07 Does Peter quote Enoch And Why it Matters (2 Peter 2:4)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means but how we know. This is our seventh talk in the series on the book of 2 Peter. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, or just go to the website wednesdayintheword.com slash 2 Peter 7. Glad to have you along. Today we'll continue looking at chapter 2 of 2 Peter. We are only going to cover verse 4 today because this is the verse where Peter appears to quote from the book of 1 Enoch. And it's the second of three major interpretive challenges in this chapter of 2 Peter. The first challenge, which is the similarity between Peter and Jude, we talked about in the last podcast. Today we're going to look at the second one. And I want to explain what the book of 1 Enoch is and look at why Peter might quote it. And then we'll finish the section in the next podcast and look at how this verse fits into the context and the point that Peter is making. But for today, we're just going to look at the interpretive challenges this verse raises. So just a review, Peter is writing to churches which are troubled by false teachers. These false teachers are distorting the apostolic gospel and deceiving believers into leading immoral lives. And in chapter one, Peter insisted that the apostolic gospel is a revelation from God, not something the apostles made up, and that believing the gospel results in a lifestyle which is marked by a pursuit of godliness. In chapter two, he turns his attention directly to the problem of false teachers, although I think he had the false teachers in view from the start of the letter. He started this chapter by saying just as there were false prophets before the time of Christ, there will be false teachers after the time of Christ. And these false teachers claim to be teaching the true gospel when in fact they're rejecting it and God will judge them for it. So he just said in chapter two verse three, their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. Basically he's saying just because they appear to be prospering now should not make them or us think that all is well with them and they are okay. The fact that they're prospering now means nothing. It may seem like their judgment is idle, it may seem like their destruction is asleep because they don't seem to be paying an immediate consequence for their actions right now. But trust me, Peter says, judgment is coming. He speaks of their condemnation as being from long ago, and I think that phrase sets up what he's about to say in verses four through ten. Basically he's going to say, From the beginning of creation, God has dealt consistently with us. Those who repent will find mercy and life, and those who rebel against God will find judgment and destruction. And it is in that sense that the foundations of their coming judgment were laid long ago. God has treated mankind this way since the beginning, but they're forgetting the past and they're ignoring the future. Their future judgment is predictable and they ought to know it's coming because God has always judged sin this way since the beginning of creation. Second Peter four through ten A, the first part of that verse is basically one sentence. I'm gonna read the whole sentence, but we are only gonna cover the challenges of two four today, and then in the next podcast we're gonna look at that sentence itself and talk about what it means. So starting in Second Peter chapter two, verse four, we're gonna go through the first half of verse ten. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, and if he rescued righteous lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the world, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Well verse ten continues, but the sentence ends there, the rest of the verse is a new sentence and we'll look at that later. The main point of this section is fairly easy to see. It's a big if then clause, and Peter explicitly states his conclusion the then in verse nine. So the if clauses are two four for if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, two five if he did not spare the ancient world, two six if he didn't spare Sodom and Gomorrah, two seven if he rescued righteous lot, then in two nine, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. In this section, Peter is giving a series of historical examples of when God responded with judgment and when God responded with mercy. The overall point is that the Lord will rescue the godly, as evidenced by Lot and Noah, and he will judge evildoers as represented by the fallen angels, Noah's contemporaries, and Sodom and Gomorrah. He said in two three that the condemnation of the false teachers is not idle and their destruction is not asleep, and then in four through ten he gives historical examples as proof. So as I said, we're only going to look at the interpretive challenges of two four in this podcast, and then next week we'll talk about the larger point he's making. So let's look at two four again. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until judgment. Then of course that sentence goes on. Jude has a parallel. This is Jude one six, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal change under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. So immediately we ask, what example is this? This doesn't appear to be a story from the Old Testament. What are Peter and Jude talking about and how do they know where are they getting this story of God judging fallen angels? Well, it so happens there is a very strong contender for where they are getting the story. Most of the scholars you read on this section will point to the same place, and it does seem to be the most likely source given the information we have. To figure it out, we have to go back and look at Genesis six, and this is a passage with its own interpretive difficulties, which we're not going to go into, but let me read you Genesis six verses one through four. When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Okay, the obvious question here then is who are the sons of God, who are the daughters of men, and who are the Nephilim? That is a debate in and of itself. Since we're studying Second Peter and not Genesis, I'm not going to get into that debate. But if you're interested in that debate, I will put a link in today's lecture notes to an article that summarizes and critiques the four main understandings of Genesis six. And again, those lecture notes are at wednesdayintheword.com slash two Peter seven. For our purposes, what you need to know is that there is a strong tradition in later Jewish writings about the meaning of Genesis six. And by later writings I mean documents that were written after the close of the Old Testament and before the time of Christ. So what we call the intertestamental period after the last prophet wrote and before Jesus came. There are a number of documents, including first Enoch, that tell a story about what Genesis six means, and they created this popular understanding, and in that understanding the sons of God are fallen angels who come to earth and have children with human women, these are the daughters of men, and the resulting children were this mighty mutant race called the Nephilim. And in these stories God responds by judging the fallen angels. Now Nephilim is just a transliteration of the Hebrew word, and that word is related to the word for fall, but no one really knows what it means, which is why it's just transliterated. Now, I do not think this is what Genesis six teaches. I don't believe the Enoch story is an accurate understanding of Genesis. I don't think it was ever meant to be an accurate understanding, but I'm going to explain that in a minute. For the question currently on the table, we need to know that historically there was this popular understanding that saw Genesis six as referring to fallen angels coming to earth, sleeping with human women, and then being judged by God for their actions. This was a common story in the intertestamental period, and there are several versions of it. The most detailed of these stories is found in a book we call First Enoch. First Enoch is not a book of the Old Testament, nor is it in the Apocrypha. It is not included in the Protestant Bible and it's not in the Catholic Bible, for good reason. It is part of what we call the Pseudopigrapha, which are books that attempt to imitate Scripture but were written under false names. Pseudopigrapha means writings falsely attributed. They claim to have been written by Adam, Moses, other famous characters from the Old Testament, but they were written in this period between the close of the Old Testament and the coming of Christ. So most of them were written between 200 BC to three hundred AD. The author would claim to be a famous biblical character, but everyone knew he was not that character. This was a fiction genre that imitated scripture. In our case, the author claims to be the Enoch of the Old Testament, who's identified as the son of Jared, the father of Methuselah. You can read about him in Genesis chapter 5, verses 21 and 22. But even when he wrote, even when this was a brand new document, I think everyone knew the author was not really the Enoch of the Old Testament. So it'd be like today someone writing a book about the founding of America and they claimed that they were George Washington. And if that book came out today, hundreds of years after his death, we would all know that it was fiction and we could enjoy it as such. That's what was going on in this intertestamental period. It was a popular genre that developed. And first Enoch is one of those books, and it tells the story based on Genesis six in some detail. So that's the kind of literature first Enoch appears to be, and that leads us to the next question. Are we sure that Peter and Jude are quoting it? Well Jude quotes the book of first Enoch by name in verse fourteen. This is Jude fourteen and fifteen. It was also said about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesies, saying, Behold the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. So this is a quote from first Enoch nine, chapter one, verse nine, which reads, And behold he cometh with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to destroy all the ungodly, and to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And by the way, you can find the text of first Enoch online. I'll put a link to it in the lecture notes if you'd like to read the book for yourself. But since Jude names the book and quotes one of its verses basically word for word, we know that Jude was familiar with the story and he is knowingly quoting it. So what about Peter? Well, the details that both Peter and Jude give fit exactly with the story of Enoch. Again, this is first Peter two four, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until a judgment. And Jude says in one six, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. So if you read through first Enoch, you'll see it's about angels who sin. First Enoch says these angels abandoned their proper abode and come to earth, which is what Jude says. First Enoch says God binds them and casts them into a place of darkness, as both Peter and Jude say. Peter refers to the place they are cast as Tartarus, which is the same Greek word used in 1 Enoch. Enoch says they are in a dark place waiting for their final judgment. Again, something Peter and Jude say. And what we see as we go through is that every detail Peter and Jude give finds an echo in the book of First Enoch. So it seems pretty likely that Peter and Jude are quoting it. Okay, so why? Why would Peter and Jude quote this book? Why would they quote from a fictional work like this? Well, as I argued in the previous podcast, I think that Peter wrote first and Jude quotes Peter throughout his letter, and thus we've answered why Jude would quote Enoch. Jude wrote after Peter, and he's quoting from Peter's letter. Since Peter quotes it, Jude quotes it too. But why would Peter quote it? Well, as you might expect, scholars put this together in all sorts of ways. Some say that because Peter and Jude quote Enoch, they must believe that it is a true story, but Peter and Jude were wrong. I reject that option because I don't think the apostles were wrong in their understanding. Without getting into a whole theology of inspiration, let me just remind you that Peter made the claim at the end of chapter one that like the Old Testament prophets, the apostles were given a true and accurate understanding of the message from God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He argues, I think that their understanding is divinely inspired, and therefore I don't think they were wrong. So that's one option. Another is that Peter and Jude couldn't possibly quote from first Enoch, and there must be some other document out there that we're not aware of. And some scholars suggest that passages such as Isaiah 14, 12 through 17, and Ezekiel 28, 11 through 9 might refer to the fall of Satan and other rebellious angels, and they think Peter is alluding to that incident. To give you the flavor of this, Isaiah 14, 12 through 17 occurs in the context of Israel taunting Babylon after they have been freed from exile. So back up in fourteen three and four of Isaiah it says, When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, then you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon, how the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased. And in that context he says down in twelve, this is twelve through seventeen, how you have fallen from heaven, O day star son of dawn, how you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low, you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high, I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the most high, but you are brought down to shoal to the far reaches of the pit. Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you. Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home? So in that context we see Isaiah telling Israel that after the exile is over and they're back in the land they will be able to look back at the king of Babylon and say, Where are you now? Look how you have fallen, look how the mighty have fallen. So given that context, it seems unlikely to me that Isaiah would start out assuring Israel that one day they will be in a position to taunt Babylon after God rescues them and judges Babylon, and then in the middle of that conversation start talking about the fall of Satan before the dawn of creation. It is a possible interpretation, but it seems like a stretch. Likewise, Ezekiel 28, 11 through 19 is a lament over the king of Tyree, and it seems to be stretching that passage to understand it as referring to Satan and the fallen angels. But I'll let you look at that one for yourself. A third option is that Peter and Jude are quoting Enoch, and Enoch is a true story. These scholars would say, yes, they quote it, and Enoch is an accurate understanding of Genesis six, though maybe not divinely inspired. Some modify that to say, well, Enoch is not true, but it's based on a true story. It's a fictionalized account of a true story that we are told in Genesis six. And even though Enoch itself is not scripture, it at least is telling a true story based on an accurate understanding of Genesis six. Well, again, there is so much in first Enoch that is clearly fiction, it's hard to believe that the author got Genesis six right, especially when there are other more straightforward interpretations of Genesis six. None of those options persuade me, so I'm gonna give you a fourth option, which is the way that makes the most sense to me, and that is that both Peter and Jude are in fact quoting this document of first Enoch, but that does not mean that that Peter and Jude believe Enoch tells a true story. Let me give you an analogy. As a teacher, I might quote Star Wars to you, but it does not mean that I believe Star Wars is a true story. Rather, I'm counting on your knowledge of popular culture to make a point. So I might use the force as an analogy to explain a theological point, but that would not mean that I believe the force is a real thing or that Star Wars is a true story. Teachers often refer to popular culture precisely because it's popular. I might refer to Star Wars, Harry Potter, or the latest Marvel superhero movie precisely because they are widely known, and I am counting on the fact that you are likely to be familiar with them to make my point. But my quoting them does not mean that I think they're true stories. And if I quote them in a talk on a passage of scripture, it certainly does not have to mean that I am elevating them to the level of scripture. I would quote them because they're popular, it's something I can count on my audience knowing and understanding the point I'm trying to make. Later in the chapter, Peter and Jude refer to false teachers as those who revile angelic majesties, and we're going to talk more about what that means when we Get to that verse because that verse is in the third major challenge of this chapter. That's in 2 Peter 2 10 and Jude 1.8. And again, we'll look at that in detail when we get there. But as I will argue, I think that this reference implies that the false teachers are also aware of these stories about the fallen angels who've sinned and face judgment. They too know the story about that is told in 1 Enoch and they reject it. Peter is also going to tell us that these false teachers are not looking to the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. So it gives us this picture that the false teachers are drawing a connection between Enoch and the Old Testament and saying something to the effect that, okay, Enoch is clearly a ridiculous story about angels. And look, the Old Testament speaks about angels too, so it is equally ridiculous, and you can just ignore all that stuff in the Old Testament. Now I'm going to explain more why how I put those pieces together when we get to verse 10. And granted, I am speculating based on clues in the text, but the clues at least leave open the possibility that the false teachers are attempting to draw some kind of equivalence between Enoch and the Old Testament with the intent of discrediting the Old Testament. So they might be claiming something like Enoch is clearly silly, and it's based on Genesis six, so Genesis six is clearly silly too. Like Enoch, Genesis talks about these fallen angels, and we all know that's ridiculous. No sophisticated modern person believes in angels. So you don't need to listen to anything in those old Jewish scriptures. You listen to us teachers instead. Granted, this is speculation. I'm putting clues together, but it's like looking at a puzzle where we don't have all the pieces. So we have to look at the pieces we have and say, what might the picture be? And that's where the speculation comes in. I'm putting clues together, but we don't have enough information to say with certainty that this is the picture. This is what the puzzle looks like. But in any case, by quoting Enoch, I would argue that Peter is not condoning it. If the false teachers are using Enoch to discredit the Old Testament, then Peter could be quoting it to counter their argument. And I want to suggest that Peter is arguing something like this. You false teachers think the lesson of First Enoch is that the Old Testament is unreliable because it talks about angels. But that's not the lesson you should learn from First Enoch. The lesson you should learn is that God judges sin. That fictional story in Enoch shows that even angels are judged when they rebel against God. So Peter and Jude are not asserting that Enoch is true by quoting it, rather they are quoting a piece of literature everyone is familiar with, just like teachers today might quote Marvel superheroes, Star Wars, or Harry Potter. And I would argue that Peter and Jude are quoting it to say you're drawing the wrong lesson from that story. The moral you should take away from that story is that judgment is coming. The lesson of Enoch is not that angels are to be reviled and rejected, and that any book that also talks about angels is to be rejected. The lesson you should be learning is that God judges rebellion even among the angels. So don't think that your judgment is idle and your destruction is asleep. God's judgment is certain and it is coming. Even your popular fiction tells you that. We're going to talk more about how I reached that conclusion when we put the whole sentence together and move on into the next section. But to summarize, I think that Peter and Jude do quote from this fictional book of 1 Enoch. I think they believe that book to be fiction, to be part of the popular literature of their day, and they quote it as fiction. And I think they quote it to further the larger point of the sentence that God judges rebellion. Might I be wrong on that understanding of 2 Peter 2.4? Absolutely. It is a difficult passage to figure out. That is my best guess at the time of this podcast, and I reserve the right to change my mind as more evidence and more study might reveal differences. Fortunately, his other examples don't present quite so many interpretive challenges. They elaborate on this theme that judgment is certain. He recalls Israel's history to remind us how God has acted in the past and therefore how we can predict he will act in the future, and we're gonna look at them in the next podcast. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to apply serious Bible study to real life and to help you learn how to study. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please do three things for me. Subscribe to it, rate and review it on your favorite podcast app, and tell a friend. And if you can only do one of those things, telling a friend is best. I do not accept advertising on my website, nor do I ask for donations, but it does encourage me to hear from you, and I'd love for you to email me through the website. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates, and you can find more of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I will see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.