book of enoch

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richard allan ritter
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book of enoch

Post by richard allan ritter »

see "Jesus and the Book of Enoch" by Richard Allan Ritter (jimbo)
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stephan happy huller
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Re: book of enoch

Post by stephan happy huller »

I don't understand what conversation this is supposed to start
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Peter Kirby
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Re: book of enoch

Post by Peter Kirby »

Jews wrote Enoch. Guy writes book. Jesus sells books.

... so, Jesus and the Book of Enoch.

Do I win something?
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Re: book of enoch

Post by spin »

This o.p. for all intents and purposes seems like spam. richard allan ritter joined the forum a few minutes before posting to mention his own work. He doesn't even indicate why anyone should read it, let alone a link to it. Well, if anyone is interested in richard allan ritter's effort, try here. The parenthetic "jimbo" in the o.p. must refer to the "jimdo.com" site that hosts the text.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: book of enoch

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Self promotion, but I'll allow it.
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richard allan ritter
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Re: book of enoch

Post by richard allan ritter »

Richard Allan Ritter. You write that the Book of Enoch was "...a great favorite in the Christian Church..." "...many of the Fathers use it without hesitation as the genuine production of Enoch, and as containing authentic divine revelations..." "The last part of Section IV contains the prediction of the foundation of the new Jerusalem, the conversion of the Gentiles, the resurrection of the righteous, and the coming of the Messiah." "Michael A. Knibb writes...It is a matter of debate whether the Parables, a Jewish work, might have exercised some limited influence on the gospel traditions..." It is demonstrable that Jesus, his family, and the original Jewish Christian church accepted the Book of Enoch as scripture. It was accepted as scripture for centuries. The place to begin is with the works of R. H Charles. In Wikipedia-Book of Enoch: "There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines about the Messiah, the Son of Man, the messianic kingdom, demonology, the resurrection, and eschatology...It is possible that the earlier sections of 1 Enoch had direct textual and content influence on many Biblical apocrypha..." A reference for the quote above is R. H. Charles. Going to Wikipedia-Son of man: "The first known use of "The Son of Man" as a title in Jewish writings comes from the book of 1 Enoch and its use played a role in the early Christian understanding and use of the title." The reference for this is Charles own The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Volume Two: Pseudepigrapha. Apocryphile Press. 2004. Turning to this work: Pgs. 184-185. "Influence on New Testament Doctrine. "Doctrines in Enoch which had an undoubted share in moulding the corresponding New Testament doctrines, or are at all events necessary to the comprehension of the latter. "The Messiah...He is represented as the head of the Messianic community out of which he proceeds, but he has no special role to fulfill, and his presence in that description seems due merely to literary reminiscence. This Messiah-reference exercised no influence on New Testament conceptions. But with regard to the Messiah described in the Parables the case is very different. Four titles applied for the first time in literature to the personal Messiah in the Parables are afterwards reproduced in the New Testament. These are 'Christ' or 'the Anointed One', 'the Righteous One', 'the Elect One', and 'the Son of Man'. "Christ or the Anointed One. This title, found repeatedly in earlier writings but always in reference to actual contemporary kings or priests, is now for the first time...applied to the ideal Messianic king that is to come. It is associated here with supernatural attributes. A few years later in another writing, the Psalms of Solomon... it possesses quite a different connotation. In those Psalms the Messiah, though endowed with divine gifts, is a man and nothing more, and springs from the house of David. "The Righteous One. This title, which occurs in Acts iii.14; vii.52; xxii.14 (cp. I John ii. I), first appears in I Enoch as a Messianic designation; see I En. xxxviii. 2; liii. 6. Righteousness is one of the leading characteristics of the Messiah, xlvi. 3. "The Elect One. This title likewise appearing first in I En. xl. 5; xlv. 3-4; xlix. 2,4; li. 3,5, &c., passes over into the New Testament, Luke ix. 35; xxiii. 35, 'The Christ, the Elect One.' In the Old Testament we find 'Mine Elect', Isa. xlii. I, but not 'the Elect One". "The Son of Man. This definite title (see notes on xlvi. 2,3) is found in I Enoch for the first time in Jewish literature, and is, historically, the source of the New Testament designation, and contributes to it some of its most characteristic contents." Pg. 180. "The Influence of I Enoch on the New Testament. "I Enoch has had more influence on the New Testament than has any other apocryphal or pseudepigraphic work." Pg. 163. "The Book of Enoch is for the history of theological development the most important pseudepigraph of the first two centuries B. C. Some of its authors-and there were many-belonged to the true succession of the prophets..." You write that: "James C. VanderKam writes of 1 Enoch 37-71...In this work Enoch is termed a 'son of man,' and he is deeply involved in the final judgement of the wicked and reward of the righteous" "Leonhard Rost writes: Chapters 37-71...they culminate in the appointment of Enoch as the Son of Man." "Michael A. Knibb writes: The concern with the Son of Man has led to the Parables being considered in relation to the traditions in the gospels about the Son of Man. We may conclude that Jesus believed that he was the Enochic Messiah, The Son of Man, the Righteous One, the Chosen One.
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DCHindley
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Re: book of enoch

Post by DCHindley »

No offense, but a bit of formatting and standardized punctuation would really help us figure out what is being said. DCH
richard allan ritter wrote:Richard Allan Ritter. You write that the Book of Enoch was "...a great favorite in the Christian Church..."

"...many of the Fathers use it without hesitation as the genuine production of Enoch, and as containing authentic divine revelations..."

"The last part of Section IV contains the prediction of the foundation of the new Jerusalem, the conversion of the Gentiles, the resurrection of the righteous, and the coming of the Messiah."

"Michael A. Knibb writes...It is a matter of debate whether the Parables, a Jewish work, might have exercised some limited influence on the gospel traditions..."

It is demonstrable that Jesus, his family, and the original Jewish Christian church accepted the Book of Enoch as scripture. It was accepted as scripture for centuries. The place to begin is with the works of R. H Charles.

In Wikipedia-Book of Enoch: "There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines about the Messiah, the Son of Man, the messianic kingdom, demonology, the resurrection, and eschatology ... It is possible that the earlier sections of 1 Enoch had direct textual and content influence on many Biblical apocrypha ..." A reference for the quote above is R. H. Charles.

Going to Wikipedia-Son of man: "The first known use of "The Son of Man" as a title in Jewish writings comes from the book of 1 Enoch and its use played a role in the early Christian understanding and use of the title." The reference for this is Charles own The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Volume Two: Pseudepigrapha. Apocryphile Press. 2004.

Turning to this work: Pgs. 184-185. "Influence on New Testament Doctrine. "Doctrines in Enoch which had an undoubted share in moulding the corresponding New Testament doctrines, or are at all events necessary to the comprehension of the latter.

"The Messiah ... He is represented as the head of the Messianic community out of which he proceeds, but he has no special role to fulfill, and his presence in that description seems due merely to literary reminiscence. This Messiah-reference exercised no influence on New Testament conceptions. But with regard to the Messiah described in the Parables the case is very different.

Four titles applied for the first time in literature to the personal Messiah in the Parables are afterwards reproduced in the New Testament. These are
'Christ' or 'the Anointed One',
'the Righteous One',
'the Elect One',
and 'the Son of Man'.

"Christ or the Anointed One. This title, found repeatedly in earlier writings but always in reference to actual contemporary kings or priests, is now for the first time...applied to the ideal Messianic king that is to come. It is associated here with supernatural attributes.

A few years later in another writing, the Psalms of Solomon... it possesses quite a different connotation. In those Psalms the Messiah, though endowed with divine gifts, is a man and nothing more, and springs from the house of David.

"The Righteous One. This title, which occurs in Acts iii.14; vii.52; xxii.14 (cp. I John ii. I), first appears in I Enoch as a Messianic designation; see I En. xxxviii. 2; liii. 6. Righteousness is one of the leading characteristics of the Messiah, xlvi. 3.

"The Elect One. This title likewise appearing first in I En. xl. 5; xlv. 3-4; xlix. 2,4; li. 3,5, &c., passes over into the New Testament, Luke ix. 35; xxiii. 35, 'The Christ, the Elect One.' In the Old Testament we find 'Mine Elect', Isa. xlii. I, but not 'the Elect One".

"The Son of Man. This definite title (see notes on xlvi. 2,3) is found in I Enoch for the first time in Jewish literature, and is, historically, the source of the New Testament designation, and contributes to it some of its most characteristic contents." Pg. 180.

"The Influence of I Enoch on the New Testament. "I Enoch has had more influence on the New Testament than has any other apocryphal or pseudepigraphic work." Pg. 163.

"The Book of Enoch is for the history of theological development the most important pseudepigraph of the first two centuries B. C. Some of its authors-and there were many-belonged to the true succession of the prophets..."

You write that: "James C. VanderKam writes of 1 Enoch 37-71 ... In this work Enoch is termed a 'son of man,' and he is deeply involved in the final judgement of the wicked and reward of the righteous"

"Leonhard Rost writes: Chapters 37-71...they culminate in the appointment of Enoch as the Son of Man."

"Michael A. Knibb writes: The concern with the Son of Man has led to the Parables being considered in relation to the traditions in the gospels about the Son of Man.

We may conclude that Jesus believed that he was the Enochic Messiah, The Son of Man, the Righteous One, the Chosen One.

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Duvduv
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Re: book of enoch

Post by Duvduv »

It can surely be argued that the archives/libraries in Rome or Constantinople were amply supplied with writings of the Jews and usable as references for any subsequent literature relating to the new Chi-Rho Christ religion.
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Re: book of enoch

Post by Robert Tulip »

Hello, first post here.

As it happens, I just finished reading the Book of Enoch, so thought I would look if there is any discussion of it here.

Here is a short essay I have just written in direct response to reading the Book of Enoch.

Enoch is a book of prophecy omitted from the Bible but preserved in Ethiopia until brought to England in 1773 and translated in the nineteenth century. Enoch is an important key to ancient cosmology, sociology and eschatology. I present here my own interpretation of Enoch as describing ancient knowledge of the apparent movement of the stars as a clock for doom.

“Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World (written in 1616 while imprisoned in the Tower of London), makes the curious assertion that part of the Book of Enoch "which contained the course of the stars, their names and motions" had been discovered in Saba in the 1st century and was thus available to Origen and Tertullian.” (Wikipedia)

A main theme of Enoch, framed within the vision of the motion of the stars, is the evil of the world and the impending judgement of God. Such ideas have conventionally been interpreted in religion through a supernatural lens of God as intentional agent of wrath. A scientific approach to these ideas can bracket the intentionality of God, looking instead to how the cosmology, sociology and eschatology of Enoch reflect the needs and values of their writers and communities, and whether any scientific content remains in the ideas.

Enoch is said to be seventh in line from Adam, father of Methuselah and grandfather of Noah. The actual history of this time is scanty, but the context may be reconstructed to some extent against the patterns of cultural and environmental change.

The rise of metal in social and economic impact is a key social change discussed in Enoch, who describes wealth from metal as a destabiliser of social organisation, with metal weapons enabling the enforcement of a new order of wealth measured in metal. In Chapter 52, Enoch says he saw mountains of iron, copper, silver, gold, soft metal and lead, which “shall be in the presence of the Elect One as wax before the fire… none shall be saved, either by gold or by silver, and none be able to escape. And there shall be no iron for war, Nor shall one clothe oneself with a breastplate. Bronze and tin shall be of no service and shall not be esteemed, And lead shall not be desired. And all these things shall be destroyed from the surface of the earth, when the Elect One shall appear before the face of the Lord of Spirits.”

Against this framework of the rise of evil through metal technology, Enoch indicates a very long timeframe of divine justice, saying at the outset that his vision of the Holy One in the heavens is not for this generation, but for a remote one. One way to read this prophecy is a sense of human peril regarding popular delusory beliefs in the power of metal technology to secure salvation. In material terms, metal enables power, but instils a false confidence about how that material control can deliver military security and a social covenant.

Against this moral critique of the impact of metal in society, Enoch presents a messianic vision of salvation through an elect one, whom he calls a Son of Man, hidden from the beginning but revealed to the elect. Prefiguring later messianic prophecy, Enoch says all those who rule the earth shall set their hope upon that Son of Man, who will execute vengeance on them because they have oppressed His children and His elect.

Assessing the time frame of this prophecy, it is apparent that Enoch provides clues that he sees the slow movement of precession of the seasons against the stars as the measure of the will of God. One image in this regard is 89:12, which describes a “bull which begat a black wild boar and a white sheep; and the former begat many boars, but that sheep begat twelve sheep. And when those twelve sheep had grown, they gave up one of them to the asses, and those asses again gave up that sheep to the wolves, and that sheep grew up among the wolves.”

This allegorical vision can be interpreted firstly as a prophecy of Jesus Christ, as a sheep given to asses (the Jews) who gave him to wolves (Rome). The bull in Enoch’s dream parable is the last of a long line of bulls, from a bull who became a man and gave rise to all the animals, through a time of world flood. The sheep is the first of generations of sheep, culminating in the one give over to asses and wolves. This sense of an age of bulls followed by an age of sheep corresponds to ancient knowledge of the movement of the equinox in 2150 BC from Taurus the Bull, its location in the third and fourth millennia BC, to Aries the Ram, where the spring sun rose in the second and first millennia BC.

Evidence for this cosmic reading of Enoch includes his following statements

Chapter 33 “I saw how the stars of heaven come forth, and I counted the portals out of which they proceed, and wrote down all their outlets, of each individual star by itself, according to their number and their names, their courses and their positions, and their times and their months;”

This documentation of the months of stellar appearance must have enabled observation of precession, which occurs at the rate of one day per lifetime. As with the twelve jewels of the holy city of Revelation, twelve portals are described in Enoch, three in each direction, marking the twelve signs of the zodiac. Precession is the measure of the gradual shift of the stars against these twelve monthly portals of the sun.

In Chapter 43, “the stars are weighed in a righteous balance according to their proportions of light: the width of their spaces and the day of their appearing" again indicates close attention to the day of heliacal rise of the stars, and ability and interest to measure the shift of this date.

In Chapter 82, Enoch explains the role of the four cardinal stars encoded in Ezekiel and Revelation as the four living creatures: “And these are the orders of the stars, which set in their places, and in their seasons and festivals and months. And these are the names of those who lead them, who watch that they enter at their times, in their orders, in their seasons, in their months, in their periods of dominion, and in their positions. Their four leaders who divide the four parts of the year enter first; and after them the twelve leaders of the orders who divide the months;”

Enoch says the four leading stars divide the four parts of the year. This means the stars at the positions on the ecliptic where the sun enters each of the four seasons, marking the four corners of heaven. When Enoch was written these four cardinal stars were Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut, the stars of the bull, the lion, the scorpion or eagle, and the man or water bearer.

This material from Enoch shows that the literal symbols of Biblical cosmology are allegorical references to a lost but coherent scientific cosmology. My view is that the removal and loss of Enoch from western sight reflected Christian amnesia about the Gnostic roots of its doctrines.
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Re: book of enoch

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Ethiopic Enoch contains several Enochic "books."

The Parables/Similitudes of Enoch (where the mountains of metal melt in the presence of the Lord of Spirits) is not to be found among the Enoch books recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Astronomical book as preserved in Ethiopic Enoch is a depiction of the motion of the sun and moon in a lunar calendar, while the Astronomical book found among the DSS, IIRC, relates them to a 364 day solar year as is also found in the book of Jubilees.

The other three Enoch books represented in Ethiopic Enoch were written in different periods of time, and do not always share exactly the same theological ideas.

Your interpretation may be mixing apples with oranges.

Let me suggest that you find a copy of volume 1 of James H. Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (1983) at the library. An older critical translation, that was written before the discovery and publication of the DSS, is volume 2 of R. H. Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (1913), or alternatively his stand alone edition of Eth. Enoch The book of Enoch (1893). Both of the latter can be downloaded as PDFs from the Internet Archive (archive.org).

DCH
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