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Craig Blomberg on whether 1 Enoch must be literally by Enoch

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    It's called being critical and rigorous. It's nigh-impossible to rule out the possibility of a third source or that Jude is quoting from an oral tradition and not directly from 1 Enoch. Yet even with this, unlike Blomberg, I don't see any reason to deny that there was a historical person, Enoch, seventh from Adam who said what Jude quoted him as saying
    Who precisely are you arguing against? I don't see anyone here asserting that Jude quoting Enoch is a proven fact with no possible alternatives.
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    • #17
      Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
      Who precisely are you arguing against? I don't see anyone here asserting that Jude quoting Enoch is a proven fact with no possible alternatives.
      No one here has asserted that, since it's ridiculous, but KG was implicitly assuming it. So does Blomberg, it appears.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by Paprika View Post
        It's called being critical and rigorous. It's nigh-impossible to rule out the possibility of a third source or that Jude is quoting from an oral tradition and not directly from 1 Enoch. Yet even with this, unlike Blomberg, I don't see any reason to deny that there was a historical person, Enoch, seventh from Adam who said what Jude quoted him as saying
        Even if we assume he used a third source, the similarities I pointed out in post #8 are indicative that the two theoretical sources would have at least agreed on the gist of the subject that the written work was based on, so I don't even see the relevancy in assuming a third source. I think me and you are probably shooting for different objectives here. The book of Enoch, or at least the gist of the story therein, that elaborates on what happened in Genesis 6 seems to be backed by a canon source. So my objective was pointing out that it looks to me that Christians struggle with an explanation for this because, to them, accepting the story as true is not an option for them. Blomberg's apologetic is a clear case in point and I thought your argument was to, but I don't know your stance on the truth of the account, so I'm probably just misunderstanding your objective here.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by seanD View Post
          What I don't get is why Christians are so adamantly against the idea that it's true. Bloomberg, for example, is practically bending over backwards to present an apologetic for why he quoted it other than the possibility that it actually happened. In other words, that it happened and that it reflects the weird incident in Genesis 6 doesn't even seem to be an option to many Christians. I just don't get that.
          A theme throughout his book is how Christians often draw too restrictive of boundaries around what is and isn't Christianity/inerrancy. Although he comes down on the conservative side of most of the issues he discusses, his point is that Christians should allow one another to disagree. (He develops some space to discussing the Geisler/Licona controversy, for example).
          "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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          • #20
            Originally posted by seanD View Post
            I don't know your stance on the truth of the account, so I'm probably just misunderstanding your objective here.
            Well yeah, you are. My objective was to correct KG's methodology, by showing him that he needs to be more critical in his approach. That's all.

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            • #21
              Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
              Who precisely are you arguing against? I don't see anyone here asserting that Jude quoting Enoch is a proven fact with no possible alternatives.
              Right; it's theoretically possible that there was a common source but we have no affirmative reason to do so and it seems reasonable to move forward on the assumption that he was quoting 1 Enoch given the evidence we do have.
              "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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              • #22
                Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                A theme throughout his book is how Christians often draw too restrictive of boundaries around what is and isn't Christianity/inerrancy. Although he comes down on the conservative side of most of the issues he discusses, his point is that Christians should allow one another to disagree. (He develops some space to discussing the Geisler/Licona controversy, for example).
                It sounds like Blomberg is making rationales for Jude's citation just based on what you quoted, unless he's playing devil's advocate. It sounds like the stance he's arguing is that the work has no divine credibility, therefore we must find some other alternative why Jude quoted it, which is a common stance that seems to be taken by many Christians. And I just didn't understand why this is the case. Is it because the work is not canonized by a church authority or is it that the story itself is just too off-the-wall to accept as true?

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by seanD View Post
                  It sounds like Blomberg is making rationales for Jude's citation just based on what you quoted, unless he's playing devil's advocate. It sounds like the stance he's arguing is that the work has no divine credibility, therefore we must find some other alternative why Jude quoted it, which is a common stance that seems to be taken by many Christians. And I just didn't understand why this is the case. Is it because the work is not canonized by a church authority or is it that the story itself is just too off-the-wall to accept as true?
                  It's because virtually every scholar believes the book/its contents had its roots in the three centuries before Christ, not in primeval time.
                  "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                    It's because virtually every scholar believes the book/its contents had its roots in the three centuries before Christ, not in primeval time.
                    Then I guess staunch inerrantists have a problem. It wasn't just the specific citation of Enoch by Jude, but the theme of the book and some of its other content that was almost exactly identical to Jude's reference.

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                    • #25
                      The Jude-Enoch connection, more questions to ponder

                      Originally posted by seanD View Post
                      Then I guess staunch inerrantists have a problem. It wasn't just the specific citation of Enoch by Jude, but the theme of the book and some of its other content that was almost exactly identical to Jude's reference.
                      Jude 4,14-15 seems to be citing this “Enoch, the seventh from Adam,” as a true prophet, i.e., that Enoch having prophesied the soon “coming” of “the Lord” “to execute judgment” on “ungodly persons” who have “crept into” the church in the day when the letter of Jude was composed:

                      ‘...Certain persons have crept in unnoticed [i.e., in Jude's day], those who were long beforehand marked out for condemnation...about these [i.e., condemned persons living in Jude's day]...Enoch...prophesied saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment..."’

                      True prophecy or not?

                      E. Isaac writes:
                      There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines concerning the nature of the Messiah, the Son of Man, the messianic kingdom, demonology, the future, resurrection, final judgment, the whole eschatological theater, and symbolism. No wonder, therefore, that the book was highly regarded by many of the apostolic and Church Fathers [1986, 10]. First Enoch influenced Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and several other New Testament books. The punishment of the fallen angels described in 2 Peter seems to come directly from 1 Enoch, as does much of the imagery (or even wording) in Revelation. The Epistle of Jude contains the most dramatic evidence of its influence when it castigates “enemies of religion” as follows: 'It was to them that Enoch, the seventh in descent from Adam, directed his prophecy when he said: “I saw the Lord come with his myriads of angels, to bring all men to judgment and to convict all the godless of all the godless deeds they had committed, and of all the defiant words which godless sinners had spoken against him.' (Jude 14- 15).” The inner quote, 1 Enoch 1:9, is found in the original Hebrew on a recently-published Qumran fragment [Shanks, 1987, 18]. And by attributing prophecy to Enoch the seventh from Adam, Jude confers inspired status upon the book.

                      See also, the recent book about a paradigm shift taking place in NT studies concerning the influence that the Parables of Enoch may have had on NT authors: http://www.amazon.com/Parables-Enoch.../dp/0567624064

                      Irenaeus drew heavily on 1 Enoch 6-9, the tale of how angels brought sin on earth, when he wrote the following:

                      And wickedness very long-continued and widespread pervaded all the races of men, until very little seed of justice was in them. For unlawful unions came about on earth, as angels linked themselves with offspring of the daughters of men, who bore to them sons, who on account of their exceeding great were called Giants. The angels, then, brought to their wives as gifts teachings of evil, for they taught them the virtues of roots and herbs, and dyeing and cosmetics and discoveries of precious materials, love-philtes, hatreds, amours, passions, constraints of love, the bonds of witchcraft, every sorcery and idolatry, hateful to God; and when this was come into the world, the affairs of wickedness were propagated to overflowing, and those of justice dwindled to very little.

                      Tatian, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian all echo Irenaeus’ statements and his use of 1 Enoch in attributing to the fallen angels the origin of the magic arts and cosmetics. It is not difficult to account for the influence of 1 Enoch on the early church writers. After all it was the only (what we now call) apocryphal book cited explicitly in the New Testament (Jude 14, cf. 1 Enoch 1:9). The Ethiopian church accepted the book into its canon and the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas approved of it, as did Tertullian, even though the majority rejected it.

                      Interestingly some of the later Fathers doubted the canonicity of Jude precisely because it cited apocryphal books such as Enoch. The influence of the Book of Enoch and the popularity of the Septuagint (which translated “sons of God” as “angels”) in the early church may explain why no Christian writer challenged the view that the Sons of God were angels until the third century AD.

                      With the rejection of the canonicity of Enoch there was a corresponding decline in the ‘angel’ interpretation of the ‘sons of God’. In a similar way the idea of a fall (or second fall) of the angels prior to the Flood drops out of theological history after the time of Lactantius. From that point on the view that the Sons of God were purely human - the descendants of Seth - began to dominate. As can be seen from Table 5.2 the other early references to the Sethite theory were found in Jewish sources that few of the early Christian would have had access to. It was not until after the middle of the second century that a Christian writer (Julius Africanus) suggested that the 'sons of God' were Sethites.

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                        It's because virtually every scholar believes the book/its contents had its roots in the three centuries before Christ, not in primeval time.
                        IS THE LETTER OF "JUDE" ANY MORE AUTHENTIC THAN THE BOOK OF "ENOCH?"

                        Kummel presents the reasons that most scholars suspect Jude to be a pseudepigraph (Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 428):

                        The author was presumably a Jewish Christian, since he knews such Jewish-apocalyptic writings as the Ascension of Moses (9) and the Enoch Apocalypse (14), and the Jewish legends (9, 11). But the author "speaks of the apostles like a pupil from a time long afterward" (17). Not only does he assume a concept of "a faith once for all delivered to the saints" (3), but against the statements of the false teachers of the End-tim, he adduces in similar manner Jewish and early Christian predictions (14 f, 17). All this points to a late phase of primitive Christianity, and the cultivated Greek language as well as the citations from a Greek translation of the Enoch Apocalypse do not well suit a Galilean. The supposition repeatedly presented that Jude really does come from a brother of the Lord is accordingly extremely improbable, and Jude must be considered a pseudonymous writing. That is all the more fitting if Jude 1 contains a reference to a pseudonymous James (see 27.4).

                        Norman Perrin writes the following on Jude (The New Testament: An Introduction, p. 260):

                        The letter is pseudonymous, as is all the literature of emergent catholicism in the New Testament.

                        The most interesting features of this letter are the characteristics of emergent Catholocism it exhibits. The letter speaks of "the faith once for all delivered to the saints"; faith is the acceptance of authoritative tradition, and the writer denounces the heretics and admonishes the faithful on the authority of that tradition. There is also evidence of a developing Christian liturgy. In verses 20-21, "pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ" testifies to the liturgical development of a trinitarian formula. The closing benediction is a magnificent piece of liturgical language, so different in style and tone from the remainder of the letter that the writer has probably taken it from the liturgy of his church.

                        Jude is dependent on James, and II Peter is dependent on Jude, setting the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem for this epistle. It would be fair to date it to the turn of the second century.

                        http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/jude.html

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