I have been spending the past week pouring through Council canons and acts in search of the assertion, stated by Murjahel, that the decision to exclude Enoch was simply a toss up between Enoch and Revelation and Revelation won because there was just not enough room for both.
I have read no less than 400 web sites and also the canons and acts and commentary from the Post-Nicene fathers collection I have. I have still not been able to find what Murjahel is referring to. I trust that he did not simply make this up. I could use a little help, as I have exhausted my resources at this point and need to move on.
I already did list through the canons given at various times beginning with the most ancient, which is the Muratorian. The gist on the issue of canonicity is that the church preferred the LXX to the Hebrew canon so even though various books were debated clear through Trent so that the whole church did not share the same canon, Enoch was never a part of the consideration, except of course, by the Ethiopians, who also accepted Jubilees and 3rd and 4th Esdras, and even a 3rd Macabees. Those look to the "authority" of the Ehtiopian Orthodox bishops who chose to include these books in the canon in order to justify Enoch, for whatever their personal agendas may be, really ought to think about what that authority really means. Are you now becoming Orthodox or Coptic? If you are I don't have a problem with that. Its just that calling on their authority and dumping them at the same time seems to me a bit of an acrobatic trick.
Anyway, the idea that there was some sort of toss up is not popping up at me at all. Enoch was not a consideration in anything I've read. If you read back a few pages on this thread you will see that I carefully combed through all of the early church fathers on their opinion and use of Enoch. I also asked Murjahel, who has been active on this thread to supply anything I may have missed. So far, he has not done so. Sources are very important to me.
One thing I found was that there are a lot of people quoting eachother on the web. I have seen it stated numerous times that "many copies" of the Enoch were found in Qumran and that "many" and even "most" of the early fathers accepted it. Clement of Alexandria is invariably listed as one who quoted it. Yet, my research is finding not a single quote or endorsement by Clement and a meagre number of quotes and references and fewer endorsements by other ECFs.
Click here for what I found. I am still waiting for Murjahel to add to this list.
It is amazing what you will find on the Internet. I have seen SDAs talk about the Council of Laodacea (364 A.D.) excluding Enochj like some plot because it supports the Sabbath. I have even found an atheist quote a council's authority in order to prove that Jesus was in error by believing the book to be canonical.
Laodacea did not list Revelation, but did list Baruch and 2 Esra.
I have been wondering which council or discussion surrounding one Murjahel was referring to. Since the conversation seems to center on Augustine and Augustine was a leading bishop in several North African Councils from Hippo through Carthiage 3, at the least I would have thought I might find something there, but none of these councils appears to have mentioned any toss up between Enoch and Revelation. A canon is given of the LXX at Hippo. Carthiage (probably 419 A.D.) ratified this and forwarded the proposal to Rome. We all know that Pope Damasus 1 overrode Jerome and we wound up with the same books that were ultimately affirmed at Trent.
In the search for the opinions of Augustine, what I found is as follows:
Augustine writes in Book 15, Ch. 23 of the City of God:
"In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, Who makes His angels spirits, that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as angelus, means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, and His ministers a flaming fire, or means that God's ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called incubi, had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it. From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. 2 Peter 2:4 I think he rather speaks of these who first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly men have been called angels; for of John it is written: Behold, I send my messenger (angel) before Your face, who shall prepare Your way. Mark 1:2 And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was called an angel. Malachi 2:7."
And on the valid elements of Sacred Tradition in the Book of Enoch, he admits:
"Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called apocryphal, because their obscure origin was unknown to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. For though there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many false statements, that they have no canonical authority. We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle. But it is not without reason that these writings have no place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests; for their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they were not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission. So that the writings which are produced under his name, and which contain these fables about the giants, saying that their fathers were not men, are properly judged by prudent men to be not genuine; just as many writings are produced by heretics under the names both of other prophets, and more recently, under the names of the apostles, all of which, after careful examination, have been set apart from canonical authority under the title of Apocrypha. There is therefore no doubt that, according to the Hebrew and Christian canonical Scriptures, there were many giants before the deluge, and that these were citizens of the earthly society of men, and that the sons of God, who were according to the flesh the sons of Seth, sunk into this community when they forsook righteousness. Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from these. For all of their children were not giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods since the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad alike. It is this which another prophet confirms when he says, These were the giants, famous from the beginning, that were of so great stature, and so expert in war. Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge unto them; but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness."
Please understand that in providing these findings that I am not seeking to discredit anyone. I am honestly looking for sources because I find the claims to be very interesting. I am assuming at this point that I have just missed it and that Murjahel has some sources he will be willing to provide to substantiate his claims.
I would also ask that other posters in this thread try to stick to the facts as it seems the subject has been somewhat derailed. Obviously, there is a debate about whether demons can mate with women and produce the "sons of God." A look at Job shows them in council with satan before God.
The Lord Himself, God being Spirit, has become flesh born of a virgin. This seems like the perfect reversal of what we find in the Nephilim. I have never seen an angel that I am aware of and do not have an opinion at this time about whether Enoch is inspired or whether fallen angels can bear human/demon cross breeds. As this is an archeology forum I suppose what we might be looking for are the bones of the giants, but apparently the possibility exists that since these may be demons we are talking about, they may neither have been wiped out in a flood nor decomposed. I would suppose, being demons, even the half-breeds, that they live in hell if not among the powers of the air. And that would explain why we can't find them. I'm not opposed to some of the theories that might explain this and will be examining Enoch very closely in the coming days. I've now heard a very great variety of opinion on the subject.
I will add another thought though, which is entirely my own. When Paul visited "the third heaven" he spoke of "such a one." And he said regarding this one, "whether in the body or out of the body I do not know."
This is the same Paul who speaks of things being sown in one fashion and raised in another, yet each after its own kind.
My point here is that when the heavenly and the fleshly are joined there is another kind of glory that pertains to the fleshly. We are not simply raised, and raised incorruptible, we are like the angels. We are already aware from Scripture that we have no canonical questions to dispute that the Lord was raised and that He ascended into heaven and that when He ascended into heaven he vanished from our site. At that point we were able to know that He was always with us, but not by site, only in faith and in the Holy Spirit, who comforts and guides us into all the truth.
Now many have claimed to have seen Him and many others have claimed to have seen angels at times. I place no judgment on such appearances. I do see them as a kind of distraction though, given the fact that the Lord said "blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed." The constant vision of the Lord in faith by the Holy Spirit is something we should all cultivate both in ourselves and in those around us. Such cultivation takes place simply by asking that we may be born again from heaven.
You see how the whole idea of the Nephilim is a reversal of this?
Eschatology also fits into this question, even where Belial may already have possessed the antichrist. If this has happened I don't doubt it. I don't know. But one thing I do know. The cure for it is Jesus. But to "know" him not just intellectually but really, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. We look ahead and see a great tribulation period on the horizon and our inspired Bibles, even just counting 66 books, points to demons coming up out of the abyss. It is a frightening time. But the fear is gone when we realize we have a Savior who Shepherds us at all times. This one becomes the King so that Psalm 2 becomes true. The antichrist and the kings of the earth are devising a "vain thing" - riyk -
nothingness against YHWH and his Meshiach. The one who sits in the heavens laughs at them. "But as for me I have installed MY King on Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said, 'Thou art my Son. Today I have begotten Thee. Ask of me and I will give Thee the nations as an inheritance, even the ends of the earth as Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware."
I could go on. My point is that the Lord will reign over the earth. In my opinion, this reign takes place in two stages, one before and one after the Sabbath Millennium begins. By the Holy Spirit, we as Christians are already the ones reigning as Sons in Zion. Obviously, we do so at this time in an incomplete way without our King returning in the flesh to bind satan for a thousand years. Satan is only partially bound at this time at best. On this issue Augustine was definitely at variance with the earlier church fathers.
I thought that I might offer some hope-filled thoughts to this thread. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Focus your attention on your heart. Make sure you are always inviting the Holy Spirit there. You will know His Spirit by the love He puts in you there.