March 2023

On Genesis, Part 10: The Sins of Men and Angels

The pitiful condition of the surviving portions of the Enoch literature and other apocryphal or pseudepigraphal works, such as the Genesis Apocryphon of the Qumran sect, may not present an absolutely reliable picture of all of the details of the sins of men and angels, but compared to the words of the apostles of Christ we may at least understand some of the underlying truths which they have preserved to some degree. So, as we discussed in our last presentation here, Perfect in His Race, the apostle Jude in his one brief epistle had warned of infiltrators into the Body of Christ who would introduce corruption, and had associated them with the fallen angels of antiquity. Both Peter and Paul had warned similarly. Then, as we had already mentioned in Part 8 of this commentary, Giants and the Sons of God, in Colossians chapter 2 Paul of Tarsus wrote in reference to the humiliation which is found in the worship of angels, where he must have been speaking of those same fallen angels. Then in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, speaking of the pagan worship of the nations of Roman Europe, he wrote “18 Behold Israel down through the flesh: are not those who are eating the sacrifices partners of the altar?”, and in reference to that same thing a little further on, he continued and wrote that “20 … whatever the Nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. Now I do not wish for you to be partners with demons.”

So in those two passages, Paul had equated the pagan religions with the worship of both angels and demons, and the meaning of his words cannot be completely reconciled with the writings of the Old Testament without the Enoch literature. So in Charles’ edition of 1 Enoch chapter 19 we read: “1. And Uriel said to me: ‘Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons as gods, (here shall they stand), till the day of the great judgement in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of.’” This in turn accords with the words of Christ, where we read in Revelation chapter 20 that the devil, the beast, and the false prophet shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, and in Matthew chapter 25 where He attests that the goat nations – those nations who are not His sheep – have their destiny in the “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Only their origin explains the reason why they are not found written in the Book of Life.

On Genesis, Part 9: Perfect in His Race

According to all of the evidence which we had discussed in our last presentation, The Giants and the Sons of God, we would assert that we have justification based on the merits of many valid reasons for our interpretation of the text of Genesis chapter 6. Therefore, where in the Masoretic Text it mentions “sons of God” in verses 2 and 4 of the chapter, we would amend it to instead read “sons of heaven”, or perhaps “angels”. Then where the popular translations have the word “giants”, we would interpret the Hebrew word nephilim to instead read “fallen ones”, which Wilhelm Gesenius himself had admitted was a valid reading, even if it was not the reading which he preferred, and as he also admitted, that it was also the choice of more than one presumably academic interpreter of the past. Doing this, the Genesis chapter 6 account is fully reconciled with the words of Yahshua Christ and his apostles in the New Testament, where if we ignore the witnesses which lead us to these conclusions, then Genesis remains in conflict with Christ and the apostles, or at the very least, it offers no support for many of their statements. But as Christians, we have an obligation to understand Genesis through the understanding which Christ has provided, and therefore we shall not disregard the evidence by which Genesis agrees with His words. This is what Paul of Tarsus had meant when he asserted that “16… we have the mind of Christ” in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, that word for mind describing the perceiving and understanding which we can have through His words. Therefore we have no obligation to cling to the Masoretic Text if valid and more ancient sources are found to better agree with the words of Christ.

In his one short epistle, the apostle Jude warned about certain men who had infiltrated the body of Christ, and admonished Christians to defend “the faith having been delivered to the saints”, whereafter he wrote: “4 For some men have stolen in, those of old having been written about beforetime for this judgment, godless men, substituting the favor of our God for licentiousness and denying our only Master and Prince, Yahshua Christ.” Here it is evident that first, these men can not in any way be appropriate candidates for conversion to Christianity even if they had entered and joined Christian assemblies. Then secondly, Jude is identifying them with “those of old having been written about beforetime for this judgment”, where it is evident that their origins cannot be from of Israel, or even from of God, as Christ had also said to His adversaries that “ye are from beneath” and “ye are not of God”, among other things which had denied them the claim that God was their father, as it is recorded in John chapter 8. These things, along with the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares and other things which had been explained by Christ, all make it evident that there was a race, or races, of men whose origin is other than that of Adam, and who were condemned from the beginning. So, speaking directly of certain men, Christ had also said that “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be uprooted!” The only way to account for these things in Genesis is in our interpretation of this chapter, and in the identifying of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Serpent of the garden with the fallen angels of Revelation chapter 12, which is also the identification provided by Christ Himself. Furthermore, where Jude wrote “those of old having been written about beforetime for this judgment”, he must have been referring to writings which are now deemed apocryphal, such as Enoch whom he cites later in his epistle, because these condemnations are not found explicitly on these same terms in our Old Testament canon as it is presently.

On Genesis, Part 7: The Book of the Race of Adam

In our last presentation, The Blooming of Trees, we had seen and discussed the descendants of Cain and some of their characteristics and attitudes, and commented upon how the enemies of Christ had exhibited those same traits, according to Christ Himself in John chapter 8 and elsewhere. However the similarity in characteristics should indeed be expected, as Christ Himself had also informed His adversaries that they were descended from Cain, in Matthew chapter 23 and in Luke chapter 11, and that is something which the historical narrative presented in Scripture and in certain classical histories clearly substantiates. Christ had also attested that the tree is known by its fruit, and therefore we may ascertain that His adversaries were inherently evil due to the nature of their origin. That is the reason which Christ Himself had given for their wickedness, explaining to them that they had naturally behaved in the same manner as their father. This certainly also evokes the old adage, that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

That in turn had also led us to a discussion of the sin of the fallen angels as it is remembered in the Book of Enoch, from the edition of 1 Enoch which was translated from the Ethiopic manuscripts by R. H. Charles. Part of the motivation for that is the fact that in a very short time, Cain’s descendants had taken up some of the same occupations which were ascribed to the sin of the fallen angels, that they had taught men the use of metals and the creation of implements of war. Additionally, it is evident in the context of Genesis chapter 4 that Cain must have obtained a wife from outside, and the only evident source for such a wife would be those same fallen angels. But there I had also explained that we should not accept 1 Enoch itself as canon, because it seems to contain many interpolations and embellishments which have been interspersed with whatever may have been the original text, and even entire books of dubious value were inserted among its chapters. However 1 Enoch does reflect many of the things which are described in the fragments of Enoch literature which were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and by that we may have insight into the state of the wider world in which Adam had been created. As Paul of Tarsus had said in his first epistle to the Corinthians, “now we see through a mirror in riddles”, or as it is in the King James Version, “now we see through a glass darkly”. But even that is not an excuse to close our eyes and act blindly.

On Genesis, Part 6: The Blooming of Trees

In our last presentation of the Book of Genesis, Truth and Consequences and the opening verses of Genesis chapter 4, we hope to have once again fully established as fact the consequences of Eve’s sin, as it is described in Genesis chapter 3, where three times it was acknowledged that she had already conceived, and that therefore, in spite of the surface reading of Genesis 4:1, she was already pregnant when “Adam knew his wife”. Doing this, we cited several other Scriptures, both apocryphal and canonical, which are in agreement with this interpretation. But there is no Scripture in canon which explicitly disagrees with it, and therefore our witnesses must stand, and Cain must have been the literal son of the “wicked one”, as the apostle John had explained in his first epistle. With this understanding it also must be admitted that Genesis 4:1 cannot be a record of Eve’s conception, as she was already impregnated where she had been admonished in Genesis chapter 3. For that same reason Adam had already called her name Eve because “she was the mother of all living”, and in that manner he had also acknowledged that she was already with child.

But Adam, having accepted his wife’s sin, was also compelled to accept what was in her womb, and even after his punishment was declared, he may not have even been fully cognizant of the troubles which his sin would cause him in the future. So it is apparent that for that reason, Adam had raised both Cain and Abel as his own sons, and the immediate consequences of the sin in the garden once again became apparent in the murder of Abel. The name Abel is interesting in this regard, as the Hebrew term הבל, hebel or habel (Strong’s #’s 1891-93), as a verb is to breathe, and as a noun it means breath or therefore also vanity, since breath is representative of something that is transitory. However the words for breath also provide expression for the concept of spirit in both Hebrew and in Greek. Although Abel’s life may have been of brief duration, as Paul of Tarsus had explained in chapter 11 of his epistle to the Hebrews, “4 By faith Abel offered to Yahweh a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he was accredited to be righteous, having testified of Yahweh by his gifts, and being slain because of it he still speaks.”