Are Demons Fallen Angels?

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I would like to point out that the so called early church fathers were NOT the fathers of the Church of Jesus Christ, but wrote their opinions centuries AFTER He founded His Church on Himself as Chief cornerstone and His twelve Apostles as the twelve foundational stones, as Scripture shows.

That’s untrue: the first Patristic figures like St. Clement and St. Ignatius were the disciples of the Apostles. And we have their writings, and the writings of their disciples, and so on. We also have the writings of a rival group, which you may have heard of, like the Gospel of Thomas, the Pistis Sophia, The Gospel of Truth The Gospel of Mary, the Acts of Thomas,* the Manichaean literature, and so on, and they show a remarkable consistency over many years and rival groups beginning with the followers of Simon Magus, then Cerinthus, Marcion, Valentinus, Tatian, Mani who founded the particularly toxic Manichaean religion, and others. These sects were documented and tracked by the Church fathers, by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, by St. Epiphanius of Salamis, and by St. John of Damascus.

Meanwhile the same Church Fathers taught the doctrine I believe, that most Christians believe, that there is one God, the Father Almighty, that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, fully man and fully God, the on, who for our salvation was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and buried, rising on the third day according to the scriptures, and ascending into heaven, where he is seated on the right hand of the Father and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and whose Kingdom shall have no end, in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who spoke by the Prophets; I confess one baptism for the remission of sins, I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, I believe in the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to come. That is to say, the Nicene Creed; I also believe the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian Creed.

And St. Athanasius was the key prosecutor of Arius at the council of Nicea; Arius rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and taught Jesus Christ was a creature, created by God, and not God incarnate. The orthodox prevailed and Arianism was rejected, but Arian bishops got to Constantius, the heir of Constantine in the East, and so after the Emperor died, Christians were persecuted by Arians, and briefly Pagans, under Julian the Apostate, for 60 years. And the same Athanasius about 35 years later wrote his 39th Paschal Encyclical, as he did every year to provide the date of Easter to the bishops of the Church of Alexandria, of which he became Patriarch after Nicea, when his predecessor St. Alexander died, and in this encyclical he listed the 27 books we now universally agree are the canonical New Testament, being the originator of the modern canon (there had been earlier proposals by theologians like Eusebius of Caesarea, the noted church historian and Arian sympathizer, who would have included some apocrypha, and other proposals that were missing many of the Epistles and Revelations, but it was Athanasius who got it right).

It took about 150 years for this canon to propagate, but we should celebrate that it did, because if you ever tried to read some of the blasphemous apocrypha, like the Gospel According to Judas or the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, you would be glad there was someone like Athanasius to say “Nope, that’s not going in there.” And if the Church that came up with the Nicene Creed and the canonical New Testament, from which the Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Assyrian churches all descended isn’t the Christian Church, then there is no Christian Church, because our beliefs about the Incarnation, the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our own salvation, Baptism, Holy Communion, and the meaning and interpretation of the Scriptures, and even what books are Scriptures, came from them. And their beliefs are naturally consistent with those expressed in the Scriptures, considering Irenaeus popularized the idea of there being only four Gospel, and considering Athanasius made the final cut, and was largely responsible for the Nicene Creed, I am extremely comfortable reading everything he wrote. Much more so than many more recent theologians. I would rather read Athanasius than John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas or even St. Augustine, who was almost a contemporary.

St. John Climacus was a 6th century monk about which we know nothing other than he wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent, immortalized by a famous icon. His name literally means “Of the Ladder.” I think the icon summarizes his book, and the methods of demons, very well:

335px-The_Ladder_of_Divine_Ascent_Monastery_of_St_Catherine_Sinai_12th_century.jpg


St. Ignatius Brianchaninov was not an early church father, but a 19th century Russian monastic and bishop who I greatly admire, who wrote The Arena about spiritual warfare, and a book more for laity about the Jesus Prayer.
 
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The Liturgist

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Not only that. Peter warned his own congregation to be very careful about those to follow him...

"But there were also false prophets among the people, just as
there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly
introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign
Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on
themselves."
2 Peter 2:1​



Take note! The Catholic church should learn to be quiet instead of boasting of being founded by those who followed the Apostles in leadership! Peter is not giving that a good endorsement!

1. I am not Roman Catholic, but a Congregationalist Protestant, but like Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Lutherans and Methodists and Presbyterians and Anglicans, I am Catholic, in that I believe I am a member of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. As should you, since its in the CF.com Statement of Faith, and the word Catholic means “According to the Whole,” or “Universal.” What exactly the Catholic Church is and is not is a matter of ecumenical debate, but belief in it is in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds. And of the saints I mentioned: Anthony, Athanasius, John Climacus, the earliest three were Greek or Russian and would be more properly associated with the Eastern Orthodox church. And Ignatius Brianchaninov was a 19th century Russian Orthodox bishop. But Roman Catholic members make a huge and valuable contribution to the forum and I love interacting with them and members of other denominations.

2. We know who Peter was referring to then - Simon Magus and his descendants, the founders of the Docetae, Gnostics, Ebionites, Marcionites, Manichees, Arians, Apollinarians and Tritheists. And they are all extinct, and became so usually with a few centuries. And we know who he was speaking of today: people like Joseph Smith (Mormonism), Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science), William Ellery-Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Unitarian Universalist), the Watchtower group that spawned the Jehovah’s Witness heresy, which is Arianism with Scientology-style financial exploitation, the Oneness Pentecostal preachers, the founders of Rastafarianism, Jim Jones (who was an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ before he turned to evil and declared himself a false god), and other wicked cult leaders who are likened by our Lord to Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing. Some even claim to be Jesus Christ, like the cofounder of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult.

3. This anti-Catholic tirade is completely off-topic, so lets please focus on the question: are demons fallen angels? My understanding is a resounding “yes.”
 
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The Liturgist

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I've seen commentators speculate that fallen angels and demons are two different things. A fallen angel is one who rebelled against God. Whereas a demon is a fallen angel who rebelled against God and later forsook his angelic body in order to be a wandering spirit.

Commentary like that is perhaps useful but it's often fraught with risk. Language evolves. What a word means today is not necessarily what it might mean two centuries from now. Sacred Scripture was written over a period of thousand of years so it's quite possible that an Old Testament writer had something different in mind that a New Testament writer who uses the exact same word.

So when scholars analyze Sacred Scripture for clues about these matters, their research could be flawed because different writers intended different things even if they used the same word. The reason I'm harping on this point is because most scholars typically use only the Bible as their source rather than analyzing other writings from that same period to flesh out their understanding of words, definitions, etc.

That doesn't mean they're wrong in drawing a difference between fallen angels and demons. I'm just saying their methodology is usually sloppy, their conclusions are often fragmented and their work can be very incomplete.

tl;dr- Who knows?

I hadn’t heard that before. Where did you read that if I might ask?
 
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yeshuasavedme

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[QUOTE="The Liturgist, .....[/QUOTE]
Please don't bring other's writings here in such massive displays of your ability to copy and paste, and I apologize if you wrote it all yourself, but it was just too much.
I have had the entire collection of the so called "father's" of the church (a gift my husband let me buy for myself one year) and enjoyed learning as I read that they argued the same arguments over and over that we argue on boards today, and that they who were NOT the fathers of the Church of the LORD Jesus Christ, but came much after the Church of the LORD Jesus Christ was already established upon the foundation of the Chief Cornerstone and His 12 original witnesses did NOT have more to add to the doctrine of the Gospel as it was already laid down, and, as I said, they argued over and over the very same questions that we who post on these boards argue.
Jesus is LORD, and knowing Him by revelation to one's own heart is the only TRUTH that saves. Words don't save a soul, but the Power of the Gospel displayed as it was in the early Church, like in Acts, does lead men to seek and find Him who is the Light seeking them.
That said, by the time of the writing of the "Early Church Fathers", the Power of the Gospel just seemed to be lost....
Methinks the Glory had departed.
But, in simple places simple people still sought and found Him, through the Church age, and there are testimonies one can still find to read that show the Light of Christ wasn't snuffed out [by religion taking the place of relationship with Jesus].
 
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The Liturgist

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[QUOTE="The Liturgist, .....
Please don't bring other's writings here in such massive displays of your ability to copy and paste, and I apologize if you wrote it all yourself, but it was just too much.
I have had the entire collection of the so called "father's" of the church (a gift my husband let me buy for myself one year) and enjoyed learning as I read that they argued the same arguments over and over that we argue on boards today, and that they who were NOT the fathers of the Church of the LORD Jesus Christ, but came much after the Church of the LORD Jesus Christ was already established upon the foundation of the Chief Cornerstone and His 12 original witnesses did NOT have more to add to the doctrine of the Gospel as it was already laid down, and, as I said, they argued over and over the very same questions that we who post on these boards argue.
Jesus is LORD, and knowing Him by revelation to one's own heart is the only TRUTH that saves. Words don't save a soul, but the Power of the Gospel displayed as it was in the early Church, like in Acts, does lead men to seek and find Him who is the Light seeking them.
That said, by the time of the writing of the "Early Church Fathers", the Power of the Gospel just seemed to be lost....
Methinks the Glory had departed.
But, in simple places simple people still sought and found Him, through the Church age, and there are testimonies one can still find to read that show the Light of Christ wasn't snuffed out [by religion taking the place of relationship with Jesus].[/QUOTE]

This is offtopic, so I won’t address the content of your post, but regarding my replies, they were entirely hand-written just this evening in response to offtopic posts from yourself and another user. I never quote text without attribution. In fact, I even typed out the Nicene Creed from memory despite the fact that I could have pasted it from the CF.com Statement Of Faith, complete with Bible verses, in part as a memory exercise, because of late I have been listening to a lot of Anglican Choral Evensong, and they always seem to use the Apostles’ Creed, which I don’t normally use “at work.”

Moving back to the topic, I have only heard of demons as fallen angels. I did recently have a disturbing encounter with a woman who claimed an angel who appeared to her and had directed her to commit an act of lethal violence, allegedly in self defense, in her youth, and she claimed to continued to converse with it in her elder years. It is known that demons impersonate angels as a matter of course, which is why we are instructed to test every spirit.
 
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yeshuasavedme

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Liturgist, You have an amazing mind, then.
There were many early Church believers who believed the Book of Enoch was inspired. It is in the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Scripture means writing. Inspired by the Holy Spirit writing is sacred writing.
Enoch the prophet, the 7th from Adam is the foundational source for what demons are, where they are from, why they roam earth seeking a body to use, and how long they will be allowed to do so, and why they answer to Satan, and what the class of evil angels called satans are.
Satan and his host of evil angels legally operate from the heavens and will until they are cast out and down in the end of this present age war, when the LORD Jesus takes His authority over the earth, which he ransomed by His once for all atonement, and reigns.
Psalm 75, 2, 3 in the Hebrew (I think it is 2,3 -will edit and add it after I later get on the larger screen, cause this phone is too limiting to do it all fast enough) and used in context with other Scriptures tells that at the time of the rapture the evil angels in the heavens = the principalities and powers, the rulers of darkness in the heavens set over earth (Satan and his host) will be removed and replaced, and the saints of God who will be the reset pillars of this earth, will take those places of authority in the heavens after the judgment of the righteous at the judgment seat of Christ.
[Back later to show scripture links on that.]

Fallen watcher angels who fell before the flood of Noah were chained in Sheol below as a warning to other holy watcher angels to not do what those first 200 did, as Jude mentions.
 
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The Liturgist

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Liturgist, You have an amazing mind, then.
There were many early Church believers who believed the Book of Enoch was inspired. It is in the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Scripture means writing. Inspired by the Holy Spirit writing is sacred writing.
Enoch the prophet, the 7th from Adam is the foundational source for what demons are, where they are from, why they roam earth seeking a body to use, and how long they will be allowed to do so, and why they answer to Satan, and what the class of evil angels called satans are.
Satan and his host of evil angels legally operate from the heavens and will until they are cast out and down in the end of this present age war, when the LORD Jesus takes His authority over the earth, which he ransomed by His once for all atonement, and reigns.
Psalm 75, 2, 3 in the Hebrew (I think it is 2,3 -will edit and add it after I later get on the larger screen, cause this phone is too limiting to do it all fast enough) and used in context with other Scriptures tells that at the time of the rapture the evil angels in the heavens = the principalities and powers, the rulers of darkness in the heavens set over earth (Satan and his host) will be removed and replaced, and the saints of God who will be the reset pillars of this earth, will take those places of authority in the heavens after the judgment of the righteous at the judgment seat of Christ.
[Back later to show scripture links on that.]

Fallen watcher angels who fell before the flood of Noah were chained in Sheol below as a warning to other holy watcher angels to not do what those first 200 did, as Jude mentions.

I need to apologize as this is going to be a long post that deals with a lot of subjects, so please bear with me and read carefully, and don’t assume my view as contrary to yours without first asking, and also, if I am unclear on some points, and I expect I am, let me know and I will try to clarify.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church accepts 1 Enoch as canonical and so do I, since (a) I use their Broad Canon to define the pale of possible “tritocanonicity”, and (b) St. Jude quotes it. However, doctrinally, the view of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the same as that of the Coptic Orthodox Church; St. Anthony was a Coptic Christian and St. Athanasius was the Alexandrian Greek Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who wrote his biography. St. Anthony and the Desert Fathers l had some of the closest and most harrowing experiences with demons, who are known to attack monks, especially solitaries (as all the early Desert Fathers were until the semi-organized community at Scetis and the Cenobitic Monasteries founded by St. Pachomius). And Ethiopian pilgrims travel whenever possible to St. Anthony’s Monastery.

1 Enoch is accepted as canonical by the Ethiopian church, and by me, but only to the extent that it does not contradict the doctrine of the church, or the deuterocanonical and protocanonical books of Scripture. It offers a compelling explanation of the dangerous beings mentioned in Genesis, which are evil but not demons per se, because demons are evil spirits, hence St. Paul referring to the devil as the “Prince of power of the air”.

So I don’t reject what it says on demonology outright, and what you say I actually have no objection to; the word demon is in a contemporary context broadly understood to refer to all evil spirits, and is routinely used by many theologians and church fathers to refer to fallen angels, whereas the word “satan” which translates as “accuser” although once commonly used in a plural way, is seldom used as such in Christianity; some translations of Psalm 95:5 in the Septuagint say “The gods of the gentiles are devils” and others “The gods of the gentiles are demons.” (The Masoretic translation, of Psalm 96:5 as it is numbered in the MT, which says “The gods of the gentiles are idols,” strikes me as being too obvious to be the correct reading).

So I do wish we could have avoided the unnecessary tangent about the Early Church, since the Life of Anthony and The Arena have a lot to say about evil spirits, which in normal contexts I am accustomed to calling, in a generic sense, demons, but technically, Enoch 1 may be correct in asserting that demons are something else of an equally sinister nature, and I do give the passage of it quoted by St. Jude extreme credence, since that passage is protocanonical New Testament scripture.

The only reason I am cautious with 1 Enoch is obscurity and the lack of a clear interpretive tradition widely known outside the Ethiopian church; if it were not for the Ethiopian Church, we would not even have the complete work, and Ge’ez is, to put it mildly, an obscure language even among academics, which is unfortunate, because there are spiritual treasures in the Ethiopian church sitting in obscurity in the libraries of monasteries which we don’t even know about, and with what we do have, I am concerned about the accuracy in many cases of translations from Ge’ez. Fortunately in 1 Enoch we have several Aramaic fragments from Qumran and a few Greek fragments; unfortunately, although I do have several copies of 1 Enoch I do not have either a critical edition or a Ge’ez lexicon. The work is probably entirely compatible with mainstream Christian theology, but the work existed in obscurity for so long, and has been of relatively secondary importance even to the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, that in my opinion, regrettably, not enough has been done in terms of studying the work in depth to integrate it into dogmatic theology. The Ethiopian Orthodox interpretive tradition known as Andemta, which sadly I do not personally have any experience with, I would guess holds the key, since the Ethiopian church is the only one that had consistent access to this book, and writings on it by Greek fathers such as Origen are either lost, or never existed (had Origen treated on it, and if we had his writing, like so much else, this would be easier; if only a single copy of his Hexapla, the world’s first parallel Bible, had survived!).

So yes, I accept 1 Enoch as canonical, but since, as St. Vincent of Lerins wrote around the year 400 “Scripture is not in the reading but the interpretation” and I have only translations of dubious reliability from a language it may or may not have been written in, and since I don’t know how to interpret it because unfortunately they don’t teach Andemta at Andover (or much else of use, really), and church fathers like St. John Chrysostom did not write commentaries on it, I read it with caution, and I don’t presume to interpret it in a manner that contradicts existing doctrine. As a practical matter, when dealing with demonology, the writings of Saints Athanasius, John Climacus and Ignatius Brianchaninov, as well as the Philokalia (an anthology of spiritual texts compiled by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius in the 18th century) and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers are the most immediately useful, outside of protocanonical and deuterocanonical scriptures which are less obscure and more widely understood than 1 Enoch.

But since St. Jude quotes it, and the Ethiopians accept it, so do I, and thus I think, as I said before, that developing an interpretation of it compatible with the established dogmatic theology of the rest of the Oriental Orthodox church, and then using that to facilitate its interpretation by the Eastern Orthodox, the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, is extremely important (I have heard the Ethiopian Catholic Church regards it as canonical but I have no idea, as that is one of the smaller Sui Juris Catholic churches, and certainly there has been no great exegesis on it by the likes of Pope Benedict XVI during his fruitful scholarly career).
 
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yeshuasavedme

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Thank you for not holding a grudge on my erroneous assumption about your post....
Getting past translator errors made in ignorance, but not willful ignorance, is a challenge in the Book of Enoch, but it can be got around.
When I first read it, I was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, which we have mostly read through once a year for decades, and done particular studies on particular subjects otherwise. There were many questions in my mind about where the doctrines that are just accepted as true, but are not laid down as foundational in the entire accepted “canon” were to be found. Also comments made by the LORD Jesus, and by Paul, Peter, Jude, James, and others that are not found in the OT and not laid down as a new foundation when commented on in the NT were things I also wanted answers to.
I wanted foundational evidence for them, and they are all laid down in and by Enoch. Things like the Lake of Fire, Sheol below earth, the demons origins, the satans, the evil spirits in the OT, and many other things that delighted me to know and understand...Some took some time to understand, but when you “see it”, you can’t “unsee”.
The Gospel of the Atonement is fully laid down as an oracle given to Moses to write, and for the Jews to keep until they are all fulfilled. Atonement is fulfilled, but Enoch wrote of it first.
I even see the rapture before the tribulation in the Torah and the prophets, in some of the wisdom books, and in the NT, but Enoch wrote of it first. Things that do not save one by believing or not believing I wanted answers to, and Enoch is where I found those answers.

Moses did not need to re-lay them, but he certainly understood them, and comments are made that have no other place to understand them than in the Book of Enoch.
I Suspect any seeming contradictions in Enoch to what is in Torah and the prophets is translator ignorance, just like we see in the English translations on some subjects -but not anything that changes the Gospel of Christ.
I remember the first time I read in Enoch that the fallen Watchers taught the “cutting of roots” it puzzled me, cause I sure “cut roots” to grow a new plant, at times, and could not see sin in that! My mind was just slow on that, and one day, boom! I understood that they were splicing genes to mix kinds and make monsters.
Because I was Familiar with the writings of Paul, I saw in Enoch things that showed me Paul was a student of the writings of Enoch. Lots of things Paul wrote go right back to Enoch.
Especially interesting is his statement in 1 Corinthians 2: 1-7.
People quote the 2nd vs many times, but neglect vs 6 and 7, and 7 is in the Greek simply like this, translated to English:
6 But to them that are [made] perfect [by salvation received]....

7 ... we speak/preach Wisdom
God in mystery hidden
which God ordained before the world
unto our glory.
 
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GenemZ

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Liturgist, You have an amazing mind, then.
There were many early Church believers who believed the Book of Enoch was inspired. It is in the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

There were also early church believers that believed in the mother of God in heaven. That too, leaked into certain church teachings.

The Book of Enoch was written by someone with a talented fiction writer's mind who was (as all Jews were) well acquainted with the teachings of Genesis 6 - the flood account.

The fact that angels sexually reproduced with human women was well understood by Jews who read Hebrew. It was an account that Jews were well acquainted with. Maybe even told scary Nephilim stories around a campfire for fun. For us who read the English translations we tend to have a shock of surprise to learn it was angels and women. To the ancient Jews it was understood yet mysterious to think about.

Whoever this "Enoch" was he was able to think like a great fiction writer for his day.

Now...

How was it than when Jesus cast out "evil spirits" they instantly knew he was really the Son of God? He commanded them to be silent.

Where had they seen the Son prior? As to know who He really was?

In heaven before they fell.

Yes... Those born of women and angels were spirits in their bodies, not souls. We find Peter telling us that these "spirits" have been locked up placed below the earth. They were locked up and taken off the earth.

And, that also the angels that had rebelled in Genesis 6? They too have their own prison section!

After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. 1 Pet 3:19-20.​

In that passage Peter chose "spirits" as the word for the dead Nephilim types, but Peter also uses "angels" for another citation concerning the angels involved in the flood rebellion.


For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to
hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if
he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness,
and seven others."
2 Peter 2:4-5​

As far as these angels? These angels that rebelled in Genesis 6? They are also covered by the Bible, telling us they too have been, like the spirits, have been imprisoned.


And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but
abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness,
bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a
similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave
themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as
an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
Jd 1:6-7​


One word, "spirits" - "angels" can change an entire concept, though similar details may be surrounding the context. Angels are referred to in one passage. In another passage "spirits" was used. Not a coincidence! Such passages are there for a test in rightly dividing the Word of God.


grace and peace......
 
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The Liturgist

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Thank you for not holding a grudge on my erroneous assumption about your post....

Getting past translator errors made in ignorance, but not willful ignorance, is a challenge in the Book of Enoch, but it can be got around.

When I first read it, I was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, which we have mostly read through once a year for decades, and done particular studies on particular subjects otherwise. There were many questions in my mind about where the doctrines that are just accepted as true, but are not laid down as foundational in the entire accepted “canon” were to be found. Also comments made by the LORD Jesus, and by Paul, Peter, Jude, James, and others that are not found in the OT and not laid down as a new foundation when commented on in the NT were things I also wanted answers to.

I wanted foundational evidence for them, and they are all laid down in and by Enoch. Things like the Lake of Fire, Sheol below earth, the demons origins, the satans, the evil spirits in the OT, and many other things that delighted me to know and understand...Some took some time to understand, but when you “see it”, you can’t “unsee”.

The Gospel of the Atonement is fully laid down as an oracle given to Moses to write, and for the Jews to keep until they are all fulfilled. Atonement is fulfilled, but Enoch wrote of it first.

I even see the rapture before the tribulation in the Torah and the prophets, in some of the wisdom books, and in the NT, but Enoch wrote of it first. Things that do not save one by believing or not believing I wanted answers to, and Enoch is where I found those answers.


Moses did not need to re-lay them, but he certainly understood them, and comments are made that have no other place to understand them than in the Book of Enoch.

I Suspect any seeming contradictions in Enoch to what is in Torah and the prophets is translator ignorance, just like we see in the English translations on some subjects -but not anything that changes the Gospel of Christ.

I remember the first time I read in Enoch that the fallen Watchers taught the “cutting of roots” it puzzled me, cause I sure “cut roots” to grow a new plant, at times, and could not see sin in that! My mind was just slow on that, and one day, boom! I understood that they were splicing genes to mix kinds and make monsters.

Because I was Familiar with the writings of Paul, I saw in Enoch things that showed me Paul was a student of the writings of Enoch. Lots of things Paul wrote go right back to Enoch.

Especially interesting is his statement in 1 Corinthians 2: 1-7.

People quote the 2nd vs many times, but neglect vs 6 and 7, and 7 is in the Greek simply like this, translated to English:

6 But to them that are [made] perfect [by salvation received]....


7 ... we speak/preach Wisdom

God in mystery hidden

which God ordained before the world

unto our glory.


So I have another long post, for which I must beg your pardon, but your enthusiasm above and in our communications elsewhere has stirred me. I thought I should seek to explain a bit about the beautiful history of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, its connection to the other ancient churches, and the two approaches I prefer to use to exegetically interpret scripture.


So basically, there are two ancient methods of scriptural interpretation, that of the Catechtical School of Alexandria, which focuses on typological, Christological prophecy and allegories parables in the Old Testament that predict or explain the Incarnation and God’s Plan for our Salvation. The other method is the Antiochene method, for Antioch was the other major center of ancient Christian thought, and the Antiochene approach was to focus on a more literal, historical interpretation. This is obviously preferable in the case of the New Testament, but in the Old Testament I feel a more Alexandrian approach that retains some Antiochene interpretations works best.


St. John Chrysostom, despite being from Antioch, was particularly good at synthesizing the two; his close friend Theodore of Mopsuestia did a purely Antiochene approach and is venerated in the Assyrian Church of the East (which at the time included the India, the Far East, Sassanian Persian Empire, Mesopotamia, where it competed with the Syriac Orthodox Church, which is related to the Coptic, Ethiopian and Armenian churches, those four being the ancient Oriental Orthodox churches historically, and incorrectly, labelled as Monophysite) as Mar Theodore the Interpretor, but what became the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches tended to regard him as a heretic based on the theory he inspired Nestorius, who taught a deeply flawed Christology that separated the deity and humanity of Christ; the Church of the East was historically falsely accused of Nestorianism, and is still kind of the nemesis of the Coptic and Ethiopian churches, which used to be a single church under the Patriarch of Alexandria before the Ethiopian church became autocephalous (self-governing but in full communion with the Coptic church). @dzheremi is a member of the Coptic Church, @Pavel Mosko is I believe a member of the Armenian church, and at present we have no Aramaic speak members of the Syriac Orthodox Church or the Assyrian Church of the East, because the evil Islamic warlord Tamerlane killed all of them outside of India and Mesopotamia in the 13th century, and then the evil Ottoman Empire killed most of those who remained, along with millions of Armenians and Pontic Greeks, in 1915, in a brutal manner that is as horrible as the Nazi Holocaust, but rather than being frighteningly clinical and efficient, consisted of the murder and mayhem of men, women and children in unspeakable acts of barbarity.


There are only at most million Syriac Orthodox left outside of India, where there are several million, and at most a million or so members of the Church of the East, which since the 1960s has been divided by a schism between a traditionalist faction and the majority, which is nearly healed. When Catholicos Addai II, the oldest primate of a Middle Eastern church, who leads the smaller faction, the Ancient Church of the East, and the only one still alive from before ISIS, despite living in Iraq, reposes, the two will probably reunite; I get the sense reunion hasn’t been done because most people don’t want the venerable Catholicos to be replaced by his counterpart from the much larger Assyrian Church of the East given his status as the only surviving prewar church leader.


As I said, the Church of the East is unpopular with the Coptic and Ethiopian churches; the Coptic Church blocked the Assyrian church from joining the Middle Eastern Council of Churches under the previous Catholicos, the late Mar Dinkha IV, who I once met, who lived in Chicago, unlike his counterpart Mar Addai, or his successor. There is a huge Assyrian community in Chicago (all surviving members of both churches are either Assyrians or converts from various missions elsewhere).


So my guess is the Ethiopian Church is using the Alexandrian exegetical method more than the Antiochene method. Coincidentally, many recent “sola scriptura” Protestants from newer denominations, and also to a lesser extent Calvinist Reformed Christians, tend to use an flawed, eisegetical version of the Antiochene approach, and favor hyper-literal interpretations of the Old Testament in some cases, which sometimes results in unusual doctrines like the SDA’s interpretation of the Torah. These approaches differ by far from what ancient Antiochene exegetes like Theodore of Mopsuestia (who I do not regard as a heretic, by the way), used, because they are eisegetical, meaning verses are read on their own or with only partial context, whereas with exegesis we strive to read a verse in context with all of Scripture.


When adding in another book like 1 Enoch, one might fear it would change the entirety of scripture by forcing re-exegesis of everything else, whether one is is using the Alexandrian, Antiochene or both methods of exegesis, but if one found that happening, that would indicate a gross misinterpretation, because Martin Luther basically rejected Jude, James, Hebrews and Revelations, and most Lutherans accept them, and their very solid exegetical interpretation is unchanged. And in the Patristic era, the interpretation of scripture did not vary despite the lack of a unified New Testament canon until the late fifth century, by which time that proposed by Athanasius had gained acceptance everywhere else. And of course, the Ethiopians accept 1 Enoch while sharing the same faith as the Copts (Egyptian Christians), who reject it and use the Eastern Orthodox canon officially, but practically, most of them are reading Arabic Bibles which lack any deuterocanonical books such as Wisdom, Tobit, Sirach, Judith, the books of the Maccabees, and so on.


Then, there is the opposite extreme of excessively allegorical interpretation, an error Origen sometimes committed; also whichever random person wrote the psuedepigraphical Epistle of Barnabas probably took it way too far; St. Athanasius concluded based on the opinions of the early church this epistle was spurious and left it out of the New Testament, and he was Alexandrian. The author’s interpretation of the Jewish dietary laws is pretty funny, though. But that is neither scripture nor a good way to do it. In fact I would argue 1 Barnabas is probably the result of Eisegesis, because his amusing interpretation of Jewish dietary laws seems to exist in its own world, away from and not clearly connected with the rest of the Bible.

Origen also got anathematized by the churches that would become the Orthodox and Catholics at the same time, but in his case because of the probably erroneous assertion popularized by St. Epiphanius, who I otherwise greatly admire, that Origen had inspired Arius, and also more pressingly, some writings in which he intellectually contemplated some speculations, which he did not express a belief on, concerning the possibilities of universalism and also in some bizarre passages preserved only in Epiphanius and other polemics, reincarnation. I reject those doctrines; I don’t believe he agreed with them but was simply curious and incautious about what he wrote, in those days putting pen to paper (or vellum) being more of a big deal than it is today. And I also do not consider him a heretic, for the same reason I reject the anathema against Theodore of Mopsuestia, that being I personally believe it is morally wrong for the church to anathematize a member who dies in good standing, “in the peace of the church” and is widely venerated, as both Origen and Theodore were, after they have been dead for centuries (over a century in the case of Theodore and more than two in the case of Origen).

Now, just to clarify, I and many other Christians of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox faith agree with a lot of the exegesis of both Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia. There is a collection of Origen’s best writings called the Philocalia, with a “c” (the Philokalia which I mentioned in my earlier post has nothing to do with Origen), and this work also omits his fanciful speculations about universalism and reincarnation, in which we have no interest. In the case of Theodore, there is nothing he wrote that survives that I have found specifically objectionable. However the homilies of St. John Chrysostom that interpret the scripture using a careful mixture of both Antiochene and Alexandrian exegesis, adjusted where needed depending on the book, for some, like Ecclesiastes, are obviously intended to be read very literally, and others, like the Song of Solomon, by the same Prophet King, are clearly metaphorical and prophetic. And most contain both elements.
 
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The Liturgist

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(Continued from part 1)

In case you are wondering, the ancient Roman church was very much unlike the Roman Catholic Church of today, and more like the Orthodox Church, specifically more like the most conservative members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, like the Church of Georgia and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, in that it tended to rely primarily on established doctrine and was very slow to change, until Archbishop Leo flexed his pre-Papal muscles and wrote the Tome of Leo, which the Oriental Orthodox rejected as too close to Nestorianism at the Council of Chalcedon and were excommunicated for that and also due to falsehoods made by a certain Ibas, who was later denounced in the West, concerning the relationship between Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria and an actual Monophysite heretic, Eutyches. The actual monophysites believed that Christ’s humanity had dissolved into His divinity “like a drop in the ocean.” This ultimately proved incompatible with the doctrine of the Trinity; the last we hear of them is that in the sixth century they had devolved into Tritheists under the Egyptian philosopher John Philoponus, and then presumably became extinct after the Muslims conquered Alexandria in the years following. It is worth noting that the most interesting Latin speaking theologians such as Saints Isidore of Seville, Ambrose of Millan, Augustine of Hippo, Vincent of Lerins and John Cassian, lived outside of Rome while the city still stood, and the Bishops of Rome before Leo tended to be really conservative and opposed to heresies like Arianism and Nestorianism.


In the sixth century they took the title Pope, which historically was used only by the Patriarch of Alexandria (and still is; the Greek Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox Patriarchs are His Beatitude Pope Theodore II and His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Tawadros meaning Theodore; they also have very good ecumenical relations, and absolutely reject the doctrine of Papal Supremacy, merely leading the Holy Synod consisting of all the bishops in each church as first among equals; centuries ago a Coptic Pope got his mitre smashed by an angry bishop when he started a liturgy the two were to celebrate together by himself, when the bishop was late, which is a huge no-no in the Orthodox churches, since as St. Ignatius the Martyr wrote, “nothing is to be done without the bishop.” Pope Gregory Diologos, better known as St. Gregory the Great, is the last Roman bishop until recent centuries who I care for; he held the city together after the last vestiges of civil government collapsed and the city was sacked, again, and also found time to refine the music of the church, leading to Gregorian Chant, which I love almost as much as Tasbeha, the music of the Coptic Church.


So, my guess is that the Ethiopians are using in antemta some variation on Alexandrian exegesis. To me, the most interesting approach is one like that of St. Chrysostom, and the Cappodacians, who were supporters of Athanasius and the Nicene Creed from what is now Turkey, St. Basil, his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory the Theologian, who are highly venerated by the Coptic and Ethiopian churches - that is to say, an approach that uses both literal-historical (Antiochene) exegesis and Christological-typological and metaphorical exegesis (Alexandrian).


This can have some beautiful results, because we can read, for example, the days of creation in Genesis 1 as prophetic of the Passion of our Lord: on the sixth day, just as God made humanity in His image, He remade fallen humanity

on the Cross; on the seventh day he rested following creation, and rested in a tomb following recreation, and on the first day, he created the world, and recreated the world anew through His resurrection on the mystical eighth day, when following in the example of our Lord, we will be raised incorruptible and those saved in Christ will enter the World to Come.


Likewise, we can read Exodus both as historical, and as a metaphor for our flight from sin to the Promised Land, through the wilderness of Sinai. And we can read the Temple both as a real place and as the body of Christ, which he actually did “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in Three days.”


So in reading 1 Enoch, I want to be careful that I explore both what it means in terms of Jesus Christ and what theologians call “the economy of salvation” - basically God’s plan to save us, and also a literal-historical interpretation, because I do believe Enoch was a real and holy man, and that there is literal and historical truth in 1 Enoch, as well as Christological meaning, because if there were not both treasures to be gleaned in parable and in direct meaning, I do not believe St. Jude would have quoted it.


And that quotation is where I want to start, because it legitimizes the book regardless of how one feels about the Ethiopians, or delegitimizes the Epistle of Jude in the eyes of some, ranging from Patristic figures to Martin Luther, but as much as I respect all of them, I respect St. Athanasius more, because I do not believe the Pillar of Orthodoxy as he is known, and of whom Gregory Nazianzus wrote “To praise Athanasius is to praise virtue,” whose life to me demonstrates the truth of St. Paul’s writings expressed in the Eastern Orthodox Hymn “He who is baptized in Christ puts on Christ, Alleluia.” So St. Jude is canonical. Now, to be fair, no one is perfect, and Athanasius did not include 1 Enoch in his proposed canon for the Old Testament, which was minimal, lacked Esther and included Judith, but this canon was not used by the Alexandrian church, which instead used the Byzantine canon in Egypt and the Ethiopian Broad Canon in Ethiopia, which Athanasius was one of the first Patriarchs of.


If Jude is the logical starting point, for me, the second place to begin concurrently is in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, because unlike many I regard this church as fully Orthodox. I want to find out all I can both about their antemta method of exegesis, and compare it with the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools I am familiar with (and which I believe all other schools of interpretation can be measured against), and then find out how the Ethiopians interpreted it throughout history (they practiced Judaism before becoming the fourth country to convert to Christ, after Edessa, Armenia and the Roman Empire, and before Georgia, if you recall), because that represents the only continuous school of interpretation, particularly Christian interpretation.


For example, scholars believe strongly that 1 Enoch was important to the Essenes, but we don’t know that much about them, and I don’t care as much what they thought, because Judaism had disintegrated into several rival schools of thought when Christ was born, and they were all wrong on one issue or another. Our Lord presented the truth, and some Jews converted (many joined the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church, and you find Christian families in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Israel/Palestine, and also India, where St. Thomas was martyred, and where Christianity has been practiced since around 50 AD, and Judaism since around 200 BC, with Jewish last names; there are also a few Indian Jews from the same part of India where St. Thomas was martyred and the Christians have their historic center, Kerala, although most have moved to Israel or elsewhere, Vidal Sassoon, the famed stylist, being the most well known).


But the Ethiopians, being Christians of Jewish background, are going to have the most insight into what 1 Enoch means. Unfortunately most of it is probably sitting in obscure Ge’ez manuscripts in monasteries, and the Ethiopian monks may or may not have read all of them, since some books might be in one, some in another, and no one has done a complete bibliography of these works. I suspect many were hidden during the rule of the Derg Communists to avoid destruction. But if I can learn anything about the Ethiopian method of interpretation, that will also help.


Then, with specific regards to the demonology, regardless of when or even if I find out anything from the holy Ethiopian church, we can still make some progress, because as you pointed out, St. Jude’s quote does partially mention it. Starting there, if we read it literally and figuratively, the figure being of Christ and the economy of Salvation, and what He taught us about the devil, about demons, and so on, and also make reference for historical purposes to the relevant Patristic literature on demons, and tie that together, we would have the beginnings of an understanding.


And if the Ethiopians will explain their interpretation to us, and we, following the Berean example, approach it using both Antiochene and Alexandrian exegesis, that could result in an interpretation the entire Church could use, that would unlock the mysteries of Enoch for those Christians not fortunate enough and not strong enough to be Ethiopians who have pursued a life in service of their church. The Ethiopians are astonishingly devout; they will stand in prayer in vigils and church services lasting nearly 24 hours. The longest church services available in North America on Sunday are Ethiopian services, which typically start at 6 AM on Sunday and end around noon. Some might angrily shout “works righteousness!” but I see extreme faith in Jesus Christ; an Ethiopian priest was quoted on a BBC documentary as saying during times of drought and famine, the faith of the Ethiopian Christians sustains them. And the hardships they have experienced, and the persecutions, in Eritrea, for example, humble me and call me to repentance.


And demons hate repentance.


God bless you @yeshuasavedme !
 
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As a postscript @yeshuasavedme I wanted to say I am still digesting your response to my earlier reply, which was brilliant, and looking into my copies of Enoch and also the Ethiopian Orthodox and the handful of Ethiopic Studies scholars who speak Ge’ez in my rolodex.
 
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The Liturgist

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@The Liturgist

Hey there, before I joined the Coptic Church, I was in this "Church of East" and my best friend still is in the organization case your curious. I found a link online (they have since changed their name and head bishop named is now deceased).

Check out

Orthodox Church of the East


Non-Chalcedonian Orthodoxy | Encyclopedia.com

I don’t know anything about the Orthodox Church of the East; all my contacts are ethnic Assyrians in the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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I think the book of Enoch might be right on some things like the origin of the Nephilim. But I seem to recall some stuff that seemed more legendary than believable. In some ways it reminded me of the Syriac works like Cave of Treasurers and the Book of the Bee, which have some interesting stuff, and other things where you say I don't know about that..... :)
 
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I don’t know anything about the Orthodox Church of the East; all my contacts are ethnic Assyrians in the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East.

That's good because that is the real deal!
 
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The Liturgist

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There were also early church believers that believed in the mother of God in heaven. That too, leaked into certain church teachings.

The Book of Enoch was written by someone with a talented fiction writer's mind who was (as all Jews were) well acquainted with the teachings of Genesis 6 - the flood account.

The fact that angels sexually reproduced with human women was well understood by Jews who read Hebrew. It was an account that Jews were well acquainted with. Maybe even told scary Nephilim stories around a campfire for fun. For us who read the English translations we tend to have a shock of surprise to learn it was angels and women. To the ancient Jews it was understood yet mysterious to think about.

Whoever this "Enoch" was he was able to think like a great fiction writer for his day.

Now...

How was it than when Jesus cast out "evil spirits" they instantly knew he was really the Son of God? He commanded them to be silent.

Where had they seen the Son prior? As to know who He really was?

In heaven before they fell.

Yes... Those born of women and angels were spirits in their bodies, not souls. We find Peter telling us that these "spirits" have been locked up placed below the earth. They were locked up and taken off the earth.

And, that also the angels that had rebelled in Genesis 6? They too have their own prison section!

After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. 1 Pet 3:19-20.​

In that passage Peter chose "spirits" as the word for the dead Nephilim types, but Peter also uses "angels" for another citation concerning the angels involved in the flood rebellion.


For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to
hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if
he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness,
and seven others."
2 Peter 2:4-5​

As far as these angels? These angels that rebelled in Genesis 6? They are also covered by the Bible, telling us they too have been, like the spirits, have been imprisoned.


And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but
abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness,
bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a
similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave
themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as
an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
Jd 1:6-7​


One word, "spirits" - "angels" can change an entire concept, though similar details may be surrounding the context. Angels are referred to in one passage. In another passage "spirits" was used. Not a coincidence, Its there for rightly dividing the Word of God.


grace and peace......

I want to thank you for this reply, which raises an excellent point and is an example of the kind of Socratic dialectic that we can use for mutual edification on forums such as this.

I am inclined to regard demons as fallen angels, and to the extent 1 Enoch says otherwise, I want to use Antiochene and Alexandrian exegesis to find out what it is talking about, which requires among other things reconciling what it says with the words of Christ in the Gospel, which are the most precious things for us, being the teaching of God in the flesh, His most important instructions to us; that 1 Enoch is quoted by Jude and is held as canonical by one of the oldest and most conservative Christian churches, which has a history of rejecting heresies (Ethiopia was divided into three factions by two heretical sects several centuries ago, but the Orthodox Church, in communion with the Coptic Church and believing in the Holy Trinity, salvation through Christ, etc, survived).

On a secondary note, Nestorianism is the error of denying that Mary, a virgin, gave birth to the only begotten son and incarnate Word of God, who was God incarnate (John 1:1-18), and instead wrongly divides both the written word and the Incarnate Word by making the man Jesus a separate person from God the Son, united only by one will (when in fact Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, concurrently and at all times since the Incarnation, and has both a human and a divine will).

To conclude, no interpretation of 1 Enoch that contradicts the Gospels is acceptable to me, but since the Ethiopian Orthodox feel the same way and have such strong faith in the Gospel as to be sustained by that faith by decades of drought, famine and violence which have only recently started to improve, there must be valid interpretations, and in the course of writing this response to you I have thought of two, one Antiochene, and one Alexandrian, but as these are very rough conjectural interpretations, I am not yet going to post them.

God bless you!
 
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As a postscript @yeshuasavedme I wanted to say I am still digesting your response to my earlier reply, which was brilliant, and looking into my copies of Enoch and also the Ethiopian Orthodox and the handful of Ethiopic Studies scholars who speak Ge’ez in my rolodex.
Thank you...The DSS is most interesting in that there is the Genesis Apocryphon (just named that by the translators, methinks), which consists of manuscript sections from the Patriarchs own writings. Of interest to me is Abraham’s record and his telling of the time he asked Sarai to say she was her brother, when they entered Egypt, so that they would not kill him to take her. Sarai was legally his “sister” cause she was his own (late) brother’s daughter, as was Milcha, and Lot his brother’s son.
In that section, when the wise men of Pharaoh returned Sarai to Abraham, they asked him to teach them wisdom, values, and truth, and so, “he read to them from the Book of Enoch”.

Now Abraham knew Noah and Shem and lived with them from age ten until the Tower of Babel fell and the tongue confounded into the many, when Abraham was 39 years old, I think, but have to check it to see if memory fails. Noah died when Abraham was 58 years old, and Abraham died before Shem. Abraham was certainly well taught in Noah’s house about YHWH and the writing of Enoch. He had his own copy.

Ussher’s chronology was off in the one area of Abraham’s birth date, and Terah’s death age. and if he had had access to the Real Book of Jasher (the writings of the Upright), which is a chronology from creation til the going into the promised land and conquering it, then Ussher would not have missed that one.
At any rate, Abraham was a contemporary of Noah and Shem, and lived with them, in hiding from Nimrod, who wanted to kill him.
 
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I think the book of Enoch might be right on some things like the origin of the Nephilim. But I seem to recall some stuff that seemed more legendary than believable. In some ways it reminded me of the Syriac works like Cave of Treasurers and the Book of the Bee, which have some interesting stuff, and other things where you say I don't know about that..... :)
If one had not read the Bible, and was raised to believe that there was no God, no Creator, nothing supernatural, then read the Bible without meeting the Author of it, or ever being converted by the power of the Gospel, then the entire Bible would be like one big myth to them, though they would probably say things like: “there are some good things we could apply to live better lives by”, or some such a thing.
 
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