Texts in Conversation
1 Peter says that angels and powers are under Jesus’s authority, and 1 Enoch uses similar language to describe the angel Uriel ruling over the sun, moon, and stars. Both describe a hierarchy in cosmic order, where heavenly beings have ranks and roles, a common Jewish tradition in the Second Temple period.
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1 Enoch 75:3
Pseudepigrapha
2 Due to these luminaries, people often miscalculate, for these luminaries indeed serve at specific world-stations: one in the first portal, one in the third, one in the fourth, and one in the sixth portal of heaven, ensuring the year's precision through its distinct 364 stations. 3 Uriel, the angel appointed by the Lord of glory to oversee all the celestial bodies in heaven and on earth, showed me the signs, times, years, and days. These celestial bodies govern the sky and are visible on Earth, leading day and night—the sun, moon, stars, and all entities that make their circuits in the celestial chariots.
Date: 200-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Peter 3:22
New Testament
18 Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit. 19 In it he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 after they were disobedient long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water. 21 And this prefigured baptism, which now saves you—not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience to God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who went into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and authorities and powers subject to him.
Date: 60-65 C.E. (If authentic), 80-90 C.E. (If anonymous) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The idea of powers reminds one of references to celestial beings designated by words such as 'authorities' or 'powers' in various texts ... both terms can be found in the Pauline epistles (1 Cor 15:24; Eph 1:21; 3:10, 6:12; Col 1:16; 2:10, 15) ... Another passage of interest is 1 Peter 3:22, where it is said of Jesus Christ that he 'has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him' ..."
Nickelsburg, George W. E.
A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37-82
(p. 461) Fortress Press, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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