoc on the earth, but then they are drowned in the flood. In the Dead Sea Scrolls Book of the Giants, these children of the angels, led by their leaders Ohiyah and Mahawi, also ask Enoch to make intercession on their behalf. God decrees that the spirits of the giants shall survive to torment mankind and they become a new class of beings, the demons, one of the most powerful of whom is Asmodeus. The giants’ human mothers also survive and become Sirens.

The key event, the fall of the rebel angels, is described as follows in Enoch 6:1:
"And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’ And Shemihazah, who was their leader, said unto them: ‘I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.’ Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred" (I Enoch 6:1-6, translated by R.H. Charles, 1912).

In the time of Christ, the Book of Enoch was a bestseller. The book was so popular that it spawned a small library of derivative literature: Jubilees, Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, II Enoch, III Enoch, and so on. Although there are variations in later Enochic literature, the above quote is from the oldest and basic form of the Watchers legend, and is the version with which the Jewish Christians addressed by Peter and Jude would probably have been familiar -- even if not all Jews accepted it as fact [1]. For example, it was rejected by the pre-AD 70 Pharisee author known as Pseudo-Philo (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 3:1), by Rabbi Simeon Ben Yohai (Bereshith Rabbah 26:5), and by Trypho, the Jew who argued with Justin Martyr (Dialogue 1:79:1). Not to mention that it was rejected by the Lord Jesus himself (Mark 12:25).

"The seventh from Adam"There will no doubt be some who feel uneasy about Jude’s having quoted from a pseudepigraphical book. The immediate response is to point out that Jude identifies Enoch as "Enoch the seventh from Adam." The phrase, "The seventh from Adam," does not come from Genesis but from I Enoch 60:8. In other words, we are now not dealing with one quote of I Enoch but two (I En. 1:9 and I En. 60:8). In fact, there are as many as 30 quotes from and allusions to I Enoch found in I & II Peter and Jude.

It may be argued that the words are the genuine words of Enoch which survived as an oral tradition, were preserved in I Enoch, and then used selectively by Jude. This is impossible for four reasons:
How did an oral tradition from before the flood survive without ever having been written down?
I Enoch1:9 is an integral part of I Enoch 1:3-9, which is a midrash (expansion) on the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 33:2. We cannot reasonably isolate one phrase of I Enoch 1:3-9 and claim it came from an oral tradition that pre-dates Moses. Comparison with Deut. 33:2 will show the origins of both I En. 1:9 and Jude 14.

As mentioned above, there are 30 more references to Enoch in I & II Peter and Jude. If we have Jude isolating one phrase of oral tradition then how do we explain the origin of the 29 other references?

It is in the interest of every Christadelphian that the quote should be from Book of Enoch, and not the Genesis Enoch, because it is an integral part of Jude’s rebuttal of the Jewish myth of the "angels that sinned" which is at the core of the Book of Enoch and a major concern of II Peter and Jude. If we deny Jude’s use of Book of Enoch here, we have to find an alternative explanation for the "angels that sinned" verses in II Peter 2:4 and Jude 6.

Reason 4 will not carry as much weight with many readers as reasons 1-3. That is because there is already a popular alternative solution to the "angels that sinned," namely identifying them with Korah, Dathan and Abiram of Numbers 16:31-33. But how satisfied are we really with this? Does it meet the usual standards we require for an explanation of a difficult passage? Even if we can convince ourselves, this will rarely convince a determined fallen angel believer – not least because Korah is mentioned in Jude 11 separately from the "angels that sinned." Perhaps we should explore another solution, particularly if that other solution is the one used by Jude. It also allows the language to keep the obvious sense; the references to "angels that sinned" or "angels which kept not their first estate" and were "delivered into chains of darkness" can be taken as referring to literal angels consigned to literal chains in literal darkness -- or rather mythical literal angels consigned to mythical chains in mythical darkness.

In the second part of this article (January, God willing) it is proposed that the way Jude answers myths of "angels that sinned" is to use the Book of Enoch’s own inconsistencies to show the falsity of the story. Jude’s use of I En. 1:9 is important because while most of the Book of Enoch concerns angels sinning, I En. 1:9 is the only verse he could have chosen that speaks of angels coming to judge man – and in Jude’s context he means certain men teaching myths about fallen angels in particular.

Jude quotes Peter But first we need to put Jude to one side and look at Peter. Jude 18 quotes II Peter 3:3, and is the only quote of one epistle by another. The proof that Jude quotes Peter and not vice versa is demonstrated by comparing the following:
Peter writes, "there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them" (II Peter 2:1).

Jude writes, "it was needful for me to write to you … for there are certain men crept in unawares …denying the only Lord God and our lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 3-4).
Peter and Jude are obviously addressing the same problem -- the same group of false teachers -- but with one difference -- Peter uses the future tense, Jude the past tense. This means, as Jude makes clear in Jude 17, that the apostles "used to say" (suggesting that Peter was already dead when Jude wrote, cf. II Pet. 1:13) that the false teachers would come, but now the false teachers had arrived. Jude is basically a reminder and update of the lessons of II Peter. In fact, if we think of Jude as III Peter we will not go far wrong.

Peter vs. the false teachersAfter the normal greetings, II Peter quickly comes to the subject of false teaching. When Peter says: "we did not preach cunningly devised fables" (II Pet. 1:16), the word, again, is "myths" -- the same problem Timothy had at Ephesus, and Titus on Crete. The fact Peter needed to say this implies there were others who did "follow cleverly invented stories" (II Pet. 1:16 NIV). This sets the scene well for the references to such "cleverly invented stories" which follow in chapter 2.

The same is true of Peter’s claim: "We have also a more sure word of prophecy" (II Pet. 1:19). The immediate question that is raised is, "more sure than what?" While the statement is an important proof verse for the inspiration of the New Testament, it is also an admission that other people with a less sure word of prophecy were circulating. Again the presence of references to I Enoch in the next chapter indicates that the "less sure word of prophecy" was Enoch’s.

Between these two statements on the reliability of the apostolic message (II Pet. 1:16-19), Peter gives a lengthy description of the transfiguration. This is probably a deliberate contrast of Peter’s real experience as a witness of Christ’s glory and hearer of God’s words "on the mountain," and the reported experience of Enoch as a witness of angelic glory and hearer of God’s words on "the mountain the point of whose summit reached to heaven" (Enoch 17:1). Peter raises this as the first stage in his argument to point out his first-person witness he was with Christ on the mountain and was, in fact, shown the Kingdom; in contrast, the false teachers were not on any mountain with Enoch when he was, allegedly, shown the heavens.

The verse following "the more sure word of prophecy" is also important: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation" (II Pet. 1:20). Again the existence of rival teachings is implied. The Book of Enoch, and associated Jewish apocalyptic literature, does contain writing about the future, but in New Testament times prophecy was understood concerning both the past and the present. So Peter’s comments are not limited to future "prophecies" but include all areas of teaching. This means that his following comment refers to all the Bible, not just the prophecy books. "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (II Pet. 1:21).

II Peter 1:16-21 is the most extended defense of inspiration in the New Testament. In total it suggests that Peter was facing a major challenge to the inspiration of the scriptures and the authority of apostles. All of this is confirmed as we enter the next chapter:
"In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up" (II Pet. 2:3).
We will consider how Peter answers those teachers and their stories in January.

[1] It is possible that Josephus is also to be counted as one of those who did not believe the Enoch myth and that his mention of "angels of God" in Antiquities 1:3:1 (earliest manuscript 8th century) has suffered the same alteration from "sons of God" at Christian hands as the Septuagint in Genesis 6:1, or even to "fit" the Christian versions of the Septuagint (the erasure in LXX A is ignored by BDB Hebrew Lexicon, BAGD Greek Lexicon, and even the Cambridge LXX, but it is there nevertheless). If one compares the context of what Josephus wrote about the "perversion of the posterity of Seth" and his non-mythical comment that "these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants" (AJ 1:3:1) and his comment on the pre-flood generation "but let no one inquire into the deaths of these men" (AJ 1:3:4) and that Enoch died (AJ 9:2:2), it becomes likely that Josephus, who as a Pharisee could hardly fail to have heard the Enoch myths, did not accept them.

Steven Cox