1 Enoch

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Chapter 21

1 I went on to where things were chaotic. 2 There I saw something terrible: I saw neither a heaven above nor a firmly founded earth, but a place that was chaotic and terrible.⁠ 3 There I saw seven stars of heaven bound together in it, like great mountains and blazing with fire. 4 Then I said: 'For what sin are they bound, and why have they been thrown in here?'⁠ 5 Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me and was their leader, said: 'Enoch, why do you ask, and why are you so eager for the truth?⁠ 6 These are among the stars of heaven that transgressed the command of the Lord, and they are bound here until ten thousand years, the time fixed for their sins, are completed.'⁠ 7 From there I went to another place, still more terrible than the first, and I saw something dreadful: a great fire there that burned and blazed, and the place was split open as far as the abyss, full of great descending columns of fire.⁠ I could see neither its extent nor its size, nor could I guess at it. 8 Then I said: 'How fearful this place is, and how terrible to look at!' 9 Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, answered me and said: 'Enoch, why are you so full of fear and fright?' And I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the sight of this pain.' 10 He said to me: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be held forever.'⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 21:10 and 1 Peter 3:19

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

Summary

1 Peter 3:19 describes Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison, language that echoes 1 Enoch 21 where rebellious angels are confined in a fiery, underground prison and are similarly preached to by Enoch.

Passages

1 Enoch 21:10

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

7 From there I went to another place, still more terrible than the first, and I saw something dreadful: a great fire there that burned and blazed, and the place was split open as far as the abyss, full of great descending columns of fire. I could see neither its extent nor its size, nor could I guess at it. 8 Then I said: 'How fearful this place is, and how terrible to look at!' 9 Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, answered me and said: 'Enoch, why are you so full of fear and fright?' And I answered: 'Because of this fearful place, and because of the sight of this pain.' 10 He said to me: 'This place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be held forever.'

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

1 Peter 3:19

New Testament

15 But set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. 16 Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil. 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.

80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Peter

References

"... One of the greatest cruxes of all the passages in the New Testament is the material found in 1 Peter 3 about the spirits in prison. One of the keys to unraveling this text’s meaning is recognizing its intertextual echoes not only of Genesis 6:1–4 but also of the later interpretations of Genesis 6 in 1 Enoch. ... Commentators have long known that there is some connection between 1 Enoch and what is said in 1 Peter 3:18–22, but the exact connections have been vigorously debated. Indeed, so vigorous has the debate been that some have dubbed this passage in 1 Peter the most difficult one in the whole New Testament to understand ... None of this is a surprise when we recognize that 1 Enoch is influential in various of these Jewish Christian eschatological works, for instance Jude not merely refers to the text of 1 Enoch in verses 4, 6, and 13, he even cites it in verses 14–15 of his discourse. 2 Peter as well is directly dependent on 1 Enoch at 2 Peter 2:4 and 3:13 ..."

Ben Witherington, Torah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 397–401.

"... The portrait of Christ in 1 Peter 3:18–22 is modeled on Enoch, his heavenly ascent and condemnation of disobedient angelic spirits. 1 Enoch and 1 Peter 3 illustrate a shift in cosmologies occurring at the turn of the era, conceptions of an ascent through multiple heavenly realms, and a location of imprisoned angelic spirits in one of the lower heavenly realms (rather than under the earth—an earlier view). The disobedient spirits of 1 Peter 3:19 are not the spirits of deceased humans (one traditional view) but are angels that disobeyed God and were imprisoned in the heavens prior to Noah and the flood, as 1 Enoch recounts the myth (6–11, 12–16) ..."

John H. Elliott, “1 Enoch, 1 Peter, and Social–Scientific Criticism A Review Article on a Major 1 Enoch Commentary,” BTB 39.1 (2009): 39–43.

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

1 Enoch108 chapters

Compare 1 Enoch 21:10 and 1 Peter 3:19

Summary

Passages

1 Enoch 21:10

1 Peter 3:19

References

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