This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 675: Two Powers in Heaven 2: First Enoch

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

Audio file
675 Two Powers part 2.mp3

Transcript

00:00
Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan and you are listening to Restitudio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:12
We're in a series investigating the two powers in heaven heresy.

00:15
Last time I laid out for you the six groups of Jewish literature that we are going to look at.

00:20
Today we are beginning with First Enoch.

00:24
This is a collection of apocalyptic Jewish literature centered on Enoch, the Enoch mentioned in Genesis.

00:32
What does First Enoch have to tell us about two powers in heaven?

00:36
Does First Enoch even mention the heresy?

00:40
When should we date First Enoch?

00:42
These are critical questions to answer if we're going to understand what First Enoch has to say about two powers.

00:50
Get answers to these questions and more as we delve into this fascinating book together.

00:55
Here now is episode 675, Two Powers in Heaven, Part 2, First Enoch.

01:09
Today, we want to explore the book of First Enoch to see what it says about the two powers in heaven idea.

01:17
But first, let's look at what books are included in First Enoch.

01:21
There are quite a few different books in this collection.

01:26
Although you might think of First Enoch itself as a book, it's actually a collection of books.

01:31
So we have the Book of the Watchers in chapters 1 through 36, the Book of Parables in 37 through 71, the Book of the Luminaries in 72 to 82, Dream Visions in 83 to 90, and Epistle of Enoch in 91 to 108.

01:47
Now, for our subject today of the two powers is the only real interest we have in looking at First Enoch, we are going to limit ourselves to just

01:59
the Book of Parables.

02:01
It says it has lots of interesting things to say about the Son of Man.

02:06
So we're going to begin there.

02:08
Now, older scholars used to date this book to the late 1st century BC, shortly before the birth of Christ.

02:15
But when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, everything changed.

02:19
You see, they found 11 manuscripts of First Enoch.

02:23
And every part of the book of First Enoch was represented

02:27
including the Book of Watchers, the Book of Luminaries, Dream Visions, Epistle of Enoch, all of it, except for the Book of Parables, which they did not find in Qumran, cave four of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

02:40
J.T.

02:41
Millik commented on this saying, It seems to me quite certain that it, the parables, did not exist during the pre-Christian era in an Aramaic or Hebrews text.

02:53
since not one fragment of it, Semitic or even Greek, has been located in the very rich assortment of manuscripts from the caves of Qumran.

03:02
Michael Knibb pointed to two other texts, 2nd Baruch and 4th Ezra, both of which say similar things about the Son of Man and both of those date to the late 1st century as a second piece of evidence for why

03:17
The book of the parables, which is the important part of 1st Enoch for our study today, dates to the end of the 1st century.

03:24
So 2nd Baruch and 4th Ezra are around the years 95 to 115 AD.

03:31
So that would put...

03:33
the book of parables also in that same period, sometime after 70.

03:38
I mean, you can't say for sure, but it could be 90, could be 100, could even be later.

03:43
There are some scholars that place it in the 2nd century, and even one scholar that puts it, I think, in the year 270.

03:50
So this is the latest part of the book of First Enoch.

03:53
Almost all of the book of First Enoch is before the time when Christ was born.

03:59
But this one part that talks about the Son of Man is actually the late 1st century.

04:03
And look, this is not my opinion.

04:05
This is Michael Knibb, a legit leading scholar of 1st Enoch.

04:11
He's the one that dates the parables to the late 1st century.

04:14
And the fact is, they're not in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

04:16
We find all kinds of other parts of 1 Enoch there, but not this one part, which is strong evidence that it didn't exist.

04:23
So that's the dating of the Book of Parables from 1 Enoch.

04:28
Once again, that's chapters 37 to 71.

04:32
All the parts that contain information about the Son of Man, which is really our entry point for our study of two powers for 1 Enoch.

04:42
Now,

04:44
We're just going to focus on those son of man texts and we're going to look at 4 main passages that matter for two powers theology.

04:52
I'm going to read these out to you.

04:54
This way you have the data.

04:57
This is something that frustrates me to no end.

04:59
There's all kinds of individuals, even scholars, who will say things about the two powers heresy.

05:06
Oh, so-and-so believed this, or it was around at this time, but nobody's quoting the primary sources.

05:12
And so that is what we're going to do today.

05:15
We're going to quote 4 texts from 1 Enoch, from the book of parables,

05:20
And then we're going to analyze them one by one and see what are the background texts from the Old Testament that are really informing the author of the Book of Parables and what does that tell us about his belief concerning the Son of Man.

05:36
And then you can see precisely what they say.

05:39
So that's what we're going to do.

05:41
Let's start with number one.

05:43
All right, first up, 1 Enoch chapter 46, verses 1 through 4.

05:48
There I saw one who had a head of days, and his head was like white wool, and with him was another whose face was like the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness like one of the holy angels.

06:03
And I asked the angel of peace, who went with me and showed me all the hidden things about that son of man, who he was, and whence he was, and why he went with the head of days.

06:16
Verse 3, And he answered me and said to me, 'This is the son of man who has righteousness, and righteousness dwells with him, and all the treasuries of what is hidden he will reveal.

06:28
For the Lord of spirits has chosen him, and his lot has prevailed through truth in the presence of the Lord of spirits forever.

06:36
And this son of man whom you have seen, he will raise the kings and the mighty from their couches, and the strong from their thrones,

06:45
He will loosen the reins of the strong and he will crush the teeth of the sinners.

06:51
All right, so in summary, this text is obviously a meditation on Daniel chapter 7.

06:57
If you're not familiar with Daniel 7, it's this incredible vision that Daniel has of these beasts that come out of the sea, one after the other.

07:05
There's four of them.

07:06
And then he sees the Ancient of Days who is

07:11
portrayed with white hair and sitting on a throne of fire and surrounded by thousands upon thousands.

07:17
And to him is presented this figure who comes with the clouds, the son of man, and he's presented before the Ancient of Days and to him is given dominion to rule over the earth.

07:29
We're gonna come back to that prophecy in a little while, but Daniel 7 is clearly in the background of the author of the book of parables within 1 Enoch.

07:38
So a couple of quick points.

07:40
One,

07:41
The Son of Man is not the head of days.

07:43
These are two different figures.

07:44
That's clear.

07:46
Number two is that the Son of Man is described in one at once as his face is like the appearance of a man.

07:54
And then also his face was full of graciousness like the angels.

07:59
And so sometimes people get, I think, a little confused by that because it says like the angels and they're like, well, he's like a human and he's like an angel.

08:08
Well, it says his face was full of graciousness like the angels.

08:12
So it's not that his face was like the angels in the sense that he looked physically like an angel, but his face was full of graciousness and that graciousness was the same sort of graciousness the angels had.

08:23
So he looked like a human being, but with an angelic graciousness to him, if we could put it that way.

08:30
And look, this is apocalyptic literature, you just have to recognize that we're dealing with images

08:35
like in a dream where they symbolize other things.

08:39
And that's a key for interpreting 1 Enoch.

08:43
The Son of Man is also here said to be righteous and that he will reveal what is hidden.

08:50
There's a lot of hiddenness and being revealed in apocalyptic literature.

08:54
In fact, the word apocalypse means a revelation, to reveal something.

08:58
So we're right in the center of this genre here.

09:02
The Lord of Spirits, we read too, chose the Son of Man.

09:05
Chose Him for what?

09:07
It was to raise the kings from their thrones and loosen the reins of the strong to crush the teeth of sinners.

09:13
In other words, to judge the rulers of the earth.

09:16
Let's now go on to the second text.

09:19
First Enoch 48, 2-6 and verse 10.

09:22
And in that hour that Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits.

09:27
and his name before the head of days.

09:30
Even before the sun and the constellations were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of spirits.

09:39
He will be a staff for the righteous that they may lean on him and not fall.

09:44
He will be the light of the nations and he will be a hope for those who grieve in their hearts.

09:50
All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship before him, and they will glorify and bless and sing hymns to the name of the Lord of spirits.

10:00
For this reason, he was chosen and hidden in his presence before the world was created and forever.

10:06
Skipping now to verse 10.

10:07
And on that day of their distress, there will be rest upon the earth, and before them they will fall and not rise, and there will be no one to take them with his hand and raise them.

10:19
for they have denied the Lord of spirits and his anointed one.

10:23
Blessed be the name of the Lord of spirits.

10:26
So for the second text, those familiar with Isaiah chapter 49, which is a servant song of Isaiah, will recognize that as the background text that this author is working from.

10:38
We'll come back to that later.

10:39
But here we learn in the second text that the naming of the Son of Man occurred before the constellations.

10:47
and that could refer to pre-existence.

10:51
It could be that the Son of Man actually existed in that previous time before creation itself, or it could refer to predestination, that he was named in God's mind, not in actuality.

11:05
It's not like he was necessarily there.

11:07
So we'll talk a lot more about pre-existence and the possibility of

11:12
preestination in a few minutes here.

11:15
But when we move into a riff on Isaiah 49, Him being the light to the nations and everyone on earth bowing to Him, we really get some interesting new information here in verse six, where it says, The Son of Man was chosen and hidden in God's presence before creation.

11:34
Once again, sounds like pre-existence, we'll come back to that.

11:37
For now, I want you to just sort of recognize that

11:40
He is this light to the nations.

11:42
He is really the hero of the day.

11:45
He's the one that everyone is going to recognize and that he is the one chosen by God to do this important work from the beginning.

11:53
Whether he existed or his predestination from the beginning, this was all part of God's plan.

11:57
On to text #3, 1 Enoch chapter 51, verses 1 through 5.

12:03
In those days, the earth will give back what has been entrusted to it and Sheol will give back what it has received.

12:10
and destruction will give back what it owes.

12:12
For in those days my chosen one will arise and choose the righteous and holy from among them.

12:18
For the day on which they will be saved has drawn near, and the chosen one in those days will sit upon my throne, and all the secrets of wisdom will go forth from the counsel of his mouth.

12:31
For the Lord of spirits has given them to him and glorified him.

12:35
In those days, the mountains will leap like rams and the hills will skip like lambs, satisfied with milk.

12:41
And the faces of all the angels in heaven will be radiant with joy.

12:45
And the earth will rejoice and the righteous will dwell on it and the chosen will walk about on it.

12:52
Okay, so here the focus once again is on end times judgment.

12:57
And the context is resurrection.

12:59
God's chosen one will sit upon God's throne.

13:03
He will speak out the secrets of wisdom.

13:06
This is another theme in apocalyptic literature.

13:08
There's all this secret wisdom that needs to be revealed.

13:11
And the Son of Man is the one who is going to do that revealing.

13:14
The Lord of spirits has given him everything

13:17
that he needs.

13:18
He has empowered him.

13:19
He has glorified the son of man and all creation is rejoicing because now righteousness will dwell and rejoice on the earth.

13:29
Rather than the wicked dwelling on the earth, the righteous will be in charge and everything is going to be good.

13:34
This is something we call the kingdom of God in the prophet Daniel and certainly Jesus picks it up as that as well.

13:41
On to text #4, 1 Enoch 62, 5-9.

13:46
And one group of them will look at the other, and they will be terrified, and will cast down their faces, and pain will seize them, when they see that Son of Man sitting on the throne of his glory.

13:57
And the kings and the mighty and all who possess the land will bless and glorify and exalt him who rules over all who was hidden.

14:06
For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, and the Most High preserved him in the presence of his might, and he revealed him to the chosen.

14:15
and the congregation of the chosen and holy will be sown, and all the chosen will stand in his presence on that day.

14:23
And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the land will fall on their faces in his presence, and they will worship and set their hope on that Son of Man, and they will supplicate and petition for mercy from him.

14:37
Okay, so just summarizing this 4th text a little bit, we once again get an end times context.

14:42
The Son of Man is sitting on the throne of his glory.

14:46
All the kings glorify and exalt the Son of Man who rules over all.

14:50
In verse 7, it says that the beginning of the Son of Man was hidden.

14:54
Once again, we get this theme of hidden and revealing the most high preserved him in his presence and that on the day of judgment, the kings will fall on their faces.

15:03
They will worship the Son of Man and they will ask for his mercy.

15:07
All right, so putting these four texts together, I wanted to read them out to you because you can handle these primary texts.

15:14
You don't have to be some specialist.

15:16
You don't have to read the Ethiopic language, which is what First Enoch comes to us in, order to understand this.

15:22
is a good English translation from the Hermania edition.

15:26
It's totally standard, and I think it makes perfect sense in English.

15:31
There's no mention of two powers in First Enoch.

15:34
Let me say that again.

15:36
There is no mention of two powers in First Enoch in the book of parables or anywhere else.

15:44
Now, that doesn't mean it doesn't have something to tell us about the two powers idea, because we do have two powers, right?

15:53
We have the Lord of spirits or the head of days, and we have the Son of Man.

15:57
So those are obviously two powers.

15:59
But the Son of Man is clearly subordinate to God here.

16:04
They are not equals.

16:06
And the idea of two powers is that you have two in heaven who are equal in power, whether working together or working against each other.

16:16
There are two different kinds of two powers.

16:18
We'll get into that later on.

16:19
But this is not actually two powers in that sense.

16:23
The Lord of spirits is the head of days.

16:26
He's the concealer and the revealer of the Son of Man.

16:29
The Son of Man does not hide himself, nor does he reveal himself.

16:34
Everywhere, the Lord of spirits is the one who takes the initiative, not the Son of Man.

16:40
In fact, you could say the Son of Man is totally passive in all of the scenes that we just read.

16:46
The two remain distinguishable throughout.

16:49
There's no blurring of identities.

16:51
The Lord of Spirits is the planner, initiator, and source who works through His Son of Man agent to accomplish His purposes of judgment and rulership on the earth in the last days.

17:02
So first, Enoch does not provide evidence of binitarianism.

17:08
And this makes sense.

17:09
This makes perfect sense once you consider the background text of Daniel 7, verses 9 through 14.

17:16
And I had mentioned that before, but I want to read it out to you now so you can see the intertextuality.

17:21
And this is absolute key for reading Jewish literature.

17:25
Jewish literature is oftentimes commenting on Old Testament texts, texts that have come before.

17:32
And if you don't have that necessary background and you're reading it, say, from the Council of Nicaea, from that perspective, you're gonna get a totally different interpretation from what the original author intended.

17:44
So let's take a look at that background text of Daniel 7 right now.

17:48
Daniel 7, verse 9.

17:49
As I watched, thrones were set in place and an ancient one took his throne.

17:54
His clothing was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool.

17:58
His throne was fiery flames and his wheels were burning fire.

18:03
A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence.

18:06
A thousand thousands served him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.

18:13
The court sat in judgment and the books were opened.

18:18
Let's skip down to verse 13.

18:19
As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being or son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.

18:27
And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him.

18:30
To him was given dominion and glory and kingship that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him.

18:36
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

18:43
So here we see this human, well we see the Ancient One and then we see the human figure.

18:49
The human figure, the Aramaic actually reads, son of man.

18:55
But this translation, the New Revised Standard Version wanted to translate it as a human figure because of the context of the vision.

19:02
You have these four beastly figures.

19:05
One's like a lion, one's like a bear, one's like a leopard, and then one's just like a terrifying beast.

19:10
He doesn't even know what to call it.

19:13
And then one's like a human.

19:14
Right, so it just fits in the sequence there, but the actual phrase is Son of Man, and a lot of translations will preserve that original Son of Man literal translation, which I think is, I think either one is fine.

19:25
I'm not trying to criticize that.

19:27
I just want you to see that this is the original, the OG Son of Man text, Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14.

19:34
And once again, we find 2 figures.

19:36
Once again, they're clearly distinguishable.

19:39
Now you have the Ancient Wonder, the Ancient of Days, he's already seated.

19:43
In the vision when Daniel's focus turns to look at the ancient one, he's already sitting down.

19:50
He does not rise when the Son of Man enters the scene.

19:53
He remains seated in a position of power, utterly secure.

19:59
on his fiery throne.

20:00
He's got thousands upon thousands.

20:02
Forget that, 10,000 times 10,000.

20:04
Daniel is using the biggest numbers he could think of to describe how many attendants are flanking the Ancient of Days in this throne room scene.

20:15
There's no question in this vision who's in charge.

20:20
Then the Son of Man comes with the clouds and is presented to the Ancient of Days.

20:25
The standard operating procedure for ancient kings

20:28
is that you don't just go visit the king.

20:29
You don't just like ring the doorbell or send a message to the king and be like, hey, I'm coming over.

20:36
No, The king is way too important.

20:38
You need to request to see him through intermediaries.

20:42
Then everything is arranged beforehand.

20:44
And then when the moment comes, attendants will usher you into his presence.

20:50
This scene follows that standard procedure.

20:53
The Son of Man is completely passive in Daniel 7, verses 9 through 14.

20:59
He doesn't do anything.

21:01
He is presented.

21:02
He doesn't even present himself.

21:03
He is presented.

21:04
He doesn't initiate.

21:06
He does not seek an audience.

21:08
He is called for and presented and then

21:12
He doesn't even request authority to judge the earth.

21:15
It is given to him.

21:16
It's all based on the desire and plans of the Ancient One.

21:21
Everything is determined beforehand and just plays out as the Ancient of Days sovereignly wishes.

21:28
The Son of Man receives the authority and that authority is to rule over the earth.

21:32
Obviously, it's not an authority to rule over the Ancient of Days.

21:36
He's going to judge the nations on behalf of the Ancient of Days who gave him this assignment.

21:42
This is the text in the background of the Son of Man sayings in 1 Enoch.

21:47
Now, it is true that in 1 Enoch we have exalted language.

21:53
Everyone's bowing to the Son of Man, and he's also sitting on God's throne.

21:58
And so on the basis of that, some people are saying, well, actually the Son of Man is not really subordinate to the head of days in 1 Enoch like he is in Daniel 7.

22:07
He's elevated to a higher level because he's receiving worship and he's sitting on God's throne.

22:13
I wanna show you the specific texts used to make that case so you could see them for yourself.

22:19
We've already read them, but I wanna read them again.

22:23
5 says, All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship before Him, and they will glorify and bless and sing hymns to the name of the Lord of Spirits.

22:32
So the first half of that verse is talking about the Son of Man.

22:36
They're falling down and worshiping before the Son of Man.

22:38
The second-half is talking about how they're gonna glorify and bless and sing songs to the Lord of Spirits, which is equivalent to God or the Ancient of Days.

22:48
3 says, And the chosen one in those days will sit upon my throne.

22:51
So that's talking about the Son of Man sitting on God's throne.

22:55
And all the secrets of wisdom will go forth from the counsel of His mouth for the Lord of spirits has given them to Him and glorified Him.

23:05
9 says, And all the kings and the mighty and the exalted and those who rule the land will fall on their faces in His presence.

23:12
and they will worship and set their hope on that son of man, and they will supplicate and petition for mercy from him.

23:19
So much of this just comes down to cultural context.

23:22
Like in my world, 21st century New York, part of the United States, my context, like you don't ever see anyone bowing to anyone else.

23:36
if I saw just like walking along the street and saw somebody on their face in front of somebody else, I would say I would just not even know how to process it because it doesn't happen.

23:47
like we're familiar obviously with like the Asian bow where, they just kind of bend, but like to drop to the ground and like put your face near somebody else's feet just doesn't happen in a Western culture.

24:01
So it's easy to see why Westerners reading these ancient Eastern texts would say, oh, well, this person obviously thinks that the Son of Man is God or is elevated to the same degree as the Creator, the Lord of Spirits, but that's not really what it says here.

24:18
But I'm getting ahead of myself.

24:20
Let's talk about the throne first.

24:22
Notice that the Son of Man is sitting on the throne because the Lord of Spirits has glorified Him.

24:29
He's not natively sitting on the throne.

24:30
It's not his throne.

24:32
God has given him the job to sit on this throne and do this thing.

24:37
They are not equals.

24:39
God wants to give the Son of Man this honor, but the very fact that God's giving it and that he doesn't already have it is an indication that it is not an equality situation.

24:49
And it's worth mentioning that we also encounter a clear Davidic ideology within scripture, where the king is understood to sit upon God's throne.

24:58
as when it says, Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king.

25:04
That's 1 Chronicles 29, 23.

25:07
Did you hear that?

25:07
I'm going to say it one more time.

25:08
Solomon sat, Solomon is a human being, sat upon the throne of the Lord or of Yahweh as king.

25:16
So the Davidic throne in Jerusalem, the king, the descendant of David who sits on the throne in Jerusalem in the Book of Kings in our Old Testament,

25:27
is actually sitting on God's throne.

25:29
Does that make sense?

25:31
Additionally, Christ invites those who overcome to sit on his throne with him when he overcame and sat on God's throne with him.

25:40
21.

25:41
Just very quickly, this is talking to the church of Laodicea.

25:45
And it's saying to these Laodiceans, you guys are going to sit with me on my throne.

25:51
When you overcome, you're going to sit with me just as I overcame and sat with my father on his throne.

25:55
This does not make the Laodicean Christians ontologically divine.

25:59
Rather, it speaks of how Christ promises to invest them with his authority as God had invested Christ with his authority.

26:06
And there's further evidence of this.

26:08
There's a text that comes from a couple of centuries before Christ called the Ezekiel the Tragedian.

26:15
pretty obscure, but it's a Jewish text in which Moses is actually invited to sit on God's throne for a time as well.

26:23
So we must be careful to read First Enoch against the backdrop of the Old Testament and the ancient Near Eastern context and culture rather than modern assumptions and intuitions.

26:34
Now let's think about this idea of bowing, this idea of worship that I was just talking about.

26:40
The ancient Near East is a bowing culture.

26:43
Now we find bowing

26:45
to each other, actually all over the place in the Old Testament.

26:48
And the same word translated worship, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, is translated bow.

26:56
But today we only use the word worship to refer to God.

27:01
So translators will take this same word and they will translate it as bow if it's done to a human, and then they'll translate it worship if it's done to a god.

27:10
But then

27:11
if you actually look at the Hebrew or the Greek, it's actually the same word in both cases.

27:16
And this is the translator inserting his or her interpretation.

27:19
And this is a serious issue of bias.

27:21
I've talked about this in other videos, but in the Ethiopian language, which is what 1 Enoch is written in, this is the same thing.

27:28
The same word can mean prostrate as in bow before a human, a dignitary, a king, or worship to a god.

27:41
It works the same in the Ethiopic language.

27:44
So let me just show you some quick examples of this from the Bible.

27:48
23-24 says, When Abigail saw David, she hurried and dismounted from the donkey and fell before David on her face, bowing to the ground.

28:00
She fell at his feet and said, 'Upon me alone, my Lord, be the guilt.

28:05
Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant.'

28:10
Did Abigail think David was God?

28:13
No, of course not.

28:14
She thought he was a tough guy who might potentially kill her husband and all of the people in the household because he was so angry about the insult of her husband Nabal.

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Let's look at another one.

28:25
First Chronicles 29.20.

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Then David said to the whole assembly, bless Yahweh your God and all the assembly blessed Yahweh the God of their ancestors and bowed their heads and prostrated themselves before Yahweh and

28:39
the king.

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So here Yahweh and the king are both having people bow to them.

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Another very clear case of human receiving prostration.

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Isaiah 45:14

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Thus says Yahweh, the wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and the Sabeans tall of stature shall come over to you and be yours.

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They shall follow you.

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They shall come over in chains and bow down to you.

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They will make supplication to you saying, God is with you alone and there is no other.

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There is no God beside him.

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This is a really intriguing text because here it says that the people of Egypt, Cush and Sabeans are going

29:23
And it says that they're going to make supplications, like prayers to you, to you, the people of Israel in the last time.

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And they're going to bow to you, not to God, but to the people.

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Yet at the same time, even though they're bowing to humans, they're saying, God is with you.

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So they know the difference between the humans and God.

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This is a very interesting text.

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Another similar one is in Isaiah 60 verse 14, which says, the descendants of those who oppressed you, this is talking to Jerusalem, the descendants of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet.

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They shall call you the city of Yahweh, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

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So that's eschatological.

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Revelation 3.9.

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I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying, I will make them come and bow down before your feet.

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This is talking about Christians.

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And they will learn that I have loved you.

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So bowing is standard protocol for greeting superiors.

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However, the very same posture could be deep respect or it could be worship done to God.

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And it's up to the context and the person translating or interpreting it to figure that out.

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And it's all about motive.

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The very same physical bodily posture could mean respect or worship.

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And in 1 Enoch, there's no question.

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The kings are humbling themselves before the new supreme ruler that God has established over them.

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They're freaking out.

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They're bowing before him in respect.

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It's about authority.

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It's not a religious context.

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Furthermore, we observe a significant difference in the frequency and level of worship given to the two, the Lord of Spirits and the Son of Man in 1 Enoch.

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So for example, the Lord of Spirits receives worship 12 times, but the Son of Man only two times.

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The Lord of spirits receives praise and blessings from heavenly beings, whereas the Son of Man must wait until the climactic end of the age to receive it from human rulers.

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All right, on to the next interesting topic.

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I mentioned this earlier about pre-existence, and it's debatable whether first Enoch sees the Son of Man as existing in the beginning before creation, or if he is somebody that comes into being later on.

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And there are three key

31:47
verses regarding preexistence in 1 Enoch in the book of parables that we've been studying, and I wanna read those out to you now.

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3 says, Even before the sun and the constellations were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of spirits.

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6 says, For this reason, he was chosen and hidden in his presence before the world was created and forevermore.

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7 says, For from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden, and the Most High preserved him in the presence of his might, and he revealed him to the chosen.

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So here we have in the first quote, he was named before creation.

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In the second quote, he was chosen and hidden before creation.

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And in the third quote, he was hidden and preserved in the presence

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of his might, also, I believe, before creation, or it says from the beginning.

32:48
In order to understand what's going on with these quotes, it's important to recognize the background scripture, just as before with Daniel 7, there's a background text that's doing actually a lot of setting the stage for what we're talking about here, and that's Isaiah 49, verses 1 through 7.

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It reads, listen to me Coastlands, and pay attention nation from afar.

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From the womb Yahweh called me, from the belly of my mother he named me.

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He set my mouth as a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he concealed me, and he set me as a sharpened arrow in his quiver he hid me.

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Are you starting to see some of the same language here about

33:29
the servant of God being hidden, being called from the womb and this sort of thing.

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Verse 3, and he said to me, you are my servant, Israel, in you I will be glorified.

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Verse 4, and I said, for emptiness I have toiled, for waste and vanity, I have used up my strength.

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Surely my judgment is with Yahweh and my reward is with my God.

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And now Yahweh said,

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Who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to return Jacob to him, that Israel be gathered to him?

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For I have been honored in the eyes of Yahweh, and my God has been my refuge.

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He says, It was too small that you become my servant to cause the tribe of Jacob to stand and to bring back the preserved of Israel.

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I will set you as a light of the nations to become my salvation to the end of the earth.

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This is also a theme we saw in 1 Enoch of the Son of Man being the Savior of the whole world.

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Verse 7, Thus said Yahweh, Redeemer of Israel, His Holy One, to the despised soul, abhorred by the nation to the servant of those who rule.

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Kings will see and leaders will stand up and they will bow for the sake of Yahweh, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.

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Here God calls and names the servant before he's even born.

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From the womb of his mother, that was Isaiah 49:1.

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He concealed him and hid him in verse 2, and he calls him to return Israel back to God and to be a light to the nations in verse 6.

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Lastly, he will receive worship, bowing, from the rulers of the earth in verse 7.

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These statements from Isaiah are the language of predestination, not pre-existence.

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This is the vocation, this is the calling of the servant of Yahweh.

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We have no indication that the servant existed prior to his birth.

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Rather, we read about God's plans for what he will do after he is born.

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Now the language of 1 Enoch goes beyond Isaiah 49

35:33
in two interesting ways.

35:34
One, the author has moved back the time of predestination from the womb to before creation.

35:41
So we see that very clearly in Isaiah 49, the servant is called from the womb of his mother.

35:47
And first Enoch, he is actually called from creation itself.

35:51
So that is a significant change in the same direction, obviously.

35:58
of the previous.

35:59
And #2, he says God not only named and hid him, but also preserved him in his presence.

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So we have the naming and the hiding in Isaiah 49, but we don't have this preservation, this idea that the servant is already with God in the sense he's being preserved.

36:16
So Perseonach definitely moves beyond what Isaiah 49 said, but it's easy to misinterpret this.

36:25
Commenting on this,

36:26
For example, one scholar interpreted Isaiah 49 in light of 1 Enoch.

36:32
And I would argue that's actually the wrong way to do it.

36:34
You should interpret 1 Enoch in light of Isaiah 49.

36:38
But this is what he said.

36:40
This is Michael Wade Martin.

36:41
I would suggest the writer of the parables arrives at his pre-temporal interpretation of these phrases because he considers them to have in view the divine

36:52
womb of Mother God and thus A transcendent conception.

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Just reading this statement aloud is enough evidence that he has taken a wrong turn somewhere.

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With respect to Michael Martin, I just can't see this as referring to the womb of God as a mother figure.

37:14
I think you're just

37:15
You took a wrong turn somewhere.

37:17
No, the correct way to handle intertextuality, which is what we're dealing with here, we have the text of the book of parables and the text of Isaiah 49, and there's an intertextuality going on here.

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The correct way to do that is to interpret the later in light of the earlier.

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Given the background of Isaiah 49, what is the author of the book of parables doing?

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He's reading predestination.

37:40
There's no question, there's no one that would disagree with me that Isaiah 49

37:44
is talking about predestination, the calling, the mission of the servant of God.

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And he's reading that, the author of the Book of Parables, and he's translating that into apocalyptic language.

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Apocalyptic language exaggerates for effect.

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So in the apocalyptic genre, predestination becomes preexistence.

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Now, as I mentioned earlier, we must take into account of the apocalyptic genre that we're reading here.

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You cannot read First Enoch at face value.

38:16
You cannot read the book of Revelation at face value.

38:19
You cannot read the second-half of the prophet Daniel at face value.

38:24
They are giving you all kinds of symbols and images as part of visionary accounts that have translated meanings.

38:32
They have interpreted meanings.

38:34
You can't just take them at face value.

38:35
Otherwise you think there's a

38:37
actual monster coming like for example in the Book of Revelation that has seven heads and 10 horns that's absurd or you think there's going to be a lion with the wings of an eagle on its back and then somehow the the wings are going to get plucked out and he's going to be stood up as a man that's Daniel 7 that's not how we read apocalyptic literature we have to recognize that the symbols are exaggerations this is a full color very bright very

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demonstrative kind of literature.

39:11
The pre-existence texts of the Son of Man in the parables show us what happens when somebody translates a traditional prophecy, Isaiah 49 is traditional, it's not apocalyptic, into the apocalyptic genre of 1 Enoch 48 and 62.

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It gets exaggerated.

39:26
So instead of getting called from the womb, now he's called from creation.

39:29
Oh, it's from the beginning of time.

39:31
The language of predestination becomes that of pre-existence.

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But what Martin fails to do is translate the apocalyptic figures, not just Martin, others as well.

39:41
You're not translating the apocalyptic figures back into normal language when you're interpreting, and you have to do that.

39:47
Yes, in the parables, we find the phrase, from the beginning, the Most High preserved him, which implies actual existence in the beginning before creation for the Son of Man.

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That's what he saw.

40:00
That's the vision, okay?

40:03
What's the interpretation?

40:05
What does the parable or the similitude mean?

40:08
What is it similar to?

40:10
That's what similitude is.

40:12
And that's the other title for the book of parables, the book of similitudes, right?

40:17
It's simply how apocalyptic literature expresses the concept of predestination.

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In fact, this is not exclusive to First Enoch.

40:26
We find this throughout Jewish literature.

40:29
There's plenty of examples of preexistence language referring to predestination

40:33
in both apocalyptic and even non-apocalyptic Jewish literature.

40:38
We find it all over the place in fact.

40:40
So they'll say something like the Torah was with God in the beginning or it'll talk about Moses in these incredible kinds of ways.

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They don't literally think that Moses actually existed or that like the tabernacle existed or Israel as a nation physically existed in heaven with God before creation.

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What they're saying is that these were in God's mind.

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Besides, it's really hard, and this is really a clincher in my opinion, it's really hard to get a pre-existent son of man out of First Enoch when First Enoch 71.14 clearly identifies Enoch as the son of man.

41:21
Enoch is a historical person.

41:22
We read about him in the book of Genesis.

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He lived before Noah.

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He walked with God, and he was not for God took him, right?

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So

41:33
Are we saying that this human being, that the author of the Book of Parables thinks that this human being existed before creation, was incarnated and then lived this life and then went back up to heaven and is waiting there to then fulfill the eschatological role of the Son of Man?

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I mean, I don't think so.

41:53
So we may be just misreading the genre a little bit.

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T.W.

41:57
Manson talks about this in a very helpful summary.

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This is what he says.

42:03
At the end of his life, Enoch is translated to heaven and identified with the pre-existent Son of Man.

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But here we come to the great difficulty.

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How is it possible at all to identify the exalted Enoch with the pre-existent Son of Man?

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The remedy is to recognize that the premundane Son of Man in Enoch is, if I may so describe it, an idea in the mind of God.

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Enoch incarnates, not a pre-existent heavenly being, but a divine idea.

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He is hailed by God as the incarnation of the idea, after he has lived a life of righteousness on earth.

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He becomes the first actualization in the history of the Son of Man idea and the nucleus of the group of the elect and righteous.

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The Son of Man existed as a notion in God's mind.

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He was born

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by normal human means and named Enoch.

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After he lived righteously, God swept him up into heaven where he remains until the eschaton when he fulfills the prophecy of Daniel on the earth, bringing God's judgment.

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That's what I think the author of the book of parables is saying.

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Once you demythologize, or should I maybe say, just interpret the visions and the symbols

43:26
correctly.

43:27
Thus, the pre-existence language is, as Leslie Walk put it, a poetic, honor-bestowing mode of discourse.

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Walk also puts it this way.

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He says, the revelatory and judicial purpose of the Son of Man existed from everlasting.

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Once again, the purpose of the Son of Man existed from everlasting rather than the actual ontological existence of the figure.

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We have to be careful when reading the apocalyptic genre.

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I tend to think he didn't pre-exist apart from in God's mind.

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But even if I'm wrong, and I fully admit I could be wrong that the book of parables is actually saying that we should take it literally, which I

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I just think I'm so hesitant to do that with apocalyptic literature, but let's just say I was wrong and we should take it literally and that the Son of Man did exist from before creation.

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Let's just assume that for a second.

44:23
He's still everywhere distinguished from God.

44:26
He's not attributed with creating the world.

44:28
He receives his mission to judge sinners from God.

44:31
He's chosen by God, hidden by God, preserved by God.

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He's not given the same level of worship as God.

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Now Michael Martin has demonstrated that the text behind this, as I mentioned, is Isaiah 49.

44:44
Isaiah 49 is in servant song.

44:47
It's a servant song.

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There God is the superior who calls the servant from the womb.

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God conceals him, the servant.

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He equips him to be his servant, not to be his equal.

45:00
So, and then of course we saw in Daniel 7, all the subordinationism there, where you have the Ancient of Days sitting,

45:07
orchestrating events, working throughout the scene to ensure that the Son of Man is presented and then receives and so forth.

45:16
So we have subordination all in Isaiah 49, all in Daniel 7, all throughout First Enoch as well, especially the book of the parables when it talks about the Son of Man.

45:27
And so even if I'm wrong about him not existing from creation, what you would actually end up with is Arianism.

45:33
You would end up with an idea of a pre-existent

45:37
spirit, I don't know what you want to call the Son of Man, who exists in some hidden state and then becomes a human being in Enoch.

45:47
And that is certainly not the two powers idea.

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So there are no blurring of identities in Daniel 7, nor in Isaiah 49, nor in the parables of 1 Enoch.

45:57
The Son of Man is passive in God's presence.

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I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again.

46:03
God conceals him.

46:04
God assigns him as judge.

46:05
God reveals him at the proper time.

46:07
The Son of Man is not the Lord of spirits or the head of days.

46:11
He is in his place.

46:12
He is exalted.

46:13
He is glorified.

46:14
He is empowered by God to fulfill his mission.

46:18
And he's also identified, as I mentioned before, as the human Enoch.

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So in conclusion, there's no mention of two powers in first Enoch.

46:26
There's no hint of binitarianism.

46:28
but even if I'm wrong about predestination and the author of the parables really did think the son of man existed from the beginning he's still not considered deity at the same level as the most high God the most you can get out of this as I said is proto-arianism with one supreme God and a subordinate divine being alongside him it's not a two powers belief nor has it binitarianism nor is it dualism which I'll talk about later so and it doesn't even matter anyhow because

46:57
The book of the parables, the part we've been looking at within First Enoch, is after the time that Christianity has already started.

47:04
It's coming from the year probably around 90 to 100 AD.

47:08
So.

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I hope this episode helped you to see the evidence.

47:14
And if you disagree with me, I totally respect that.

47:17
But the evidence is the evidence.

47:19
The primary sources are the primary sources.

47:21
They say what they say.

47:23
And the question is, how should we interpret them?

47:25
I have opened up for you how I'm thinking about it, how I think scholars think about it, and even disagree with one or two of those scholars in the process.

47:35
But even at first, Enoch doesn't have anything to tell us about the two powers idea.

47:41
I assure you, we will find Jewish texts that talk about this in this series.

47:45
Please be patient with me as there is much more to cover.

47:49
My goal is to release an episode each week and next up is going to be Philo of Alexandria.

47:55
If you're not familiar with Philo, he was someone who lived at the same time as Jesus Christ.

48:01
And we'll consider his writings and what they have to tell us about two powers in our next episode of Restitudio.

48:11
that brings this presentation to a close.

48:13
What did you think?

48:14
Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 675, part 2 of the Two Powers in Heaven series, First Enoch, and leave your questions, comments, and feedback there.

48:26
Now it seems like I might have struck a nerve with that last episode.

48:30
I don't really know why some episodes get a lot of downloads and others don't.

48:35
Some do really well on audio, others do really well on video.

48:39
It's all kind of, it's all pretty confusing to me.

48:43
But anyhow, the video version of this episode got over 7,000 views in less than a week.

48:52
So

48:53
Something happened.

48:54
It was called Why You Should Care About the Two Powers Heresy.

48:57
It's the episode from last week, just the video version of it.

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And for some reason, the algorithm on people's YouTube feed wanted to serve it to them or whatever.

49:05
And I have 138 comments from that episode.

49:10
Obviously, I can't read them all out, but I'm just gonna engage with a few here as I commonly do at the end.

49:16
Bend Orksen writes, I have never subscribed this fast to a channel.

49:20
I'm exciting to see where this goes.

49:23
Now this is just a simple little comment, but it bespeaks the kind of content that people are searching for.

49:30
I mean, I have had on this podcast episodes where people got healed, miracles happened, life transformation, and they do okay, but you put something totally obscure out there, like I remember I did an episode on the Samaritan Pentateuch years ago.

49:47
It has garnered more views and downloads than like almost anything else.

49:52
Who cares about the Samaritan Pentateuch?

49:54
But here's the thing, there's not that much out there on obscure, nerdy theology, Bible, church history, and certainly Jewish apocalyptic literature.

50:06
I don't think there's much out there on that either.

50:08
So maybe that's the secret sauce, who knows?

50:12
But I'm glad for all those who did subscribe.

50:15
And if you're listening here on audio, because you subscribed, welcome.

50:19
So glad to have you listening in on the podcast.

50:22
I tend to engage with listener feedback at the end of these episodes.

50:26
This is not available on the video version as of yet.

50:29
Maybe someday, but right now it's just audio.

50:32
Avery Bach wrote in, very excited for this series.

50:34
Bravo, brother.

50:37
5 wrote in saying, great work, Sean.

50:40
Really looking forward to joining you throughout the series.

50:43
NJMNC said, thank you for this, brother.

50:46
I'm excited about your soon lecture.

50:50
CJ25 said, Sean, I always enjoy what you're doing on Recitudio.

50:54
I am also looking forward to this study on the two powers.

50:57
I couldn't believe that Michael Heiser believed in two Yahwehs.

51:01
I'm happy about AD and BC also.

51:04
So just a couple of quick things.

51:05
The ADBC is just how I use the dating system, the old-fashioned dating system apparently.

51:11
CJ also does it that way instead of BCE and CE, tomato, tomato.

51:17
The Michael Heiser point he made is that

51:20
He's shocked that Michael Heiser believes in two Yahwehs.

51:22
Well, somebody named SevPlays came in and replied to that comment saying, Heiser did not believe in two Yahwehs.

51:29
He was a standard Trinitarian.

51:31
I realize I have stumbled onto some strange non-Trinitarian channel, but please don't misrepresent us.

51:38
I know of no Trinitarian that has ever said there were two Yahwehs.

51:43
Well, SevPlays, your ignorance is not bliss in this case.

51:48
That Heizer, that statement that Heizer believes in two Yahwehs, that was from Heizer.

51:54
I was directly quoting Michael Heizer's website, which even though he is deceased, his website goes on and somebody's funding it and probably will go on for a long time.

52:04
And you could go there, you could see how he summarizes Siegel's work, what he says about his own dissertation, and he specifically uses the language of two Yahwehs.

52:14
It blows my mind too, but I'm not misrepresenting anyone.

52:18
I know that the Trinity idea is that there's supposed to be 3 persons in one essence.

52:23
So it doesn't make sense to me that you would have two Yahwehs or three Yahwehs because that would be 3 persons in one person, right?

52:33
There's one Yahweh and there's three Yahwehs.

52:35
That doesn't work.

52:36
But look, that's just how he described it.

52:39
So I was just quoting him.

52:41
Larry Thrasher wrote in saying, Peter Schaefer in his book, Two Gods in Heaven, in which he examines the identity of Michael the Archangel and the son of man of Daniel 7, writes the following.

52:52
And he gives a really interesting quote about how Jews believe in two gods, which I think is just, you know, apologies to any Jews that are actually listening to this right now.

53:04
I know you just probably threw up in your mouth, but yeah, that's apparently what Peter Schaefer thinks.

53:11
He says the Jewish heaven was by no means always content with one god, but despite all trends to the contrary, was often populated with two gods or a number of divine persons.

53:21
The 2 gods of ancient Judaism are not antagonistic powers fighting against each other, but instead rule peacefully with and next to one another.

53:29
This is of course always an assumption that one of the two is the ancestral first as a rule older god of higher rank who generally makes space in heaven next to and beneath him for the second as a

53:41
rule younger god.

53:42
The divinity of this second god can be expressed in different degrees.

53:47
A clear reference to a second god in the fullest sense of the word is avoided.

53:51
Wherever the relationship to the first god is addressed directly as Son of God or Son of the Most High is generally spoken of and finally as a culmination a lesser or younger god.

54:02
For this reason I speak with caution of a semi-divine figure beside God the Creator.

54:08
This reverse, however, must not belie the fact that our authors were always concerned with having this second god-like figure come as close as possible to the Most High God.

54:17
The want for a second God is unmistakable.

54:21
End quote.

54:22
So yeah, with respect to Peter Schaefer, no.

54:25
That is not anything that we find in the Old Testament.

54:29
Go ahead and read your Hebrew Bible.

54:31
You read it in Hebrew.

54:32
Read it in an English translation.

54:34
Read the Greek translation of it.

54:35
Whatever translation you want to read.

54:37
There's not two gods in there.

54:39
There's not.

54:40
It's not for no reason that the Jewish people have been strict on this for a long time.

54:44
They had fallen into idolatry in the time of the kings and then Yahweh, the one God of Israel, ejected them from the land, what they call the Babylonian exile, for 70 years.

54:55
After they came back, they never worshiped idols again.

54:59
and they have been strict on this idea of recognizing Yahweh as, or they wouldn't say Yahweh, they would say Hashem, the name or Adonai, as the one true God.

55:11
And so, you know, to say that they were desiring a second God and that they believed in a second God who was subordinate to the Father, you know, come on.

55:21
That's just absolute nonsense from a biblical perspective.

55:26
Now, were there Jewish

55:28
groups that later on writing outside of the Bible and after the Bible that mention multiple powers in heaven.

55:35
Sure, you've got Michael the Archangel, you've got Gabriel, you've got other angels mentioned like Raphael, and you've got other kinds of beings in heaven.

55:46
Even in the book of Revelation, which is very monotheistic, by the way, even in the book of Revelation, you have these creatures, these living creatures with all these eyes, and you have these elders, and

55:56
There's all sorts of angels and so forth, right?

55:58
That's fine.

56:00
That's not the problem.

56:01
There's plenty of lowercase G gods if you want to use that terminology based on the Hebrew Elohim, you know, basically divine beings.

56:09
Yeah, there's lots of divine beings, but there's only one who is capital T, the God.

56:16
And that would be the Most High, Yahweh, the Creator, the one who saved them out of Egypt.

56:22
the father as Christians believe of Jesus Christ.

56:25
So this is one of my biggest gripes with this kind of literature, which I've been delving into for months and months now.

56:32
People say all kinds of crazy things about Jewish literature and the Jewish beliefs and two powers.

56:39
Where are the sources?

56:42
Show me the sources.

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And that's what this series is all about.

56:45
You're going to see the sources.

56:46
We're going to look at Philo next time.

56:48
You're going to see exactly what Philo said about the logos, which is like the relevant, interesting material related to the idea of two powers.

56:58
And we're going to see exactly what he says.

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We're not going to infer it.

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We're not going to base it on a scholar.

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We're going to look at the sources ourselves.

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And you can judge for yourself, just like with today's episode, you can judge for yourself.

57:10
Did First Enoch have anything to say about two powers in heaven?

57:14
No, he didn't.

57:16
He talked about the one most high, the Lord of spirits, the head of days, and then a second one, the son of man, who is his vice regent, a figure who is going to, in the end, rule upon the earth.

57:29
And again, First Enoch, I don't think I really mentioned this in the episode, but like it's not a Christian document.

57:35
It's A Jewish document from the post-Second Temple period, the end of the 1st century, and we find other documents very similar to it, like 2nd Baruch and 4th Ezra that also talk about the Son of Man figure.

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And so there were Jews in Jewish communities who were not Christians, who were talking about the Son of Man as this figure that was going to rule in the last day based on the prophecy of Daniel chapter 7.

58:00
But as I

58:01
emphasized in this episode, there is no equality or binitarianism here.

58:05
This is God's agent doing God's will.

58:08
And of course, as Christians, we believe that's Jesus.

58:11
We believe that these are prophecies of Jesus, of what he is going to do in the final time.

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And that he is currently concealed and he is currently hidden in heaven and that he will be revealed and he will judge the world.

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So that's how we kind of think about the whole thing and make sense of it.

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Thanks everybody for writing in.

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If you'd like to support us, you could do that at our website, restitudio.org.

58:35
Thanks to all of you who are doing that.

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I'll catch you next week.

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And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.