The 10 weeks of Enoch, inspired or not?

[Vicomte13]

Actually, there is a problem with the Ethiopic text in that verse. Corrected to a Greek text for Enoch 7:2, the verse says nothing about the stature of the giants, instead, “And they conceived from them and bore to them great giants. And the giants begot Nephilim, and to the Nephilim were born Elioud- and they were growing in accordance with their greatness."

And why would some Greek text found somewhere be the "correct" text while the Canonical Orthodox text be the wrong one?

Enoch isn't canon for a reason.

 

[Vicomte13]

I pasted the part from Eusebius on the genealogy of Joseph by nature and by law, which gives Jesus, as Joseph's legal son, the right to the throne of David. Being the firstborn of the family who opened the womb, Jesus inherits David's throne from Joseph.

Eusebius had an opinion. Why is his opinion to be given weight?

 

[StevenBelievin]

Hi Steven

Could you tell me the source of this information you read? I think the only people seriously putting forth that idea are a couple of textual scholars by the name of Nicklesburg and Vanderkam. But they doubt a lot of things about the text of the Bible too. Do you remember where you saw this. A straight reading of the text of Enoch does not say that.

The Book of Enoch, Translated by Robert H. Charles, 1912

You mean where it says Enoch is the Son of Man?

 

[StevenBelievin]

Hi Steven

Could you tell me the source of this information you read? I think the only people seriously putting forth that idea are a couple of textual scholars by the name of Nicklesburg and Vanderkam. But they doubt a lot of things about the text of the Bible too. Do you remember where you saw this. A straight reading of the text of Enoch does not say that.

The Book of Enoch, Translated by Robert H. Charles, 1912

This is the version I was reading at the time..

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800636945/

It was written by Nicklesberg. That might be why it said it.

 

[JacksBratt]

In truth, I do not know you. I am not really saying anything about you, per se, or you personally. In general, there is a great deal of what I would describe as pseudo-intellecutalization of the Scriptures that comes from those who make an idol of them. The Scriptures are writings, ancient writings. Jesus didn't leave Scriptures, he left a Church. Before that, among the Jews, he left a priesthood. In both cases, God revealed himself through prophetic priests. Some of what they said was written down, much of it was not.

I understand the desire to privilege the written word over the institutional word, but I do not believe that God intended this. I certainly don't believe that God intended to leave everything up to the untrained and untutored scholarly and legal skills of individuals.

In any case, this is THE divide between your religion and mine. Yours goes back to some late medieval guy who had the absurd and ridiculous pretension that the plowboy could read and understand difficult writings as well as the consecrated clergy. THAT is why we end up with the pseudo-intellectualism of today.

It's not very interesting. You say that we both know exactly what the Scriptures are, but we do not. The authority that you believe reposes in Scripture, I do not. That authority was given by God to the Church (and to the High Priest of the Temple before the Church). God never vested that authority in a set of scrolls, and the set of writings cannot usurp the authority that God gave to the institution.

There can never be any meeting of the minds on this. All there can be is increasing levels of verbal abuse. The Scriptures are not the highest authority. The Church is. You will say the opposite. Because what I say on this score seems as obviously absurd to you as what you say is patently absurd to me, all we can do is circle each other and jab at each other until we finally get angry. And what good is that?

Since the Reformation there has been, and there remains, a deep seated animosity and increduilty across the Protestant/Catholic divide. This cannot be repaired and it cannot really be bridged, any more than the theological divide between Jews and Christians can ever be fully bridged. In the end, Christianity is Jewish blasphemy, and Judaism is the denial of the one true Christian God.

All that Jews and Christians can do, to get along, is to not speak very deeply about religion. To find common points and choose to live alongside each other on the common points, because if one goes any deeper, one encounters the frank blasphemy of the other, followed by abuse for it.

This is no less true of Catholics and Protestants, or Protestants and the Orthodox, or Catholics and the Orthodox. We are not of different religions because of trivial things. We are of different religions because of profoundly important things, things that cannot and will not ever be compromised.

We can cooperate as long as we don't delve into them, but if we MUST delve into them, then the truth is that we each think that the other two are some from of stubborn and arrogant heretic.

We really DON'T see God the same way at all, and we don't see the same path TO God. We can feign that we do, to keep the peace, but when it comes right down to it, when pressed, the amity falls apart and the real, serious, differences in theology lead to hostility and, ultimately, outright abuse and warfare.

You spent a paragraph and a few posts telling me I'm wrong. I'm not, you are. Your whole way of looking at God and the world is cracked and deficient. It's as obvious to me as what is obvious to you about my way is obvious to you. There's no amount of spinning words that can fix that. Protestant and Catholic are as different as English and French, or Arab and Jew, or Southerner and Yankee - and the lengthy history of warfare and enmity is something that can be let alone, but it is never forgotten, and each's latent sense of superiority over the other remains, and is kindled anew when things become fraught.

Look over the pages of Christian Forums, and you do not see brothers striving together towards the light. You see brothers striving like Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau. We, you and I, have not been brought closer at all by our attempt to communicate. You've told me in various ways why my view of God and his revelation is deficient. And I just shake my head and wonder why in the world you think you're so smart about such things, such that you really believe that you have any capacity to lecture me, a Catholic, about any of it at all.

There is nothing good coming out of any of this. All the moreso on a thread in which a book that was rejected by the Catholic AND Orthodox (except for Ethiopian) AND all the Protestant Churches long ago.

There is apparently a deep-seated desire among many Protestants and Catholics and Orthodox to take up the sword of our ancestors and refight and relitigate the sources of division between us. In the past, nobody won. In the present, nobody won. I suppose we are paying it forward into the future, making certain, by our present obnoxious conduct, that Catholic and Orthodox and Protestant cannot and do not stand together, or like each other, or respect each other. That way, in our angry disunity, we can all slide into the mouth of Islam and secularism. But if that is the way it is to be, then that is the way it is to be. Most Protestants would rather be secular than Catholic, and back in the day the Orthodox frankly said "Better the turban of the Sultan than the miter of the Pope", and so that's exactly what they got - and given all of the history since, they would probably choose the same thing again.

The differences between our religions are unresolvable. We're not going to resolve them by fighting with each other. I'm of a mind to just drop it, because if I reply point by point to what you have written, I have to attack YOU, because the particular nature of Protestantism is that all of the earnestly held beliefs come from the logic and reasoning of just one mind - each particular Protestant - so it's really your mind against mine - every single time - when a Protestant talks to a Catholic. In general, Catholics don't find Protestants to be very smart, so it doesn't get anywhere but to a fight.

And why bother? It's too early and takes too much energy. And nobody ever convinced anybody of anything that way.

So let's go our separate ways. My lesson learned is what I already knew: communication across religious lines is a useless, pointless, aggravating effort best left alone. Your lesson learned is whatever you've learned by it. I won't characterize.

If you put the teaching of some "educated" men over what others call the Word of God....... where did these "educated men" get their information and authority to be the "go to" on the things of God?

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Actually, there is a problem with the Ethiopic text in that verse. Corrected to a Greek text for Enoch 7:2, the verse says nothing about the stature of the giants, instead, “And they conceived from them and bore to them great giants. And the giants begot Nephilim, and to the Nephilim were born Elioud- and they were growing in accordance with their greatness."

Thank you for that.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Eusebius had an opinion. Why is his opinion to be given weight?

Eusebius is telling you what the Word of God teaches on the Law which Moses gave, about the first born son of a second husband to a barren widow. The legal heir to the deceased first husband of a barren widow is the firstborn son of the second husband, which husband is the next of kin who marries the barren widow and raises up his natural first son as the legal son of the deceased, with all the rights of the law for the inheritance.
You can read it for yourself in the word of God and learn, or you can take a very short course on the little YouTube video I linked, which is explaining how Eusebius explained it in the sixth century, as church historian.

 

[SummaScriptura]

And why would some Greek text found somewhere be the "correct" text while the Canonical Orthodox text be the wrong one?

The same reason in your Bible the translators weigh the relative reliability of the texts they use in translation work. There are quite a few criteria for deciding which text is more reliable.

Enoch isn't canon for a reason.

Of the 5 or 6 traditional canonical lists of the books of the Bible which exist in our world today, to which do you subscribe?

 

[SummaScriptura]

This is the version I was reading at the time..

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800636945/

It was written by Nicklesberg. That might be why it said it.

I have a copy. After I read your post I tried to find that passage and could not. Do you know which one it is?

 

[SummaScriptura]

Oh, I found it... its Enoch 71:14. Here's how it reads in the Charles' translation:

And he came to me and greeted me with His voice, and said unto me:
"This is the Son of Man who is born unto righteousness,
And righteousness abides over him,
And the righteousness of the Head of Days forsakes him not." (Enoch 71:14 RHCV)

In Nicklesburg's & Vanderkam's translation, they have God say to Enoch "You are that Son of Man". But that makes 71:14 contradict the Book of Enoch where the Son of Man exists before the creation.

Schodde reads, "Thou art a son of man who was born to justice, and justice dwells over thee, and the justice of the Head of days will not depart from thee."

If the immediate context makes any difference, Charles' take on the verse makes more sense internally to the Book of Enoch.

 

[Jipsah]

Well according to the heliocentric model the sun is stationary but, for some reason God stopped the sun from moving when Joshua commanded it to. Surely God would have corrected Joshua by telling him that He needed to tell the earth to stop moving.

Once again, the language, even our language, works as though the sun was moving relative to the earth when in fact the opposite is true. We still say "the sun rose", because it's easier than saying that the earth revolved until the sun was visible above the horizon.

 

[Jipsah]

And why would some Greek text found somewhere be the "correct" text while the Canonical Orthodox text be the wrong one?

Enoch isn't canon for a reason.

Maybe because it's chockablock with stuff that is observably false.

 

[Jipsah]

Flerb

 

[Jipsah]

Enoch was a prophet whom they had access to and which the scholarly, like Paul, and the spiritual, like Jesus' womb brothers and Mary and Joseph had, and read, in their home.

The problem is with the stuff that "Enoch" said that just isn't true. How many lies can a document contain and still be considered a prophetic revelation from God?

 

[SummaScriptura]

Once again, the language, even our language, works as though the sun was moving relative to the earth when in fact the opposite is true. We still say "the sun rose", because it's easier than saying that the earth revolved until the sun was visible above the horizon.

True. We speak from our perspective which is earthbound. Its not wrong, just relative to our perspective.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Well according to the heliocentric model the sun is stationary but, for some reason God stopped the sun from moving when Joshua commanded it to. Surely God would have corrected Joshua by telling him that He needed to tell the earth to stop moving.

Yes, it amazing that the men who deny the Word of God from Enoch to Genesis to Revelation, on the clear fact of the Word that the sun revolves around the earth, in the revolving heavens, once, daily, want to put their thoughts on what God really meant (like someone else of old, is reported to have done), because they think the Adam race has evolved, instead of clearly devolved, in the area of true scientific facts of the creation.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
The Heavens Declare the Glory of God

"1For the end, a Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands.
Day to day utters speech, and night to night proclaims knowledge.
There are no speeches or words, in which their voices are not heard.
Their voice is gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
In the sun he has set his tabernacle; and he comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber: he will exult as a giant to run his course.
His going forth is from the extremity of heaven, and his circuit to the other end of heaven: and no one shall be hidden from his heat.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting souls: the testimony of the Lord is faithful, instructing babes.
The ordinances of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring for ever and ever: the judgments of the Lord are true, and justified altogether.
To be desired more than gold, and much precious stone: sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb."
~~
The fact that Joshua commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, and they did, for about exactly two whole days, the same men ignore, and try to tell us what God really did, in the so called ignorance of Joshua, who truly did know, from the Word of God, that the sun and moon revolved around the earth.

They try to tell us what God really did, in their unbelieving minds, when Heziakiah sent the sun backwards for ten degrees....they think God really sent the earth forward ten degrees, instantly? Really???

And they have unbelieving hearts that God really will cause the heavens to be rolled up as a scroll, to elementally dissolve instantly, and be regenerated instantly, after the last days of this present creation.

They cannot believe that the earth, itself, will be literally turned upside down, as Enoch and Isaiah tell us, in that great day of the Lord in which the earth will be moved out of its fixed place, stagger as a drunken man, and skip about as a hunted roe, causing great tsunamis/waves and earthquakes, with every island being removed....

They cannot believe that the stars, which have their literal beginning right here on this globe of waters when God said "Let there be light" and stretched out the heavens between the divided in two waters, stretching out the light with them, from right here on the beginning globe of waters of this creation, is true, but they make up fables which contradict the Word of God because they think they really know more that God, and can communicate with man much better than God the Creator could, in the beginning.
They cannot believe that Adam, who was made "male and female" in the beginning (Genesis 5:2), so as to beget sons of God for the planting of the heavens as a (first) tabernacle of human being flesh not made with hands, actually ruled the earth and all that pertains to it from the third heaven, stretched out from this globe, which is where Adam was taken/literally raptured to, in the beginning, and set there, in the Garden, to guard it and to be in the Rest of God, Paradise, forever, with free coming and going between that immeasurable stretched out "breadth of the earth" and the earth below.. and then was cast down to the earth below and forbidden entrance forever to Paradise in the third heaven, in his defiled, unclean, vessel of clay....
And so, they do not understand the promise of the Redeemer/Kinsman to restore all things, in the regeneration of all things, and His plan to have godly seed to "plant the heavens" in the New Man name (Israel is that name, not Adam), by adoption, through the Atonement, of every seed born in Adam, of whosoever will, so as to be His 2nd Tabernacle of human being flesh, made for the Glory, and to "Plant the heavens, in their transformed bodies.

 

[Jipsah]

Yes, it amazing that the men who deny the Word of God from Enoch to Genesis to Revelation, on the clear fact of the Word that the sun revolves around the earth

Primarily because we can observe that in fact ths earth revolves around the sun. The writers of Scripture speak, as even we do, as though the sun moves relative to the earth instead of the other way around. Had they the power, as we do, to actually see how God designed the universe, they might have worded it differently. Then again they may not have, because we still say "the sun rose" because that's how it looks. <Laugh>

BTW, "Enoch" appears to believe that days are the same length everywhere in the world at the same times of year. You'd think a prophet, being personally instructed by an angel, no less, would have known better. I vaguely recall a week in Greenland a few decades ago during which the sun never properly went down at all, and I believe that's normal there. I guess poor old Enoch never ventured that far north, but it does seem like his angelic interlocutor would have 'splained that for him while he was blathering about "portals" and similar nonsense.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Primarily because we can observe that in fact ths earth revolves around the sun. The writers of Scripture speak, as even we do, as though the sun moves relative to the earth instead of the other way around. Had they the power, as we do, to actually see how God designed the universe, they might have worded it differently. Then again they may not have, because we still say "the sun rose" because that's how it looks. <Laugh>

They did not word it of themselves, they wrote under the power of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus created it all, and knew Who He was, from the beginning, and also stated the truth of the sun rising.

Mat 5:45
“that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

The sun runs like a giant to win a race, as it comes out of the portals ordained for its path daily, so states the Psalmist.

Ecc 1:5
The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.

Isa 45:6
That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other;

There is coming a day when the LORD will make the sun go down at noon.
Amo 8:9
“And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord GOD,
“That I will make the sun go down at noon,
And I will darken the earth in broad daylight;

When Joshua commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, he was not telling the earth to stop...
Hab 3:11
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation;
At the light of Your arrows they went,
At the shining of Your glittering spear.

BTW, "Enoch" appears to believe that days are the same length everywhere in the world at the same times of year. You'd think a prophet, being personally instructed by an angel, no less, would have known better. I vaguely recall a week in Greenland a few decades ago during which the sun never properly went down at all, and I believe that's normal there. I guess poor old Enoch never ventured that far north, but it does seem like his angelic interlocutor would have 'splained that for him while he was blathering about "portals" and similar nonsense.

Actually, if you ever read Enoch, you would see that he indeed visited the north, and the east and south and the west, and saw many things. He saw the stars that never set. He saw the breadth of the outstretched earth, where the Garden is, and he saw the throne of God who was to come and is come, in flesh, which is a very high mountain whose summit is of sapphire.
And FYI: Jerusalem is set in the belly button of the earth, literally, it's navel, and all the measurements for the days in the year which were shown to Enoch were measured from the beginning spot of earth's beginning, from the spot called the belly button of earth.

 

[SummaScriptura]

BTW, "Enoch" appears to believe that days are the same length everywhere in the world at the same times of year.

No. Its from the 49th parallel.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

...BTW, "Enoch" appears to believe that days are the same length everywhere in the world at the same times of year. ...

Thanks to SummaScriptura for bringinig up a point that reminds me of something I want to elaborate on.
Enoch is not giving the calendar according to man's calculations, but according to God's. Enoch's revealed calendar begins on spring equinox, and as far as the Word is concerned, according to the law given to Moses, spring equinox is measured when that equinox begins at the belly button of earth, Jerusalem, Israel, and all Feasts of YHWH are calculated on His calendar, from there, and are not based on the moon, but the sun, only... [but, As Enoch said, they have gone astray and not reckoned on the revealed calendar, and all their days are inaccurate, since they returned from the Babylonian dispersion, actually...] Then the sun swings around and enters through the 4th [electro magnetic] path/course ordained for it for thirty mornings, and: " 9 during this period the day becomes daily longer and the night nightly shorter to the thirtieth morning. 10 On that day the day is longer than the night by a ninth part, and the day amounts exactly to ten parts and the night to eight parts".
Then thirty days through 5th portal; and then: "13 And it returns to the east and enters into the sixth portal, and rises and sets in the sixth portal one-and-thirty mornings on account of its sign. 14 On that day the day becomes longer than the night, and the day becomes double the night, and the day becomes twelve parts, and the night is shortened and becomes six parts.
So on the summer solstice, the sun enters the exact path two mornings in a row, and then begins it's course back, through the same "sixth portal" [electro magnetic path/course, set for it], for thirty days, then:
5And the sun mounts up to make the day shorter and the night longer, and the sun returns to the east and enters into the sixth portal, and rises from it and sets thirty mornings. 16And when thirty mornings are accomplished, the day decreases by exactly one part, and becomes eleven parts, and the night seven. 17And the sun goes forth from that sixth portal in the west, and goes to the east and rises in the fifth portal for thirty mornings, and sets in the west again in the fifth western portal. 18On that day the day decreases by two parts, and amounts to ten parts and the night to eight parts. 19And the sun goes forth from that fifth portal and sets in the fifth portal of the west, and rises in the fourth portal for one-and-thirty mornings on account of its sign, and sets in the west. 20On that day the day is equalized with the night, and becomes of equal length, and the night amounts to nine parts and the day to nine parts. 21And the sun rises from that portal and sets in the west, and returns to the east and rises thirty mornings in the third portal and sets in the west in the third portal. 22And on that day the night becomes longer than the day, and night becomes longer than night, and day shorter than day till the thirtieth morning, and the night amounts exactly to ten parts and the day to eight parts. 23And the sun rises from that third portal and sets in the third portal in the west and returns to the east, and for thirty mornings rises in the second portal in the east, and in like manner sets in the second portal in the west of the heaven. 24And on that day the night amounts to eleven parts and the day to seven parts. 25And the sun rises on that day from that second portal and sets in the west in the second portal, and returns to the east into the first portal for one-and-thirty mornings, and sets in the first portal in the west of the heaven. 26And on that day the night becomes longer and amounts to the double of the day: and the night amounts exactly to twelve parts and the day to six. 27And the sun has therewith traversed the divisions of his orbit and turns again on those divisions of his orbit, and enters that portal thirty mornings and sets also in the west opposite to it. 28 And on that night has the night decreased in length by a ninth part, and the night has become eleven parts and the day seven parts. 29 And the sun has returned and entered into the second portal in the east, and returns on those his divisions of his orbit for thirty mornings, rising and setting. 30And on that day the night decreases in length, and the night amounts to ten parts and the day to eight. 31 And on that day the sun rises from that portal, and sets in the west, and returns to the east, and rises in the third portal for one-and-thirty mornings, and sets in the west of the heaven. 32 On that day the night decreases and amounts to nine parts, and the day to nine parts, and the night is equal to the day and the year is exactly as to its days three hundred and sixty-four. 33 And the length of the day and of the night, and the shortness of the day and of the night arise- through the course of the sun these distinctions are made. 34So it comes that its course becomes daily longer, and its course nightly shorter. 35 And this is the law and the course of the sun, and his return as often as he returns sixty times and rises, that is the great luminary which is named the sun, for ever and ever. 36 And that which thus rises is the great luminary, and is so named according to its appearance, according as the Lord commanded. 37 As he rises, so he sets and decreases not, and rests not, but runs day and night, and his light is sevenfold brighter than that of the moon; but as regards size they are both equal.
And the anniversary of the world begins on fall equinox, so there are two years to calculate from, in Israel: the anniversary of the world is at fall equinox and the beginning of a new year at spring equinox.
Spring equinox actually begins at the "ides of March", for the Enochian calendar measurement of the days of the year.