BJH1960, I’m slow but I get there eventually. The book I recalled that discusses the relationship between Gilgamesh and Samson is ** you do not have permission to see this link ** by Gregory Mobley. Of course if you investigate legitimate online book vendors you will be astonished to see that this 124 page book goes for just a bit less than $250 bucks American. sigh

So… DO NOT go to ** you do not have permission to see this link **, and please DON’T put the title in the search window, and for god’s sake DON’T download it as a free PDF or ebook.

Remember you were warned!

So now we shift gears.

1 Enoch 6-11 recounted the central narrative of the entire book, the primordial rebellion of the Watchers and its consequences.

Chpts 10 and 11 move the point of view from the earth to the Heavenlies and serve as a narrative connection between what are apparently two strands of tradition, the Shemihazah source and the Asael source. As I said earlier Shemihazah will diminish in importance, although his is the older strand of tradition, and Asael will increase. Why might this be?

In the original narrative the Watchers are the aggressors and the humans are victims. In the Asael narrative the Watchers influence humans to do evil and the responsibility begins to be shifted onto the humans as well as the Watchers. The Asael narrative is simply easier to line up with the story of the Flood which requires a degree of human culpability to make any kind of sense. If the Watchers were singularly guilty (and their misbegotten progeny the Giants destroyed themselves as recorded in the text) why then would God send a world-wide Flood to wipe out life on earth?

Chpts 12-16 are part of a distinct piece which expands the narrative of the punishment of the Fallen Watchers. So I’ll discuss it as a separate unit of text. Once again authorship and provenance is simply unknown. It relies on the earlier text so we can at least assume it is later than that.

There is an interesting literary technique in use here which is worth noting as we proceed. The writers first give a brief synopsis of the events. Then they retell the same narrative but expand on certain aspects. Then they’ll once again retell the narrative and expand even further on these aspects. The narrative perspective gets wider and wider while simultaneously digging down deeper into the story. It is not at all linear the way we are used to – this happened and then this happened and then this… I would liken it to dropping a stone into a puddle and watching the ripples expand out wider and wider. In my little simile the original story of the Rebellion is the stone dropped in the puddle and as we go along the circle of narrative widens. (Has any modernist or post-modernist story-teller ever tried writing a novel using this technique? Might be an interesting experiment!)

1 Enoch 12-16

The first thing to notice is also the most obvious and the easiest to miss. At long last the main character of the entire book, Enoch, enters the story! Let’s jump back for a minute to Genesis.

When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him. Gen 5, 21-24 NRSV

We’ve already noted Enoch’s uniqueness among the descendants of Adam. His short(!) life-span whose years equaled the number of days in the solar year. His distinct relationship with God. And his mysterious fate.

The bulk of the subsequent narrative is told in the first person from Enoch’s pov. However there is an “editorial” introduction that sets the scene and riffs off Gen 5.

Before these things, Enoch was taken; and no human being knew where he had been taken, or where he was, or what had happened to him. His works were with the watchers, and with the holy ones were his days. 1 En 12:1-2 Nicklesburg

Nicklesburg points out that the narrative is meant to indicate that Enoch had repeated contact with the Elohim, returned to earth to instruct his children in their mysteries and then vanished. Right from the beginning Enoch was known as the “Scribe”, with the responsibility of being an intermediary, a “translator” between God and the Watchers and between God and other humans.

Another stone drops into the puddle. The ripples widen and henceforth it is Enoch who will tell his story.

My posts here have been spotty as of late. This bespeaks not a flagging of interest but indicates only that occasionally life leaps up and demands our full attention. I’ll be on the road all next week so there will be yet another caesura in my output.

…in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

tap-tap-tap…cough…is the microphone working? Ah yes.

Where was I?

So we’ve left the original narrative of the Rebellion of the Watchers (chpts 6-11). Now Enoch the Divine Scribe enters the story and takes over the narrative which he will do until the end of the section (chpt 36). Enoch is our guide through episodes of wonder and amazement. Now is when the Brown Acid at Woodstock kicks in.

One of the occasionally frustrating things about these ancient writings is that the authors do not share our assumptions about what makes a good story. They had no concept of personal psychology so the type of story we moderns seem to like most – call it the “Origin” story; How I Became Me – simply doesn’t exist. We encounter Enoch as a fully formed Divine Scribe. As we’ve seen before the ancients defined characters by their function. You acted out of your nature. You were what you were. So we get no backstory. How did Enoch first encounter the Watchers? How was he selected to be a human intermediary? You’ll have to write your own story.

And I Enoch, was blessing the Great Lord and the King of the ages. And behold, the Watchers of the Great Holy One called and said to me: “Enoch, scribe of righteousness. Go and say to the Watchers of Heaven, who forsook High Heaven, the sanctuary of their eternal station, and defiled themselves with women, as do the sons of earth do they did, and took wives for themselves, and wrought great destruction on the earth.

‘You will have no peace or forgiveness.’

And concerning their sons in whom they rejoice – The slaughter of their beloved ones they will see; and over the destruction of their sons they will lament and make petition forever, and they will have no mercy or peace. 1En 12:3-6 Nickelsburg

“And Enoch go and say to Asael: “You will have no peace. A great sentence has gone forth against you, to bind you. And you will have no relief or petition, because of the unrighteous deeds that you revealed, and because of all the godless deeds and the unrighteousness and the sin you revealed to men.”

And then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid; fear and trembling seized them. 1En 13:1-3 Nickelsburg

These folks had a hard way of looking at things. This the voice of Doom. No mercy. No forgiveness.

Enoch is engaged in a liturgy at some kind of Holy Place, perhaps a shrine. The narrative is still making a distinction between the crime of cohabitation with earth women and the revelation of divine secrets to humans. This is the only time Asael is named in this section and Shemihazah not at all. Before I used the image of a stone dropped into a pool as a way to describe the narrative. The ripples expand and at each point the story becomes more and more complete. This part is the stone. The next section will repeat the same narrative and expand the details. It’s an odd but interesting way to tell the story.

Some questions immediately rise which will be explicated (well some will) as we go along. Who are these “Watchers of the Great Holy One”? How are they to be differentiated (if at all) from the four angels previously sent by God to announce the Doom of the fallen Watchers? How was Enoch expected to contact the fallen Watchers? (Enoch’s travels into the Heavenlies are later said to consist of visions not physical travel from one place to another.)

Stay tuned.

1 Enoch 13:4 – 14:7

The story expands.

I won’t quote a lot because of the length but Enoch has his first encounter with the Fallen Watchers.

And they asked that I write a memorandum of petition for them, that they might have forgiveness…

We learn in the next chapter that Enoch is physically meeting with the Watchers at a shrine in Northern Galilee. That, it turns out, is very interesting.

A couple things jump out at me immediately here. The Watchers have lost all their swagger. They’re terrified and seem genuinely repentant. At least they are portrayed that way in the narrative. No Miltonic pride here. Also, they go through the “proper channels”, so to speak. The ask Enoch to present a formal petition for mercy to the Most High asking for forgiveness and mercy for their offspring, i.e., the Giants, condemned to destruction. It’s striking how the Divine Court is portrayed like the court of an Ancient Near Eastern potentate. This God doesn’t sit with Abraham much less stroll through the Garden. This God is an Emperor in all His admittedly celestial glory. Now there’s a bureaucracy you see. In chpt 13 we find out that Enoch’s shrine at which he prays the petition to God is in the Land of Dan, south of Mount Hermon.

And behold, dreams came upon me and visions fell upon me…

In a dream/vision (described in the next chpt) Enoch is told by God to reprimand the Watchers. When he awakes Enoch assembles the Watchers to hear their fate at a place called Abel-Main which is described as “between Lebanon and Senir”.

All these geographic locations mentioned in the text, Dan, Hermon, Abel-Main, etc are identifiable places in ancient northern Galilee. I won’t take time to go into all the linguistic and archeological evidences presented by Nickelsburg except to say it’s hard not to conclude that the author of the text knew the actual area. And since it seems the area was a hot bed of cultic practice – not just ancient Israelites; they’ve found shrines built by Canaanites, Romans, Greeks (to Pan!), and even Christians. From the Bronze Age to the Roman period this area was a Holy Place. One of the cool things about the commentary is that Nickelsburg provides a nice five page spread with photographs and maps of the Northern Galilee. (In my fortunate days of travel to this region I didn’t make it up this far north though I would have tried if saner heads had not prevented me from crossing the border. I traveled in the spring and there are fewer more beautiful places on earth than the Galilee in Spring.)

So what do we make of this? Nickelsburg thinks we can ultimately trace the source of the Enochian literature from this area which would have been a center of apocalyptic thought in the Hellenistic Age. Like Qumran it would have been antagonistic to Jerusalem based Temple practice. Enoch is their Moses. Obedience to the Divine Order of things would have been their Law. The Book of Enoch was their scripture. It’s probably not that cut and dried but then what is? For example, Jubilees is a lot more anti-Mosaic then Enoch which just ignores him. And which depicts the revelation at Sinai sans Moses, Law or Commandments.

But Nickelsburg brings up yet another really really interesting point. We have aftershocks all the way into the New Testament. Recall the episode in Mark where Peter first declares Jesus to be the Messiah. (Mark 8,27-30) Mark says Jesus was wandering through the villages of Caesarea Philippi located at the base of Mt Hermon. Chapter 9 of course records the story of the Transfiguration which took place on “a high mountain”. The traditional view is that the Transfiguration took place on Mt Tabor but note the mention in Psalm 89,12.

You created the north and the south; Tabor and Hermon sing for joy at your name.

Mt Tabor is in the south. And in fact there exists a strong minority tradition that the Transfiguration took place on Mt Hermon. This makes much more geographic sense in Mark’s narrative since Jesus and his disciples are already there.

Also, running alongside Mt Hermon through the Huleh Valey was the ancient Road to Damascus. Hmmmm…what happened on the Road to Damascus? Oh yeah! Paul would passed the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Then following the northern shore Paul would have passed Capernaum before heading north toward Caesarea Philippi. Hmmmm… What an interesting area to have had Jesus appear to Paul!

Nickelsburg doesn’t make this point but I can’t help but want to put two and two together. Folks often wonder where a hayseed teckton from a village that was barely a wide place in the road, could have learned his apocalypticism and formulated his view of himself as having a special role in the Kingdom. But if the Galilee was a center of apocalyptic, to some degree anti-Temple cultic thought, even if it was an afterglow of an earlier fervor, wouldn’t this provide a possible milieu for Jesus to have attained his self-understanding? Speculative of course. But makes you wonder.

Sacred mountains are often the spot for revelations. This motif appears all over the ancient world. It just stands to reason that if the gods live in the Heavenlies (you know, up), then the higher you get the closer you are to the divine world. (Which may be true in another sense. Ha.) Scholars have not ignored this idea. The classic text is still Richard J Clifford, SJ’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **. This book strikes me as just the sort of obscure scholarly tome that would quickly go out of print and be nearly impossible to find, but it turns out to still be available in an affordable paperback!

Next time…which should be sooner rather than later…Enoch’s first dream/vision.

And it at least humors my suspicion that that the author of Mark was a Jew rather than a Gentile convert. I can see I’m going to have to pull out Prof Marcus’s commentary and revisit his arguments for a Syrian provenance.

1 Enoch 14,8-23, Enoch’s first vision, cont.

I mentioned the whimsical chapter/verse divisions in the text. Here is an excellent example. Enoch’s vision begins at 14,8. Chapter 14 has 24 verses. Chapter 15 has 11. Chpt 16 has 4! Not only does the vision begin at v8 but the last verse in 14 begins the account of the Almighty’s oracle against the Watchers that occupies most of ch15. Ch16 continues a section on the evil spirits from 15 and only goes for 4 verses. Now if we went back I’m sure the editors had perfectly logical reasons for this division but looked at dispassionately on the printed page it looks nuts.

Once again this is a long episode so I won’t do extensive quoting for space.

Obvious question. Are these accounts of mystical visions records of actual experiences someone had or are they literary constructs using mystical imagery to make a point? This was a serious scholarly argument throughout the latter half of the 20th century, after the discoveries at Qumran. You had heavy hitters on both sides. (When I was in school way back when the thinking was that the Prophetic books originated in oracular pronouncements that were then written down and edited by some disciple of the prophet. On the other hand Apocalyptic was considered a purely literary genre using imagery derived from sources in the Ancient Near East.) As time passed it became clear that it was never so cut and dried.

If the prophets are actual oracles then was Ezekiel’s great vision of the Divine Throne in chapter one a real vision? But then why does it use literary imagery common to the cultures surrounding Israel? If Apocalyptic is purely literary then why are the visions described mostly generated in some liturgical cultic context? As we go along we’ll see how messy these traditions are and we’ll get some interesting hints.

Enoch’s vision begins with the striking image of nature calling him and sending him on his journey to the Throne of God. Clouds “summon” him. Mists “cry out”. His journey is accompanied by “lightning flashes and shooting stars”. But it is the wind that lifts him up to heaven. To the ancients motion was a sign of intelligence. It is as if these forces of nature are themselves living beings who act with purpose and will. Yet all serve the Most High.

First, Enoch encounters a great Wall built of both Hailstones and Tongues of Fire. Here in the Heavenlies opposites meet and are reconciled. The fire does not melt the ice nor does the melting ice quench the flame. All reflect the Glory of God, brighter and brighter. Enoch’s response to these sights is not wonder or awe or even reverence but utter terror. Later he’ll be so overcome that angels will have to hold him up like he was a drunk.

Enoch passes by the Wall without hesitation. Later he will not move so easily.

Next, Enoch sees two houses. The first is made of slabs of ice with floors of snow. The ceiling is comets and lightning. Cherubim hover. The doors blaze with fire. When Enoch enters the house, “hot as fire and cold as snow”, he sees “no delight of life in it”. Enoch falls on his face, “quaking and trembling”.

What is this house? Behold I show you a Mystery. Without a ready explanation unfortunately. What we can say is that perhaps here we see a glimpse of an early stage of what came to be called Jewish Merkabah (Throne) mysticism. It began with Ezekiel’s vision of the throne and developed into a movement that lasted for dang near a thousand years eventually to be subsumed into Kabbalah.

Formal Merkabah was a post-Revolt phenomena but its qualities are detectable at Qumran and there are striking similarities with the Apostle Paul’s description of his own visionary experience. One of the aspects of Merkabah was the presence of the Hekhalot (palaces). This was a shared communal mysticism. To glimpse the throne you must pass by certain checkpoints on the path. There were seven “palaces”. At each a guardian angel, fierce of aspect, who demanded a password to pass by their station. Failure could result in death, or madness, or heresy. Merkabah/Hekhalot mysticism combined apocalypticism, gnosticism and traditional Jewish practice. They mostly avoided censure and suppression because they remained strictly Torah observant. (One can even imagine what the Jesus movement might have been like if it had remained a Jewish sect and not mutated into a separate religion. A path not taken, so to speak.)

The second House Enoch enters is more easily understood. This is the very Throne Room of God. (The vision of the Throne became the goal of Merkabah.) Enoch’s powers of description begin to fail him. Everything is a flaming fire.

And I was looking and I saw a lofty throne;
and its appearance was like ice,
and its wheels were like the shining sun,
and the voice of the Cherubim,
and from beneath the throne issued rivers of flaming fire.
And I was unable to see.
The Great Glory sat upon it…

The vision of Ezekiel hovers behind this passage. The difference is that the throne chariot came to Ezekiel in exile. Here Enoch must ascend to the Heavenly Throne.

Next, The Almighty pronounces the Doom of the Watchers and their children.

It’s hard to imagine that the composer of Revelation did not know Enoch. It appears pretty clearly that the early Christians regarded the BoE as authoritative scripture. You’d have a hard time getting any non-fundamentalist scholar to deny this. At Qumran it was considered so authoritative that only the biggies like Genesis, Isaiah and the Psalms were copied more. There are constant references in the early church Fathers. The mystery is why it suddenly drops out of the discourse in the fourth century.

As we get deeper into the cosmology assumed by 1 Enoch we’ll have opportunity to discuss these ancient ideas about nature. A teaser – the Wind is very important!

God’s Oracle to the Watchers 1 En 14,24 – 16,4

When we left Enoch he was prostrate in utter terror, blinded by the Divine Effulgence. One of the “Holy Ones” helps him to his feet, dusts off the snow we can presume, and supports him to the door of the throne room. From the way it reads, all through this dialogue with the Almighty we can visualize Enoch as cringing by the door, hardly able to even look up. (Note: From this point on the Greek translations invariably translate these references to God’s ministers as “angels”. Fine as long as we don’t entirely lose the association with the Mesopotamian Divine Court. The problem of course is not with the text but with our modern conception of angels. I’m going to follow Nickelsburg but will avoid the term angels as much as possible for this reason. No androgynous Victorian hippies with wings here! How did a cherub turn into a fat baby with wings? See Esther Hamori’s entertaining book, ** you do not have permission to see this link **.)

The first thing out of the Mouth of the Uttermost is the classic admonition in these experiences, Fear not! (In the Bible when people encounter the divine they generally freak out. The ending of Mark at 16,8 begins to make more sense.) As I said before the procedures of the Divine Court are being drawn from the protocol surrounding an Ancient Near Eastern potentate. Enoch is the divine intermediary. Though his prayers he has presented a formal petition for mercy from the Watchers to God. Now God calls him to court and provides Enoch with His reply to be presented to the Watchers. Enoch’s special status is assumed. (As I pointed out earlier we get no backstory.)

God first notes the irony of a human serving as an intermediary between Himself and the Watchers when the correct procedure would be just the reverse. Then questions-

Why have you forsaken the High heaven…and done as the sons of Earth…?

You were holy ones and spirits, living forever. With the blood of women you have defiled yourselves…

There is some need for clarification here. Surely this was a profoundly patriarchal culture and there is plenty of misogyny inherent in much of the writings, but here there is something a little different going on. It is given to humans to have sex and offspring and endure the round of living and dying. In itself that is not defiling. I think the point being made is that the real sin here is a Boundary Violation. There is an order to things, fixed at creation by God. Wisdom consists in appreciating that order. When the Watchers cohabited with the women they crossed a line. They abandoned their divine status and took on the status given to humans. For this sin there can be no forgiveness.

Then an interesting passage-

Therefore I gave them [human males] women,
that they might cast seed into them,
and thus beget children by them,
and nothing fail them on the earth.

But you [The Watchers] existed as spirits, living forever,
and not dying for all the generations of eternity;
and therefore I did not make women among you.

Now ladies here’s your misogyny, or perhaps sexism would be the better descriptor**. In a patriarchal cosmos women only exist to bear children. Human males need them. The Watchers did not so none were created for them. Is the implication here that the Watchers are sexless, or that they are males who don’t need females? Well traditionally angels are sexless. But remember they lusted after human women and presumably were somehow capable of “doing the deed” to impregnate the women to produce children! I think the assumption here presented is that the Watchers were males of their “kind” who didn’t need women. (Or weren’t intended to required them.)

Now for we moderns this raises all kinds of questions that the ancients simply didn’t concern themselves with. The narrative records that the Watchers lusted after human women. No time whatsoever spent speculating on what about their previous station they might have found insufficient. With our penchant for psychologizing we’re left to write our own story.

Next, one of the most interesting parts of the entire book. The Fate of the Giants.

**Not to be a pedant but it seems to me that in our often fraught modern discussions about gender it is still useful to make a distinction between misogyny and sexism. Misogyny is hatred for the female. Sexism is prejudice against women. Jack the Ripper or the Prophet Ezekiel were misogynists. My old boss from years ago who disliked working under women supervisors was a sexist. (He had a wife and three daughters so he could hardly be described as “hating” women. He was prejudiced.) Using ‘misogyny’ when we mean ‘sexism’ diminishes the real horror of misogyny which still exists, although sexism is much more common. Language matters.