Jude and Enoch

[Iscariot]

In Jude verse 14 it says:
"Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

This quote is taken specifically from the 'Book of Enoch', which, at the time the book of Jude was written, was accepted by some Jews as cannon. The Book of Enoch was rejected by the council of Nicea and left out of the christian cannon.

My question is:
How can a quote from the book of Enoch be in the Bible and referred to as "God Inspired" if the book of Enoch, itself, is consitered heretical?

 

[BigNorsk]

First, I would hope you aren't offended but the word is "canon" not "cannon". It's a common thing because they sound the same.

Anyway, there are a couple of assumptions in your question. Probably most important is that the Book of Enoch we have was indeed the original writing of Enoch. That doesn't seem supportable. It seems to have come from much later.

So then the question comes, is the Book of Enoch as we have it the source of the biblical quote or could they both take from another source or what?

We don't really know, it was very common to write things and have them claim to be written by a certain prominent person, and indeed, those writings often fooled people.

It would appear that those who accepted the book of Enoch for a time were likely fooled.

So exactly what does the passage refer to? Well the answer is, we don't really know for sure.

And there are other quotes of things in the bible that are not scripture. For instance the Book of Jasher was actually written about as proof something was true.

So that brings up that there is a wide difference between scripture and heresy, it's not a book being one or the other.

Note that we normally operate without any problem with these things. For instance you might have a book by a popular Christian teacher on your shelf. You likely even give it some authority. That doesn't mean that you think it's scripture, nor if you don't that it is heresy. For some reason, it's pretty common to treat older writings that way though. I would suggest instead to treat them like you treat other books. Not something to base doctrine on, not such an authority that you think here it is written, it must be true. But not worthless either.

Books that contain falsehoods, like they claim to be written by someone they clearly aren't written by should be treated very cautiously. Just like you would treat someone who claimed to be a different person. But that doesn't mean every single word is a lie. Usually they draw on the culture of the time, they provide a look at what people thought and knew about. Usually though there is a spin to it.

So treat it like you would a political spinners version of what happened last week.

Marv

 

[2 King]

I agree with Big, I might want to make it a little more clearer though.

If Jude indeed quotes the passage from the Book of Enoch he thereby stamps with inspired approval that passage, not the whole book, just as Paul sanctions particular sentiments from Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander (Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12; 1 Corinthians 15:33).

But as Jude differs a little from the Book of Enoch, written probably by a Jew thoroughly imbued with Daniel's sacred writings, it is likely he rather sanctions the current tradition of the Jews as to Enoch's prophecies, just as Paul names the Egyptian magicians "Jannes and Jambres," though the Old Testament does not. Jude, under the Spirit, took the one gem out of the mass of earthy matter surrounding it, and set it in the gold of inspiration.

 

[a_ntv]

The answer is simply: who wrote the Letter of Jude DID considered 1 Enoch as inspirited. (well probably only the first parts of the Book of Enoch: the Book of Watchers)

The canon (the list of the books considered inspired in the Bible) had a long birth and even the books of the NT were fixed in about the 4th century.

Please consider that the canon used by most protestants, (66 books), is different from the canon of Catholics and Orthodox.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (that was separated from all the other Christians fom many centuries) still now considers inspired the Book of Enoch.

And please note that "not inspired" is different from "heretic"

 

[oldsage]

The Book of Enoch was rejected by the council of Nicea and left out of the christian cannon.

That council didn't have anything to do with book selections either. (had to add that for historical reasons)

 

[Iscariot]

Meh, sorta kinda. The council of Nicea was called becuase Constantine feared infighting among Christians threatened his empire, so he wanted a unified form of the religion. I supose they didnt really "create" the cannon at Nicea, but the intent was there, IMO.

 

[oldsage]

Meh, sorta kinda. The council of Nicea was called becuase Constantine feared infighting among Christians threatened his empire, so he wanted a unified form of the religion. I supose they didnt really "create" the cannon at Nicea, but the intent was there, IMO.

Nope, the canon was not even an issue at that council. The main point of the council was the Arian controversy and setting the date for Easter. There were some other smaller things dealing with Baptism and dealing with a small schism in Egypt. There is no record or hint the canon was talked about.

 

[Iscariot]

im gonna go ahead and call shenanigans on your last post. The council if nicea was about far more than the date of easter. And the Arian contraversy was what spured the creation of a unified doctrine in order to combat alternate "heretical" interpretations of scripture... defining doctrine, unifying christian ideals, what odes that sound like...*cough cannon cough*

BUT your right. Dan Brown was getting to me. I retract my statement about the Book of Enoch being rejected at the council.... it was rejected... sometime by early christians... my bad

 

[oldsage]

im gonna go ahead and call shenanigans on your last post. The council if nicea was about far more than the date of easter. And the Arian contraversy was what spured the creation of a unified doctrine in order to combat alternate "heretical" interpretations of scripture... defining doctrine, unifying christian ideals, what odes that sound like...*cough cannon cough*

BUT your right. Dan Brown was getting to me. I retract my statement about the Book of Enoch being rejected at the council.... it was rejected... sometime by early christians... my bad

I did give a short summary of the main topics which were discussed at Nicea, I didn't limit it to just Easter and the Arian controversy. It was 75 years later when more serious discussion on the canon took place. The Christological issues went all the way up to the Council of Chalcedon in 481 when the Definition of Chalcedon was adopted. This was really the last major council on this issue.

Dan Brown is good fiction, unfortunately people tend to believe it is real history.

Some Christians to believe Enoch is canonical, the Ethiopian church still has it as part of their canon.

The church even today still talk about the canon.

 

[a_ntv]

The council if nicea was about far more than the date of easter. And the Arian contraversy was what spured the creation of a unified doctrine in order to combat alternate "heretical" interpretations of scripture...

At Nicea, 325 AD, the Book of the Bible as you have in your shelf did not existed. Only the Ancient Testament was (almost) fixed (in the LXX canon, not in the present protestant canon).
The term "Scripture" referred to only to the AT.

The list books of the NT was not defined, nor was defined the exact content of each book. It was still usual to refer to other sayings of Christ not included in present Bible.

So the issue was not "combat alternate heretical interpretations of scripture" but simply to combat heresy full stop.

 

[Ramon96]

im gonna go ahead and call shenanigans on your last post. The council if nicea was about far more than the date of easter. And the Arian contraversy was what spured the creation of a unified doctrine in order to combat alternate "heretical" interpretations of scripture... defining doctrine, unifying christian ideals, what odes that sound like...*cough cannon cough*

BUT your right. Dan Brown was getting to me. I retract my statement about the Book of Enoch being rejected at the council.... it was rejected... sometime by early christians... my bad

The Holy Council of Nicaea had nothing do with the canon of Holy Scriptures. By the time the Holy Synod was convene, about 95% of the books now included in our Bible, at least in the NT anyway, was already consider Scriptures. For example, the Holy Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) was consider Scripture and accepted by the Church since the 2nd century. There were only a few books debated for over four centuries: Hebrews, Revelation, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, and Jude, but was later settle in the four century through various local councils, including the Council of Rome in 382AD.

The Council of Nicaea simply restated the doctrine taught by the Church since the beginning, clarifying it, and interpreting Scriptures, those books which was already consider Scriptures by large, in light of Church teachings. It was called to refute the Arian heresy, not to discuss the Canon.

For the past 500 years, the Canon of the Holy Bible has been debated, at least the OT anyway. All the Ancient Apostolic Churches, those in the West (Rome) and East (Eastern Orthodox, etc) do not have a 66 book Bible. Eastern Orthodoxy has more books than Rome, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has the longest canon. Only the Western Church (Rome) has officially settle the issue, at least in there Church, but none of the Eastern Churches has. It still open for debate. I will also note that only a minority of Christians accept and believe that the Holy Bible consist of 66 books.

In IC.XC,
Ramon

 

[freeport]

In Jude verse 14 it says:
"Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

This quote is taken specifically from the 'Book of Enoch', which, at the time the book of Jude was written, was accepted by some Jews as cannon. The Book of Enoch was rejected by the council of Nicea and left out of the christian cannon.

My question is:
How can a quote from the book of Enoch be in the Bible and referred to as "God Inspired" if the book of Enoch, itself, is consitered heretical?

You write that this is definitely taken from the Book of Enoch, but this is a matter of speculation. Many scholars think it may come from the Book of Enoch. The writer, himself, does not state this.

For we know that in the prophets that they spoke of Jesus and the lives of those who serve him even yet to come, for instance, 'I will send before him Elijah', and Jesus said of John the Baptist, 'they did to him all of the things written that they would do'.

Therefore, it may be prophets during the time of the first AD church had special revelation about matters which have since been hidden.

In fact, as Enoch went up alive into Heaven, who knows that Enoch himself did not appear to some members as Moses and Elijah appeared to John, James, and Peter at the mount of transfiguration?

(And likely in human form, for we know that those from Heaven can disguise themselves in human form.)