“As we discussed,” Liz said in a perfectly professor give lecture tone, “the Torah is comprised of fi e books written by Moses. Th Torah is considered to be the Jewish Law of Moses. Those five books are included in the Tanakh, which we refer to as the Old Testament. These were among an entire collection of ancient scrolls found in eleven different caves in Wadi Qumran or more commonly known as the Dead Sea. This collection of scrolls were one of the most complete collections and one of the most significant archeological finds in human history pertaining to religious written works and historical accounts of early societies. It was believed a secret sect of Jewish Priests, along with followers and believers in Jesus the Christ kept these select scrolls together and intact over the millenniums. They moved the scrolls for safe keeping when wars broke out and their temples were raided.
“It isn’t unfamiliar to hear about the struggles and wars waged upon the Jews even today. Throughout human history, the Jewish people have been persecuted, uprooted, enslaved, and slaughtered. Hitler, like King Herod and Moses’s Egyptian Pharaoh, hungered for the blood and genocide of the Jews. Their hatred was unquenchable and their hands nearly unstoppable. But with divine intervention and the merciful hands of other gentiles, the Jews have survived and their laws and traditions are stronger than ever,” Elisabeth said with a lifting of her chin.
She was proud of their determination to survive and of the strength of their faith. I knew her mother, Mariam, was Jewish. Mariam was a second generation Jewish-American. Mariam’s parents were lucky to be accounted as survivors of the Holocaust. Liz’s father, Thomas or Tommy as his friends called him, was white bread all the way with sandy-blond hair and big blue eyes. Together, Tommy and Mariam had a made a beautiful olive-skinned, green-eyed baby girl.
Elisabeth had grown up with a gentle blend of Jewish traditions and Baptist faith. I think having a peaceable coexistent fusion in her home and amongst both sets of her grandparents had helped to inspire her interest and enthusiasm for world religions and cultural development at an early age.
Elisabeth paused as she seemed to push back the emotion I saw briefly stir on her face. I doubted anyone noticed. They didn’t know her as well as I did. The students sat silently and respectfully, waiting for her to continue.
“A society that has suffered so much detestation and persecution would have to have had a secret group who could be trusted to hide their sacred scrolls and artifacts. Though many of their treasures throughout history have been raided and stolen, there are still many that have not been found. It is believed they may still be lost to history. Or it is possible they are being protected and hidden to quietly await the day in which it would best suit Israel to reveal them.”
A few people started talking a little excitedly. I caught words like, “the ark of the covenant” and “the sacrificial temple relics.”
“If you read chapter nineteen last night as you were supposed to,” she glanced around to look at her students with an expression that clearly said she didn’t think they all had, “you will recall that those eleven caves produced a total of over one thousand intact manuscripts—three-hundred were Biblical in nature and nearly a hundred thousand fragments of historical texts and writings were among them. Some of those fragments are still being interpreted today. Every book in the Bible was represented in that collection except for which book?” she said loudly to the room.
“The book of Esther,” someone called out.
“Correct. The book of Esther,” Elisabeth said as she slowly paced away from the white board.
“For those of you who attended my class on the History of the Roman Catholic Church, you know many fragments found and many of the scrolls that contained complete written books, were rejected and classified as not having the divine inspiration of God when they were written. It was believed the Roman Catholic Church destroyed those books and fragments they rejected outright or simply hid many of them away from the public because they thought they were too disturbing or disruptive to their agendas to keep in public circulation.
“Many theologians and scholars have since concluded their own investigations and, after reviewing the rejected manuscripts the Catholic Church provided to them, have agreed with most of the decisions made by the Catholic Church. But not with all of them. There is still speculation that the church is still hiding some of those manuscripts and purposefully did not present them for inspection. However, that is merely conjecture.”
There was a murmur rumbling throughout the class. Many students were offended or shocked by that information.
“However,” Elisabeth said, raising her voice just a little, “the Roman Catholic Church has inserted an additional seven books between the Testaments in their Bible and another four books they combined with existing Old Testament books thus rendering their version of the Bible unlike most of the Protestant Bibles in circulation today. Typically, both Protestant and Catholic Bibles tend to contain the standard twenty-seven books in the New Testament and thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, but it isn’t uncommon to find a Roman Catholic Bible with the additional eleven books inserted. In that instance, the Roman Catholic Church has provided to its followers more text to read than the Protestants,” Elisabeth said with a tilt of her head and a slight smile.
A rumble of satisfied chatter erupted in the room. The Catholics felt vindicated, and the Protestants felt confused. Elisabeth smiled wider at the emotional reaction. She had known the class would react that way to the flip flop in who was hiding what from whom.
“It is worth noting those books not in the Protestant Bibles were thought to have been lacking the divine inspiration of God and were written as historical accounts only. It was determined by their standards that they were not meant to be messages from God to man but the writings of historical records from civilizations past. One of the considerations that brought them to the determination that those eleven books should be left out of the Old Testament was that they were not quoted from or referred to even once in the entire New Testament. In their opinions, this thus rendered those books unnecessary to the Bible as a whole.
“The rest of the books of the Bible that have passed inspection are referred to as Canon, or Kanon in the Greek. I’ll expect all of you to read chapter twenty before our next class so we can discuss the canonical qualifications in more detail. We won’t be focusing on that today.
“Also, after reading chapter twenty, I’ll expect all of you to have a basic understanding of the list of books compiled in Alexandria and why seventy of the leading scholars of the region gathered together and were assigned the task of translating the entire Old Testament into Greek. That translation was called the Septuagint, meaning seventy.
“Now, who knows what we call the rejected books of the Bible? Hint, the word means hidden in the Greek,” she said.
A blond, curly-haired man raised his hand.
“Yes, Joshua?” Elisabeth asked him, stepping to the right to be standing more in line with where he was looking down at her.
“Hmm… I think I read it was called the Apocrypha?” he said uncertainly.
“That is correct, Joshua. The Apocrypha are the rejected books of the Bible. It is most commonly believed there were a total of fifteen. However, there is a disputed sixteenth that we will be discussing today as well. Who else can name a few of the fifteen rejected books that have been the center of so many of the arguments between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants? Anyone?” Elisabeth asked as she looked around the room.
A petite brunette woman in the front row raised her hand almost at once to this question.
“Yes, Lilith?” Elisabeth asked, her dry erase marker in her hand ready to write.
“The first and second book of the Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, the Book of Wisdom and the Book of Enoch,” she said in a girly, know-it-all voice.
“That is almost correct, Lilith. The Book of Enoch wasn’t actually apart of the fifteen Apocrypha books. In fact, the Book of Enoch is the sixteenth controversial b
ook I mentioned. We will be discussing that more in just a few minutes. The rest are all correct, however. Thank you.” Elisabeth turned around and wrote the names of the books quickly on the white board.
I couldn’t see the woman’s face, but I could tell by her body language she didn’t like being told she was wrong even though Elisabeth hadn’t necessarily disagreed with the Book of Enoch, as much as place it in a different category. Lilith didn’t say anything back to express the attitude she was displaying in her body, but her suddenly slouched posture said she was pouting.
“Any more books?” Elisabeth asked, facing the room once more.
A black man in a red baseball cap slipped his hand up. Elisabeth spotted him patiently waiting.
“Yes, Michael?”
“There was also the first and second book of Esdras, additional books of Esther, hum…the Baruch, Susanna…that’s all I can remember,” he said, acting disappointed in himself.
“Great. That is correct. All of those were rejected. As a side note, I mentioned a moment ago the Book of Esther was not found amongst the scrolls at Wadi Qumran. It had been well preserved prior to that along with other books of the Tanakh. These chapters of the Book of Esther that were found were in addition to the ones known to be in existence at the time. Okay, so what else? Who can list for me more of the rejected books?” she said as she turned her back once more to write on the white board.
A woman called out, “Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach and the Prayer of Manasseh.”
“That’s good. It’s worth clarifying that the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach, was not referring to Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, of the New Testament. This book was written well before Christ was born. Any others?” she called out.
Someone else said, “Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Azariah, and the Letter of Jeremiah.”
“Yes. And those are the fifteen books of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” Elisabeth said facing the room and pointing to the list she had written down on the board behind her.
“There are also the lost books of the Bible. What I mean is there are books referred to within the Bible itself that to this day, we have been unable to find and were unaccounted for amongst the scrolls found in the caves. These lost books have been the inspiration of many more archeological digs and historical debates for centuries. It is possible of course, the Roman Catholic Church is hording these manuscripts within their vaults, but not entirely likely.” She finished a little louder in order to be heard over the chatter of angry voices murmuring within the room again.
“You can all relax, that is hardly the common opinion. However, it isn’t outside of the realm of possibility some organization, government, or secret sect have already found these documents and are choosing to keep them from public view.”
An athletically dressed young man in the second row asked, “How many lost books are there that we know of?”
“There are fourteen books referred to in the Bible that have been rendered lost,” Elisabeth said with a voice that drew in the class with interest. “One of the books thought to be lost was the Book of the Prophecies of Enoch. However, The Book of Enoch was found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls and was one of the books translated into the Septuagint. If the lost Book of Enoch has been recovered, it may be possible at some point in the future, the others may be discovered as well. The Book of Enoch is the debated sixteenth book of the Apocrypha Lilith already mentioned.” Elisabeth smiled down at Lilith who was now twisting her straight brunette hair around and around her finger and looking down at her notes as if she hadn’t even heard Elisabeth. I felt a sudden urge to go slap her.
Bad Melanie.
Elisabeth ignored Lilith’s nonverbal response and walked to the other side of the room to engage the class. “As you recall, I mentioned one of the qualifications of the Canon were that the rejected books were believed to be irrelevant because they weren’t quoted or referred to in the New Testament and were therefore thought to be non-inspired manuscripts. Well, the Book of Enoch was quoted in the New Testament in the book of Jude, chapter 1:14 and 15. That is why it was not considered one of the Apocrypha because it was actually quoted from and these two verses are attributed by Jude as being written by Enoch.
“Since the Book of Enoch was quoted in the New Testament, it is argued the Book of Enoch was a recognized religious text of the time by the Jewish people.”
There was excited chatter at that. Even I was interested and engaged in the lecture now. I had never heard Elisabeth talk about the Bible in the few classes I had snuck into before. They had been on various world religious topics and myths or ancient languages being decoded and translated but never something so meaty. I found myself leaning forward prepared to hear more.
I wondered what any of this had to do with me and why she was so insistent I come to this particular class today. It would be apparent when it came up. I was sure of it. Elisabeth wouldn’t have asked me here to babysit me. Or would she?
“Now that we have established which books were rejected from the Bible and that the Book of Enoch was one of them, we can now get into the main controversial topic of today’s lecture,” Elisabeth said, looking up directly at me.
I guess I’m about to find out why I’m here.
“The Book of Enoch, though quoted from, had some distinct problems with it. For example, Enoch wrote about events that took place, after he disappeared. I say disappeared because his actual death was never recorded. In the book of Genesis, it says Enoch walked with God and was taken up by God. In the Book of Enoch, he wrote he went to live with the Watchers, the angels sent by God to watch over man. So, Enoch never physically died.”
“When he allegedly wrote about Noah and the flood and the events that took place after that, the question arises, how could he have known? The conjecture is that Enoch wrote the beginning of the book. And the rest was finished later on by his family or their descendants. Genealogical accounts and family history were often passed along from parent to child. It was the culture and habit of their time. It is thus believed the Book of Enoch was finished in this way. However, it does not take away from the fact that many of the Hebrew leaders believed in and knew of the Book of Enoch and recognized it as a true message from God.
“Taking all that into account, it is now left up to the reader to discern in their own hearts and minds what was inspired by God and were prophetic verses, rather than what was written by the uninspired hand of Enoch’s decedents.
“In the book of Jude, Enoch is being quoted prophesying about the judgment of mankind and the punishment of the wicked. Jude outlines in the preceding verses how the hearts of man will be turned toward wickedness and abominable ways in the end times.
“In Jude, verse six, Jude writes, ‘God has kept the angels that did not keep their supreme authority and left their appointed sphere or habitation, down in the dark, in everlasting spiritual chains, to be judged on the great day.’
“There are many interpretations of down in the dark. One, they are being held in a form of Hell which is referenced throughout the Bible as the pit. Or two, they are simply bound to this Earth and no longer allowed to enter the light of God’s kingdom. Either way, why are God’s own angels being held to await judgment?” Elisabeth asked the class.
No one raised their hand.
“A clue is found in verse seven.” Then Elisabeth quoted from memory, “‘Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.’ Jude isn’t just referring to the common or famous sins that took place in Sodom and Gomorrah but how they went after strange flesh.” Elisabeth stressed the word strange.
“What can we find in the Old Testament to explain what else was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah?”
“Didn’t Abraham’s brother Lot and his family live there?” one of the students asked.
“Yes, that is precisely the point I was drivi
ng at. In fact, there is an example here that addresses both verses in Jude. First, in Genesis 19, two angels were sent to Sodom to destroy it, but Abraham had petitioned God to spare his brother, Lot, and his family. The angels went to Lot’s house to warn him and to tell him to gather his family and flee. The men of the town recognized these two men as being of strange flesh and they surrounded Lot’s house demanding for him to send the men out to them that they might have sex with them.
“The fact these men wanted to have sex with those angels, shows they had reason to desire it so badly. They or people they knew had sexual encounters with angels before. Those angels Jude is referring to, who are being held to await judgment, are some of the fallen angels who followed Lucifer, Satan, in the revolt against God.
“In the Book of Enoch, and in the Bible, in Genesis 3:15, God told Satan, whom he referred to as the serpent, that he would put enmity between the seed of Satan and that of the woman. In Genesis 6:1–4, we find out exactly how Satan was able to produce seed.”
The class was writing notes as quickly as they could and I spotted many eager faces. I was also fascinated. I had never heard any of this before.
“‘And it came to pass,’” Elisabeth quoted again from memory, “‘when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God, angels, saw that the daughters of men were fair, and they took themselves wives of all they chose. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and bore children to them, the same became the mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’ In the Greek and Hebrew, the word is Nephilim. The Nephilim were the giants, the children of the angels which were born of human mothers.
“Now, it’s imperative to recognize in verse four, it says the Nephilim, or the giants, were in the earth in those days and also after. After what?” Elisabeth said.
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