Tag: Enoch

The Nephilim are Something Else

Posted on by jovial_cynic

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
Genesis 6:4 (NIV)

If you look very closely, Genesis 6 does not actually say the Nephilim are the offspring of the sons of God and human women. It merely says they were present then and afterwords.

Whether they are the offspring or not is unclear, but other later writings outside the Bible (the book of Enoch, Jubilees) suggest so.

If they are not the offspring of the “sons of God” and the good daughters of humanity, the Haman (who is associated with “falling,” like the word “Nephilim) connection is stronger, as Haman is not a son of Xerxes in the book of Esther.

Peter and Jude quote Enoch

Posted on by jovial_cynic

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;
2 Peter 2:4 (NIV)

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones
Jude 1:14 (NIV)

The books of 2 Peter and Jude have passages that seems to quote from the Book of Enoch, which is not in our Bibles. While this book is not Scripture, the point is that Jude, Pete, and their contemporaries were familiar with the text.

The book of Enoch says angels had sex with human women. Giants were born in those days, and in the days afterwards.

Patterns in the Ages

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Genesis is full of patterns that are intended to draw your attention; breaks in the repetition should make you stop and ask, “Why?”

Genesis 5 lists the ages in the generations between Adam and Noah, and a few stand out. The youngest, the oldest, and the one with the strange number.

Methuselah lived the longest – 969 years. His name is linked to his long life, which was not just for his benefit, but for the benefit of humanity as God restrained the Flood until after Methuselah died.

Enoch notably never died.

And Lamech? He shares a name with a notable man in Cain’s genealogy. Cain’s Lamech is man of seventy-seven-fold vengeance. But the Lamech of Genesis 5 goes down a different path. Not one of vengeance, but of Comfort.

10

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Now Jared lived 162 years, and fathered Enoch…
Now Enoch lived sixty-five years, and fathered Methuselah…
Now Methuselah lived 187 years, and fathered Lamech…
Genesis 5:18, 21, 25 (NASB)

Now Lamech lived 182 years, and fathered a son. And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.”
Genesis 5:28-29 (NASB)

For the Rabbis, 7 is “perfection,” and 10 is “completion.”

Tenth from Adam, we have another oddity. It’s the first time the name of the son is not immediately shown. Everywhere else, it would have said, “and fathered Noah.” Instead, it pauses. So we, too, must pause.

Walked with God

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Now Enoch lived sixty-five years, and fathered Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he fathered Methuselah, and he fathered other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Genesis 5:21-24 (NASB)

The Rabbis, believing that 7 is God’s perfection, see the 7th from Adam and find an oddity: a man whose years match the days around the sun, pointing to Light and the garden where God walked.

Was Enoch “Raptured?”

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Genesis 5:24 (NIV)

Some believe in the “Rapture,” a future event where God will simply whoosh Christian believers away into heaven before the “Great Tribulation,” where God’s judgement is poured out like liquid from a bowl that floods the world in God’s wrath.

They look at Enoch as an example, who is also taken up.

This does make some of us wonder why Noah, who was called “righteous in his generation” was not taken into heaven like Enoch.