 All right, Mark has a tray of Enoch questions, which means three first one is was the Enoch of Genesis 5 21 through 24 a character based on someone or something and Used by the writer of Genesis 5 21 through 24 for some purpose He wants the reader of the time to understand or did this Enoch first show up in this biblical writing? Genesis 5 21 through 24 second one is if Enoch was unique to Genesis 5 21 through 24 Do you believe he really existed and then the third one is if Enoch was a character based on something else? Who is it and what do you believe was the purpose slash message? Well, I mean there are two Enoch's in the early chapters of Genesis and they're distinct people There's the Enoch who's the son of Cain and the father of Iran. That's Genesis 4 17 and 18 then there's this one that the question is really directed at Enoch the son of Yared Genesis 5 18 who's the father of Methuselah verse 21? I don't think the one in chapter 5 plays off of the one in chapter 4 So if that's sort of lurking behind the question that I don't think there's a relationship there now there is We've talked a little bit about the genealogies and I've posted some things on the blog before the genealogies of Genesis 5 in which This particular Enoch occurs the one who lived 365 years the one who was taken by God the one who walked with God that sort of thing That figure is nestled in with again a bunch of these other Pre-flood figures and their genealogies are given. They have these long age spans and whatnot. There is a striking parallel to the genealogies of Genesis 5 and the long Ages from Sumeria. It's known as the Sumerian king list So in that sense the Enoch figure Occupying position 7th, you know the 7th from Adam is going to have a a Number 7 parallel in that list and it's true in the Sumerian king list There there are some explicit connections by by virtue of names, you know with things You know people that show up in Genesis 5 So the Sumerian material would predate the Genesis material, you know by a considerable amount But I don't know that it even if there is some sort of you know Borrowings are not really the right term what I think we have going on here again And you'd have to go up to the to the blog those of you who are listening here I recently it's been in the last week posted a an article on by a guy named Lloyd Bailey that that Proposes what I think to this point anyway that I've seen is the best attempt It's not a conclusive kind of piece of work or article But it's the best attempt I've seen it to to make sense of the numbers of the long-age spans in Genesis 5 through some mathematical cypher or mathematical pattern or device I Really do think something is going on there because you can do the same thing with the Sumerian king list and there's this Again very obvious relationship between these two things so instead of just sort of borrowing Hey, you know the guy who you know We're writing Genesis 5 today, you know whether you think that's Moses or somebody else I mean they're not sitting there thinking like hey, I need a king list here and I need some genealogies And you know I like math, you know, let's throw some of that in there. Oh, here's one in from Sumeria I'll borrow this and now I can get to work and that isn't the point what I think's going on again Genesis 1 through 11 again It's very Mesopotamian in its flavor in all sorts of ways it is a Rewriting or a recasting in a number of cases for polemic purposes for theological purposes a recasting a retelling of pre-flood and post-flood events specifically not From a pagan viewpoint specifically not from a Mesopotamian religious Theologizing of history. It's it's an Israelite. It's a ya whistic Theologizing of history if you want to again for the sake of analogy, that's how I'll talk about it So in that sense, yeah, there's some relationship to this but in terms of somebody just sort of Liking something they read and I'm gonna borrow that and have one of my own There's there's more to it than that because there is this this pre-flood and post-flood history And there are theological messages that can be conveyed When you are as a writer when you are reacting to or responding to Some other piece of literature in this case the Sumerian King List that your readers again who are familiar with that will know Better maybe not completely because in this case again that the mathematical ciphering is is still something of a mystery Even though if you read Bailey's article, there are a lot of patterns He detects that that are are pretty pretty apparent, you know once you you follow what he's saying But in some way they would know that our The the writer of the Torah here is responding and replying to in some cases for theological reasons to this other Version of events. Okay, so in that sense there is a relationship and there is a purpose as far as did Enoch exist Yeah, I I don't think there's any reasons to deny the existence of a person named Enoch before the flood event Again, that wouldn't really be any point of uniqueness in and of itself. There's nothing special You know if you have an Israelite writer who is writing about Enoch and he's numbers number seven number X in the list any of these guys There's nothing special about being the only you so in in this version The name is Enoch now, you know, there could be again and people have argued for That the idea that well both lists even though they're composed at different times both writers Even though they there's this gap considerable gap of time between the two both writers are thinking of The same individuals the same king of kish for instance the same this guy or that guy again That's that's quite possible, but it would still be that guy It would still be a historical figure in that instance So what I'm trying to say here is the fact that there could be a mathematical cipher going on in Genesis 5 with these Genealogies does not rule out that these were real kings or real people and again that that God could interact with one of them Enoch and Take him prematurely or give him some kind of special, you know point of information So I don't I don't view those ideas as mutually exclusive now as far as the question about the purpose of this and What what what the messaging might be now since I've already said that I think the numbers in Genesis 5 are Some sort of mathematical cipher again. There's there's some there there are Specific conceptual and theological ideas that the writer is trying to convey through this technique since I embrace that idea Then yeah, I do think there is some sort of message, you know what it might be people are still trying to figure out Now I'm here's a quote from Bailey the article I mentioned that I posted on my blog a short time ago Bailey says this it has often been pointed out that Enoch's lifespan of 365 years equals the number of days in the solar year the connection between the two Lies in the identity of his counterpart in the Sumerian king list They're both in the seventh position. The name there is N. Mendoor Anna Another text tells us that he this again Sumerian figure was summoned to heaven to be instructed in the lore of the Baru priesthood in the Sumerian religion his cult city according to the king list is Sipar Well known as a seat of solar worship So there's a connection there further connection between the two persons Enoch and and Mendoor Anna Maybe found at Genesis 5 24 where the former is likewise taken to heaven Enoch walk with God He was not for God took him so again There's there's this relationship and you say well what why would the writer, you know of Genesis 5 What would be the point? Well the point would be to deny that the baru priesthood of Sumeria You know had special knowledge from their God or gods It would deny that you know We should be worshiping the Sun as the sort of progenitor Of of the way the heavens work the way the year works the calendar area It's Yahweh of Israel you go back and read Genesis 1 it's it's you know God the God of Israel who created the sun moon stars for times and seasons and all this stuff So there's there's some theological jousting going on in that, but it's actually bigger than that Let me let me read you a selection. This is gonna be a fairly lengthy selection from a book by Rachel. Eleor It's E-L-I-O-R and for those of you who who have access to the Divine Council bibliography This is not available in PDF. It's a book that I couldn't find in PDF, but it's called the three temples Okay, and it's basically about astral religion in Israelite and Jewish Jewish religion your biblical and inter-testamental second period Jewish Thinking theology. So here's what she says is just follow along. It's really kind of fascinating She writes here and this is the beginning of chapter 4 in that book She writes time as conceived by the authors of kumran literature That's the Dead Sea Scrolls in particular the temple scroll The text known as MMT the songs of the Sabbath sacrifice the Damascus document the blessings the psalm scroll the calendars of the priestly discourses and Certain pseudopigraphic works namely jubilees and first and second Enoch the time was conceived by these people as something not arbitrary it was not an arbitrary man-made structure or human order dependent on unstable observations and Determinations influenced by external conditions adjustments and errors time was of divine origin a cosmic pattern obeying preordained immutable laws a cycle that had been recurring since sacred time was imprinted on nature During the seven days of creation and consecrated through the Sabbath day time was envisaged as the reflection of divine order in the universe So designed as to perpetuate the cycle of life blessing and fertility an order in which time and space are Sanctified and Interdependent from the earliest stages of creation which took place in time divided into seven days and in the space formed during those seven days The calendar she continues was not entrusted to man subject to adjustment and change dependent upon human calculations or terrestrial considerations For it represented the concept of a profound comprehensive reality a divine reality beyond the reach of the senses but reflected in the cyclic numerical harmony revealed in the passage and Changes of time the calendar based on a cycle of Sabbaths and seasons embodied the eternity of the primeval order Based on the eternal cycle of the Sun and the cyclic motion of the celestial bodies which could be precisely predicted by numerical Calculation the calendar also related to the secrets of the cyclic nature of procreation Dependent again on counting and calculation in other words. I'll just stop there in other words It refers broadly to nature. There's planting and harvest ideas like that, but also, you know, a certain fairly regular set of time for Conception and get childbirth those sorts of things in both the human and animal kingdom So again back to Eleor the calendar also related to the secrets of the cyclic nature of procreation dependent on counting and calculation purification and oath Ensuring the continuity of abundance life and fertility any infringement of this sacred cyclic pattern as expressed in the fixed numerical proportions of its component parts any attempt to ignore The divine pattern based on number and counting would generate impurity bringing in its wake curse Death and oblivion the calendar of weeks and seasons of Sabbath and covenants with its eternal site Cyclic numerical pattern was taught to humans by divine angelic revelation Now if you've read the book of Enoch, that's very explicit again how Teaching humans how the celestial heavens work and time and calendars and all this is laid at the feet of the watchers And so she's she's referring you know to this second temple, you know material that discusses that now with respect to Enoch She writes the aim of Enoch literature again So that's again either Genesis 5 a few verses there and then the broader books of Enoch and Jubilee's that sort of thing The aim of Enoch literature whose hero described as Enoch Have you chosen from among the sons of Adam and called a righteous man? Repeatedly transcended the boundaries of time and place. It was designed to link cosmic with the ritual Cyclicity to elucidate in detail the relationship between divine sevenfold structure of heavenly time as reflected by sign and oath like Sabbath son The number seven son of righteousness these sorts of phrases Enoch son of Jared was as already noted the seventh in the list of Generations from Adam and Noah this is stated in the biblical record of Adam's line and in the list of patriarchs of the world in a Prayer found at Qumran again. This is the same sort of thing the the length of his mortal life 365 years was exactly parallel to the number of days in the solar year specified sometimes elsewhere as 364 and sometimes as 365 in the various calendar traditions now what she's alluding to there is in some Dead Sea Scrolls There is the number 365 For the calendar year and there's the number 364 and it's it's a it's a long-standing Academic debate as to why there's a difference in the numbers is there something being communicated there and Elior has a footnote here She says the real solar year comprises 365 and a quarter days that a full cycle of the Sun's apparent motion you know covers that is well known But the schematic year in the Qumran calendar consists of 364 days which was 52 weeks 52 7's okay the calculation comes out to 364 the number of days in the solar year was quite well known in antiquity We learn from Egyptian literature and second Enoch and the authors of Enoch and Jubilees were well aware of this discrepancy 365 versus 364 we do not know how the priestly community actually Coordinated the real and ritual numbers, but there's their cyclic calculations involve a calendar of 364 days and an additional day was included in the ritual count Which was perhaps added once in four years to compensate for the difference So I'm going to stop there but you get the idea that Jewish writers and theologians looked at Genesis 5 and again they produced a lot of this other material in the stream of second temple Jewish tradition books like Enoch and it That material tells you that they're looking again back at Enoch and they're thinking there's something up here with Enoch with this 365 so to those people There was a purpose there was a message and to those people as Elior commented They linked that number because he was the seventh from Adam's seven is important seven days six days and then the Sabbath That's a week. Okay, they linked that number and his age number at 365 Enoch became for them a Both a symbol and a cipher and a figure Through whom the truth about time and calendar and the movements of the heavens the celestial objects all the stuff associated with time and keeping time Enoch became the central figure in understanding that and tracking it and mapping it and Looking at it trying to discern meaning out of it because the belief was and I've commented on this before The belief was that you know the God of Israel is one that created this this system and When we observe the system when we tap into it Not only are we trying to mimic it with our rituals on earth to observe it and keep in sync with it through Sabbaths and Festivals and seasons and all this stuff not only are we trying to do that? But we believe again as as Jews of the period did we believe that God can be communicating certain the things he's up to through Celestial events. Okay, I've talked about this before in relation to the birth of Jesus and all that sort of thing So in that sense again, this is what's going on, you know with Enoch So for in Enoch's case the mathematical cipher would you know would was taken very clearly to relate to timekeeping And the way the heavens work They're doing what what God made them to do and when something unusual happens or again when we When we observe certain positions of certain things and we you know the ancients attach certain meaning to certain Stars and certain positions and whatnot that that Telegraphs something to us and of course, we're you know, we're eons Removed, you know from this way of thinking but this is what was going through their head So I just wanted to give an illustration of you know What some of that involves and at the end of our episode today when we talk about what some things Mike is working on if I