Jul 10, 2023 07:54 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 10, 2023 08:25 PM by C C.)
The Book of Enoch explained
https://youtu.be/FsVQnspOkkY
VIDEO EXCERPTS: The Book of Enoch is the ultimate example of spin-off literature. It's over 100 chapters, long thousands and thousands of words.
But it's based off of a fairly obscure biblical character: Enoch. The Hebrew bible has very little to say about him.
In the Book of Genesis he appears briefly in the genealogy of Adam. After fathering Methuselah and a bunch of other kids, the text simply says "Enoch walked with god then he was no more because god took him".
Wait, there's got to be more backstory here, right? What does because God took him even mean?
Well, early Jews and Christians were rarely satisfied with such vague biblical passages. Which leads us to its spin-off, the Book of Enoch. This text was so popular for early Christians that even the New Testament cites it. The Epistle of Jude, the second to last book in the New Testament, directly references Enoch chapter 1, verse 9.
But for a book that was so popular for ancient Jews and Christians, very few people today know about it. So what is the Book of Enoch, and what does it really say?
[...] by the first century BCE in all 90 different manuscripts of "1 Enoch" exist in some form or another. However, some of the manuscripts have big differences compared to earlier versions.
This is why if you're going to read it for yourself, it's really important to find a scholarly translation that tries to account for all of the manuscript variations. I personally recommend the "The Hermeneia Translation, by George Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam. It's published by Fortress Press.
This is not an advertisement, it's literally just the best version i could find when I was researching this episode.
[...] divine beings ... come down to earth to have sex with human women. Who then give birth to beings called Nephilim.
[...] Enoch 7:3 says that the giants began to kill men and to devour them, and then kill all the beasts and drank their blood. Sounds kind of like a horror film.
This section also describes the Watchers as devious angels skilled in evil supernatural arts. Which they then taught to humanity.
[...] As the Watchers and Nephilim continue to devastate the Earth and pollute humans with evil knowledge, the story culminates in humanity crying out to God for help. In response, God dispatches his four archangels to set things right. He instructs one to warn Noah about the coming flood... (MORE - missing details, the video)
- - - - - - - - - -
With no summer film releases, printed graphic stories, etc -- did the ancients completely lack the equivalent of juvenile sci-fi entertainment? Apparently not, though lack of presses and mass distribution probably made it difficult for that specific target audience to procure the published materials.
And narrative-wise, there are parallels between then and today. Unlike the Watchers of Marvel Comics and their vow of non-interference with lesser beings, the non-canon Judeo-Christian version of the Watchers did interfere. And their later punishment seems to indicate they never reformed afterwards by similarly formulating such Star Trek Prime Directives
And the equivalent of superheroes (archangels, God, etc) seem more of a deus ex machina dispatched at the last moment to dispatch the super-villains. An interspersed storyline dealing with the developing personal problems and trials in the social lives of the superheroes may be absent. Though the life struggles of their pals (like Noah) may be better described.. .
https://youtu.be/FsVQnspOkkY
VIDEO EXCERPTS: The Book of Enoch is the ultimate example of spin-off literature. It's over 100 chapters, long thousands and thousands of words.
But it's based off of a fairly obscure biblical character: Enoch. The Hebrew bible has very little to say about him.
In the Book of Genesis he appears briefly in the genealogy of Adam. After fathering Methuselah and a bunch of other kids, the text simply says "Enoch walked with god then he was no more because god took him".
Wait, there's got to be more backstory here, right? What does because God took him even mean?
Well, early Jews and Christians were rarely satisfied with such vague biblical passages. Which leads us to its spin-off, the Book of Enoch. This text was so popular for early Christians that even the New Testament cites it. The Epistle of Jude, the second to last book in the New Testament, directly references Enoch chapter 1, verse 9.
But for a book that was so popular for ancient Jews and Christians, very few people today know about it. So what is the Book of Enoch, and what does it really say?
[...] by the first century BCE in all 90 different manuscripts of "1 Enoch" exist in some form or another. However, some of the manuscripts have big differences compared to earlier versions.
This is why if you're going to read it for yourself, it's really important to find a scholarly translation that tries to account for all of the manuscript variations. I personally recommend the "The Hermeneia Translation, by George Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam. It's published by Fortress Press.
This is not an advertisement, it's literally just the best version i could find when I was researching this episode.
[...] divine beings ... come down to earth to have sex with human women. Who then give birth to beings called Nephilim.
[...] Enoch 7:3 says that the giants began to kill men and to devour them, and then kill all the beasts and drank their blood. Sounds kind of like a horror film.
This section also describes the Watchers as devious angels skilled in evil supernatural arts. Which they then taught to humanity.
[...] As the Watchers and Nephilim continue to devastate the Earth and pollute humans with evil knowledge, the story culminates in humanity crying out to God for help. In response, God dispatches his four archangels to set things right. He instructs one to warn Noah about the coming flood... (MORE - missing details, the video)
- - - - - - - - - -
With no summer film releases, printed graphic stories, etc -- did the ancients completely lack the equivalent of juvenile sci-fi entertainment? Apparently not, though lack of presses and mass distribution probably made it difficult for that specific target audience to procure the published materials.
And narrative-wise, there are parallels between then and today. Unlike the Watchers of Marvel Comics and their vow of non-interference with lesser beings, the non-canon Judeo-Christian version of the Watchers did interfere. And their later punishment seems to indicate they never reformed afterwards by similarly formulating such Star Trek Prime Directives
And the equivalent of superheroes (archangels, God, etc) seem more of a deus ex machina dispatched at the last moment to dispatch the super-villains. An interspersed storyline dealing with the developing personal problems and trials in the social lives of the superheroes may be absent. Though the life struggles of their pals (like Noah) may be better described.. .
