Re: Book of Enoch ?

From: Sondra Brasile (sbrasile@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jun 10 2002 - 13:12:56 EDT

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    Dear George,

    Thank you for the response. What I meant by 'fake' was if it can be at all
    considered factual in any way shape or form. In spiritual relevance I found
    it unusually explanative of what, who, where, why, & how. Which is
    refreshing, since the Bible is pretty vague. But this may also be a 'reason'
    for it's (purely secular) writing. It explains were evil spirits came from
    and the 'mighty men' spoke of in the Bible that were the spawn of angels and
    human women. This mention of angels being 'taken' with human women in the
    Bible has always puzzled me; this book offered a futher explanation of the
    matter, even in-depth. The part I was mostly referring to was the
    astronomical references & stuff, it seemed so exhaustive I had thought it
    would be easy to prove/disprove based on that, and the premise that if God
    had had any part in it's authorship it would be scientifically, at least
    cosmologically, accurate. I don't know much about that part. While I was
    reading it I was wondering if it had any basis in fact whatsoever, I hoped
    someone like me but with more education had maybe read it and studied it for
    accuracy.

    Thanks again,
    Sondra

    >From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
    >To: Sondra Brasile <sbrasile@hotmail.com>
    >CC: asa@calvin.edu
    >Subject: Re: Book of Enoch ?
    >Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 10:50:40 -0400
    >
    >Sondra -
    > You would need to specify more clearly what you mean by "fake." The
    >practice of
    >attributing writings to some person of long ago in order to give it added
    >authority was
    >fairly common in the ancient world and was not thought of as "fakery" in
    >the same way
    >that we would think of someone today writing a political document and
    >attributing it to
    >Jefferson or Lincoln.
    > Virtually no biblical scholars today think that "Enoch" was actually
    >written by
    >an ante-diluvian patriarch named Enoch. It is made up of several parts
    >which were
    >probably written at different times between ~200 B.C. & the beginning of
    >the Christian
    >era. Jude 14-15 is the only direct citation of it in the NT but possible
    >influences of
    >it can be found in other passages.
    > The 2+ page article "Enoch, Book of " in the Supplementary Volume of the
    >Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible would be one good place to get
    >started on this.
    >
    > Shalom,
    > George
    >
    >George L. Murphy
    >http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
    >"The Science-Theology Interface"
    >

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