Enoch's Journey Eastward

Chapter 20

1 And these are the names of the holy angels who watch.⁠ 2 Uriel, one of the holy angels, who is over the world and over Tartarus.⁠ 3 Raphael, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of men. 4 Raguel, one of the holy angels who takes vengeance on the world of the lights. 5 Michael, one of the holy angels, namely, the one set over the best part of mankind and over chaos. 6 Saraqâêl, one of the holy angels, who is set over the spirits, who sin in the spirit. 7 Gabriel, one of the holy angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim. 8 Remiel, one of the holy angels, whom God set over those who rise.⁠

Texts in conversation

The Seven Spirits Before the Throne in Revelation 1 and 1 Enoch 20

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

Summary

Revelation opens with a greeting of grace and peace from the “seven spirits before the throne.” This may reflect earlier Jewish apocalyptic traditions such as 1 Enoch 20, which lists seven angels who each have authority over a part of creation.

Passages

1 Enoch 20:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

1 And these are the names of the holy angels who watch. 2 Uriel, one of the holy angels, who is over the world and over Tartarus. 3 Raphael, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of men. 4 Raguel, one of the holy angels who takes vengeance on the world of the lights. 5 Michael, one of the holy angels, namely, the one set over the best part of mankind and over chaos. 6 Saraqâêl, one of the holy angels, who is set over the spirits, who sin in the spirit. 7 Gabriel, one of the holy angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim. 8 Remiel, one of the holy angels, whom God set over those who rise.

300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Revelation 1:4

New Testament

1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must happen very soon. He made it clear by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who then testified to everything that he saw concerning the word of God and the testimony about Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy aloud, and blessed are those who hear and obey the things written in it, because the time is near! 4 From John, to the seven churches that are in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from “he who is,” and who was, and who is still to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ—the faithful witness, the firstborn from among the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth. To the one who loves us and has set us free from our sins at the cost of his own blood 6 and has appointed us as a kingdom, as priests serving his God and Father—to him be the glory and the power for ever and ever! Amen.

92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... Where we might now expect Jesus to be the second agent in the three-fold greeting, we find the ‘seven spirits before his throne’. Craig Koester follows R. H. Charles, E. Schweizer, D. Aune and others in interpreting these as seven angelic beings (against Bauckham, Beckwith, Bousset, Fee, Keener, Osborne, Sweet and others), since the Dead Sea Scrolls uses ‘angels’ and ‘spirits’ as parallel expressions, and because of the existence of ‘angelic spirits’ before the throne of God in Tobit 12:15 and 1 Enoch 20:1–7. But Bauckham had earlier pointed out that this identification is rare in early Christian literature, and that the description of the seven angels ‘who stand before God’ in 8:2 is in quite different terms. There is a large and varied cast of angels throughout the text (most notably in the six arriving as two sets of three in chapter 14) so there is no reason to think that John would slip a further seven in here ‘in disguise’ as it were. And the insertion of this reference between the titular introductions of God and Jesus, who (as we shall see) converge in title, function and authority, has the effect of removing any ambiguity, since ‘grace and peace’ as divine blessing flow from all three ..."

Ian Paul, Who are the Seven Spirits in Revelation? (Fuller Theological Seminary, 2021), 1–6.

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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Knowledge / power

Ouma osman, September 23, 2023

Enoch's Journey Eastward

1 Enoch108 chapters

The Seven Spirits Before the Throne in Revelation 1 and 1 Enoch 20

Summary

Passages

1 Enoch 20:2

Revelation 1:4

References

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