<p>1:14 <i>And to these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of His holy ones</i>- Jude speaks about the false teachers of the first century. He recalls how Enoch had spoken of how the wicked of his day were destroyed in the flood: &ldquo;Behold the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment&rdquo; (Jude 14,15 RV). I suggested on Gen. 8:1 that these &quot;holy ones&quot; were Angels who actually brought about the flood. The Lord's coming with the Angels at the last day will be an even greater fulfilment of this. And yet Jude says that &ldquo;To these also i.e. the first century false teachers Enoch&hellip; prophesied&rdquo; (Jude 14 RV). Enoch&rsquo;s words were primarily addressed to his own generation, but his words ought to be taken as speaking directly to the first century apostates. In similar vein, the Lord said that Isaiah&rsquo;s words to his generation were prophesy &ldquo;of you&rdquo; in the first century. The idea seems to be that Jude's prophesy of their condemnation was to be seen as the equivalent of Enoch's condemnation of the immoral false believers of his age in the lead up to the flood.</p><p>But there may be a double meaning here. For there was a popular first century BC &lsquo;Book of Enoch&rsquo;.</p><p>A rather detailed argument &ndash; and yet a very powerful one &ndash; that Angels don&rsquo;t sin is actually provided by considering the passages in 2 Peter 2 and Jude which are used by some to prove that Angels sin. We have here what we meet many times in Holy Scripture &ndash; a series of allusions to a contemporary, uninspired, popular piece of literature in order to show that it is in fact wrong. This point may easily be lost on us, reading as we do from our distance from the original context. It&rsquo;s been observed that there are many allusions to the popular first century BC &lsquo;Book of Enoch&rsquo; in 2 Peter and Jude. This book claimed that 200 Angels were expelled from Heaven and then married beautiful women on earth. Peter and Jude allude to it in order to show how wrong it is. In the Book of Enoch, it is claimed that the righteous Angel Michael brings accusation against the 200 supposedly rebellious Angels. But this is specifically alluded to and corrected by Peter and Jude. In the table below are some of the allusions:</p><div align=center><table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=96%>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p><b>Jude</b></p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p><b>Book of   Enoch</b></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;Enoch   the Seventh from Adam prophesied&rdquo; Jude 14</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   60:8</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;dry   springs&rdquo; Jude 12</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   48:1,96:6 dried up fountains</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;waterless   clouds&rdquo; Jude 12</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   18:5,41:4&ndash;5,100:11&ndash;12</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;reserved   for blackest darkness&rdquo; Jude 13</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   21:3 &ldquo;darkness shall be their dwelling&rdquo; Enoch 46:6</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;trees   without fruit&rdquo; Jude 12</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   80:3</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;plucked   up&rdquo; Jude 13</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   83:4</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;raging   waves&rdquo; Jude 12</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Enoch   101:3&ndash;5</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&lsquo;See   the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge   everyone and convict the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done&rsquo;.&rdquo;   (Jude 14&ndash;15)</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;See   the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge   everyone and convict the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done&rdquo;   (Enoch 1:9)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=51% valign=top>            <p>&ldquo;reserved   unto the judgment of the great day&rdquo; (Jude 6)</p>            </td>            <td width=48% valign=top>            <p>Reserved   unto the day of sorrow Enoch 45:2</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table></div><p>Peter consciously contradicts this by stressing that &ldquo;angels do <i>not</i> bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord&rdquo; (2 Pet. 2:11), and Jude is even more specific by saying that this is true of Michael the Archangel (Jude 9). According to the Book of Enoch, the man Enoch judges the sinful Angels, but 2 Peter 3 warns that actually Angels will come with Lord Jesus in order to judge <i>men</i>. We can now understand why Peter claims that &ldquo;bold and arrogant these men (the false teachers) are not afraid to slander celestial beings&rdquo; (2 Pet. 2:10) &ndash; i.e. the Angels. The Book of Enoch slandered Angels by claiming 200 of them sinned. As Jude 8 puts it, the false teachers &ldquo;reject authority and slander celestial beings&rdquo;. The idea that the 200 Angels had sexual encounters with enticing women was therefore a slander. We need to reflect on the implications of all this &ndash; for claiming that Angels sin is actually spoken of by Peter and Jude as if it is serious blasphemy. Those early Christians were returning to their earlier Jewish and Pagan beliefs, which according to 2 Pet. 2:22 is to be seen as a dog returning to its vomit. This is how serious the issue is.</p><p>It should be noted that the Book of Enoch and other such writings are frequently alluded to in the Apocalypse &ndash; again, to deconstruct them and show a first century readership the <i>real</i> meaning of the terms used in the popular uninspired literature of the time. Thus the descriptions of the Heavenly &ldquo;Son of man&rdquo; in Enoch 47:3&ndash;7 are alluded to in the description of the Lord Jesus in Rev. 1:15&ndash;17 (This and many other such allusions are to be found tabulated in Hugh Schonfield, <i>The Original New Testament: Revelation</i> (London: Firethorn Press, 1985)).</p>