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Enoch fragment from DSS

One of the assumptions of many modern Christians goes something like this:

1. God spoke in OT times
2. He said nothing for four hundred years
3. He started speaking again in the time period of the NT.

A four hundred year gap where nothing happened. Malachi and then… silence.

Now this conclusion is largely based on canonization and seems like a good deduction until one begins to investigate the extant literature from this supposedly quiet period. Furthermore, when one begins to become familiar with this intertestamental literature it becomes clear just how important and influential it was on the worldview and articulation of the NT authors. We may say from a distance of 2300 years that “nothing” was happening, but this would have come as a shock to the people that were writing down all these details of many things that were happening. Read Josephus, the Apocrypha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and it will become obvious very quickly how narrow this incorrect Christian concept is.

One of the very important stories that was formative in the Second Temple period comes to us by way of a collection now known as 1 Enoch. The book is actually a compilation of books ascribed to the ante-diluvian figure of Enoch–and I plan on writing more on them in the future–but for today’s purposes I would like to bring your attention to one of the most important stories for some groups in Second Temple Judaism: the fall of the Watchers. (read more)

 The collection of works that became 1 Enoch were likely widely read and influential within segments of Judaism and early Christianity.  The text and related literature was among the Dead Sea Scrolls and made up part of the Ethiopic canon.  The NT book of Jude makes direct reference to Enoch literature (Jude 1:14-15) and makes reference to the judgement of angels and "strange flesh" that is clearly drawn from 1 Enoch.  A couple of good sources for the study of 1 Enoch is the OT Pseudepigrapha, the DSS, and the Hermeneia comentary on the text (which I have had checked out from the PTS library for a good while).

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