Let us discuss…Boundary Violations.

One of the most surprising things to students of the Hebrew Scriptures is how little importance is given to the figures of Adam and Eve, our First Parents, outside the account of creation in Genesis. Adam is mentioned as part of a genealogy in 1 Chronicles and Eve not at all! What is going on? This was the “Fall of Man”, right? How evil came into the world! How come the Hebrews seem to have forgotten about it?

Well I think most people reading this will already know all that entered Christianity with Paul and was expanded on by later thinkers until we have this idea of something called “Original Sin”. A book I’ve found useful and have recommended before is Ziony Zevit’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **.

But what about 1 Enoch? What does it say about how evil came into the world? This is in fact one of Enoch’s major themes. Enoch’s answer to the Origin of Evil in the world will be somewhat surprising to folks raised as Christians.

First a recap. If we go back to the introductory chapters of 1 Enoch, we read this-

Contemplate all (his) works, and observe the works of heaven, how they do not alter their paths; and the luminaries heaven, that they all rise and set, each one ordered in its appointed time; and they appear on their feasts and do not transgress their own appointed order.

Observe the earth, and contemplate the works that take place on it from the beginning until the consummation, that nothing on earth changes, but all the works of God are manifest to you.

Observe the signs of summer and winter. Contemplate the signs of winter, that all the earth is filled with water, and clouds and dew and rain rest upon it.

Here, knowledge and wisdom consists not of ethical or covenantal obligations but in a realization of the divine order of things and in a appreciation of the fixed laws of time and space. God has a plan and the righteous one must both contemplate and follow the plan.

Now, notice the trepidation of Shemihazah, chief of the Watchers.

When the sons of men had multiplied, in those days, beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. And the watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another, “Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget children for ourselves.” And Shemihazah, their chief, said to them, “I fear that you will not want to do this deed, and I alone shall be guilty of a great sin.

And they all answered him and said, “Let us all swear an oath, and let us all bind one another with a curse, that none of us turn back from this counsel until we fulfill it and do this deed.” Then they all swore together and bound one another with a curse.

Shemihazah and his cohorts know that they are committing a sin by having sex with human women. They have to buck each other up to do the deed. Shemihazah doesn’t want to be the one to get all the blame. But blame for what? As I showed before, in Ancient Near Eastern mythology gods had sex with humans all the time. For pagans boundaries between categories of being were porous and permeable. (On every level. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the Beast-Man Enkidu completes his full transformation to humanity by having sex for seven days with a priestess/courtesan! Gilgamesh himself is the progeny of a human king and a goddess.) But for these Hebrew thinkers all beings were classed by their function in the divine order.

A forbidden line was being crossed. For the Watchers to engage sexually with humans was a Boundary Violation.

As we’ll see the result of this violation was horror and death and ultimately a world cleansed by a Flood.

I’m setting up a discussion of the Nephilim, the next figures in the story we’ll encounter since they are the visible fruits of the sin but there are some implications of what we’ve seen so far.

Note that none of this episode was the fault of humans. To Paul and his theological descendants, sin came into the world because of human rebellion and disobedience. It’s all our fault. Later in other parts of the Book of Enoch there will be an attempt to spread around the blame, but here in the oldest strata of tradition, humans are victims. The comely daughters did not bat their eyes at the Watchers, or shake their hips, or give them “come hither” looks. The Watchers lusted and took the women. Their progeny turned out to be monsters, not heroes. This is how sin and darkness came to the earth.

Now all this makes for a spine-tingling story as we’ll see when we get more deeply into the idea of the Nephilim. But so what? I would claim that this idea of fixed divine boundaries has echoed down the centuries in the West and has resulted in some ideas that resonate still. It has shaped the assumptions we make and our responses to questions that we still ask.

Let me provide some examples.

1. Would the acceptance of evolutionary theory as a description of the process of diversity of life on earth have been made less difficult in the West if we didn’t have this underlying assumption that there is a fixed boundary between human beings and the animal kingdom?

2. Would the current controversy about gender and sexuality be less vitriolic if we didn’t have this underlying assumption that God made men and women as separate categories of being?

3. Would the West have this awful racial history if we didn’t already possess this underlying assumption that there are fixed racial boundaries between groups of people? For us, that different skin color means a different class of being?

In all these controversies the idea of a ‘not-to-be-questioned’ fixed divine order has been used to justify both rejection of newer but unpalatable good ideas or to support the maintenance of old and really bad ideas.

See friends, the Book of Enoch is not only entertaining, it’s relevant!

Growing up the way I did, reading Jewish interpretations of all those old Bible stories was quite an eye opener. When I found out Jesus wasn’t everywhere then the stories opened up to me. Now listening to Christians claim to know the Hebrew scriptures better than Jews is a rich source of amusement.

My understanding is that Eastern Orthodoxy largely rejects Augustine and his interpreters which is of course a deep vein of western Christian speculation.

Thanks for the recommendations Jill.

Interestingly the Jewish type persons of my acquaintance are all atheists. What they believe in is being Jewish.

The Rabbi is a sane human being. I think it will be difficult for Christianity to mutate into something like that because of the nature of its assumptions and truth claims. It’s possible though. It will require Christians, however few at first, to adopt this approach and demonstrate it to their fellows through action. Alas, they’ll never convince the fundamentalists. Fundamentalist thought will have to vanish and that process will be neither smooth nor peaceful. But I think it will happen.

Jew is the new gender identity safeword.

Even if I had any idea what this statement is supposed to mean, Colin, it would be very wise for you not to make such comments about Jews at all. You clearly have an issue that I encourage you to deal with privately. I welcome responses to this thread but any more such comments (or for that matter, solitary Greek passages) will result in your permanent banning from this thread, with no recourse for appeal.

A word to the wise is sufficient.

And now (…drumroll please…) the Nephilim…

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair, and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
-Genesis 6,1-4 NRSV

These and all the others with them took for themselves wives from among them such as they chose. And they began to go in to them, and to defile themselves through them, and to teach them sorcery and charms, and to reveal to them the cutting of roots and plants. 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. They were devouring the labor of all the sons of men, and men were not able to supply them. And the giants began to kill men and to devour them. And they began to sin against the birds and beasts and creeping things and the fish, and to devour one another’s flesh. And they drank the blood. Then the earth brought accusation against the lawless ones.
-1 Enoch 7,1-5 Nickelsburg

Next to the Nephilim, the Watchers seem fairly straightforward. We find traditions that reach back into the mists of the Ancient Near East. Unless you’re a rigid fundamentalist you are forced to accept a polytheistic background to the religious views of the Hebrews. As it became more and more problematic the “Sons of God” became angels.

If only the Idea of the Nephilim could be as unambiguous. But what we have are different ideas being conflated and multiple expressions being used interchangeably. The story of the offspring of the Watchers and human women seems fairly clear. If only. But it’s intensely interesting for that very fact. That story will turn out to be a monumental case of “connecting the dots”. It also generated speculation about the nature of the world of spirits and demons that has resonated ever since.

To get some idea of what I’m talking about let’s skip forward to the days of the New Testament. Paul discusses “Rulers”, Authorities”, “Powers” etc. These forces have expression in the physical world but are primarily spiritual forces in possession of this world in rebellion against God. In our oldest gospel, Mark, we find, not an ethical Jewish prophet, but an exorcist, at war with spiritual forces dominating the world. What is remarkable is that there is little comparable to this viewpoint in the Hebrew Bible. Oh, God is said to send out “lying spirits” and certainly causes disasters, but all of this is an expression of the power of God.

So where did the idea of the domination of the world by evil spiritual forces come from? Three guesses!

Like the Watchers, searching out the mythological precursors and descendants of the Nephilim will take us into some wild and wooly spaces.