Texts in Conversation
Second Peter 2:4 echoes 1 Enoch 10:4 in its depiction of rebellious angels being bound and cast into darkness, showing direct dependence on the Enochic tradition. Both texts describe divine punishment using similar imagery of confinement in Tartarus beneath the earth.
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1 Enoch 10:4
Pseudepigrapha
3 And now instruct him so that he may escape and his descendants may be preserved for all future generations.' 4 And the Lord also said to Raphael: 'Bind Azâzal hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: make a hole in the desert in Dûdâel, and throw him in. 5 Place upon him rough and jagged rocks, cover him with darkness, and let him remain there forever, and cover his face so he may not see light.
Date: 200-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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2 Peter 2:4
New Testament
3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep. 4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus16 and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, 5 and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world,
Date: 120-130 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The binding language is the source of the same in New Testament passages about the “angels that sinned” (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). Second Peter 2:4 is especially noteworthy: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.” The Greek verb rendered “cast into hell” is tartaroō, the verb found in the classical Greek story for the destination of the rebel Titans, a tale with clear relationships to the apkallu story that provides the original context for Genesis 6:1–4 ..."
Heiser, Michael S.
A Companion to the Book of Enoch: A Reader’s Commentary, Vol. 1
(p. 115) Defender Publishing, 2019
* 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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