Was Jesus considering the book of Enoch scripture?

[Jamdoc]

No, there's a big difference between a physical form and being human. What you're suggesting here sounds like Docetism. Just because they sometimes had physical interaction with humans doesn't make them able to procreate. Jesus came in the flesh, not angels.

To the inhabitants of Sodom, they saw the Angels as just 2 men. Only Lot recognized them for what they really were. They aren't human, but they take the form of one to interact with humans in public.

I disagree with your interpretation. He did not say the reason for marriage was death. He is simply talking about the condition of man after he is resurrected. God commanded Adam and Eve to procreate because they were created for it, not because it's some other reason than death. Therefore your conclusion that the reason angels don't procreate is that they don't die is based on faulty reasoning.

Again, you are basing your interpretation of scripture on the fictional story of Enoch, therefore this is where our paths diverge.
TD

No, even before I touched the book of Enoch, I questioned WHY there is no marriage after resurrection, because it made no sense according to any previous scripture. Jesus gave the rationale of "because they cannot die anymore" as the why there is no marriage. That isn't in Matthew, but it is in Luke.

 

[tdidymas]

To the inhabitants of Sodom, they saw the Angels as just 2 men. Only Lot recognized them for what they really were. They aren't human, but they take the form of one to interact with humans in public.



No, even before I touched the book of Enoch, I questioned WHY there is no marriage after resurrection, because it made no sense according to any previous scripture. Jesus gave the rationale of "because they cannot die anymore" as the why there is no marriage. That isn't in Matthew, but it is in Luke.

I disagree with your interpretations:
1. Human interaction doesn't prove anything. Jesus said they don't marry, therefore it's not their nature.
2. No, the fact that people die is not the reason for their ability to procreate. The reason is that God designed humans for it, even while they could live forever in the Garden of Eden. It is because it is in the design and nature of the flesh. Likewise, angels don't procreate, not because they can't die, but because God did not design them to do so. In the resurrection people don't marry because they are like the angels in nature and design.
1 Cor. 15:40 "There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another."
:42 "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;"
:44 "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."
Can you see that humanity in the flesh have a very different nature than angels or people who have been resurrected? The glory of the body in the resurrection is different than the glory of the fleshly body. It is the fleshly body that can reproduce, not the heavenly.
Therefore, since Jesus said angels don't marry, it is not in their nature or ability.

What you are doing with your "because" (changing the word) is pointing to the wrong reason. The "for" in v. 36 that appears in some translations is pointing to people being resurrected, not to the idea that they don't marry. The KJV translates it "neither" which more clearly points to the subject matter of the resurrection, which also some other translations do.

So let's do a contrast here. You're trying to make it read:
"those resurrected don't marry because they don't die anymore."
But the correct reading is more like:
"those resurrected don't marry and don't die anymore."

So both not marrying and not dying result from the resurrection, which is a different nature than this life. This is what the point is in what Jesus said in his answer to the Saducees, and is the same point in 1 Cor. 15.
TD

 

[Jamdoc]

I disagree with your interpretations:
1. Human interaction doesn't prove anything. Jesus said they don't marry, therefore it's not their nature.
2. No, the fact that people die is not the reason for their ability to procreate. The reason is that God designed humans for it, even while they could live forever in the Garden of Eden. It is because it is in the design and nature of the flesh. Likewise, angels don't procreate, not because they can't die, but because God did not design them to do so. In the resurrection people don't marry because they are like the angels in nature and design.
1 Cor. 15:40 "There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another."
:42 "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;"
:44 "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."
Can you see that humanity in the flesh have a very different nature than angels or people who have been resurrected? The glory of the body in the resurrection is different than the glory of the fleshly body. It is the fleshly body that can reproduce, not the heavenly.
Therefore, since Jesus said angels don't marry, it is not in their nature or ability.

What you are doing with your "because" (changing the word) is pointing to the wrong reason. The "for" in v. 36 that appears in some translations is pointing to people being resurrected, not to the idea that they don't marry. The KJV translates it "neither" which more clearly points to the subject matter of the resurrection, which also some other translations do.

So let's do a contrast here. You're trying to make it read:
"those resurrected don't marry because they don't die anymore."
But the correct reading is more like:
"those resurrected don't marry and don't die anymore."

So both not marrying and not dying result from the resurrection, which is a different nature than this life. This is what the point is in what Jesus said in his answer to the Saducees, and is the same point in 1 Cor. 15.
TD

It really begs the question of why Jesus would give the preface of them err'ing from not knowing the scriptures if this was brand new information they had no way of knowing before Jesus said it.

 

[tdidymas]

It really begs the question of why Jesus would give the preface of them err'ing from not knowing the scriptures if this was brand new information they had no way of knowing before Jesus said it.

The Saducees did not believe in angels or the resurrection, so that's proof positive it's what Jesus meant when He said they did not know the scriptures or the power of God. So it was about their unbelief, not about their understanding of the nature of angels (which they didn't believe existed anyway).
TD

 

[Jamdoc]

The Saducees did not believe in angels or the resurrection, so that's proof positive it's what Jesus meant when He said they did not know the scriptures or the power of God. So it was about their unbelief, not about their understanding of the nature of angels (which they didn't believe existed anyway).
TD

Angels were in the Pentateuch, so that doesn't really make sense.

 

[tdidymas]

Angels were in the Pentateuch, so that doesn't really make sense.

Act 23:8 "For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all."
It doesn't make sense for someone who believes the Bible literally, but yet I'm simply telling you what the Sadducees believed, and this was what Jesus was addressing.
TD

 

[SuperCow]

I'm a year late to this party, but for some reason I feel compelled to respond. I have responded to much of this here:

The Book of Enoch

The issue seems to be whether the sons of God in the Old Testament are angels or men. Proving them to be angels does not validate Enoch as inspired; however, you do not need Enoch to frame this issue properly.

Angels procreating is not natural. That is clear from Matthew 22:30. But in Jude 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:4 it says that angels sinned and Peter at least unquestionably relates that to the time before the flood. We also know from the incident with Lot in Sodom that angels are attractive enough to inspire attempted gang rape. It's a very logical position to assume that unnatural sexual behavior was a sin, much like inappropriate behavior with animals was a death sentence in the Mosaic law code. And the fact it was there obviously indicates that it happened somewhere in the earth, and I don't think anyone would logically conclude that to be natural either.

Job 1:6 and 2:1 refers to sons of God, but tdidymas said it requires a bias to think of these as angels. Well, by context I think it requires a stronger bias to consider them to be people assembling before God in a church, considering what ensues is a literal conversation between God and Satan about a specific person named Job. However, I do agree that this book is more likely to be a parable than actual history, if for no other reason that I don't think any human writer could have witnessed this event. (God told Moses no man can see his face and yet live)

Furthermore, Genesis 6:4 does say that giants were already there at that point in history, which according to Genesis 6:3 was 120 years before the flood. Since this apparently started occurring during the time of Enoch, it would be several hundred years earlier that the nephilim were born. (Enoch was born 1034 years before the flood by Masoretic time reckoning.)

So what we end up with is basically one scripture Matthew 22:30 which is Jesus' position on the natural behavior of angels which is narrowly focused on to say no angels anywhere anytime ever thought about procreating. On the other side with have Jude, Peter, Job and Genesis all referring to sons of God in an angelic sense with the anti-angel sentiment having to twist the literal meaning into a pretzel of interpretation to stretch it to that view.

It might not have had anything to do with sexual desire on the part of angels. It might have just been that the angels wanted to try to have offspring and couldn't do it without human help. If you believe the book of Enoch, it doesn't allude to sexual desire either, and their attempted intercession with Enoch indicates that they realized they screwed up (no pun intended) and cause the nephilim to be a big problem.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

In Matthew 22 when Jesus was addressing the Sadducees' question about a woman married down the line of 7 brothers and who's wife would she be after the resurrection (which they didn't believe in, it was an attempted trick question), he answers:
Matthew 22:29-30


Now, I can't remember anywhere in the canon old testament where this situation came up where the Sadducees would know of it, and the Sadducees only considered the Torah scripture, so that's one interpretation that they refused to acknowledge the scriptures of the prophets and Tanakh. So they didn't know the scriptures, but the way Jesus answered it, it seemed like marriage not existing in the afterlife or resurrection was something addressed in scripture before. But I couldn't find it... until I started reading Enoch.
In Enoch chapter 15 Enoch has gone to God's throne to make intercession for the angels who had gone down to earth and taken human wives and had children with them. They wanted to repent when God was going to bind them up in the pit and then destroy the world with the flood (interestingly enough they're bound for 70 generations, and so that'd kind of tie into Revelation chapter 9 when they're set free in the 5th trumpet judgement). God answers and says that they weren't supposed to take wives, that the reason why God gave humans wives was because they die, and since Angels don't die, they don't get wives.
Which seems to be the answer that Jesus was giving the Sadducees.
If Jesus was considering Enoch to be scripture, why doesn't the church? The things in it about the Angels having half breeds giant offspring with human wives is in Genesis 6.

Is there other scripture that is in canon where Jesus would have gotten this answer from that He expected the Sadducees and Pharisees to know?

23 The same day Sad′ducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her.”

29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

From the context, verse 30 is NOT a Quote.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

It really begs the question of why Jesus would give the preface of them err'ing from not knowing the scriptures if this was brand new information they had no way of knowing before Jesus said it.

 

[Jamdoc]

23 The same day Sad′ducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her.”

29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

From the context, verse 30 is NOT a Quote.

I know it's not a quote, but the rationale matches between what Jesus said and Enoch.
and I can't think of any other scripture that would suggest that the reason why marriage exists for men is because they die, and that not dying anymore is the reason why marriage no longer exists after the resurrection.