by lurk3r 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
As I said above, the NT itself is influenced by 1 Enoch. The passage in Jude with the familiar passage about angels sinning before the Flood (v. 6) is clearly influenced by 1 Enoch. And then a few verses later, the author directly quotes from 1 Enoch. See my thread on this for more details:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/85223/1/Jude-and-1-Enoch
Marking this for future reading.
Thanks Leolaia - this is great stuff.
Nephilim: They were these really big and mean guys (no girls were born this way, only boys) who were 1/2 human and 1/2 vampire, and they lived a long time ago but drowned cuz they refused to get into the FEMA boat. Their dads were full vampire and could live forever, so they didn't drown. Now, why didn't they try and save their kids? What kind of hateful fathers were they?!
That was it the book of Enoch. That program listed many books that didn't make the Bible.Very intersting post Leolaia thanks for posting it.I am learning so much from this site.
O.N.
Sons of God would have been Seth generation, and the daughters of man could have been daughters of the Nephilium,Cains generation.
Actually, no. This is a late demythologizing interpretation that first appears in the third century AD in Julius Africanus (in contrast to all early interpreters, including the LXX and the NT) and which was later popular in Protestantism, but which is linguistically and contextually invalid. The expressions bny h-'lhym, bny 'lym "sons of God" always refer to divine beings where they occur throughout the OT, otherwise called "gods", "holy ones", the "assembly of El", the "morning stars", the "stars of El", etc. So they receive nations as their inheritance in the same way that Yahweh inherited Israel (Deuteronomy 32:8), the "Satan" of Job is depicted as gathered with the "sons of God" in front of Yahweh (Job 1:6, 2:1), the "sons of God" were in existence before the earth was created (Job 38:7), they are in the heavens in the "assembly of the holy ones" (Psalm 29:1, 89:5-7, cf. 82:1), etc. This is parallel to the bn il(m) of Canaanite literature. Never does the term occur elsewhere with reference to humans, nor does it refer to one particular group of people in distinction from another. Moreover, it is against the context of Genesis 6:1-4 to regard the bny h-'lhym as a subdivision of humanity instead of external to mankind. Verse 1 refers to daughters being born to h-'dm "people", a term commonly translated as "men" but in fact h-'dm is generic and not gendered. The h-'dm in v. 1 is clearly not one group of people (e.g. the Cainites) but humanity in general. This is clear from v. 5-6:
"Yahweh saw that the wickedness of the people (h-'dm) was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of thier hearts was only evil continually. And Yahweh was sorry that he had made humankind (h-'dm) on the earth, and it grived him to his heart. So Yahweh said: 'I will blot out from the earth the human beings (h-'dm) I have created, people (h-'dm) together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air".
It is clear here that h-'dm does not refer to only one subgrouping, the Cainites. God did not create just the Cainites, he created humankind. And it wasn't just the Cainites that the Flood would wipe out — all humans and animals were to be destroyed by the Flood. So the Sethite interpretation of Genesis 6 erroneously restricts the meaning of h-'dm to just the Cainites in v. 2, 4 without noticing that h-'dm refers to humankind in general in v. 1, 5, 6, and throughout the rest of the OT. This is quite absurd since "daughters of men" would mean something different in v. 2 than it means in v. 1.
So indeed, the notion in the passage is that divine beings came down from heaven to mate with human women. 1 Enoch develops that notion further and draws on rather old Canaanite and Babylonian mythology and the developed mythology of 1 Enoch, in turn, influenced the NT in various ways. The notion of gods marrying women is a familiar one in ANE mythology, whether we're talking about the demigods of the Greeks or the godmen of ancient Mesopotamian legend. It is worthy to note that the Nephilim in Genesis 6 are described as "men of fame" (v. 4). Well, if they're so famous, then who are they? Who was a famous Nephilim? How about the most famous legendary hero of Mesopotamia — Gilgamesh. He was the subject of the most famous literary epic of the ancient world until the time of Homer; the Epic of Gilgamesh was read throughout the ANE, with copies preserved in Assyria, the Hittite capital Hattushas in Asia Minor, the Syrian kingdom of Ugarit, and even in ancient Canaan at Megiddo. Gilgamesh was a historical real-life king of the Early Dynastic period of Sumer, but he was deified and made the center of myths and legends (much like the historical Arthur has receded behind Arthurian legend). In these legends, Gilgamesh was part man and part god; his mother was the goddess Ninsun and his father was the king Lugalbanda, and Lugalbanda himself was a demigod descended from both gods and men. Is there any evidence that Gilgamesh was considered to be a Nephilim by the Jews? Yes. The Enochic Book of Giants (dating to the third century BC) discovered at Qumran names "Gilgamesh" as one of the giants before the Flood.
thank you everyone
Junkie- i will definietly keep the book in mind..thanks.
Farkel- I hear what your saying. Perhaps there is all a little more to this than the blatently obvious? No disrespect intended.
Leolala- Havent read the link yet, but i did read the post. Thanks for that.
So there is in your opinion, and I presume the Bible's perhaps, that there is/was a God Higher than Jehovah? El-Elyon? I'm really slow getting on my feet here, but they merged? Is there anything in the bible to support this? Myth or not, if they merged together and had all the other gods; that in essence turned them into angels, why didn' t they form a union? <------i think i read this somewhere else...
With this idiom regarding "son of" - "son of God" may mean God? Am i even in the right ballpark here?Please excuse my ignorance.
OK. (whew) So the original angels that came down, they are locked in Tartarus. An angel is a spirit, right? These particular Angels are immortal. Their offspring, the Nephilim, after they died (drowned) in the flood , their spirit (soul?demon?) stayed here on earth. Since they were in human bodies before as you mentioned, they have fleshly desires and therefore desire to live in different bodies. Your right, the Jewish version is easier to understand, but i like it all. Thank you. once again thank you and if you wouldnt mind explaining to me what I am wrong about, or point me where i can come to better understand?
ok. Mark 5. I read the account and I read it from the Gideonites Bible?its not the NWT so im guessing its better?
Do you think the Spirits in "Leigion" are Nephilim leftovers?Just asking as you point out the irony of their drowning. Mark 5:5 indicates this man was in rough shape. He cut himself with stones all cried out all the time. Why ever did he beg Jesus to not send them out? Even the demons wanted out according to vs 12, THEY even begged Jesus. Leigion says "lets keep em in",demons (souls?) say "ok,we want out." (perhaps cause it was gods decision to put them there?Hence they needed permission to get out?)
The demons wanted to go into the unclean animal. Was "Legion" unclean BEFORE the demons were in him?
All this water talk is opposite of hellfire , any connection there?
Thanks so much for your time, especially on these kind of posts. My Firefox 3 cut and paste function is being difficult....will try and make sure i add better clarifications next time.
lurk3r
So there is in your opinion, and I presume the Bible's perhaps, that there is/was a God Higher than Jehovah? El-Elyon? I'm really slow getting on my feet here, but they merged? Is there anything in the bible to support this?
It depends on what part of the Bible you are talking about. In Deutero-Isaiah (written during the exilic period), we have unambiguous monotheism -- there is no other god than Yahweh. But it is different in some of the older parts of the OT (e.g. Numbers 21:29, Deuteronomy 6:14-15, 32:8, Judges 11:24, 2 Samuel 26:29, 2 Kings 5:17, Psalm 82:1, 86:8, Micah 4:5, etc.). There we encounter henotheism, which holds that other gods exist but only Yahweh should be worshipped (by Israel). In the passages about Chemosh, for instance, Yahweh and Chemosh are placed on the same level as blessing their own respective nations and Chemosh is responsible for the fate of his people in the same way Yahweh was for Israel. Deuteronomy 32:8 is a key text, as it says that Yahweh was allotted Israel when Elyon divided the nations, just as the other "sons of God" were allotted their nations by Elyon. Yahweh was allotted Israel just as Chemosh was allotted Moab. This concept fits well with what is stated in Judges 11:24; the boundary between Israel and Moab should not be in dispute because the existing borders were already established by the gods.
I recommend the books The Early History of God by Mark S. Smith and Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan by John Day if you are interested in studying the literary and archaeological evidence in detail. There are also many extrabiblical preexilic texts about Yahweh that are clearly henotheistic. The Yahwism of the prophets during this period did not presume ontological monotheism but rather had two concerns: (1) Israel should not worship the other gods of the nations (Yahweh is a jealous god and his people should worship him), and (2) worship should be aniconic and not involve the use of idols. The latter point is of special concern for Yahwism because in fact the Israelites did worship Yahweh with idols (he was usually depicted as a calf or a bull).
Yes, originally El and Yahweh were separate gods. El was the head of the Canaanite pantheon (as the aged father of the gods and creator of the world) and was worshipped in the Levant for many centuries before Israel arose. Yahweh, on the other hand, appears in the historical record at the time Israel emerges as a nation. El appears frequently in Genesis in traditions associated with the early patriarchs, as the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. See, for instance, names like 'l-`lywn "El-Elyon" (Genesis 14:18, 19, 20, 22, which has the associated title qnh-shmym-w-'rts "creator of heaven and earth" that frequently was used of El in shortened form in Canaanite texts; cf. also Psalm 78:35), 'l-r'y "El-Roi" (Genesis 16:13), 'l-shdy "El-Shaddai" (Genesis 17:1, 28:2, 35:11, 43:14, 48:3, 49:25, Exodus 6:2, etc.), 'l-`wlm "El-Olam" (Genesis 21:33), and many other examples in Genesis 33:20, 35:7, 46:3, and 49:25. See also the temple of El-berith in Judges 9:46. The very early Blessing of Jacob in Genesis 49 (dating to the tenth century BC or earlier) presents a series of traditional epithets and qualities pertaining to El: "His hands were made strong by the Bull of Jacob ('byr y`qb), by the strength of the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel, by El your Father ('l 'byk) who helps you, by Shaddai (shdy) who blesses you, with also the blessings of the Heavens from above, the blessings of the Deep crouching below (thwm rbtst tcht), and the blessings of Breasts and Womb (shdym-w-rchm)" (v. 24-25). Another major passage in the OT preserving early El tradition can be found in the oracles of Balaam in Numbers 24. In v. 16, Balaam uses Elyon and Shaddai as epithets of El in poetic parallelism: "The oracle of one who hears the word of El, who has knowledge from Elyon, who sees a vision from Shaddai". Shaddai ("the One of the Mountain") and Elyon ("Most High") are both most common epithets of El. The Aramaic 8th-century BC Book of Balaam son of Beor from Deir 'Alla (which was in the land of Gilead at the time) is also non-Yahwistic and presents Balaam as a prophet of El and who received a vision regarding the Shaddai-gods from El: "The gods came to him at night and he beheld a vision in accordance with El's utterance ... the Shaddai-gods have established a council ... El satisfied himself and then El fashioned himself an eternal house" (Combination I, lines 1-3, 7-8, Combination II, lines 6-7). Also It is El and not Yahweh that occurs as a theophoric element in names in Genesis like Ishmael, Eliezer, Eldaah, Israel, Bethel, Peniel, Reuel, etc. (Genesis 15:2, 16:11, 25:4, 28:19, 32:28, 30, 36:4).
Yahweh on the other hand does not occur as a theophoric element until Exodus 6:20 which names Jochebed ("Yah is glory") as the mother of Moses. But interestingly, she is unnamed in ch. 2; it is only in ch. 6, AFTER the relevation of the name at the burning bush in ch. 3-4 that the narrative names her as Jochebed. This onomatological evidence fits well with the Priestly and Elohistic versions of the burning bush story, which presents the name Yahweh as revealed subsequent to the time of the early partriarchs, but also identified with them. Note especially the comment in Exodus 6:3: "I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El-Shaddai but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them". This reflects rather well the historical situation, that the Israelites identified Yahweh with the El worshipped by the Canaanites. Yahweh, on the other hand, appears to be a god from the land of Midian and Edom, and there is some early Egyptian references to Yahweh as the god of the Shasu of the Edomites. Yahweh was thus introduced into Canaan by the portion of the population that came from the south (bringing with them the exodus and wilderness traditions) and subsequently identified with El. Thus Yahweh acquires El's bovine form (as found in the accounts of the golden calf of Jeroboam and the Aaronite priesthood), as well as his consort Asherah. There is some indication that subsequently in the postexilic period Asherah merged with Yahweh as a feminine hypostasis (e.g. as his "presence", "face", "glory", Shekinah, etc.), paralleled by a similar late development in Phoenician religion.
Myth or not, if they merged together and had all the other gods; that in essence turned them into angels, why didn' t they form a union? <------i think i read this somewhere else...
I'm not sure what you mean by "union". But once ontological monotheism was in place as the cultically sanctioned theology, there was no room for other "gods". They either didn't exist, or the beings formerly regarded as "gods" were now considered as some lesser form of being.
With this idiom regarding "son of" - "son of God" may mean God? Am i even in the right ballpark here? Please excuse my ignorance.
No problem, you're quite close. I would say "god" rather than "God" is more accurate. Also the term 'lhym (i.e. 'elohim), although morphologically plural, may easily refer to a singular god other than Yahweh without involving any purported "plural of majesty". Baal is called an 'elohim (Judges 6:31, 1 Kings 18:25, 27), Baal-berith is called an 'elohim (Judges 8:33), Dagon is called an 'elohim (1 Samuel 5:7), Baal-Zebul is the 'elohim of the city of Ekron (2 Kings 1:2-3, 6, 16), even the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel is called an 'elohim (1 Samuel 28:13).
OK. (whew) So the original angels that came down, they are locked in Tartarus.
Well, that is the view in 1 Enoch, Jude 6, and 2 Peter 2:4.
An angel is a spirit, right? These particular Angels are immortal. Their offspring, the Nephilim, after they died (drowned) in the flood , their spirit (soul?demon?) stayed here on earth. Since they were in human bodies before as you mentioned, they have fleshly desires and therefore desire to live in different bodies. Your right, the Jewish version is easier to understand, but i like it all. Thank you. once again thank you and if you wouldnt mind explaining to me what I am wrong about, or point me where i can come to better understand?
This is fleshed out especially in Jubilees (written in the middle of the second century BC); the evil spirits are the children of the Watchers (10:5), and after the Flood they lead the sons of Noah into sin (7:26-28, 10:1-2), and Noah asks God to imprison them but their chief Prince Mastema reaches a compromise with God that allows one-tenth of their number to be allowed to live on the earth (10:8-11). But here are some relevant texts from 1 Enoch:
1 Enoch 10:4-6, 11-13: "To Raphael he said, 'Go, Raphael and bind Asael hand and foot and cast him into the dense darkness ... so that he may be sent to the fire on the great day of judgment'.... And to Michael he said, 'Go, Michael, bind Shemihazah and the others with him, who have mated with the daughters of men, so that they were defiled by them in their uncleanness. And when their sons perish and they see the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment and consummation, until the everlasting judgment is concluded. Then they will be led away to the fiery abyss and to the torture, and to the prison where they will be confined forever".
1 Enoch 15:3-12: "Why have you forsaken the high heaven, the eternal abode, and married women and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men, and taken for yourselves wives, and done as the sons of the earth, and begotten for yourselves giant sons? You were holy ones and spirits living forever. With the blood of women you have defiled yourselves, and with the blood of the flesh you have begotten, and with the blood of men you have lusted, and you have done as they do, flesh and blood who die and perish. Therefore I gave them women, that they might cast seed into them, and thus beget children by them, that nothing fail them on the earth. But you originally existed as spirits, living forever and not dying for all the generations of eternity; therefore I did not make women among you. The proper abode of spirits of heaven is heaven, but now the giants who were begotten by the spirits and flesh, they will call them evil spirits on the earth, for their dwelling will be on the earth. The spirits that have gone forth from the body of their flesh are evil spirits, for from humans they came into being, and from the holy Watchers was the origin of their creation. Evil spirits they will be on the earth, and evil spirits they will be called. The spirits of heaven have heaven as their proper abode, but the spirits begotten on the earth have the earth as their abode. And the spirits of the giants lead astray, do violence, make desolate, and attack and wrestle and hurl upon the earth and cause sickness. They eat nothing, but abstain from food and are thirsty and smite. These spirits will rise up against the sons of men and against the women, for they have come forth from them".
Compare:
Jude 6-8: "As for the angels forsook their own domain and abandoned their proper abode, God has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Likewise Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in the same way indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh and are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.... [They are] wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever".
ok. Mark 5. I read the account and I read it from the Gideonites Bible?its not the NWT so im guessing its better? Do you think the Spirits in "Leigion" are Nephilim leftovers?
The Jewish belief at the time was that evil spirits were the spirits of the Nephilim (or giants) who died in the Flood, so although the author does not make this explicit, I think it is probable background.
Just asking as you point out the irony of their drowning. Mark 5:5 indicates this man was in rough shape. He cut himself with stones all cried out all the time. Why ever did he beg Jesus to not send them out? Even the demons wanted out according to vs 12, THEY even begged Jesus. Leigion says "lets keep em in",demons (souls?) say "ok,we want out." (perhaps cause it was gods decision to put them there?Hence they needed permission to get out?)
They recognized that Jesus had the Holy Spirit and the "finger of God" to expel demons (Matthew 9:34, 10:8, 12:24-28, Mark 3:15, 22, etc.), and that he was expelling demons in the land, and the demons "knew who he was" (Mark 1:34), so the concept is probably that the demons begged Jesus to send them into swine because they recognized that they were going to be expelled. The comment in Luke 11:24-26 is noteworthy in this context: "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there". Notice that they cannot seek rest until they find a new house of their own to dwell in. The evil spirits preferred to dwell in the flesh of swine right then and there, rather than have to wander in the wilderness seeking a new host.
The demons wanted to go into the unclean animal. Was "Legion" unclean BEFORE the demons were in him?
The narrative does not say. But it is certainly true that it was widely thought that morally suspect people invite demons to dwell in them. There are some great passages in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Shepherd of Hermas that discuss this in greater detail and show what the belief was at the time.
All this water talk is opposite of hellfire , any connection there?
Possibly. 2 Peter 3 draws a parallel between the fire that destroys the world and the waters of the Flood, although here the fire is clearly not "hellfire". 1 Enoch however has a rather developed concept of fire as eternal punishment and it draws parallels between the Flood and eternal fire.
The Two Wise Men and the Seven Sisters
told by Josie Boyle
In the beginning of Yulbrada, the Earth, the Creator, Jindoo-the Sun, sent two Spirit men, Woddee Gooth-tha-rra, to shape it. They were from the far end of the Milky Way.
They made the hills, the valleys, the lakes and the ocean. When they had nearly completed their work, Jindoo the Creator sent seven sisters, stars of the Milky Way, to beautify the earth with flowers, with trees, with birds, animals and other creepy things.
The Seven Sisters were making the Honey Ants when they all got thirsty and they said to the younger sister, 'Go and look for some gubbee, some nice water. Over there, in the hills. Go in that direction'. The little young sister took the yandee dish and she went in search of the water.
The Woddee Gooth-tha-rra, the two spirit men, they were in the bushes and they were spying on these women. They followed the minyma Goothoo, the younger sister, when she went for the water.
This young sister, she fell in love with the two men. The other six sisters went looking for their sister, because she had been gone for so long. They wondered where she might be. They were really very thirsty and they needed their water. After a while, they found her with the two spirit men.
The Creator, Jindoo the Sun, had warned them that should such a thing happen to any one of the sisters, she would not be able to return to her place in the Milky Way. When the six sisters finished their work, they returned to the Milky Way. The two men and the woman remained here on Yulbrada, the earth. Their special powers were taken away when they became mortal. They became the parents of the earth, who made our laws and our people-the desert people. They live by these laws today.
This is why the people of the desert have such knowledge and respect of the stars in the universe.
Leoliah actually yes they were from two different generations! You seemed to write as if you have some sorta of accurate knowledge! I did not get that thought from different fables you enjoy quoting as if they were divinely inspired. You write as if you are some sort of expert but in fact your just doing research like everyone else. You based your research on what fables after the account? I based mine on common sense! Read the two generations above Gen 6 and it explains it. Your doing what the WTBTS claims! I say they come from two generation and you claim they do not! Also,some seemed to think the books of Enoch are the same that Jude quoted from, but I am not too sure of that one either. I do enjoy reading what you say but your not an expert nor am I, your just doing research and making essays sound really really good! I'am just going to have a big laugh!
That I give lengthy and detailed responses to comments does not mean that I do so to make myself a special expert or authority on the matter; I present my views here just as anyone else does. However I do not like to just state my view and leave it at that — I like explain the thinking behind it, the reasoning and argument, and I try my best to back up my claims with primary sources and evidence. I always endeavor to persuade through evidence and argumentation and have that speak for itself, as opposed to simply saying that it is so. But contrary to your impression, my views are not simply my own idiosyncratic thinking; I understand the scholarship and literature in the field, I am very familiar with primary sources, and very often — as in my last post to you — I simply summarize in my own words what has already been argued and demonstrated by most exegetical commentators. You can find the same reasoning and evidence in almost any major critical commentary. But again, I do not desire to make an argument from authority and simply say that a reading is correct because Scholar X, Y, Z says so (that is what the Watchtower Society does), but I try to explain the reasoning and evidence and make that speak for itself. I do not think that is something to find fault with.
The Cainite/Sethite interpretation of the "daughters of men" and the "sons of God" is not accepted because it is not convincing. In literary criticism, you assess the relative merits of possible readings by consulting the immediate literary context, the linguistic meanings of the words and constructions used, and the broader conceptual context. Understanding the history of interpretation of that text is also sometimes helpful. Then you determine which reading best accounts for the evidence and faces the least difficulty. Sometimes it is not possible to come to a decision between alternative explanations and sometimes the evidence can be overwhelming. In this case, the problems in the Cainite/Sethite interpretation are quite apparent once you pay close attention to the text. Although your reading makes sense to you, it is flatly contradicted by the immediate context and the terms used, for all the reasons I tried to lay out for you in my last post. Again this isn't controversial or just my own impression; the problems I pointed out are very well-known.
