Dr. Michael Heiser, The Naked Bible
Podcast 2.0, 94, “The Sin of the Watchers and Galatians 3-4.” Apr. 2, 2016.
“If you asked a Jew: Why’s the world is
the way it is? Why do we get depravity? Why is humanity so messed up? You’d get
Gen 3 or 6, one or the other, how the Watchers transmitted forbidden knowledge
to humans and humans took that knowledge and basically perverted and turned it
against themselves, things like lust and what not. And that’s going to be the
real guts of why the world is in the awful condition it is. Then thirdly, of
course, you’re going to have what happens at Babel. But in Christian theology, tradition,
what people grow up hearing in church is Gen 3, the Fall only. And the OT never
references Gen 3 as an explanation for the condition of the human heart or the
condition of human wickedness. And so
the question really is: Are the NT writers only thinking about the Fall or the
sin of the Watchers as well? Is what is in their heads include the book of
Enoch and 2nd Temple material more broadly speaking?”
Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 49
“There’s growing agreement that the
distinction here indicated by ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ is not between the material
and immaterial parts of Christ’s person (i.e., his ‘body’ and ‘soul’), but
rather between his earthly existence and his risen state [1Tim 3.16] i.e.,
bodily as resurrection always is in the NT.”
ISBE, Demon, Demoniac, Demonology, pp
827-29.
“Interest in the demons as such is
absent. [They] belong to the unseen world, they’re incapable of manifestation
except in the disorders which they cause—there are no materializations, no
grotesque narratives of appearances and disappearances, no morbid dealing with
repulsive details, no license of speculation in the narratives. In contrast
with this reticence is not merely the demonology of primitive people, but also
that of the non-canonical Jewish books.”
1 Enoch 15 BC
8 The giants who were born from body and
flesh will be called Evil Spirits on the Earth, and on the Earth will be their
dwelling. 9 And evil spirits came out from their flesh, because from above they
were created, from the Holy Watchers was their origin and first foundation.
‘Spirits of the Evil Ones’ they will be called. 16.1 And the death of the
giants, wherever the spirits have gone out from their bodies, their flesh will
be destroyed, before the Judgment. Thus they will be destroyed until the Day of
the Great Consummation is accomplished, upon the Great Age, upon the Watchers
and the impious ones.
Philo, On Giants
II.6 When the angels of God saw the
daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of
all of them whom they chose. Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons,
Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air…. And these
beings are invisible to us [and some] have descended into bodies….as into a
river. [Some are] carried away and swallowed up by the voracity of a most
violent whirlpool; [others resist] with all their power….at first swim on the
top of it, and afterwards fly back to the place from which they started.
Jubilees 10 BC
1-3 Demons began to lead astray the children
of the sons of Noah, and destroy them.
And the sons of Noah came to Noah and
they told him concerning the demons which were leading astray, blinding and
killing their children. Noah prayed before the Lord his God, and said: You know
how the Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day: and as for
these spirits which are living, imprison them and hold them fast in the place
of condemnation…
12-13 And [angels] explained to Noah all
the medicines of their diseases, together with their seductions, how he might
heal them with herbs of the earth. And Noah wrote down all things in a book as
[the angels] instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil
spirits were precluded from (hurting) the sons of Noah.
1st c. AD. Testament of Solomon
5.7-8 You [Solomon] are the son of a man,
but although I was born of a human mother, I am the son of an angel….You have
us to torture for a little while; then we shall disperse among human beings…I
cause the wickedness of men to spread throughout the world. [I cause madness.
I’m a serial killer].
17.1-5 And there came a spirit of shadowy
human form having glowing eyes. And I asked him, saying: “Who are you?” He
said: “I am a lecherous spirit of a giant human who died in the slaughter in
the time of the giants. My dwelling is in desolate places. My activity is this:
I sit near dead men in the tombs and at midnight I assume the form of the dead
and if I seize someone, immediately I kill him with the sword. And if I am not
able to kill (him), I make him demonized so they chew their flesh….”
Athenagorus (A.D. 137-175)
Some angels “fell into impure love of
virgins, and were subjugated by the flesh. [Of these] were begotten whose who
re called giants. [And] the souls of the giants, which are the demons who
wander about the world, perform actions similar [to fallen angels. They] haunt
the air and the earth, and are no longer able to rise to heavenly things…”
Lactantius (A.D. 304)
But they who were born from these,
because they were neither angels nor men, but bearing a kind of mixed nature,
were not admitted into hell, as their fathers were not into heaven. Thus there
came to be two kinds of demons; one of heaven, the other of the earth….These
contaminated and abandoned spirits, as I say, wander over the whole earth, and
contrive a solace for their own perdition by the destruction of men. Therefore
they fill every place with snares, deceits, frauds, and errors; for they cling
to individuals….And these, since spirits are without substance and not to be
grasped, insinuate themselves into the bodies of men; and secretly working in
their inward parts, they corrupt the health, hasten diseases, terrify their
souls with dreams, harass their minds with frenzies….
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