Transcription
I guess I probably only have time for one more topic, and you've done a video on this as well on your YouTube channel. Once again, we will put a link to this in the description, so please go check that out as soon as you're done watching this. Go click, go watch; he's got some great stuff and some shorter and longer videos on Canon and on a bunch of different topics as well.
But specifically, when it comes to the Book of Enoch, this has become a very touchy subject. We did an entire hour and a half, I believe, episode on the topic. I mean, the Book of Enoch, because people see it quoted in the book of Jude and say, "Wow, have we been hidden? Are these books hidden from us? Is Enoch supposed to be in the Bible, and are we really supposed to have it?"
So, I just got to ask you: why would Jude quote from Enoch if it's not supposed to be in the Bible? And should the Book of Enoch be in the Bible?
Yeah, it's a good question because, like you said, the only unambiguous quote in the book of Jude is from what we refer to as First Enoch. This was a very popular piece of Jewish literature in the decades previous to Jesus and clearly in the time frame of Jesus because Jude quotes it as something that he clearly thinks his audience is aware of and interested in.
I think we can say a few things. The Enoch that Enoch is named after is attributed to the great-grandfather of Noah. From the time frame that this particular document comes from, I think we can unanimously say that Enoch was not the author. So, although it's pretty ancient, the only existing full copy we have of First Enoch is from the 15th century, and it's in Ethiopic.
But fragments of different sections in Coptic, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic all exist, although they only contain portions of the documents. They contain enough that we can say, "Okay, we know what this is talking about," because we can compare it to the later Ethiopic manuscript that we have.
Like I said, while the author of the book is attributed to Enoch of Genesis, who's the great-grandfather of Noah, the writing itself probably doesn't go older than the 400s BC. Some sections that exist today, we can actually say, were written after the time frame of Jesus.
So, it wasn't a complete document. What we refer to as First Enoch now is kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of different writings that come together. It's true that during the Hellenistic period of Judaism, starting about 200 years before Jesus, many ancient Biblical characters became the subject of extra-biblical and apocryphal literature.
These are documents that we refer to sometimes as the pseudepigrapha. So think of "pseudo" meaning false and "graphia," right? Graphic means writing. Those are two Greek words, and so think of these as false writings. They have an author attributed to them, but we know that that wasn't the author of the actual document.
What we do have, we can trace the earliest portions of what we call First Enoch to both Aramaic writing and style. That's important because the books of our Old Testament we can all trace in their originality to Hebrew, and we can't do that for Enoch. We can't actually do that for any of the other deuterocanonical books that are in the Catholic Bible either. They all have either an Aramaic or a Greek origination, and that means that we can actually pinpoint the time frame that they're being written in.
Both Aramaic and Greek come after Hebrew. At least Aramaic, in some capacity, comes after Hebrew. It was the language that was spoken in Babylon, and so after the Babylonian exile, when the Jews come back to Jerusalem, that's why they're speaking Aramaic in Jesus's time.
By that point, they were saturated in Aramaic culture and language. So, by the time you get to Jesus, that's just what they're speaking. Then, obviously, the Greeks under Alexander the Great take over the ancient world, and Greek becomes the language of the ancient world.
If these documents are coming in these later languages, it's usually, not always, but usually a red flag that this is probably later.
Now, I think what we can say is that the book of First Enoch is interesting. It tells us a lot about what Jews, particularly in the time around Jesus, were thinking about things like angels and demons, and there's sort of this apocalyptic flavor to it.
But beyond that, we do know that the Jews of Jesus's time did not consider it scripture. We do know that the Jews considered it a valuable piece of literature, like other valuable pieces of literature. But I think just because Jude quotes it doesn't then necessitate that it is scripture any more than when Paul quotes philosophers or Roman philosophers that he thinks those are scripture.
What I think the authors of the New Testament do occasionally is draw from material that their immediate audience is aware of, would understand, and then they use that as supporting literature to make particular points. That's exactly what Paul is doing when he's connecting with the Greek Gentiles in the book of Acts. He's quoting their philosophers and then using that sort of point of commonality to articulate a particular theological point about the truthfulness of the gospel over and above the philosophy of the Gentiles.
I think Jude is doing that to some degree. The book doesn't need to be inspired to be useful, and Enoch appears to be both common enough for Jude to quote it in his epistle, assuming his audience knew what was being talked about, and that the stories within it contained kernels of truth that Jude is willing to draw from.
So, I think when we're talking about the Book of Enoch, we shouldn't be scared of it. In fact, I have on my bookshelf a copy of the Book of Enoch right here—First Enoch. It's in translation from the Aramaic and Coptic. So, you know, if you're interested, go read it. We shouldn't shy away from being exposed to these documents, but I think it's important to remember that the Jews in Jesus's day never considered it scripture.
There's a reason why we don't consider it scripture. It's sort of an amalgamation of different writings that get grouped together, associated with some particular thoughts on what was going on around the time of the flood and some angel and demonology that was kind of being articulated and fleshed out in the decades and centuries around Jesus's time frame.
So, it's good, it's useful, it's interesting; it's not inspired. Read it out of interest, but don't read it for devotional material necessarily.
No, I think that is such an excellent answer. We have been talking with Wesley Huff, and I want you guys to go check out not only his YouTube channel, but also connect with him on Facebook and Instagram and so forth.
Also, go to WesleyHuff.com. I know that you have a number of resources on there, and there are things on there you can go and grab. I know you have entire presentations on Islam, on the Trinity, and I believe how we got the Bible. There are just wonderful infographics that you've put together that people can grab and look and learn.
I know I'd love to have you on the show and just talk Islam in the future. Being from Pakistan and now having your background on studying the scripture, I think that'd be awesome.
But you have been an absolute blessing, and I hope you guys check out more of his stuff because I think you're going to put out some more and more good stuff as you continue going down this road. You're an awesome brother, and I want to thank you for joining us today.
Yeah, no, thank you, Chad. Praise the Lord, and God bless you guys. Make sure to check out WesleyHuff.com and also go check him out on YouTube, Facebook, and everywhere else. God bless you guys!