No Enoch?

After threads in which Enoch got more than a passing mention, it occurred to me that not only Peter, but Jesus Himself apparently did not mention him as a 'prophet', according the the disciples on the Emmaus road.

Luke 24:27

Acts 3
22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. 23 And it shall come to pass, [that] every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. 24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.

Acts 7:52, Luke 13:33.

I would suggest that 'saints' in Jude 1:14, 15, may well mean angels rather than saved people. My reasons are 1), Berry's interlinear has 'myriads' and 'holy' to describe them, myriads being often used in Young's translation to describe the heavenly hosts; 2) we know the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, [i]and[/i] that the heavens have been purified by Christ's blood (Heb 9:23) and 3) that they will take part in the [i]execution of judgement[/i], presumably at the direction of the Son of God. Does anywhere in the New Testament suggest mere glorified humans will assist in this event?

By the way, I'm not discounting Enoch's prophesy of the end as God revealed it to him, but I am questioning the inclusion of him with 'the prophets', since neither Jesus nor His disciples do. Perhaps also, Enoch's fortelling are the reason that Jesus could say without repetition: Matt 25:31 - 'When...'

and also when Enoch makes that statement in the book of Enoch

I haven't read the book of Enoch, so Jude is my only source for the quote, whether or not it's in Enoch's book.

Perhaps I should have made more clear that I accept from Paul that the whole of creation was redeemed by the blood of Christ (Col 1:20) - which would include the unfallen angels. In other words, those angels also, are sanctified through His blood, and, have set themselves apart unto Him by not having followed Lucifer. Am I taking something out of the New Testament that isn't implied there?

I ask, because we already know that the word 'angel' at the beginning of each of the seven churches in Revelation, means 'messenger', in which context it also applies to the elders of those churches who would hear from God for their flocks, over whom He had given them oversight.

Hi Enid,

Thanks for your reply. :-)

Why can't we accept what the Bible says, as opposed to extra-Biblical books, like the 'book of Enoch'?

Haven't read it, don't intend to.

If saints refers to angels, then what does it mean in Psalm 16v3 when it says, 'As for the saints who are on the earth...'

One of the reasons I suggested 'saints' may [i][b]include[/b][/i] angels, is that the saints mentioned, seem to have a part in executing the judgement Christ is coming to bring. This would tie in with Matthew 13:41. There is, also, Matthew 24:31. These agree with John 15:6, and Rom 11:19 - 22. There is a sense in which being 'cut off' is not something we do to ourselves. It is the action of the husbandman to decide which branches are fruitful enough to leave, and which are fit only for the furnace.

I don't recall Joseph being mentioned as a prophet

Enid, honestly, I'm not trying to depart from scripture at all, but I [i]am[/i] trying to make sense of it. The thing about Enoch, is that he does get a mention in Jude as a prophet, but Jesus does not draw attention to him, even though his visible presence left this earth long before Adam's did. In fact, this thread came about [i]because[/i] I saw that the New Testament record does not count him among 'the prophets'.

So, as it is generally agreed that the bringing to public attention of God's word - whether a word from God through a gift of the Spirit, or off the biblical page - is [i]prophesying[/i] God's word, perhaps, in Jewish thinking, 'the prophets' were a distinct group within that larger declamatory group (Psalms 68:11 - which Handel, in The Messiah turns into 'Great was the company of the preachers')?

That's also why it's interesting Jesus draws attention to those who died at Jerusalem. It is almost as if the contrainess of the people in the day of that prophet, which drove them to kill the prophet, magifies the prophet's ministry.

As I'm writing, I'm thinking also, that in the twenty hundred years from Adam, before the Law was given, when Paul says 'death reigned' (Rom 5:14) we know Luke 17:27 was a turning point. 2 Peter 2:5 again does not draw attention to the [u]prophetic[/u] nature of Noah's earthly ministry, either.

There seems to be something different about the way those men were held in conversation by God; right up until Moses was dealing with the aftermath of the golden calf, when God told Moses He would not longer be seeable -
Exo 24:10, Exo 33:20.

If the voilence on earth was so bad that God had to destroy the whole earth with water, then perhaps when Enoch was translated, it was God's goodness to him, just as at Abraham's request, He later sent angels to get Lot's family out of Sodom, before the city was destroyed; 2 Peter 2:8.

Perhaps Enoch also felt the same way. It must have been really weird for Adam, whose sin had caused such a drastic change in his own role, and, in the earth's function, to learn that his great, great, great, great, great grandson, had been taken up to heaven! What a huge contrast between Enoch's, and his own attitude towards fellowship with God.

The very thought is extremely challenging, as our own society becomes more overtly Godless in all its aspirations.