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1 Enoch

About this book

Enoch's Journey to the Northwest

Chapter 17

1 And they brought me to a place where those present were like flaming fire, and when they wished, they appeared as men.⁠ 2 And they led me to a place of darkness,⁠ and to a mountain whose peak reached to heaven.⁠ 3 And I saw the places of the sun and moon and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder in the utmost depths, where there was a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings.⁠ 4 And they took me to the living waters,⁠ and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun.⁠ 5 And I came to a river of fire where the fire flows like water and pours into the great sea towards the west.⁠ 6 I saw the great rivers and came to the great river and to the great darkness, and went to the place where no flesh walks. 7 I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter and the place from where all the waters of the deep flow. 8 I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 17:2 and 2 Peter 2:4

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

2 Peter echoes 1 Enoch 17 in its depiction of rebellious angels being bound and thrown into darkness, showing dependence on the Enochic traditions. Both describe divine punishment using similar imagery of confinement in Tartarus under the earth.

Passages

1 Enoch 17:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And they brought me to a place where those present were like flaming fire, and when they wished, they appeared as men. 2 And they led me to a place of darkness, and to a mountain whose peak reached to heaven. 3 And I saw the places of the sun and moon and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder in the utmost depths, where there was a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

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,
120–130 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Peter

References

"... According to Justin, the birth of Jesus signaled the first death-blow against the earthly reign of supernatural evil. By loosening the power that demons wield over humankind, Christ facilitated the conversion of pagans like Justin from polytheistic idolatry to monotheistic piety, thereby accounting for the proliferation of converts among the nations. The implications are striking: now all Christian converts are able, not only to free themselves from demonic influence, but also to partake in rationality to an even greater degree than the celebrated Socrates. Justin stresses, however, that the victory is not yet complete. He sees himself and his contemporaries as living in the era between the two advents, and they still await the eschatological judgment that will decisively end the reign of the demons on earth (1 Apology 52). To describe this interim period, Justin turns once again to a tradition of Enochic origins. Like 2 Peter, he echoes the Book of the Watchers’ description of the two stages in God’s punishment of the Watchers and their sons, (1 Enoch 10; 12; 15; 2 Peter 2:4) explaining that the fallen angels “have been shut up in eternal fire” until the day that they will finally “suffer their just punishment and penalty” (2 Apology 8; also 1 Apology 45) ..."
Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 173.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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1 Enoch 17:2 and 2 Peter 2:4

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