They Knew

The Book of Enoch is just one of many writings that influenced the Israelite culture, but were excluded from the canon of our Christian Bible. The cultural influence, though, is historical evidence that the visions of Enoch were sufficiently relevant to affect humankind’s relationship with God in that region. When the Israelites were on the cusp of invading the promised land, the spies sent forth to investigate came back with fearful insertions of giant people, “There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” Num. 13:33. The spies who were afraid to invade Canaan invoked the age old (500+ years by then) legend of the progeny of the eternal spirits who impregnated women on earth. The assertion was totally effective, causing great fear and refusal of the people to follow God’s command. As a result, God forced the Israelites to spend 40 years wandering in the desert until all of that generation perished. The story was so embedded in Israelite culture that several verses of Deuteronomy are dedicated to a recollection of this event ( Dt. 1:28; 2:10,21; 9: 1-6).

Approximately 1,500 years later the Apostles were spreading the good news of God’s aggressive re-engagement with humankind through the incarnation of God’s Son, the Son’s teaching, crucifixion and ascension. In doing so they often had to combat false teaching (as we do today) which tried to bend God’s will to conform to human desires. Jesus’ brother Jude warned of the coming judgment of the Lord, invoking the prophesy of Enoch. “It was also about these, that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied saying , ‘See the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed…'” Jude 14. ¹

A final example is provided by the writer in his Letter to the Hebrews, perhaps the most eloquent writing in the New Testament.² The letter is essentially a sermon preaching the reality that God speaks to humankind in intervals in many ways and forms, along with the injunction, “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking…” Heb. 12:25. The writer incorporates the entire sweep of history known to Hebrews. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets…” Heb. 1:1. “By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and ‘he was not found, because God had taken him.’ For it was attested before he was taken away that ‘he had pleased God’ Heb. 11:5. The writer began with Abel, moved to Enoch, then Noah, then Abraham, all reckoned as righteous by their faith; not simply believing in the existence of God, but wholly trusting God in all their human actions and decisions.

It occurs to me that the value of literature describing God’s interaction with humankind during the primeval period of history is to inform us that God has always interacted with humankind since Creation. God has always rewarded faith. God has always taken into God’s eternal embrace those whose faithfulness pleased God. And further, the reality of God’s interaction with humankind was known to humankind from the very beginning, and this theological knowledge (faith) was considered sufficiently important to life and culture to have been preserved and recollected in scripture for thousands of years.

Finally, and most interesting to me, theologically, is the notion that God has accepted humankind as God created us, cracked vessels that we are. God acknowledged to Noah after the flood that the human propensity to sin had not changed. It seems plausible that there may have been other factors that caused God to bring the flood. So, perhaps in my relationship with God I should focus more on God’s love for me as I am and less on God’s disappointment with me as I am.

1. Jude modernized Enoch’s vision, replacing God’s coming in judgment to the return of the Lord (Jesus Christ).
2. For centuries, authorship was ascribed to Paul, but may well have been Timothy or Barnabas.