Who Are The Nephilim? - Part 8 Enoch, Peter, and Greek Mythology

This part of an ongoing series about the Nephilim. To start at the beginning click here: Who Were The Nephilim - Part 1

For is God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until judgment, if did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly… 2 Peter 2:4, 5

We discussed this passage some in the last post, but there was one word that I word that I wanted to wait to tackle because this one tiny little word opens up the door for a whole new world of questions. If have studied this topic before, then I am certain you already know what is coming. If you haven’t then I think you will find it interesting. Any guesses on which word it might be?

If you guessed hell, you are getting close. However, this is one of those times when the real word has been obscured by the translators. Now before you go getting any ideas about grand conspiracies in Bible translations, you should know that this is not a bad or deliberately misleading translation. It is simply the word that makes the most sense when we translate Greek into English. The main difference is that in this case, thanks to our Greek mythology, comic books, and sci-fi, we happen to be more familiar with this word in the original. That word is Tartarus. So if we were reading the verse and retained the Greek, it would say:

…but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness…

This is the only place in the Christian Scriptures were we find this specific term. We do find the term used two times in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was widely read at around the time of Jesus and used by many early Christians. There are some variance between the manuscripts used for Septuagint and the manuscripts used in today’s translations of the Bible. So don’t freak out when you go to your Bible and the verses read nothing like the ones below. The point I am trying to make is that the concept of Tartarus is not unfamiliar to Jewish audiences or the Jewish writers of the Christian Bible, and it was a term easily borrowed to describe similar concepts.

And when he has gone up to a steep mountain, he causes joy to the quadrupeds in the deep (tartaro).

ἐπελθὼν δὲ ἐπ’ ὄρος ἀκρότομον ἐποίησεν χαρμονὴν τετράποσιν ἐν τῷ ταρτάρῳ (tartaro) Job 40:20

and the lowest part (tartaron) of the deep as a captive: he reckons the deep as [his] range.

τὸν δὲ τάρταρον (tartaron) τῆς ἀβύσσου ὥσπερ αἰχμάλωτον ἐλογίσατο ἄβυσσον εἰς περίπατον Job 41:24

In these verses, Tartarus is used to refer to the deep in 40:20 and the lowest part of the deep in 41:21. It is place where God has held the monstrous beasts, the Behemoth and Leviathan, captive. Despite their fierce natures, they are nothing but pets to the Creator of the universe and he keeps them contained in a place fitting of such gruesome creatures. And what could be more gruesome than these terrors of the ancient world? How about angels who failed to retain their proper estate?

We can also find the term Tartarus in the Book of Enoch. Here we learn that Uriel is the “holy angel of thunder and of tremors.” However, in the footnotes, we find an alternate translation that reads, “holy angel of the world and Tartarus.”  This immediately follows a conversation between Enoch and Uriel concerning the fate of the angels who sinned – angels who are bound in a terrible place awaiting judgment.

The fourth source for the term Tartarus has already been mentioned, and that is the Greek myths. What I find to be so fascinating are the numerous parallels between the Greek stories of Tartarus and the Biblical account in Genesis 6. I won’t take the time to retell any of them here. You can find them easily enough with Google. If you do take the time to research these tales, notice that most contain one or more of the following themes:

1. A lesser god/being revolts against a greater god.
2. The lesser god/being shares forbidden food, fire, or knowledge with humanity.
3. Sex is common between divine beings and humans.
4. The product of these unions are demi-gods, neither fully human nor divine.
5. Tartarus is the place of punishment reserved for the vilest offenders.
6. Those cast into Tartarus are often bound.
7. Tartarus is presented as below the earth or under a mountain.
8. Titans, an ancient race of giants, are primary characters within the tales.

Even a casual reader will readily pick up on the parallels between the Enochian story and the Greek myths. Nor are these the only ancient tales that share these themes, the only difference is a shared language between the Greek poets and the Biblical authors whose words overlap and coincide making the parallels more obvious. However, as we grow more familiar with the basic traits of the Biblical and Enochian accounts, we could move on to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Irish legends of the Tuatha de Danann, the Red Headed Giants of the Native Americans, Hindu tales, the Nordic Asgard, or the Oni from Japan to see that the tales of gods descending to earth to mate and to destroy is buried in the collective psyche of almost all cultures. And just as Christians have defended the veracity of the Flood accounts by appealing to multicultural retellings of the event, I believe the same can be done in the case of the Nephilim.

In fact, I find it rather curious that few have bothered to make such a case for the authenticity of the beginning verses of Genesis 6 but will do so for the remainder of the chapter that contains the flood account. Why is it considered proper to maintain the supernatural aspects of Noah’s ark but to remove the supernatural aspects attributed to the Sons of God? For even if the sparse verses of Genesis leave much open to speculation, we have demonstrated how Jude and Peter acknowledge the overarching premise of Enoch as having some bearing on reality through their quotations of the text.  
Next time, we will look at more New Testament quotes from the Book of Enoch.

Who Were The Nephilim? Part 4 - The Jude-Enoch Connection

St. Jude By El Greco

This is part four of an ongoing series over the Nephilim. If you would like to start at the beginning of the series, click here:Who Were The Nephilim? Part 1

As we continue to examine the question of who were the Nephilim, we cannot avoid the book of Enoch. I have already addressed the question as to whether Enoch should have been included in the Bible, shared some of the book’s history, and discussed one of the major themes of Enoch, the Watchers.  You can find that post here: Why Wasn't Enoch Included In The Bible?

In this post we are going to discuss why Jude might choose to quote from what many would consider a questionable, if not downright suspect book, and how his use of Enoch informs our understanding of the Genesis 6 account.

First off if you haven’t read through the book of Jude with Genesis 6 or the Nephilim in mind, I would encourage you to do so. It is only one chapter with twenty five verses, but packed full of information. And Jude manages to pack so much in because he alludes to several Biblical accounts from the Hebrew Scripture. So how much time you spend in Jude is completely up to you, a few minutes for a quick read through or days if you look up all the events he mentions. (Guess which one I recommend?)

Let’s begin with verse 6:

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he had kept in chains under gloomy darkness until the judgement of the great day –

So here is where we must ask our first question, when did angels leave their position of authority and proper dwelling? The most common answer would be Satan’s rebellion, but there is a problem with this as we know that Satan is not bound in chains waiting until the judgement of the great day. In fact, the Bible tells us quite the opposite:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 

The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” Job 1:7

Some have tried to make Satan’s rebellion fit Jude’s words by claiming that the angels in chains are a part of the ones who fell with Satan, and thus avoiding the Enochian connection. However, there is a problem with this as nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures do we have any mention of angels in chains or held captive. The only place we learn of angels held captive are here in Jude, 1 Peter, and Revelation – all New Testament writings. This is important, because if we look at Jude we quickly realize that he is not presenting new revelation. He is drawing on historical events, weaving them together, and presenting a consistent principle demonstrated throughout history in God’s dealings with humanity and the ungodly.

We should also note how he classifies the sin of these angels, on to verse 7:

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. 

The important word here is “likewise”, informing us that the sin of the angels who are bound in chains was sexual in nature. Jude could have gotten that sexual part from Genesis 6, but it still does not answer the question about where he learned about them being kept in chains. Nor does feel the need to explain himself. Read through this section again, notice how he referencing these events in almost the same manner as we might reference a movie or TV show. He expects his audience to know what he is talking about.

Jude himself will answer the question in verse 14:

It was also that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones, to execute judgement on all and to convict the ungodly of their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners has spoken against him.” 

Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures is Enoch called a prophet. We know that he was godly man who walked with God and never knew death because God took him, but aside from that we really have no further information about him…unless we are willing to admit the Book of Enoch into evidence which clearly Jude does. Consider this passage from Enoch:

And behold, he comes with ten thousand holy ones to execute judgement upon them and to destroy the impious, and to contend with all flesh concerning everything which the sinners and the impious have done and wrought against him. 1:9

We are going to come back to this text in a future post because it is significant to our understanding of who the Nephilim were. For now, it is sufficient to establish that Jude is referring to Enoch as a prophet something that is only established in the book of Enoch, from which Jude is lifting this quote.

I would be remiss if I did not note that there are two passages in the Hebrew Bible that also use the phrase “ten thousand holy ones”, and some believe that Jude was quoting from Deuteronomy 33:2 and Psalms 68:17. I believe that as Jude specifically ties his words to Enoch precludes this conclusion, and I believe that these passages actually strengthen the argument that Jude is indeed referring to the Genesis 6 episode. I would also point out the while Jude’s quotation of Enoch is not verbatim, it does more closely align with the Enochian quote than either of the two passages we find in Hebrew Scripture, and the discrepancies can largely be accounted for in translation choices such “impious” instead of “ungodly.”

My conclusion is that Jude accepted the Enochian account of the Watcher, or the Sons of God, as having some bearing on reality. I do not believe that he would have quoted from it if he viewed Enoch as erroneous or misleading. Does this mean that we should view Enoch as having the same value as holy and inspired text? I do not believe it does. If were to have that standing then it would have been canonized, but it was excluded from both the Hebrew and the Christian canons. Instead, it was serves to demonstrate how the Genesis 6 account was understood in antiquity and allows our reading to be informed by this understanding.

Jude is not alone among the New Testament authors in having such a high view of Enoch. In future post we will examine Peter’s use of Enoch in his letters and other instances where Enoch was alluded to in the New Testament text. In my next post, I will be taking a closer look at Enoch 1:9, the ten thousand holy ones, and how this relates back to the Genesis 6 episode.

For part 5 in this series, click here: Part 5 - The Jude and Hebrew Scripture Connection