1 Enoch

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Chapter 97

1 Believe, you righteous, that the sinners will become a disgrace and perish on the day of unrighteousness. 2 Know this, sinners, that the Most High is mindful of your destruction, and the angels of heaven rejoice over your downfall. 3 What will you do, sinners, and where will you flee on the day of judgment, when you hear the voice of the prayer of the righteous? 4 You will fare like those against whom this word will be a testimony: 'You have been companions of sinners.' 5 In those days the prayers of the righteous will reach the Lord, and for you the days of your judgment will come. 6 All the words of your unrighteousness will be read out before the Great Holy One, and your faces will be covered with shame, and He will reject every work that is grounded on unrighteousness. 7 Woe to you, sinners, who live in the middle of the ocean and on dry land, whose memory is evil against you. 8 Woe to you who acquire silver and gold by unrighteousness and say: 'We have become rich with wealth and have possessions, and have acquired everything we have wanted.'⁠ 9 'And now let us do what we planned, for we have gathered silver, and the laborers in our houses are many, and our granaries are brimming full as with water.' 10 Yet like water your lies will flow away, for your wealth will not remain but will quickly leave you, for you acquired it all by unrighteousness, and you will be subject to a great curse.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 97:8 and James 4:13

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

Summary

James reflects a tradition found in 1 Enoch 97 that criticizes a focus on becoming wealthy. Both teach that such pursuits are misguided, since excessive wealth is temporary and inevitably leads to judgment.

Passages

1 Enoch 97:8

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

6 All the words of your unrighteousness will be read out before the Great Holy One, and your faces will be covered with shame, and He will reject every work that is grounded on unrighteousness. 7 Woe to you, sinners, who live in the middle of the ocean and on dry land, whose memory is evil against you. 8 Woe to you who acquire silver and gold by unrighteousness and say: 'We have become rich with wealth and have possessions, and have acquired everything we have wanted.' 9 'And now let us do what we planned, for we have gathered silver, and the laborers in our houses are many, and our granaries are brimming full as with water.' 10 Yet like water your lies will flow away, for your wealth will not remain but will quickly leave you, for you acquired it all by unrighteousness, and you will be subject to a great curse.

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

James 4:13

New Testament

11 Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. He who speaks against a fellow believer or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. 12 But there is only one who is lawgiver and judge—the one who is able to save and destroy. On the other hand, who are you to judge your neighbor? 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” 14 You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like? For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes. 15 You ought to say instead, “If the Lord is willing, then we will live and do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast about your arrogant plans. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin.

80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in James

References

"... This examination of the Epistle of James shows a writing emerging from the world of early Christianity that is home to wisdom, prophetic, apocalyptic and eschatological traditions. James challenges scholarship to discard the focus upon 'pure' traditions as a confusion that does not do justice to the evidence. Classifications such as apocalyptic, eschatological, wisdom, prophetic are heuristic tools that remain such: tools to enter into the reality of the past: they do not become the reality itself. To try to classify a writing into solely one category produces a distortion of the evidence. James is in fact a hybrid, which brings many different traditions together, as did 1 Enoch (92-105), and as such provides a possible example for the way other traditions operated in the New Testament world. James brought the traditions together in one way, 1 Enoch in another. The world of the New Testament knows of another writing, the earliest source behind the Gospels, 'Q', which bears many similarities to the Epistle of James. It, too, is a hybrid, composed of wisdom, eschatological, prophetical and apocalyptic material. As with James, the wisdom tradition functions as the dominant tradition bringing the others together (Hartin 1991:78-80). The challenge that both James and 1 Enoch (92-105) would pose to the study of 'Q' is to view these traditions as existing and developing together. The traditions of wisdom, eschatology and apocalyptic are not to be seen in opposition, but as James and Enoch show, they exist in a relationship as part of the world heritage to which they belong ..."

Patrick J Hartin, “Who is Wise and Understanding Among You An Analysis of Wisdom, Eschatology, and Apocalypticism in the Epistle of James,” HvTSt 53.4 (1997): 969–999.

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 97:8 and James 4:13

Summary

Passages

1 Enoch 97:8

James 4:13

References

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