Also, this is not a doctrinal discussion, but an expository and historical one,
so your arguments seem half-baked, at best. As you said, it leaves room for speculation,
but you want to pass off every other opinion save your own as "naive."
It surely makes your intent appear dubious, and not favorable.
I could take the same approach to departure from canon when addressing
how many "church fathers" you follow or how many "saints" you worship or pray to.
After all, canon says to pray to no one other than YHWH in YSHA's name,
yet you likely pray to many others, do you not?
Can you canonically justify that?
So let us not speak of each other's naivete,
because the wisdom that comes from above
is first of all pure, then peaceable.
I hadn't really expected a response like that. No, I worship God alone. I do not worship or pray to saints. I pray with them; not to them. I do not treat the writings of church fathers on the same level as the canon of Scripture. That's all just for the record since you suggested and asked. Otherwise, its off topic, I think.
What I think is not off topic is the issue of naivete - a word which I use to describe positively an attitude that one must possess in order to take seriously the corpus of Enoch and believe that Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster and the Chupacabra are all living, just elusively except by a few who have reported sightings.
I think it is entirely relavant to discuss how these may relate to whatever the Nephilim may have been. You bring up demonology and angelology and the end times using extra-Biblical sources to elaborate. I say bravo to that. It is entirely pertinent given what it is. Text sources, as far as I'm concerned, canonical or not, are an important part of archeological study. But so is source-criticism. So if Jude makes reference to Enoch it is valid to ask whether he had an authentic writing of Enoch he was quoting from, whether he was quoting from an un-authentic source, or whether we still possess the source he was referring to.
The church fathers, the apostolic ones, were Christians. We are not sure who it was who wrote the Books of Enoch.
The Enoch Corpus is fairly large. The possibility exists that Noah would have taken his writings with him on the boat. I am not aware of any scholars who have claimed that any writings attributed to Enoch still extant are authentic. I have read that the most ancient section of the Enoch Corpus is the
Apocalypse of Weeks, thought relatively old because it was found in Qumran. Apocalyptic literature was popular among the Essenes before and after Christ. But the
Apocalypse of Weeks is just one short discourse.
Scholars can be wrong. That is why I mentioned the use of the term "myth." Some scholars automatically assume that if a story reports a miracle that it is a myth. Science has trouble reporting miracles. The purpose of Biblical archeology, as I see it, is to verify for a disbelieving world whether the things reported in the Bible are true. Those reporting are expected to be scientific rather than biased by faith. If they hold to an opinion because of their faith, their profession still calls them to report scientifically.
I did not try to propose a doctrine, that I can recall. So I do not understand some of what you said, as if my theories were "half-baked." I take it on faith, not proof, that there was a flood and that Noah built an ark. I take it on faith, not proof, that the Nephalim are not just a "myth." I do not exclude the possibility that everything in your post was true. Neither do I make the assumption that it is all true. I simply hold that to hold that it is all true requires a view of the canon that is uncritical and very loose. Specifically, you need to take an uncritical approach to the Books of Enoch. Maybe you don't have to view them as canon, or even as authentic. Maybe if most of what you quoted was written in the third century A.D. the explanations are still perfectly valid.
I think I'm pretty open to it all. Maybe it is just as valid as the writings of the early church fathers, and written during the same period, if that is your point, though pseudepigraphy is really a type of forgery and I do not see the early church fathers as attempting to forge religious history so much as preserve it and explain it.
Where we may differ, if we do, is to what spiritual warfare and excorcism is all about. I don't think this is thread drift either. If the Nephilim are bad half-breed angels who are creating more half-breeds by knowing human women, then they seem to consistently escape the radar. The only giants I know of have hormone problems. All the others are smart enough to live out in the wild and hardly ever be seen by any human being, if they truly exist at all.
Maybe you saw the movie
Constantine, where the demons started breaking the rules and crossing over to this side. That type of possession may occur from time to time, but the general rule had always been, in the words of Kianu Reeves, "they are allowed to influence people, not cross over." The decision belongs, in other words, to the sinner/saint. To me that is the true spiritual warfare. It exists in our daily decisions. The type of spiritual warfare you are talking about seems to be where Belial possess the antichrist, physically.
I'm not sure how you see excorcising demons at that point, as the restrainer no longer restrains at a certain time, or whether you believe the church will be raptured or not then. Maybe you can explain your view rather than criticizing mine, which seems odd to me since I haven't really expressed my own view much at all, so much as discussed the views of others.
Now the explanation that the Sons of God are the blood line, physically or spiritually of Seth, while the daughters of men are the blood line, physically or spiritually of Ham, including Canaan, is also a very interesting one. It seems clear enough to me, however, that the Bible does speak of giants of physical stature, not simply enormous wickedness. On that I'll throw in an opinion.
It is an interesting theory. I will leave it at that. When it comes to discussion of angels and demons I can only speak of the things I know about or take on faith, not having seen. While the Bible does depict certain expulsions of demons I have heard varying theories on what was actually taking place. Lamsa, in his commentary on the Peshitta, for instance, shows the difference between the Aramaic and the Greek in a number of New Testimant examples of demonic deliverance and points out that in the Semitic mind all illness was caused by evil spirits. The possession was a matter of a sick spirit. The healing was always a deliverance from a demon spirit.
The Greeks, he points out, viewed this very differently and brought to their translations the Hellenist and pagan view of demon possession.
I do not know whether Lamsa was right. He has been highly criticized by those who prefer to believe that the New Testament was first written in Greek rather than Aramaic.
When I approach questions that involve text analysis like this I simply look at multiple sides of arguments and confess that I don't know, unless of course, I do know.
Spiritual warfare is a daily activity for anyone who understands the conflict between the sinful nature and the spiritual nature that are both in us. The willing and the doing are the same when being born from above the mercy of the Lord is administered in deliverance over our lives, through humble and contrite hearts. To me, this constitutes the regular spritual warfare. Manifestation of demonic possessions are very rare. I have only seen two or three instances of what may have been authentic demon possessions in my lifetime.
I see another type of spirituality among some that involves excorcisms and naming of spirits on a regular basis. I have known some who suspect that there are demons just about everywhere. It is good to pray constantly and fervently, but I sometimes wonder whether those who pray prayers of excorcism that way, calling it spiritual warfare, aren't masking over the fact that this regular spiritual warfare, which involves the battle between their own carnal and spiritual nature, is missing. Their prayers are not the humble prayers of those who confess and hate their sin. Rather, they become spiritually haughty by playing a religious game they suppose to be "higher" than that of others who battle against themselves, recognizing that the enemy is their own carnal nature and their own will.
This they must live with long after the demons have been dispossessed. So the battle will rage. Fortunately for us all, our yoke is easy and our burden is light. Our Savior lives.
I don't doubt that demons will ascend from the pit. The Book of Revelation says that they will. The Nephilim may reign on earth again in those days. But if I do have a theory or doctrine to speak of, it is simply that by having this more daily and basic spiritual warfare as a background, then these later and exceptional manifestations ought to be dealt with more readily. It will be the same Savior who expels them, if they are in his will to expel them at that time, as the one who saves us from our own weaknesses. He will allow us to walk in the Spirit - in the light, and not darkness.
The tendency among many is to look at those who involve themselves in ministries of excorcism as a kind of top gun class Christian. Many, seeing this is so, venture into ministries of excorcism, when probably no demons really exist to excorcise to begin with. This type of Christian will often call something a demon which is not a demon and then pray deliverance over the thing or person or place so possessed, imagine that it has left, (or know so by faith), and then esteem his or herself as among the spiritual giants of this world.
Paul said seek the higher gifts. We see prophets doing the same thing. They know that certain types of gifts are higher than others and seeking spiritual respect from others and towards themselves they imagine God has been speaking to them and they speak out things that are not necessarily the voice of God, but the imaginations of their hearts. And really, so long as they can gain respect by it, it really doesn't matter to them whether these prophecies are actually the prophecies of demons.
I am not saying this happens all of the time. I am saying that it is possible that this happens sometimes. And I am saying that it should be discerned.
Eschatology also is considered an "advanced" Christian subject. Many people, not satisfied with the respect that they already have, want to be esteemed more highly by others and so they delve into eschatology, and they are encouraged to do so because they are assured they will receive special blessings if they can figure certain things out, such as the number of the beast.
The risk with this is that we will think more highly of ourselves than we ought. This is particularly the case if we are only doing it to mask over dimensions of our spiritual walk that are missing in the first place.
Use of Pseudepigrphal books is another behavior I have sometimes noticed among certain people I have known who have sought to distinguish themselves. They seek an insight from these books that other Christians don't have. The Book of Enoch is high on the list of books that are "really cool" because 1)not too many are familiar with them and 2)hey, what if these really were the words of Enoch himself?
You can really impress people who are unfamiliar with this material this way. You mean,
you, you really found the writings of Enoch? No way! Really??
And wow, what a spiritual expert you are that you know so much about the angels and the demons! My goodness, you must really be someone who is spiritually in tune. Can you actually see those demons and angels? Do you have knowledge that I don't have?
I don't mean to be fecetious. I mean to portray a picture of what those who read this material may be entertaining in their hearts. If the shoe does not fit, then don't put it on. If it does, then the first order of business is not really to excorcise a demon with a name so much as it is to ask the Lord Jesus to simply remove from you your need for spiritual pride. Renounce this need. Renounce the spirit of judging others, whether groups or individuals. Be delivered from your tendencies in this regard. Ask the Lord to deliver you from spiritual pride and to fill your heart with the knowledge of salvation and the great mercy and love of the Lord.
It is funny how faith is actually so simple. God loves you deeply. And knowing and believing and responding to this is all you really need to be delivered from this type of spiritual pride.
Please do not take any of this as me judging you. I have no idea whether any of this fits for you. I am speaking in generalities only of a few people I have known. I am limited to my own horizon of experience.
May this post be received with great blessing.
