Prepare for a weird month

This week, we started into Enoch 6- perhaps the most important chapter in all of the book. In fact, we’ll need several weeks to unpack what we started into. (My plan for the next few episodes that I shared in the previous newsletter has already had to change). In case you missed that episode, check it out right here:

In this episode, I discussed the information that the Book of Enoch provides which fleshes out the storyline of Scripture; namely, the view that angelic beings (the Sons of God/Watchers) came down and mated with human women in the pre-flood world.

As I’ve said before, this is the weirdest thing I believe. The only reason I even teach it is because…that’s what the Bible says.

Genesis 6:1-2 - When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.

However, some push back on this view; they say that the “Sons of God” were simply men (who descended from Seth) that followed God, and that the “daughters of man” were women (who descended from Cain) that didn’t follow God, and so this forbidden union was not about angels interloping with humans, but about the perils of believers marrying non-believers and becoming unequally yoked.

The view that the Sons of God are angelic beings is often called the Supernatural view of Genesis 6; and the view that these were human men is called the Sethite view.

If the Sethite view is correct, that would pretty much nullify anything that the Book of Enoch has to say on the matter. And to defend the Sethite view, scholars often point to Matthew 22, where Jesus said, “…they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

But is Jesus being properly understood right here? Let’s investigate His Words carefully.

Did Jesus really say that angels can’t marry?

I’ll say this upfront: most scholars, pastors, and Bible teachers are going to teach the Sethite view. The more time people spend in seminaries, the more time they spend racking up degrees and credentials, the less they seem to care for the more supernatural aspects of Scripture. They tend to spend more of their time de-mythologizing the Bible, making it more palatable to a secular audience.

It’s only weirdos like me (and hopefully you) who will accept anything the Bible says, no matter how strange it sounds to our ears.

That’s not to say that no scholars teach the Supernatural view of Genesis 6, and that you can’t find good resources behind it. I’m simply pointing out that the more titles after someone’s name, the less they seem interested in defending the Bible’s oddities, opting for more naturalistic explanations of things like Balaam’s talking donkey and the miracles of Jesus.

And so among the religious elites, one of the first things to throw out is the idea that angels actually mated with human women.

It’s something they have in common with some of the religious elites of Jesus’ day- a group of stuck-up scholars called Sadducees. Kind of like Thomas Jefferson did in the 1800s, they spent their study time stripping anything the least bit supernatural out of the Scriptures.

One day they approached Jesus with this challenge:

Matthew 22:23-33 - ²³ The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, ²⁴ saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ ²⁵ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. ²⁶ So too the second and third, down to the seventh. ²⁷ After them all, the woman died. ²⁸ In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

The Sadducees start with a false premise- that there is no resurrection. In other words, they don’t believe in life after death. Why? Because that’s supernatural, and they don’t believe in the supernatural. In order to mock Jesus’ more traditional, conservative beliefs, they craft a hypothetical in which someone who had multiple wives across his life dies and goes to heaven. In this hypothetical, how would he know which wife was his in the afterlife?

²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ³¹ And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” ³³ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

Jesus responds by pointing out another flaw in their premise, explaining that marriage doesn’t happen in heaven. This is why, in our vows today, we say “till death do us part.” Death ends the marriage covenant; if one spouse dies, the surviving spouse is free to marry another (see Romans 7:1-2). It has no bearing on their eternal state.

So their question is silly at the outset. And Jesus even takes it a step further by pointing out in verse 32 that God continues to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob even after their deaths, meaning they continue to exist even though their physical body died, thus nullifying their other false premise that there is no life after death.

But as part of His answer, He includes this tidbit: For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Some will say that this statement nullifies the supernatural view of Genesis 6; if the angels don’t marry, then how could it be true that the angels of Genesis 6 (the Sons of God) married human women? Is the Sethite view actually correct?

I would say no, that Jesus’ statement in Matthew 22:30 actually CONFIRMS the Supernatural view. Note the words “in heaven.” The angels in heaven do not marry. But the Sons of God in Genesis 6 are not “angels” who remained in heaven. They descended to the earth. Jude speaks of these angels:

Jude 6 - And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

The whole point of the Genesis 6 angels is that they didn’t remain in heaven. So what Jesus said is true, of course; and it jives perfectly with what the Supernatural view of Genesis 6 claims happened.

And, of course, it also syncs up with the Book of Enoch chapter 6:

And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon…

Interestingly, the name Jared actually means “shall come down.” We’ll be talking about that “coincidence” very soon on the podcast.

But first, we’ll be learning some more about what the Watchers taught humanity when they visited earth. Their sins didn’t stop with impregnating human women; there was a lot more that happened that we should talk about.

Genesis 6:12 says - And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

How did it get that way? That’s what we’ll be talking about in this week’s episode.

Have a great week, and a Weird Wednesday!

-Luke