Overwriting of the NT Corpus (7) - Why Enoch Was Replaced With Yeshua

[Rebbe]

FUNDAMENTALS: THE OVERWRITING OF THE NT CORPUS [7]

Why Enoch Was Replaced With Yeshua
 
Copyright © BRI 2014 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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We have traveled far in a short space of time in this series on the "Overwriting of the NT Corpus." All of us who truly place God the Father, and our love for Him/Her, above the religious traditions of mere kings and other mortals, ought to have a passionate desire to RESTORE the Word of God to be truly and authoritatively THE Word of God. No matter how much we may love quoting certain Scriptures, even being able to repeat these favourite texts off by heart, if they do not comprise an original part of the inspired Word breathed forth through human beings onto parchment by the Ruach HaKodesh -- then we ought to jettison such texts (or even entire passages) from the biblical revelation lest they continue to clutter up our minds with erroneous ideas and spurious notions. The holy Spirit is the spirit of a RIGHT EDUCATION, the spirit of RIGHT KNOWLEDGE. What we are restoring today will carry over into the Millennial reign of the Mashiach because we are today becoming the educators of tomorrow.

Are YOU being educated by the Spirit of God NOW? Do you take the responsibility that is being afforded to you on this BRI/IMCF International Internet Yeshiva Forum, at such little cost to you personally, SERIOUSLY? You may never again have an opportunity to be re-educated with the authentic knowledge of God if you do not take advantage NOW of this rich, educational outreach that is so available to you as students of Yeshua through this ministry. Yes, there are a number of valuable ministries around today. They each have a personal calling of God, if they are indeed authentic and not in actual fact counterfeits, and they therefore will have an emphasis in their teaching that accords with what the Spirit is accomplishing through them.

As far as our work of God today is concerned, it is twofold: (1) Restoring the lost first century Jewish thoughtform to the biblical revelation and (2) raising up the holy Sparks of God's shattered Face. Repairing the Shattered Face of God (Tikkun haPanim) is our BASIC FUNDAMENTAL focus. As concerning the latter phrase, Paul grasped this fundamental fact of the Christian life and calling when he wrote, "that Yeshua [is] Lord" (2 Cor 4.5) and that God "has let this light shine out of darkness into our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of GOD in the FACE of Mashiach" (2 Cor 4.6).

Because the Christian world has largely lost the first century Jewish thoughtform biblical scholars, commentators and expositors can't really fathom what it was that Paul was intending to convey in his reference to the "face" of the Saviour. They fail to connect the dots between his mention of the "glory of God" in this direct connection. But we understand that to which Paul was alluding. I will have more to say on this subject at another time. Suffice to say that anything in the biblical revelation that does not belong there (and so detracts from God's perfection) needs to be excised so that the Face of God the Father may be more perfectly healed. Just as Father Abraham wanted to "comfort" God, so we too today ought to seek any and every opportunity to bring healing (comfort) to Him in our love for Him.

In our travels we have so far discovered the shocking truth about 1 Jn 5.7 and that the Trinitarian imposition in Mt 28.19 is false. Indeed, believers are only baptised in the name of Yeshua, and not in the name of the Father, Son and holy Spirit.  We have seen the fingerprints of a Sufi Rosicrucian all over the Bible and we have realised that the placing of a comma and uninspired capitalisation of certain words in Eph 4.11-13 reinforced the false position of clergy and laity in the interests of the Crown of England. We have come to understand that God the Father never adopts children. Paul tells us in Rom 8.1 that believers are no longer, in any way, manner, shape or form, separated from God and that we will never come into condemnation -- although we can and do come into judgment. The story of the woman taken in the very act of adultery has no place in the biblical revelation although it could be attached, as a serious incident in the life of Yeshua, as an authentic addendum to the Bible.

In those same travels we found: that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a book of the Bible (well, translated is a better choice of words). Sir Francis Bacon wrote his plays under the name of William Shakespeare and has confessed to this pseudonym in the Psalms thus solving a mystery argued about for centuries. We met with Yeshua alone in the garden hours prior to his crucifixion -- alone -- as in reality there was no angel in attendance. Certainly no cadavers rose from the dead during his final moment of life. The holy Spirit is not a third personality of the Godhead and the last 12 verses of Mark's Gospel are fraudulent. Women, both Jews and Gentiles, were leaders, apostles, evangelists, teachers and prophets in the early Messianic Community and Paul worked hard to alter his male chauvinism in his later years to the point of accepting women and men as co-equals in the sight of God and the ekklesias.

Now, consider the following text that should be forever expunged from the biblical revelation.

Rev 22.14 "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."

So, are we qualified to enter the New Jerusalem because we are regulating our lives through stringent obedience to God's laws or because our clothes have been washed in the blood of the Passover Lamb? Again, the original mss tell the true story!

"Spiritually prosperous forever are all who are washing their robes, to have the right to enter in through the gates of the city and to eat the fruit from the Tree of Life."

Yes, we may be cooperating with the Spirit of God after our conversion by living out our lives by the commandments of God (God's expectations of us) as our response to the Gospel of Grace BUT the emphasis in this text is entirely on the daily process of washing our clothes in both the water of life/the Word and the blood of the Passover Lamb. John's theology is based on the water and the blood (Jn 19.33,34; 1 Jn 5.6,8; cf Jn 3.5).

I want you, on these travels through the written Word, to accompany me into the Roman world of the early second century of our Common Era. Christianity has not as yet been organised into a body politic and it consists of a widespread religion and Way of life but existing as "circles of Faith" or, better, "circles of THE Faith." These circles or large cells of Christian belief have grown around specific teachings delivered by certain of the apostles who taught that One Faith in such widely-strewn regions of the Mediterranean. So, the circles of Faith which surrounded John were to be located basically in Asia Minor (Proconsular Asia). The circles of Faith which grew up around Paul were to be found primarily in the Balkans (including Greece). Peter's circle centred around Syria and Babylon and also in Rome itself. John Mark's various circles were in Egypt and Africa. Andrew raised up Christians in the Caucasus Mountains and as far as the southern Russias. And so on and so forth. There was by no means a complete UNITY of belief systems among them.

Without a central officiating governmental base (such as that which finally emerged in Rome) each circle of Faith had their own canon of Scripture, and their own traditions and belief systems. More or less they all concurred. But there were strategic differences among them, especially as related to the rite of baptism, the Person of Yeshua (e.g., when did he become the Son of God?), and their stories of the accomplishments of the Messiah. Some also viewed Paul with a lingering suspicion as to his authenticity. In the case of the latter, the followers of James were entirely uncomfortable with the "heavenly" appointment of Paul.

By the time of the infamous Council of Nicaea (325 CE) anti-Jewish sentiment was in the ascendancy, and it remained so right up until recent times. The universal church has always sought to distance itself from anything and everything Jewish. Christ and Christianity, in the view of Roman priests, had to ever and always be unique. What "Jesus" brought to mankind was something totally new. Every utterance he ever made was new, and had never before come to mind in anyone's thought processes. The Church spoke something entirely new. The Gospel was absolutely new. All was new.

Then in the 40's of the immediate last century, a cache of Jewish scrolls were discovered in caves in the Judaean wilderness, and before they were even identified the press was linking them to "Jesus" and the stories circulating in the media speculated that they would give evidence of the birth of Christianity. There was not a shred of evidence available as to what the scrolls did in fact contain, but after a few months it was leaked that some of them spoke of a "Teacher of Righteousness" which immediately were indicative (at least to some theologians) of a connection to Christ, and perhaps this Teacher was indeed "Jesus" himself. This sent shock waves through the Christian religious establishment. If there was indeed a connection to "Jesus" then the "unique" quality of Christianity could be called into question, and the very authenticity of the Son of God himself undermined.

So began an unofficial silence over the contents of the scrolls which lasted for decades. What the scrolls reveal, of course, is a direct connectedness to Yeshua, John the Immerser, Pontius Pilate, and the Essene Dead Sea sectarian community of the New Covenant at Qumran. Because the Enochan literature that stemmed from Qumran was utilised by the primitive Christians to establish their Way and Gospel, and because Enochan texts sounded far too "Christian," the 2nd century Jewish religious authorities began an expurgation program to censor all religious texts with which they were once familiar that had their origin from amongst the sectarians of the Dead Sea community. "The Essenes... were the intermediate step between Judaism and Christianity," rightly comments Dr Charles Francis Potter in his The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed (1958, 1962).

As far as Christianity was concerned, all the Enochan literature of Qumran (and elsewhere) was too Jewish to be accepted in the (later) Christian canon, although the Ethiopian church has continued to believe in its inspiration and accepts it as canonical.

It was Rome's intention, especially during the first three centuries, to distance the Church from Qumran where it indeed did have its origins. They therefore had to alter, change, expurgate, overwrite, and proceed to insert into the Scripture whatever justified that procedure of "distancing." They did their job quite well. Indeed, please attempt to locate a mere mention of the Essenes anywhere in the NT Codex! They're not there! Yet, modern research has revealed that the Essenes were more popular than either the Pharisees or the Sadducees of the later Second Temple Period.

Without doubt, it was a daunting enough job for Roman priests (and others) to wind their way through the entirety of the Roman empire in order to visit these various factions and divisions and circles of the Faith which were so widespread. Christianity had early spread right across the Roman empire, from the borders of Parthia and beyond even to the British Isles. They would have had to have access to hundreds, if not thousands, of scrolls held by officials over these widely divergent "churches." The truth is some scrolls escaped their attention.

With these facts in mind, let us compare two translations/versions of a popular passage of text from Peter's first letter -- 1 Pet 3.18-20.

From the KJV and a host of other Bibles: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water."

Now compare this version to that of Moffatt:

"Christ himself died for sins, once for all, a just man for unjust men, that he might bring us near to God; in the flesh he was put to death but he came to life in the Spirit. (It was in the Spirit that Enoch also went and preached to the imprisoned spirits who had disobeyed at the time when God's patience held out during the construction of the ark in the days of Noah -- the ark by which only a few souls, eight in all, were brought safely through the water.)."

The text as it appears above in Moffatt substantiates the scroll of Enoch (see 1 Enoch 12-16; 2 Enoch 18) as being written under inspiration of the holy Spirit. Why should this surprise any of us in this student body? After all, Judah the brother of Yeshua quoted from Enoch by name in Jude 14. This latter text was also surprisingly overlooked by the Roman editors.

The Goodspeed translation also has the text in question reading "alive in the Spirit. In it Enoch went and preached even to those spirits who were in prison...". In the 2nd century Enoch was quoted by Barnabas and Athenagoras and in the 3rd century by Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Tertullian and "from the fourth century... it fell into discredit, and under the ban of Hilary [Bishop of Poitiers CE 353-367], Jerome, and Augustine [Bishop of Hippo CE 395-430] it gradually passed out of circulation, and became lost to the knowledge of Western Christendom" (Robert H. Charles, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch, 1912, 6).

Greek specialists such as Bower, Cramer, Spitta, Rendel Harris, M.R. James and others are absolutely adamant about Enoch.

In the Book of Enoch it is this prophet who is described as preaching to the alien spirits in prison, and in chapters 6-16 reasons are given as to why they were imprisoned during the days of Noah in the first place. Enoch elaborates on Genesis 6. It was Augustine (surprise, surprise) who maintained that Peter was referring to the Messiah. Early church father Tertullian supported his belief in the story of aliens by appealing to The Book of Enoch's inspiration.

I have written in one of my previous lectures regarding Enoch that "the Ante-Nicene Fathers liberally quote from Enoch and other Jewish writings such as Jubilees and yet they are not included today in our Christian Bibles" and certainly not amongst the 22 (or 24) collected Jewish scrolls as accepted today by certain Jewish rabbis. After the establishment of a Jewish Academy at Yavneh (Jamnia) which occurred after the fall of Jerusalem and entirely with Roman consent, and by the year 125 CE, rabbinic scholars decided (after a series of wild conferences) that certain scrolls were too close for comfort to the teachings of Yeshua so they were discarded. So much then, for the Jewish contempt toward their own literature. However, it's interesting that some scholars admit that both Enoch and Jubilees were at one time included in the Septuagint (the LXX) which grants an authoritative flavour to the entire subject of canonicity.

"From the perspective of the Church, I would like to suggest that because both Enoch and Jubilees (and some other works such as the Psalms of Solomon and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) were essentially productions of the Qumran Essene Community (the Dead Sea sectarians) these writings were absolutely forbidden by the religious authorities, as the admission of these books was too close an association with the founders of the Christian religion, the Messianic Movement, which later crystallised as the Christian Church. I have in the past shared the Essene and early Christian doctrinal and communal similarities. Church fathers of the Nicene and Post-Nicene period wanted to completely distance the Church from any and all connection to the Essene Community. They wanted to establish the teachings of Christ and the apostles as thoroughly unique and original. Enochan/Essene literature had to be eliminated! Even [this] text in Peter's first letter was overwritten to substitute Enoch with Christ...

"After two millennia the scroll of Enoch has resurfaced -- and the timing has been perfect. The explorer James Bruce having traveled to Abyssinia, returned to England with three copies of the Ethiopic Enoch. For some decades small Greek fragments of Enoch were discovered, but then the Qumran excavations uncovered seven fragments written in Aramaic in Cave 4. The opening text states:

"The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and righteous who will be living in the day of tribulation... [my message is] NOT FOR THIS GENERATION BUT FOR A REMOTE ONE which is for to come" (1 Enoch 1.1,2).

"As far as Scriptural inclusion is concerned Enoch's scroll was utilised as inspired by God by one of Yeshua's brothers, [Judah], and by one of his emissaries -- notably Peter. This flies in the face of the condemnation of both Jewish and Christian authorities."

As we stand on the precipice of the emerging NWO -- and the foreshadow of Israel's final travail -- it is high time we put Enoch back where he belongs, not just in 1 Peter 3.18-20, but right back into the holy Scripture where it always belonged.