*** This PDF contains a commentary on Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4-5 fromthe Word Biblical Commentary on Jude and 2 Peter. It also containstwo Appendices from Douglas Van Dorn’s Giants: Sons of the Gods,one is one thinking properly about extra-biblical literature, the otheris on Jude and 2 Peter.***

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A Commentary on Jude 6Richard J. Bauckham, 2 Peter, Jude, vol. 50, Word Biblical Commentary(Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 50–53.

6. ἀλλέλους are the angels (known as the Watchers) who, according to p51 Jewish tradition, descended from heaven to marry human wives andcorrupt the human race in the period before the Flood. This was how theaccount of the “sons of God” in Gen 6:1–4 was universally understood (sofar as our evidence goes) until the mid-second century a.d. (1 Enoch 6–19;21; 86–88; 106:13–15, 17; Jub. 4:15, 22; 5:1; CD 2:17–19; 1QapGen 2:1; Tg.Ps.-J. Gen. 6:1–4; T. Reub. 5:6–7; T. Napht. 3:5; 2 Apoc. Bar. 56:10–14),though the tradition took several varying forms. From the time of R. Simeonb. Yohai in the mid-second century a.d., the traditional exegesis wasreplaced in Judaism by an insistence that the “sons of God” were not angelsbut men. In Christianity, however, the traditional exegesis had a longer life,questioned only in the third century and disappearing in the fifth century.

Originally the fall of the Watchers was a myth of the origin of evil (so 1Enoch 6–19), but by the first century a.d. its importance was already waningas the origin of evil was focused rather on the fall of Adam (e.g. Rom 5; 4Ezra). This is no doubt why there are only a few allusions to it in the NT (1Pet 3:19–20; 2 Pet 2:4; perhaps 1 Cor 11:10; 1 Tim 2:9). But it was stillwidely known and accepted, especially in those Jewish Christian circles

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochJub. JubileesCD Cairo (Genizah text of the) Damascus (Document)1QapGen Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1Tg. Ps.-J. Targum Pseudo-JonathanT. Reub. Testament of ReubenT. Napht. Testament of Naphtali2 Apoc. Bar. Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoche.g. exempli gratia, for example

where the Enoch literature remained popular. Perhaps it was largely owingto the influence of those circles and the continuing popularity of the Enochliterature in second-century Christianity that the fall of the Watchersretained its place in the Christian tradition longer than in Judaism, wherethe Enoch literature fell out of favor in rabbinic circles.

Jude’s reference is directly dependent on 1 Enoch 6–19, which is the earliestextant account of the fall of the Watchers (from the early second centuryb.c. at the latest: Milik, Enoch, 22–25, 28, 31), and he shows himself closelyfamiliar with those chapters. They tell how, in the days of Jared (Gen 5:18),two hundred angels under the leadership of Šemiḥazah and ʿAśa’el, filledwith lust for the beautiful daughters of men, descended on Mount Hermonand took human wives. Their children, the giants, ravaged the earth, and thefallen angels taught men forbidden knowledge and all kinds of sin. Theywere therefore responsible for the total corruption of the world on accountof which God sent the Flood. The Watchers were punished by being boundunder the earth until the Day of Judgment, when they will be cast intoGehenna. Their children, the giants, were condemned to destroy each otherin battle (10:9), but their spirits became the evil spirits responsible for allevil in the world between the Flood and the Day of Judgment (15:8–16:1). Itis clear that for the author of these chapters the judgment of the Watchersand men at the time of the Flood prefigured the final elimination of all evilat the Last Judgment. The parallel will also have been in Jude’s mind whenhe used the Watchers as a type of the false teachers of the last days.

It is unnecessary to suppose that Jude is dependent on the Greek myth ofthe Titans, recounted in Hesiod’s Theogony. The resemblances between theGreek and Jewish myths is probably largely due to their common derivationfrom ancient Near Eastern myth. The Greek myth may have had some minorinfluence on the Jewish tradition (cf. Glasson, Influence, 63–67; Delcor, RHR190 [1976] 30, 3940, 44) and certainly some Jewish writers identified theTitans with the fallen angels or with their sons the giants (see Comment on2 Pet 2:4). But Jude’s use of δεσμοί (“chains”) and ζόφος (“darkness”),which p 52 are also used of the Titans chained in the darkness of Tartarus

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochRHR Revue de l’histoire des religions

(Hesiod, Theog. 718, 729) is insufficient to show that he made thisidentification or knew Hesiod.

Older exegetes understood Jude 6 to refer to the fall of Satan and his angelsbefore the fall of Adam; but Jude’s dependence on 1 Enoch is clear from theclose parallels in this verse (see below) and also from the allusion in v 7 (seebelow) to the fact that the angels’ sin was sexual intercourse with mortalwomen. Dubarle (“Péché”) accepts the allusions to 1 Enoch in v 6, butsuggests that Jude is making primary reference, in terms of the myth of thefallen angels, to the spies (ἀγγέλους = messengers) in Num 13, who forsooktheir eminent position (ἀρχήν) among the people and abandoned the land(οἰκητήριον) which God had promised them. But it is hard to see how Jude’sreaders could have detected this supposedly primary layer of meaning, andagain the allusion in v 7 to the angels’ intercourse with women rules it out.

ἀρχήν here means a position of heavenly power or sphere of dominion,which the angels exercised over the world in the service of God (cf. Jub. 2:2;5:6; 1 Enoch 82:10–20; 1QM 10:12; 1QH 1:11; Justin, 2 Apol. 5.2). (Cf. ἀρχαίas a rank of angels in T. Levi 3:8; 2 Enoch 20:1; and as cosmic powers in Rom8:38; Eph 1:21; 3:10; 6:12; Col 1:16; 2:15.) Papias (ap. Andr. Caes., In Apoc.34:12) says that to some of the angels God “gave dominion (ἄρχειν) overthe affairs of the earth, and ordered them to rule (ἄρχειν) well … But theirorder (τάξιν) ended in nothing.”

ἀπολιπόντας τὸ ἴδιον οἰκητήριον, “abandoned their proper home”: cf. 1Enoch 12:4; 15:3: “you left (Greek: ἀπελίπετε) the high, holy and eternalheaven”; 15:7: “the spirits of heaven, in heaven is their dwelling” (Greek: ἡκατοίκησις αῦτῶν).

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochJub. Jubilees1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1QM Milḥāmāh (War Scroll) from Qumran1QH Hôdāyôt ( Thanksgiving Hymns) from Qumran Cave 1T. Levi Testament of Levi (from Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs)2 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enochap. apud (quoted in)Andr. Caes. Andreas Caesariensis (Andrew of Caesarea)Apoc. Apocalypse of, apocalyptic or Apocrypha1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch

The two participial phrases, in synonymous parallelism, stress the apostasyof the angels, which Jude intends to compare with that of the false teachers.The fact that sexual immorality was also involved in the angels’ sin willbecome apparent in v 7.

εἰς κρίσιν μεγάλης ἡμέρας, “until the judgment of the great day”: cf. 1Enoch 10:12 (= 4QEnb 1:4:11, Milik, Enoch, 175): Michael is to bind the fallenangels “for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, until the greatday of their judgment.” The adjective “great,” lost in the Greek and Ethiopicversions of 1 Enoch, is now found in the 4Q Aramaic fragment (Aramaic: עד .(יומא רבא The precise phrase “great day of judgment” is unusual, cf. 1 Enoch22:11; 84:4; Tg. Neof. Deut. 32:34; more usual is “great day of the Lord”(Joel 2:11, 31 [= Acts 2:20]; Zeph 1:14; Mal 4:5; 2 Enoch 18:6), cf. Rev 6:17(“great day of their wrath”); 16:18 (“great day of God Almighty”); 1 Enoch54:6 (“that great day”).

δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν, “he has kept in eternal chains in thenether darkness’ ” cf. 1 Enoch 10:4–6: “Bind ˓ʿAśel hand and foot, and casthim into the darkness (Greek: σκότος): and make an opening in the desert,which is in Daddu’el (see Milik, Enoch, 30), and cast him therein. And placeupon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness (σκότος),and let him abide there forever, and cover his face that he may not seelight. And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire.” p53 Jude’s language reflects both this judgment on ʿAśael and the judgmenton Šemịazah and the rest of the fallen Watchers in 10:12 (quoted above).His phrase ὑπὸ ζόφον (not in the Greek Enoch) is commonly used in Greekpoetry for the underworld (Homer, Il. 21:56; Odes Sol. 11:57, 155; 20:356;Hesiod, Theog. 729; Aeschylus, Pers. 839; Sib. Or. 4:43).

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch4Q 4QSama

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochTg. Neof. Targum Neofiti I2 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochIl. Iliad (Homer)Odes Sol. Odes of SolomonPers. PersianSib. Or. Sibylline Oracles

The chains, to which Jude refers, are very prominent in the tradition of thefall of the Watchers (cf. 1 Enoch 13:1; 14:5; 54:3–5; 56:1–4; 88:1;4QEnGiantsa 8:14 [Milik, Enoch, 315]; Jub. 5:6; 2 Apoc. Bar. 56:13; Origen, C.Cels 5.52; Oxford MS. 2340 § 19, quoted Milik, Enoch, 332).

The angels’ imprisonment is only temporary, until the Day of Judgmentwhen they will be transferred to the fire of Gehenna, but the chains arecalled “eternal” (ἀϊδίος, synonymous with αἰωνίος v 7, no doubt chosen forstylistic variation, cf. 4 Macc 10:15). Jude’s terminology seems here todepend on 1 Enoch 10:5, where ˓ʿAśael is bound “forever” (Greek C: εἰς τοὺςαἰῶνας; S: εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα) until the judgment. Here “forever” must mean“for the duration of the world until the Day of Judgment” (= the seventygenerations of 10:12). The same usage appears in 14:5 (= 4QEnc 1:6:15,Milik, Enoch, 193, 195): “to bind you (the fallen angels) for all the days ofeternity” (Aramaic: [למאעד כול יומי ע); Jub. 5:10 (evidently dependent on 1Enoch 10): “they were bound in the depths of the earth forever, until theday of the great condemnation.” (cf. also Josephus, BJ 6.434, where δεσμοῖςαἰωνίοις, “eternal chains,” refers to life imprisonment.)

With τετήρηκεν, “kept,” cf. 2 Enoch 7:2: the Watchers, imprisoned in thesecond heaven, are “reserved for and awaiting the eternal judgment”; 18:4:they are “kept in great darkness” in the second heaven, until (18:6) they are“punished at the great day of the Lord.” The coincidences of language withJude are striking, but may reflect only common dependence on 1 Enoch(with “kept” as a chance coincidence), or even the influence of Jude 6 on 2Enoch cf. also T. Reub. 5:5 (of women such as those who seduced the

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch4QEn Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran Cave 4Jub. Jubilees2 Apoc. Bar. Syriac Apocalypse of BaruchMS Monograph Series or Manuscript1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch4QEn Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran Cave 4Jub. Jubilees1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochBJ Bible de Jérusalem2 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch2 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochT. Reub. Testament of Reuben

Watchers): εἰς κόλασιν τοῦ αἰῶνος τετήρηται, “has been kept for eternalpunishment.”

One reason for Jude’s use of τηρεῖν, “to keep,” here is to make a grim playon words with μὴ τηρήσαντας (“did not keep”) in the first part of the verse.Since the angels have not kept their position, the Lord now keeps themchained. This is an example of the common practice of describing a sin andits judgment in corresponding terms, so that the punishment fits the crime(lex talionis; cf., e.g., 1 Cor 3:17; Rev 16:6). τηρεῖν seems to be one of Jude’scatchwords (cf. vv 1, 13, 21). The angels contrast with faithful Christianswho should keep their position in God’s love (v 21) and whom God keepssafe, not for judgment but for salvation at the Last Day (v 1). Such plays onthe word are not unlikely, since τηρεῖν, a common word in early Christian(especially Johannine) vocabulary, is similarly played on elsewhere (John17:6, 11–12; Rev 3:10).

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A Commentary on 2 Peter 2:4-5Richard J. Bauckham, 2 Peter, Jude, vol. 50, Word Biblical Commentary(Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 248–251.

4. εἰ γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ἀγγέλων ἁμαρτησάντων οὐκ ἐθείσατο, “for if God did notspare the angels when they sinned.” For the basis of this interpretation ofGen 6:1–4 in 1 Enoch, see the commentary on Jude 6. The author of 2 Peterhas followed Jude. He may not himself have known 1 Enoch and probably inany case could not expect his readers to be familiar with it (see Introduction,section 2 of Literary Relationships), but he must have known the story of thefall of the Watchers, which was well known in contemporary Judaism,Hellenistic as well as Palestinian. In his rewriting of Jude 6 the specific verbalechoes of 1 Enoch have mostly been lost (a fact which is most easilyexplained if Jude is prior to 2 Peter), but this is probably accidental ratherthan a deliberate attempt to avoid echoes of 1 Enoch. No significance

e.g. exempli gratia, for example1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch

should be seen in the fact that 2 Peter omits to specify the sin of the angels(the sexual aspect of which even Jude only alludes to: Jude 7). Those who(later) objected to the idea that angels could have mated with women didnot suggest that the angels sinned in some other way, but that “the sons ofGod” in Gen 6:1 were not angels at all, but men. If the author of 2 Peter andhis readers knew the story of the fall of the Watchers at all, they must haveknown it as an interpretation of Gen 6:1–4 and have known that the angelssinned by taking human wives. But instead of specifying the sins of each ofhis three OT examples p 249 of sinners in turn, the author has chosen tosum up the sins of all three in the words of v 10a, which in fact give a strongemphasis to sexual indulgence.

ἀλλὰ σειραῖς ζόθου ταρταρώσας ηαρέσωκεν, “but cast them into hell andcommitted them to fetters of nether darkness.” The verbs ταρταροῦν and(rather more common) καταταρταροῦν mean “to cast into Tartarus,” andwere almost always used with reference to the early Greek theogonicmyths, in which the ancient giants, the Cyclopes and Titans, wereimprisoned in Tartarus, the lowest part of the underworld, by Uranos,Kronos and Zeus (Pearson, GRBS 10 [1969] 76–78). They are not used in theGreek version of 1 Enoch,; though τάρταρος (“Tartarus”) is used of the placeof divine punishment in 1 Enoch 20:2, as elsewhere in Jewish Greekliterature (LXX Job 40:20; 41:24; Prov 30:16; Sib. Or. 4:186; Philo, Mos.2.433; praem 152). But Hellenistic Jews were aware that the Greek myth ofthe Titans had some similarity to the fall of the Watchers (though Philo, Gig.58, rejects any comparison). Sometimes the Watchers’ sons, the giants (theNephilim), were compared with the Titans (Josephus, Ant. 1.73; cf. LXX Ezek32:27; Sir 16:7) but in Jdt 16:6 (and also the Christian passage Sib. Or. 2:231)

GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochLXX The Septuagint, Greek translation of the OTSib. Or. Sibylline OraclesPhilo, Philo, De Vita MosisMos. Philo, De Vita Mosispraem praemittit (unt), sets forwardPhilo Philo, De GigantibusGig. Philo, De GigantibusAnt. Josephus, Antiquities of the JewsLXX The Septuagint, Greek translation of the OTSib. Or. Sibylline Oracles

the Watchers themselves seem to be called τιτᾶνες (“Titans”). Thus in usinga term reminiscent of the Greek myth of the Titans the author of 2 Peterfollows Hellenistic Jewish practice.

If σειραῖς (“fetters”) is the correct reading (see the Note), the author hasinterpreted Jude’s “chains” (δεσμοῖς; see Comment on Jude 6)metaphorically of the darkness (ζόθος is the gloom of the underworld: seeComment on Jude 6) in which the angels are confined. In a highly rhetoricaldescription of the Egyptian plague of darkness, Wis 17:16 says that theEgyptians “were bound with one chain of darkness” (μιᾷ ἁλύσει σκότουςἐδέθησαν; cf. also 17:2), and it is not impossible that the author of 2 Peterrecalled this expression. If, however, the correct reading is σειροῖς (“pits”),we must suppose that the author of 2 Peter had independent knowledge ofthe tradition of the fall of the Watchers as it was told in 1 Enoch, for thisreading must refer to the “valleys” (1 Enoch 10:12: νάηας; cf. 10:4; Jub.5:10) or the abyss (1 Enoch 18:11; 21:7; 88:1, 3) which served as a dungeonfor the fallen angels. This is by no means impossible, since the authorelsewhere augments his borrowings from Jude with details independentlydrawn from Jewish haggadic tradition (see vv 5, 7, 16), and may have drawnon independent knowledge of a catechetical tradition similar to that whichlies behind Jude 5–7 (see Form/ Structure/Setting section).

εἰς κρίσιν τηρουμένους, “to be kept until the judgment.” The judgment(κρίσιν) is undoubtedly, as in Jude 6, the (eschatological) judgment (cf. 2:9;3:7), and τηρεῖν (“to keep”), which 2 Peter has adopted from Jude but useswithout Jude’s ironic wordplay, always in 2 Peter has reference toeschatological judgment (2:9, 17; 3:7). Throughout this section the authoremphasizes that the examples of judgment he has chosen prefigure the finaljudgment.

5. καὶ ἀρχαίου κόσμου οὐκ ἐφείσατο, “and did not spare the ancientworld.” The story of the Watchers was closely connected with the Flood (in

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochJub. Jubilees1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch

1 Enoch the Flood comes as a consequence of the activity of the Watchersand their sons), and this connection is found in other examples of thetraditional paraenetic schema which this passage follows (3 Macc 2:4; T.Napht. 3:5). This p 250 close connection explains why Noah appears in thisverse to serve as the example of deliverance which is the counterpart totwo examples of judgment: the angels (v 4) and the “ancient world” (v 5).κόσμος (“world”) here means primarily the inhabitants of the world (cf.: 1Clem 9:4: Noah preached “to the world”: κόσμῳ), but the word alsoemphasizes the universal scope of the Flood and invites comparison withthe coming eschatological judgment, the second such universal judgment(cf. 3:6–7). The author of 2 Peter seems to have thought of three successiveworlds: the ancient world before the Flood, the present world, and the newworld to come (3:13) after the eschatological judgment (Chaine). (Forἀρχαίου, “ancient”: cf. Sir 16:7: “the ancient giants”; and for the idea, cf.Clem. Hom. 9:2:1: τοῦ πάλαι κατακλυσθέντος κόσμου, “the ancient worldwhich was deluged.”)

ὄγσοον, “Noah the eighth person,” is a classical Greek idiom (cf. 2 Macc5:27; other examples in BAG s.v. ὄγσοος) and means “Noah with sevenothers.” The reference is to Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives(Gen 8:18). I have retained a literal translation because the author may haveseen a special significance in the number eight here. Some think the numberis mentioned to stress the small number of those who were saved (Mayor,Wand, Green; cf. Jub. 5:19; 4 Ezra 3:11), but there seems no particularreason why that point should be emphasized here. It is stressed in 1 Pet3:20 (ὀλίγοι, “few”), which also mentions the number eight, but there is nogood reason for thinking 2 Peter is here dependent on that verse (againstDalton, Bib 60 [1979] 551–52): the only real point of contact between 1 Pet3:20 and 2 Pet 2:5 is the number eight, and this probably indicates that forsome reason Christian tradition was in the habit of specifying that there

1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochT. Napht. Testament of Naphtali1 Clem 1 ClementClem. Hom. Pseudo-Clementine HomiliesBAG W. Bauer, W. F. Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, (Chicago: Chicago U. P., 1979)s.v. sub verbo, under the wordJub. JubileesBib Biblica

were eight persons who were saved out of the Flood. Noah is also called“eighth” (ὄγδοος) in Sib. Or. 1:280–81, a passage which may be Jewish(Kurfess in NT Apoc. 2, 707), and the number eight is stressed in Theophilus’account of the Deluge (Ad Autol. 3.19).

The reason for this stress is perhaps to be found in the eschatologicalsymbolism of the number eight, which represented an eighth day of newcreation, following the seven days of the old creation’s history (cf 2 Enoch33:1–2; Barn. 15:9). Early Christians associated this symbolism with Sunday,the “eighth day” (Barn. 15:9: Justin, Dial. 24.1: 41.4; 138.1). Sunday was theeighth day because it was the day of Christ’s resurrection in which the newcreation was begun, and this symbolism is linked by Justin to the eightpeople saved in the Flood (Dial. 138.1). It would be very appropriate in 2 Pet2:5, and so may well have been in the author’s mind.

Noah, preserved from the old world to be the beginning of the new worldafter the Flood, is a type of faithful Christians who will be preserved fromthe present world to inherit the new world after the judgment.

δικαιοσύνης κήρυκα, “a preacher of righteousness.” Noah’s preaching is notmentioned in Genesis, but was well-known in Jewish tradition. It isespecially prominent in the first book of the Sibylline Oracles, a product ofHellenistic Judaism, in which a long sermon of Noah’s is given (Sib. Or.1:148–98). Normally Noah was said to have preached repentance to hiswicked contemporaries (Sib. Or. 1:129: κήρυξεν μετάνοιαν, “he preachedrepentance”; Josephus, Ant. 1.74; Gen. Rab. 30:7: “one herald arose for mein the generation of p 251 the flood”; Eccl. Rab. 9:15; Pirqe R. El. 22; b.

Sib. Or. Sibylline OraclesNT Novum Testamentum or New TestamentApoc. Apocalypse of, apocalyptic or Apocrypha2 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew EnochBarn. BarnabasBarn. BarnabasDial. Dialogue with TryphoDial. Dialogue with TryphoSib. Or. Sibylline OraclesSib. Or. Sibylline OraclesAnt. Josephus, Antiquities of the JewsGen. Rab. Midraš Rabbah on Genesis or Genesis RabbaEccl. Rab. Midraš Rabbah on EcclesiastesPirqe R. El. Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer

Sanh. 108; cf. also Theophilus, Ad Autol. 3.19; Methodius, Conviv. 10.3;Apoc. Paul 50: οὐκ ἐπαυσάμην … κήρυσσειν, Μετανοιεῖτε, “I did not ceaseto preach, Repent”; Book of Adam and Eve (ed(s). Malan) 3:2, 4; Noah’spreaching of repentance may also be implied in 1 Pet 3:20: ἀπειθήσασιν,“did not obey”). The fact that this tradition appears also in 1 Clement (7:6:ἐκήρυξεν μετάνοιαν, “he preached repentance”; cf. 9:4) does not prove thatClement knew 2 Peter; on the contrary, his use of μετάνοιαν (“repentance”)shows that he had independent access to the tradition about Noah’spreaching. But it is one of many signs that the two works belong to acommon milieu.

Second Peter no doubt uses δικαιοσύνης (“righteousness”), meaning thatNoah exhorted his contemporaries to righteous living, in order to contrastwith ἀσεβῶν (“ungodly people”). (Some commentators find a parallel in Jub.7:20, where Noah exhorts to righteousness, but this is irrelevant because itrefers to Noah’s instruction of his sons after the Flood.)

Jewish tradition also regarded the period before the Flood as a period inwhich God delayed judgment to give men time for repentance (Tg(s) to Gen6:3; Pirqe ’Abot 5:2; Philo, Quaest. Gen. 2.13; also 1 Pet 3:20) and in view of3:9 this idea would fit well into 2 Peter’s typology. But the fact that theauthor uses δικαιοσύνης (“righteousness”) rather than μετάνοιας(“repentance,” which would create a link with 3:9) seems to indicate that hedid not have this aspect of the typology in mind here.

ἐφύλαξεν (“preserved”), cf. διαφυλάσσειν, “to preserve, protect,” in Wis10:1, 5, 12, a chapter which, like this section of 2 Peter, gives examples ofGod’s protection and rescue of the righteous when the wicked are judged.The example of Noah appears in Wis 10:4.

b. Sanh. Babylonian Talmud: tractate SanhedrinApoc. Paul Apocalypse of PaulAdam and Eve Vita Adae et EvaeJub. JubileesTg(s) Targum(s)Pirqe ’Abot Sayings of the(Jewsih)Fathers (in the Mishna)Philo, Philo, De Quaestiones et Dolutines in GenesinQuaest. Gen. Philo, De Quaestiones et Dolutines in Genesin

κατακλυσμὸν κόσμῳ ἀσεβῶν ἐπάξας, “when he brought the deluge on theworld of ungodly people,” is an echo of Gen 6:17 LXX (ἐπάγω τὸνκατακλυσμὸν ὓδωρ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, “I am bringing the flood of water upon theearth”; and cf. Sib. Or. 1:189: κόσμος ἄπας ἀπειρεσίων ἀνθρώηων, “thewhole world of countless people”). For the Flood as a punitive judgment inJewish literature, see Schlosser, RB 80 [1973] 15–16. It was sometimes seenas a prototype of the eschatological judgment (this is implicit throughout 1Enoch 1–16; cf. 93:4: the Flood as “the first end”; 1QH 10:35–36; Matt24:37–39), and our author certainly understood it in this way (3:6–7). Forἀσεβῶν (“ungodly”; also in 2:6; 3:7) see Comment on Jude 4; the word doesnot have in 2 Peter the catchword significance it has in Jude. As in the caseof the angels, the sins of the generation of the Flood are not here specified,but in view of v 10a, it is relevant to note that Jewish tradition usually heldthem to be guilty of the same series of vices as it attributed to theSodomites (Schlosser, RB 80 [1973] 18–25).

LXX The Septuagint, Greek translation of the OTSib. Or. Sibylline OraclesRB Revue biblique1 Enoch Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew Enoch1QH Hôdāyôt ( Thanksgiving Hymns) from Qumran Cave 1RB Revue biblique

AAppppeennddiixx:: EExxttrraa--BBiibblliiccaall LLiitteerraattuurree

Many Christians do not know how to handle extra-biblicalliterature, especially Jewish literature, written during the times of theBible. I’ve often wondered if maybe this isn’t because they areseparated into chapter and verse and make people “feel” like they arereading the Bible, and they don’t want to be confused. This isunderstandable, but unfortunate. There are three choices forunderstanding these books. The first is to ignore them and pretendthat they don’t exist. Sadly, this is a popular response of manyChristians, but it isn’t particularly helpful or honest. Ancient peoplesfrom all over the world speak to the issue of giants and heavenlybeings.

The second is to deny that they say anything true; “extrabiblical”becomes “fabrication and lies.” A softer position is to treat most oreverything in them not quoted in the Bible as fable and error. This mayoriginate in a strange kind of fundamentalist mistake having its rootsin a misunderstanding of what makes Scripture Scripture.

The books in the canon that make up our Bibles are notScripture because they are true and everything else is false. Forexample, Einstein could write the formula: E = MC2. The formula istrue, but it is not Scripture. I could give you my wife’s recipe for thebest chilli in the world, which would be a true recipe, but not Scripture.I could have you read a biography of George Washington, which istrue history, but not Scripture. While all Scripture is true, is it not thecase that everything that is not Scripture is false. It should be obvious

as to why the Einstein formula, the recipe for chilli, or the Washingtonbiography should not be considered Holy Wit.

A person can get into some tricky spots when they take thisapproach that everything said in extrabiblical literature is fabrication.For example, as I said above, Jude quotes the book of Enoch verbatim(see Jude 14 and 1 Enoch 1:9) as being the very words of Enoch, aprophecy that he holds to be quite true. How then do we respond?I’ve heard more than one person say something like this, “Yes, thisparticular verse of Enoch is true, but none of the rest of it is.” Thisincredible unfalsifiable declaration expects us to shut down all criticalthinking, to accept that one verse in Enoch is true because Jude saysthat it is, and then dump the rest of the book that he quotes andalludes to more than once, because someone outside of the Bible tells youtoo. This is called fideism, the belief that you believe for no goodreason. Fideism is opposed to everything taught in the Bible,including the idea of faith. Faith rests on truth, not absurdity.

Enoch is not Scripture for several different reasons.1 This doesnot mean, of course, that it relates nothing true about history, or moreabsurdly, that it gives us only one true verse and Jude happened to

1 Here are just a few. 1. As Augustine reported, the book is too old to trust it (City of God 15:23). Hispoint is that the actual words of Enoch were preserved only in oral tradition. How do we know whereEnoch’s words end and some Jewish writers’ begin? 2. It has historical anachronisms. We do not findsuch things in Scripture. A good example is the first chapter which has Enoch—who lived long before theFlood—referring to Mt. Sinai (1 En 1:4). That is obviously historically inappropriate. 3. We have littleto no evidence that Jews—even at Qumran who held the book in very high esteem—regarded it asScripture (See Richard Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (London; New York:T&T Clark, 2004), 226-33. 4. 1 Enoch is actually five distinct books: The Book of Watchers (1-36); TheBook of Similitudes (37-71); The Book of Astronomical Writings (72-82); The Book of Dream Visions (83-90);The Book of the Epistle of Enoch (91-107). These in turn include fragments from other books, such as TheBook of Noah (6-11; 5:7-55:2; 60; 65-69:25; 106-108). (See E. Isaac, “1 Enoch,” in The Old TestamentPseudepigrapha Vol. 1, ed. James H. Charlesworth [New York: Doubleday, 1983], 7). As such, it cannotbe trusted as fully the words of Enoch, though it undoubtedly (as Jude explains) contains many of hisactual words.

discover it. While appealing to Enoch’s view of the events of Genesis6:1-4 cannot, of itself, give us certainty that the view is correct, we canbe certain from the material that we presently have available to us thateveryone in Jude’s day has the same view of the Genesis 6 story that 1Enoch does. Considering that Jude quotes and alludes positively to 1Enoch many times (see chart below), it is a good bet that he has thesame view as everyone else.2 Furthermore, neither Jude nor 2 Peterever says that 1 Enoch is false history. Nor do they hint at it. This isan argument from silence. Rather, Jude says, “The angels who did notstay within their own position of authority, but left their properdwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until thejudgment of the great day” ( Jude 1:6). 2 Peter is similar. Both clearlyhave the Enochian tradition of Genesis 6 in view in these verses,3 as atleast Jude does do throughout his little epistle.4

SSOOMMEE OOFF JJUUDDEE’’SS AALLLLUUSSIIOONNSS TTOO 11 EENNOOCCHHJUDE 1 ENOCH

Jude 6 “The angels that did notkeep their own position butleft their proper dwelling.”

“[The angels] haveabandoned the high

heaven, the holy eternalplace.”

1 En 12:4

“until the judgment of thegreat day”

“preserved for the day ofsuffering”

1 En 45:2(1 En 10:6)

“angels ... kept in eternalchains under gloomy

darkness”

“this is the prison of theangels, and here they will

be imprisoned forever”

1 En 21:10(1 En 10:4)

Jude12

“waterless clouds” “every cloud ... rain shallbe withheld”

1 En 100:11

“raging waves” “ships tossed to and froby the waves”

1 En 101:2

“fruitless trees” “fruit of the trees shall bewithheld”

1 En 80:3

2 D. A. Carson reports that he had private correspondence with an important Enochian scholar whosuggests that Jude is citing 1 Enoch 1:9 ironically rather than positively. Carson says, “I have not seen thatview defended anywhere in print, convincingly or otherwise, so at this juncture the claim still strikes me asodd.” D. A. Carson, “Jude,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use ofthe Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic; Apollos, 2007), 1078.3 Consult any of the Commentaries cited in note 29 in the Introduction.4 For more on Jude and other NT allusions to Enoch, see George W. E. Nickelsburg and Klaus Baltzer, 1Enoch : A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2001), 83-86; 123-24.

Jude13

“wandering stars” “stars that transgress theorder”

1 En 80:6

“the gloom of utter darknesshas been reserved forever”

“darkness shall be theirdwelling”

1 En 46:6

Jude14

“Enoch the seventh fromAdam”

“my grandfather [Enoch]… seventh from Adam”

1 En 60:8

This gives us the third option for understanding this kind ofliterature. We can use these extant books and texts wisely anddiscerningly, without being afraid that we are therefore asking forthem to be included in the canon. Christians cite John Calvin andJohn Wesley, Max Lucado and Chuck Swindoll, and no one everclaims that by quoting them or reading them that they are magicallyturning them into Scripture. The thought never even crosses ourminds. The same grace should be extended to these books as well,especially knowing that they were used by the NT and held up asimportant by the early church. This kind of an attitude is all the moreimportant for those books written prior to the NT by people in theOT community of God that very well could have been trusting in thecoming Messiah. The fact is, these books were the popular literatureof the day and biblical authors read them just as we would read popularcommentaries or other Christian writings in our own day. This doesn’tmake them true or false. It does make them important.

If these books tell us about the sons of God or giants, we shoulduse wisdom, we should compare them with the biblical data, we shouldinspect them for exaggeration, but we should also realize that this wasthe view of that day and that the NT writers have the same worldview,as I have repeatedly demonstrated throughout the book.

AAppppeennddiixx:: 22 PPeetteerr 22::44 aanndd JJuuddee 66

New Testament CommentaryAs a Christian who takes biblical inspiration and infallibility seriously, I presuppose that if

other parts of the Scripture were to comment upon and explain Genesis 6:1-4, then whateverconclusions they give must be inspired by God and infallibly correct. Most commentators todaybelieve 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 do just that. As all commentators note, these sections of Jude and2 Peter are interdependent. Either Jude is borrowing from 2 Peter, 2 Peter is borrowing fromJude, and/or one or both are borrowing from a shared tradition.5 You may want to take the timeto read these two chapters now, to see what I’m talking about. I have provided a Table whichputs the two passages side by side, and also compares them with an excerpt from Hesiod.

TTAABBLLEE:: AANNGGEELLIICC SSPPIIRRIITTSS IINN PPRRIISSOONN2 PETER 2:4-5 JUDE 5-6 HESIOD

THEOGONY 313-320(4) For if God did notspare angelswhen they sinned,

but cast them intoTartarus and committedthem to pits of darkness,reserved for judgment;(5) and did not spare

the ancient world, butpreserved Noah, apreacher ofrighteousness. . .

(5) Now I desire to remindyou [of] (6) angels who didnot keep their own domain,but abandoned their properabode,He has kept ineternal bondsunder darknessfor the judgment of the greatday. . .

Among the foremost Cottus andBriareos and *Gyes* insatiatefor war raised fierce fighting:three hundred rocks, one uponanother, they launched fromtheir strong hands andovershadowed the Titans withtheir missiles, and buried thembeneath the wise-pathed earth,and bound them in bitter chainswhen they had conquered themby their strength for all theirgreat spirit, as far beneath theearth to Tartarus.”

Since the two letters are parallel, they refer to the same episode, and can therefore shedlight on one another. The first thing to notice is that 2 Peter refers to the time when “angels”“sinned.” Older Protestant commentators thought this must refer to the original fall of Satanand his angels.6 But Jude explains the time frame of the sin: when the angels “did not keep their

APPENDIX: 2 PETER 2:4 AND JUDE 6 (Pgs. 239-244)5 Cf. Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 447-51.6 So John Gill, Matthew Henry, even John Milton, Paradise Lost I. 48; II. 169, 183 196; III. 82.

own domain, but abandoned their proper abode” ( Jude 6). “Domain” is the Greek word archēn,and it refers to the heavenly regions of rule these angels had originally been given. But, theyabandoned this realm, their proper sphere, in favor of inhabiting our own realm, the earth. Peteradds that this took place squarely in the days of Noah. This can therefore refer with certainty toonly one episode in biblical history: Genesis 6:1-4.7

Though this creates enough certainty all on its own, we may add to the force of it in severalways. First, Jude parallels the sin of Sodom with the sin of the angels by the phrases “just as” and“in the same way” in the next verse (Peter likewise discusses Sodom after this event). Jude 7 talksabout the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah saying there was “gross immorality” and “going afterstrange flesh.” This is sexual sin, specifically between human males and the “men”8 from heaven(Gen 18:3, 19:5, 8), who are also called “angels” (Gen 19:1). Therefore, “just as” and “in the sameway,” the sin of the angels in Jude 6 must have likewise been sexual, and indeed was, as angelswere having relations with women in Genesis 6. There is no better way to put either episodethan “going after strange flesh.”9 This is the most definitive, explicit link between the “sons ofGod” being angelic beings in the Scripture. But we may be even more assured than even this.

A second reason for our certainty on this matter is that 2 Peter says that this sin of theangels caused them to be thrown into Tartarus at the same time that God “did not spare theancient world” of Noah’s day (2 Peter 2:4-5). Therefore, the sin occurred in the days of Noah.Two more points clarify this. First, the word tartaroō is used only here in the NT.10 It refers to asubterranean region, doleful and dark, which the Greeks viewed as the abode of the wicked dead,where they suffer punishment for their evil deeds.11 As you can see from the example in Hesiod’sTheogony, this is where the Titans (i.e. gods or giants) were thrown in a previous age. The factthat Peter did not use the typical word for hades or hell demonstrates he is clearly thinking ofthis elder time that the poets talk about.

A third reason has to do with the interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4 in Judaism and earlyChristianity. The idea that this passage refers to angels having relations with women andproducing giant offspring was the popular and universal interpretation among the Jews12 at the

7 For a list of those who agree with this see Introduction note #29.8 Not the word ‘adam, which the first human was named, but ‘ish.9 That angels have “flesh” and “bodies” and that this differs from humanity see 1 Cor 15:39-41.10 It is curious that the LXX uses the word three times: Job 40:20; 41:24; Prov 30:16. In the first instance, the behemoth is in view. In thesecond, it is Leviathan. This means that the term is always used in the Scripture with reference to spiritual-heavenly beings.11 “Tartaroō,” A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, ed. Joseph Henry Thayer (International Bible Translators, 2000).12 This includes the following references: LXX Gen 6:1-4; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 6:4; Sirach 16:7; 1 Enoch 6-19, 86-88, 106:13, 15,17; 2 Enoch 7, 18; Jubilees 4:15, 22, 5:1, Testament of Reuben 5:6-7; 2 Baruch 56:10-14; 3 Baruch 4:10; Testament of Naphtali 3:5; Testamentof Solomon 5:3; 6:2-3; Wisdom 14:6; 3 Maccabees 2:4; Judith 16:6; Damascus Document (4Q266 II: 18-19 and CD 2:16-19); GenesisApocryphon 2:1; Josephus: Antiquities 1.3.1; Philo: On The Giants 6-7.

time these two letters were written, and these sources include the book of 1 Enoch which Judenot only quotes, but alludes to several times.13

This is relevant because 1 Enoch 6:1-6 and 7:2-3 are near parallels with Genesis 6:1-4, afact that was lost to Christianity for over a thousand years until the rediscovery of the book latein the 18th century. You can’t blame those who didn’t have 1 Enoch, but it is inexcusable when wewho do are not willing to interact with the material that we now have. These parallels areexplicit in their teaching that the events of Genesis 6:1-4 refer to angels. So, if Jude has beenquoting and alluding favourably to Enoch throughout his letter (see Appendix: Extra-BiblicalLiterature), it is unthinkable that he would radically disagree with its interpretation on this point.It would make no sense that he would continually use other parts of the book to support the restof his letter, but utterly disagree at this one point. As Thomas Schreiner rightly notes, “If [ Jude]does not have the same interpretation in mind as Enoch (and all the other Jewish literature of hisday), then he would surely need to make it clear that he is deviating from the tradition, especiallysince he has Genesis 6 in mind.14 This is a very powerful argument. Not only does Jude not dothis, he and Peter both make it clear that they accept the tradition.

Along similar lines, Jude and 2 Peter each have an historical list of events which they areusing to make a moral point (that we should not be like those of long gone days who disobeyed).Jude refers to the wilderness, the angels, and Sodom while Peter refers to angels, the flood, andSodom. The important thing to learn is that lists of this kind, with the very same events (and fewothers), were common place among the Jews of that day to make the same ethical points. Table 14is reproduced from Bauckham’s commentary which demonstrates the similarity of theliterature.15

TTAABBLLEE:: EEIIGGHHTT HHIISSTTOORRIIEESS CCOOMMPPAARREEDDSirach16:7-10

CD2:17-3:12

3 Macc2:4-7

m. Sanh.10:3

Jubilees20:5

T. Naph3:4-5

Jude5-7

2 Peter2:4-8

Watchers Watchersgiants giants giants giants Sodom Generation

of thewilderness

generationof theFlood

generationof theFlood

Sodom Watchers Wilderness generation of theFlood

Flood Flood Watchers Floodsons ofNoah

generationof the

dispersion

Sodom Sodom

Sodom Sodom Sodomsons ofJacob

Canaanites Israel in Pharaoh spies

13 See Appendix - Extra-Biblical Literature.14 See Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 448.15 Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), 46.

Egypt andEgyptians

Generationof the

wilderness

Israel atKadesh

generationof the

wildernessCompanyof Korah

If Jude has Enoch and other traditions in mind (and it is beyond a reasonable doubt that hedoes), and if both Peter and Jude are compiling the same lists to make the same points as otherliterature with which they were obviously familiar (which we know with certainty they are), thenthere is only one interpretation permissible for the Christian who believes that Jude and Peterwere infallibly inspired by God. Genesis 6:1-4 refers to angels who left their proper domains,came to earth, married human women, and had gigantic offspring.16 Any other opinion blatantlycontradicts Jude and Peter and throws the infallibility of Scripture out the window.

16 Notice how the watchers and/or the giants are referred to in every list except the most recently written—the Mishnah (m. Sanh.)—which datesno earlier than the second century A.D. This is no surprise, since the Jews after the rise of Christianity began to eliminate supernatural ideasfrom their theology and Scripture.