by Brian Godawa
Scholar Pete Enns explains that the Apostle Paul assumes a non-Biblical tradition when writing about the Hebrew wilderness sojourn.
1 Corinthians 10:3–5
and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
In context, Paul makes an object lesson for the New Covenant community by way of analogy with the Old Covenant experience. There’s only one problem, the “movable rock” (or “well” as a possible interpretation) is not in the Old Testament.
Enns exegetes the origin of this moveable well as deriving from an “extraBiblical tradition found in a variety of Jewish sources dating roughly from the New Testament era to medieval rabbinic compilations” (namely, Pseudo-Philo, Tosephta Sukka and Targum Onqelos, among others).[10]
Hebrews 2:2 claims that the Law on Sinai was “spoken through angels” to Moses, another reference to the intimate involvement of the divine council of sons of God that is not revealed in the Old Testament as we have it.
In 2Pet. 2:5, Noah is called a “Preacher of righteousness,” a description found only outside the Old Testament (Sibylline Oracles 1.125-31).
The Fascinating Case of the Book of Enoch
One of the most fascinating cases of Biblical appropriation of non-canonical texts is the New Testament references to the book of 1 Enoch. Written sometime around the third to second century B.C., this text has both haunted and been cherished by the Christian Church through its history. It is apocalyptic in genre; cloaking warnings of judgment in dream visions, parables, and complex allegorical imagery. But it is most well-known for its detailed elaboration of the Genesis 6 story about the Sons of God (called “Watchers”) and their intimate involvement in the cause of the Noachian Flood. There it describes in much detail the Watchers as fallen angels revealing occultic secrets to mankind, having intercourse with human women, and birthing giants who cause terror across the land.[11] Here is just a sample of passages that tell that story in much more vivid detail than Genesis 6:
Enoch 6:1-2
In those days, when the children of man had multiplied, it happened that there were born unto them handsome and beautiful daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, [the Watchers] saw them and desired them; and they said to one another, “Come, let us choose wives for ourselves from among the daughters of man and beget us children.”
Enoch 7:1-8:3, 19:1
And they took wives unto themselves, and everyone respectively chose one woman for himself, and they began to go unto them… And the women became pregnant and gave birth to great giants.
These giants consumed the produce of all the people until the people detested feeding them. So the giants turned against the people in order to eat them. And they began to sin against birds, wild beasts, reptiles, and fish. And their flesh was devoured the one by the other, and they drank blood. And then the earth brought an accusation against the oppressors.
And Azaz’el [the Watcher] taught the people the art of making swords and knives, and shields, and breastplates… and alchemy…[or transmutation: Ancient Ethiopian commentators explain this phrase as “changing a man into a horse or mule or vice versa, or transferring an embryo from one womb to another.”] Amasras taught incantation and the cutting of roots; and Armaros the resolving of incantations; and Baraqiyal astrology, and Kokarer’el the knowledge of the signs, and Tam’el taught the seeing of the stars…
The angels which have united themselves with women. They have defiled the people and will lead them into error so that they will offer sacrifices to the demons as unto gods.
Enoch 10:4, 11-12; 54:6
the Lord said to Raphael, “Bind Azaz’el hand and foot and throw him into the darkness!” And he made a hole in the desert which was in Duda’el and cast him there…And to Michael [the archangel] God said, “Make known to Semyaza [the Watcher] and the others who are with him, who fornicated with the women, that they will die together with them in all their defilement…bind them for seventy generations underneath the rocks of the ground until the day of their judgment and of their consummation, until the eternal judgment is concluded… on account of their oppressive deeds which (they performed) as messengers of Satan, leading astray those who dwell upon the earth.” [12]
Just what contemporary situation is Enoch referring to in his apocalyptic prose of fallen Watchers, carnal giants, and coming judgment? Some scholars think its origin around the time of the Maccabean revolt in 167 B.C. makes it a prophetic denunciation of the religious corruption of the Jewish world by its Hellenistic occupiers.[13] This pagan occupation would soon be overthrown by the victorious exploits of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, returning Judaism to its purity and inspiring the origins of the festival of Hanukkah.
So the author of 1 Enoch was engaging in a rich tradition of retelling a Biblical story of judgment on a corrupted and compromised world as a moral warning for those of his own time. It was also part of this tradition to attribute their manuscripts to such historical luminaries as Enoch himself, not as a lie but as a literary technique that reinforces the significance of the message. However, it is entirely possible that sections of 1 Enoch were copied from much older manuscripts.
Though 1 Enoch is not in the Western canon of Scriptures, it is in the Eastern Ethiopic canon, and was respected by Christian scholars and authorities throughout the early church. It was never considered heretical by church authorities. But the real kicker is that the New Testament even refers favorably to the book of Enoch and its tradition of fallen angels cohabiting with humans which results in their punishment of binding (1Pet. 3:19-20; 2Pet. 2:4-10; Jude 6-14).
First, Jude quotes the book of 1 Enoch outright when he writes of false teachers corrupting the church:
Jude 14-15
It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Here is the text from the actual book of 1 Enoch that Jude is quoting:
1 Enoch 1:9
“And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”[14]
But not only does Jude explicitly quote a passage out of 1 Enoch regarding God coming with the judgment of his divine council of holy ones (Sons of God), but all three texts refer to the Enochian notion of the angelic Watchers’ punishment for cohabiting with humans as a violation of the divine/human separation; another main theme of 1 Enoch.
1Pet. 3:18–20
[Christ], being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah.
Jude 6-7
And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
2Pet. 2:4-10
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [Tartarus] and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah…and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter… then the Lord knows how to…keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its c
orrupt desires and despise authority.
Just in case anyone would question this fantastical interpretation of the carnal sin of the angels, Peter and Jude quote a common doublet that linked the sexual violation of the angelic Watchers (and their giant progeny) with the sexual violation of the inhabitants of Sodom who sought sexual intercourse with angels. The common theme of both instances was the transgression of heavenly and earthly separation of flesh.
There’s just one big problem: This doublet of the sin of Sodom and the sin of the Watchers in the days of Noah “made as an example” is not found anywhere in the Old Testament, but only in non-canonical ancient Jewish texts.[15]
Here is the list of some of those extraBiblical texts containing this doublet of connection, and we see clearly that the angelic sexual sin is usually connected to the judgment on giants as well:
Sirach 16:7-8
He forgave not the giants of old, Who revolted in their might.
He spared not the place where Lot sojourned, Who were arrogant in their pride.[16]
Testament of Naphtali 3:4-5
[D]iscern the Lord who made all things, so that you do not become like Sodom, which departed from the order of nature. Likewise the Watchers departed from nature’s order; the Lord pronounced a curse on them at the Flood.[17]
3 Maccabees 2:4-5
Thou didst destroy those who aforetime did iniquity, among whom were giants trusting in their strength and boldness, bringing upon them a boundless flood of water. Thou didst burn up with fire and brimstone the men of Sodom, workers of arrogance, who had become known of all for their crimes, and didst make them an example to those who should come after. [18]
Jubilees 20:4-5
[L]et them not take to themselves wives from the daughters of Canaan; for the seed of Canaan will be rooted out of the land. And he told them of the judgment of the giants, and the judgment of the Sodomites, how they had been judged on account of their wickedness, and had died on account of their fornication, and uncleanness, and mutual corruption through fornication.[19]
2 Enoch 34:1
God convicts the persons who are idol worshipers and sodomite fornicators, and for this reason he brings down the flood upon them.[20]
The New Testament literary reference to non-canonical sources does not mean those sources are the inspired Word of God, nor that everything in them is true; but it certainly does illustrate that the Bible itself draws meaningfully and favorably from interpretive traditions that engage in imaginative embellishment of Biblical stories. Unlike some Christians, God does appreciate creative imagination.
Jude’s references to the book of Enoch are not limited to material citations. He uses the same poetic phraseology throughout his letter that indicates an intimate interaction with the entirety of 1 Enoch on the incident of the Watchers and their condemnation. Researcher Douglas Van Dorn has put together a helpful chart of these linguistic comparisons.[21]
SOME OF JUDE’S ALLUSIONS TO 1 ENOCH
JUDE
1 ENOCH
Jude 6
“The angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling”
“[The angels] have abandoned the high heaven, the holy eternal place”
1 En 12:4
“until the judgment of the great day”
“preserved for the day of suffering”
1 En 45:2
(1 En 10:6)
“angels…kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness”
“this is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned forever”
1 En 21:10
(1 En 10:4)
Jude 12
“waterless clouds”
“every cloud…rain shall be withheld”
1 En 100:11
“raging waves”
“ships tossed to and fro by the waves”
1 En 101:2
“fruitless trees”
“fruit of the trees shall be withheld”
1 En 80:3
Jude 13
“wandering stars”
“stars that transgress the order”
1 En 80:6
“the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever”
“darkness shall be their dwelling”
1 En 46:6
Jude 14
“Enoch the seventh from Adam”
“my grandfather [Enoch]… seventh from Adam
1 En 60:8
1 Peter 3:18-20 speaks of Christ going down into Sheol to proclaim his triumph to the “spirits imprisoned” at the time of the flood. This act appears to be a typological replay of Enoch’s own vision journey into Sheol to see the “prison house of the angels” who disobeyed at the flood (1 Enoch 21:9-10).
But the story does not yet end there. You will notice that the location of punishment and binding of the fallen angels that we have already seen in 2 Peter is Tartarus in the Greek.
2Pet. 2:4
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [tartarus] and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment.
What is important to realize is that the Greek word translated as “hell” in this English translation is not one of the usual New Testament Greek words for hell, gehenna or hades, but tartarus.
The Greek poet Hesiod, writing around 700 B.C., described this commonly known underworld called Tartarus as the pit of darkness and gloom where the Olympian Titan giants were banished following their war with Zeus.
Hesiod, Theogony lines 720-739
as far beneath the earth as heaven is above earth; for so far is it from earth to Tartarus…There by the counsel of Zeus who drives the clouds the Titan gods are hidden under misty gloom, in a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth. And they may not go out; for Poseidon fixed gates of bronze upon it, and a wall runs all round it on every side.[22]
Obviously, Peter does not affirm Greco-Roman polytheism by referring to Tartarus, but he is alluding to a Hellenistic myth that his readers, believer and unbeliever alike, would be very familiar with, subverting it with the Jewish traditional interpretation.
Extra-Biblical Second Temple Jewish legends connected this legend of gods and bound Titans in Tartarus to the bound angelic Watchers and punished giants of Genesis 6.
Sibylline Oracles 1:97-104, 119
enterprising Watchers, who received this appellation because they had a sleepless mind in their hearts and an insatiable personality. They were mighty, of great form, but nevertheless they went under the dread house of Tartarus guarded by unbreakable bonds, to make retribution, to Gehenna of terrible, raging, undying fire…draping them around with great Tartarus, under the base of the earth. [23]
Other well-known Second Temple literature reiterated this binding in the heart of the earth until judgment day:
Jubilees 4:22; 5:10
And he wrote everything, and bore witness to the Watchers, the ones who sinned with the daughters of men because they began to mingle themselves with the daughters of men so that they might be polluted…
And subsequently they [the Watchers] were bound in the depths of the earth forever, until the day of great judgment in order for judgment to be executed upon all of those who corrupted their ways and their deeds before the LORD.[24]
This “binding” or imprisoning of supernatural beings in the earth is expressed in 2 Peter’s “cast into pits of darkness reserved for judgment” (3:19), 1 Peter’s “disobedient spirits in prison” (v. 6), and Jude’s “eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day” (2:4). But it is not altogether unheard of in the Old Testament.
Isa. 24:21–23
On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven, in heaven,
and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
They will be gathered together
as prisoners in a pit;
they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.
Isaiah here is speaking of judgment upon Israel by the
Babylonians around 600 B.C., but he evokes the same Enochian imagery of the angelic host of heaven (often linked to the astronomical heavenly bodies and earthly rulers) being overthrown and imprisoned in the earth until judgment day.
Robert Newman notes that the Qumran Hebrew of the Isaiah scroll of this passage refers to a past event as its reference point: “They were gathered together as prisoners in a pit” (past tense). [25] This past event could very well be the antediluvian binding of the fallen host of heaven (bene ha Elohim) as an analogy for the future captivity of Israel.
So what shall we make of all this wild exploration of Biblical stories, pagan myths, and Jewish legends? Does this mean that Biblical writers tried to integrate their theology with pagan mythology (syncretism)? Is the Bible just an unoriginal adaptation of other religious myths?
Subverted Pagan Imagination
Some Bible believers are fearful of the Bible’s adaptation of mythopoetic imagery and seek to ignore it by literalizing everything in the Bible into their modern understanding. They point to New Testament commands of Paul to “have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths” (1Tim. 4:7), to avoid devotion “to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations” (1Tim. 1:4), “Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth” (Titus 1:14). They even think that it is a sign of the end times that some teachers “will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (1Tim. 4:4).
But are these texts denigrating the literary genres of myth and speculative fantasy that employ the imagination in understanding God? A closer look at their context reveals that not all mythology is created equal.