The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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You’re listening to The Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production. Music provided by Joseph McDade. He is your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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to the ancient tradition. I’m your host, Jack Logan. I’m so glad to have you listening in. I’m excited about today’s episode because I’m going to introduce you to one of my favorite ancient writings, the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch. And before I jump into today’s episode, I want to briefly recap what we discovered in the previous episode on the Garden of Eden. And I want to use this as a way to segue into today’s episode.

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We established that significant textual evidence in the Genesis Garden of Eden account points to the Garden of Eden as a holy sanctuary or temple where God could dwell on earth. Within the precinct of his holy garden sanctuary, God revealed to Adam and Eve a temple theology deeply associated with the establishment of kings, priests, and marriage.

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And in the Garden Holy of Holies, God joined Adam and Eve together as the earth’s first divinely wed couple, crowned Adam and Eve the earth’s first king and queen, and ordained Adam and Eve the earth’s first priest and priestess. And God commanded them to cleave to each other and multiply and replenish the earth. He gave them reign over his newly formed earth and charged them to worship him in his holy temple.

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God established Adam and Eve as the Earth’s first sacral king and sacral queen. I want to highly encourage you to check out our website, theancienttradition.com, because you’ll find some amazing illustrations and pictures that accompany the Garden of Eden episode. On the website, click on evidence in the menu, and then in the dropdown menu, click on episode number four, did God reveal the ancient tradition in the Garden of Eden? And when you go there and go through it,

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be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page because you’ll find a fun bonus section with clips from three animated Disney films, Moana, Brother Bear, and The Lion King, which incorporate the paradycyclical mountain sanctuary and elements of the ancient tradition directly in the storyline of the film. To give you a taste, listen to this clip from Moana, which remarkably,

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connects kingship mountains and sacred places together in one brief interaction.

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I’ve wanted to bring you here from the moment you opened your eyes. This is a sacred place, a place of chiefs. There will come a time when you will stand on this peak and place a stone on this mountain, like I did, like my father did, and his father and every chief that has ever been. And on that day, when you add your stone, you will raise this whole island.

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You are the future of our people Moana. They are not out there. They are right here. Starting to be who they need you to be. I love how that clip brings together so many different elements of the ancient tradition. It’s a lot more fun to watch the actual clip, the animation, the beautiful animation that goes along with it. So if you wanna see that, you know, go check out the ancienttradition.com and look for episode number four.

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Also under that bonus section, you’ll find a audio recording of the Epic of Gilgamesh tablet 9. And in that tablet, King Gilgamesh wanders the earth in search of Unapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah, who’s the guardian of the secret of immortality. Gilgamesh’s quest takes him to a sacred mountain, Mount Mashu. And I encourage you to listen to the recording. It’s just a short

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parallels between Gilgamesh’s quest and the account of the Mountain Garden Sanctuary in Genesis. There are a lot of elements in Tablet 9 which reinforce the connection between mountains and holy sanctuaries or temples. To this point we’ve covered quite a bit of evidence given in the ancient accounts that God revealed a distinct religious tradition very early on or from the very beginning.

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But there are a couple more important examples I want to cover in this episode before we move on to some of the core theological components of the ancient tradition in the next couple of weeks. Which brings me to my favorite non-canonical writing and I love a lot of the ancient sacred writings, especially the pyramid texts. But this particular writing, the Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch is a standout, precisely because it captures so many elements of the ancient tradition.

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So today we’re gonna focus only on its relevance as evidence of God revealed religion, but we’ll definitely return to several elements of the text down the road. Okay, although it’s titled The Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch, this text is sometimes referred to as Two-Enoch or Slavonic Enoch. I wanna start with a little background on the books of Enoch because there is more than one book.

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Back in 1768, a Scottishman by the name of James Bruce was travel, he was a big traveler and he traveled all through Ethiopia and he was looking in Ethiopia for the source of the Nile River. But while he was there he gathered a lot of Ethiopian manuscripts of which were three copies of what’s known today as the Book of Enoch, which is also referred to as One Enoch. And if you’re interested in seeing one of those three originals

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You can find one of the copies in the French National Library and the other two are in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, which is an absolutely gorgeous library. It’s everything you would expect Oxford’s library to look like and to be. Although James Bruce was the first person to acquire a full manuscript of the book of Enoch and bring it to Europe in 1773, this was not the first knowledge in the West of the existence of a book.

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Enoch. Biblical scholars for years had known of the existence of a book of Enoch. For starters, Jude, the brother of Jesus in the book of Jude, mentions some prophecies that had been given by Enoch. Jude chapter 1 verses 14 to 15 read, And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold the

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to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them.” The mention of Enoch here in the New Testament is pretty intriguing for a couple of reasons. First, it suggests that early Christians were aware of or knew of prophecies that had been given by Enoch.

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how did they know these prophecies? Prophecies of Enoch aren’t anywhere in the Old Testament. So how did Jude, the brother of Jesus, know Enoch’s prophecies? Were they written down somewhere? They must have been because Enoch lived thousands of years before the early Christians. So this first gives us a clue that prophecies of Enoch were circulating in some way amongst the early Christians. And second,

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Jude’s use of Enoch’s prophecies in his writings suggests that at one time the writings of Enoch or the book of Enoch was considered canonical or part of the early Christian church’s sanctioned writings. Which, you know, considering Jude was the brother of Jesus, it must have been sanctioned by Jesus too and constituted some of the theology of the early Christian church. Third, what is even

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from Ethiopia by James Bruce contains a passage that’s almost identical to the passage written in Jude in the New Testament. So it’s possible that the book of Enoch or one Enoch that’s quoted in the book of Jude could have been the book that was circulating during Jude’s ministry. Let’s pause for a moment here and ask a very important question. Who is this Enoch? As you’ll come to find out in future episodes, this Enoch plays an absolutely critical role in establishing the ancient tradition.

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I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so I’ll leave it at that for now. But suffice it to say that it’s really important that we have a firm understanding of who this Enoch is before we go any further. According to the genealogy outlined in Genesis chapter 5 and in Jude chapter 1, Enoch was the seventh from Adam. The Genesis genealogy gives us the lineage. It says,

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Seth begat Enos and Enos begat Canaan and Canaan begat Mahalalel and Mahalalel begat Jared and Jared begat Enoch. Starting from Adam going father to son you have Adam, Seth, Canaan, Mahalalel, Jared, then Enoch. This list names Enoch as a direct descendant of Adam. He’s named the seventh from Adam just as Jude

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And recall back in episode number four, our previous episode, that God crowned Adam, the earth’s first king and ordained Adam, the earth’s first priest, probably the earth’s first high priest. And he was commanded by God to keep and to tend it, or as we showed by the intertextual Hebrew links to serve and to guard his holy sanctuary or temple. If you haven’t given episode number four a listen, be sure and go back and listen to it.

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So you’re familiar with the biblical evidence in the Genesis account that points to Adam as the earth’s first sacral king because it’s really important to start with that foundation. Okay, so why does this matter? Why does it matter that Adam was the first sacral king and how is that relevant to Enoch? Well, among the ancient Hebrews, the firstborn righteous son was the heir, the heir to the father’s household when his father died.

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By right of birth, he was given a double portion of his father’s household estate known as the birthright. He was given a double portion because he was expected to use his inheritance to take care of his now deceased father’s household, widowed mother, unmarried sisters, livestock, things like that. As part of his birthright, he was given authority to preside over or rule over his father’s house.

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Genesis 43 33 says, and they sat before him the firstborn according to his birthright. In addition, amongst the ancient Hebrews, the firstborn was also consecrated or dedicated to the service of God. Exodus chapter 13 verse 12 reads, Thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix.

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every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast the males shall be the Lord’s this is to say that the firstborn righteous son belonged to God his life was to be a life of complete consecration dedication or devotion to God in other words upon his father’s death and by right of birth the firstborn righteous son inherited his father’s role as the civil and spiritual

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the firstborn righteous son became the earth’s next legitimate king and high priest. He inherited his father’s position as sacral king. This system was known as sacred primogenitor or the rite of succession belonging to the firstborn righteous son. And it appears to have been instituted in the Garden of Eden to emulate or typify the

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and his firstborn son, Jesus Christ. And we see this connection in Hebrews chapter one, verses one to six. And this is the apostle Paul speaking of Jesus. And listen closely. God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power.

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when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, and again I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he bringeth in the first

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begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him.” None of this makes sense in relation to the theology of firstborn sons unless God and Jesus Christ are actually two separate beings. That they are actually father and son as the verses here in Hebrews chapter 1 say. Here Paul declares to the Hebrews that Jesus Christ by right of birth as the firstborn

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was quote appointed by his father or God, heir of all things. And he was worthy of this birthright because he was the first begotten, the first born of God. And because he was righteous, he emulated God his father in every way. Paul says this of Jesus, speaking of his similarity to the father, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person.

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Paul teaches us that God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are virtually indistinguishable in terms of righteousness, glory, and image. And maybe this is part of the reason the two were conflated into one by the Council of Nicaea. Note here too how Paul points out that Jesus, quote, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. And this is to say that God the Father

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enthroned Jesus right next to him and you aren’t enthroned unless you are a king. If you’re familiar with the Judeo-Christian scriptures, you know Jesus is declared the king of kings and the lord of lords. This comes right out of Revelation chapter 17 verse 14, for he is lord of lords and king of kings, which is just another way of saying that he is the king of all kings and the priest of all priests or the great high priest.

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In Judeo-Christianity, Jesus is the supreme example of a sacral king. By right of birth and righteousness, God gave Jesus the authority to rule or exercise dominion over all the earth and the power to serve as the presiding great high priest in his holy sanctuary. And from the Genesis account, it looks like God gave this same civil authority and priesthood power to Adam in the Garden of Eden.

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making Adam a vassal, sacral king. Understanding the theology of the firstborn son is foundational to an understanding of who Enoch was. The reason Enoch is mentioned in the Bible at all is because he was seventh in the birthright line from Adam. The genealogy given in Genesis five is there to establish for the reader that the names of the sons who had rights by birth and righteousness to receive the kingship and priestship

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which had been given to Adam by God in the Garden of Eden. So Enoch was in direct line of succession after his father Jared. The Old Testament doesn’t say much about Jared, but it does indicate that Enoch was a righteous leader, so much so that it says in Genesis chapter five, verse 24, that he, quote, walked with God. Since Enoch was a righteous man and in the line of succession,

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We probably aren’t too off course to suggest that Enoch was also at some point a king, the reigning civil authority on earth. And even though that’s not stated directly in the Bible, there’s some remarkable evidence in the Mesopotamian record that so closely parallels the genealogy in Genesis chapter five, scholars aren’t really quite sure what to do with it. Did the Mesopotamian record influence the Bible?

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Did ancient Hebrew genealogy influence the Mesopotamians? Were the ancient Hebrews and ancient Mesopotamians the same? We don’t know. But for our purposes, the record that was found places Enoch or an Enoch-like figure in a list of kings, a list of Sumerian Antediluvian kings. The Mesopotamians refer to this Enoch figure as King Emma Duranki. One of the foremost scholars on Enoch,

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former Kelly Chair in Theology and Professor of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity at Marquette University, a professor by the name of Andrei Orlov writes this. Salient witnesses to the Emma Duranki tradition include the various versions of the so-called Sumerian and Antediluvian king list. In recensions dated from 1500 BC to 165 BC, the

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The list demonstrates a number of similarities with the genealogy of Genesis 5. One of the significant details found in the list is that Mesopotamian kings, similar to the patriarchs from the Genesis account, had extraordinarily long reigns. Another important feature is that the two versions of the list account for ten kings, the last of whom is designated as the hero of the flood. This fact recalls the role of Noah who occupies the tenth

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place in the list of Genesis 5. An intriguing character in the Sumerian king list is Emma Duranki, the king of Sippar, the city of the sun god Shamash. In three copies of the list, he occupies the seventh place, which in the Genesis genealogy belongs to Enoch. Moreover, in other Mesopotamian sources, Emma Duranki appears in many roles and situations which

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demonstrate remarkable similarities with Enoch’s story. I’ve included a copy of the Sumerian Antediluvian King List on our companion website, theancienttradition.com. And if you’re interested in taking a look, click on this episode under evidence and you’ll see it there. It’s worth noting that one of the tablets from which this kingship list came says this quote after the kingship descended from heaven. The kingship was in

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Eridu. So here in the Mesopotamian record, just like we saw in the Garden of Eden account, the institution of kingship is declared to have been divinely instituted, to have come directly from heaven or God and taught to human beings as the divinely sanctioned form of civil authority. We’ll revisit King Emma Duranki at some other time, but

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For this episode, the Sumerian antediluvian king list gives us reason to believe that Enoch was not only a righteous man, but a righteous king, a sacral king. He was clearly in line to inherit his father’s throne and to be the next high priest in God’s holy sanctuary. And as a quick side note, did you catch that unapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah who we’ve mentioned in the past couple of episodes and who plays a really important role in the Epic of Gilgamesh?

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is also mentioned in the Sumerian Antediluvial King List. In this list, he’s listed as the 10th King, the last king before the flood swept the earth. And in Genesis chapter 5, Noah is named as the 10th in the line from Adam. And in either case, Noah or Unapishtim is listed as the great-grandson of Enoch or King Amaduronky. So Noah also was in the birthright line.

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as Enoch’s great-grandson. He was in the direct line of succession. So it should come as no surprise in the Epic of Gilgamesh that it is Unapishtim who holds the secret to immortality, which by now must be considered an important doctrine of the theology of the ancient tradition. Now, hopefully you have a little better idea of who Enoch was, and hopefully you can see because of his status as a firstborn righteous son in the line of succession,

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that he was heir and steward of the totality of the ancient tradition. Kingship, priestship, all the sacred truths and doctrines, and temple-based theology that had been taught by God to Adam in the Garden of Eden. Over the next couple of weeks, you’ll see how this enix shows up all over the place in the ancient record, not just in the Judeo-Christian tradition. And it’s always in connection to kingship, sacred temples, and the sacred tradition of

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and sacred knowledge. All of this means it’s a really good idea to examine what was written in the book of Enoch. As I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, sometime between 1768 and 1773, James Bruce acquired the book of Enoch in Ethiopia, known today as One Enoch, and brought it to Europe. A second book of Enoch, known as the book of the holy secrets of Enoch, which is sometimes referred to as Two Enoch or Slavonic Enoch,

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which is designated as such just because it was the only, the only full manuscripts of the text to survive were written in Old Slavonic, which used to be the official language of the Orthodox Church in Slavic countries. However, in 2009, four fragments of the Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch were found in Coptic. Coptic is a language that was spoken in Egypt between 200 and 800 AD. And these findings suggest that the book is at least that old.

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But there’s reason to believe that the book is even older than that because most of the Coptic Judeo-Christian texts were translation of Greek texts. And most scholars believe the Slavonic book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch came originally from a Greek source. But there are also many Semitic loan words in the text which point to a Semitic source text for the Greek manuscript. This suggests a textual genealogy of an original Semitic text to a Greek text to a Coptic text.

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to the Slavonic text, which we find most of the copies in. The book also contains a couple of Greek insertions and Gnostic references, which suggests that some alterations were made to the text over the past 2000 years. Today, the book is considered to be non-canonical in most Christian churches, but it was considered at one time canonical in the old Slavonic Bible.

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no Christian churches today consider the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch to be canonical. A close examination of the text reveals that there’s a lot of reasons why this designation should probably be reconsidered, at least those parts which appear to be untampered. And the reason why is because so much of the text seems to conform with what we’ve learned about the ancient tradition to this point.

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But there’s even a lot more in there that conforms to the ancient tradition, which we’ll cover in future episodes. All of this makes the Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch one of the most important ancient sacred texts and one of my favorites. As a quick aside, Andre Orlov, who I mentioned earlier out of Marquette University, is the world’s premier scholar of the Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch. If you wanna learn more about Dr. Orlov or read some of his scholarly articles on Enoch or to Enoch,

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check out our companion website, theancienttradition.com and click on scholars in the menu. He’s included there as one of our noteworthy scholars. So let’s jump into the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch. And I’ll be reading from the Scriptural Research Institute’s English translation, which is based off of M.R. Morphle and M. Sokolov’s early 20th century translations. I’m gonna start from the beginning of the book, chapter one.

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I’ll stop here and there to draw your attention to some important aspects of the text, but keep in mind that I’ve chosen the sections I have because they attest once again that God revealed a distinct religious tradition in deep antiquity. The book begins with Enoch waking to two angelic beings at the foot of his bed. The two beings declare that they were sent by God to escort Enoch through the heavens

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to the highest heaven where he’ll speak with God face to face. The Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch chapter 1. From the secret book about the taking away of Enoch the just. There was a wise man, a great craftsman who the Lord loved so much, he took him up so he could see the homes of the highest and be an eyewitness to the wise and great, inconceivable and immutable realm of God Almighty.

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and to the wonderful, glorious, bright, flying wills of the Lord’s servants. The inaccessible throne of the Lord, the numbers and type of the incorporeal armies, the incomprehensible organization of the many elements, and of the various sights and sounds of the army of cherubs and of the boundless light. And at that time, he said, when I had lived 165 years, I fathered my son, Methuselah.

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After this, I lived 200 years and so all the years of my life until then amounted to 365 years. I don’t have time to talk about this right now, but keep in mind this 365 years being assigned to Enid because it will matter quite a bit later. Not in this episode, but in a future episode. On the first day of the first month, I was in my house alone and was sleeping on my bed. While I was asleep, great distress came into my heart and I was crying in sleep.

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and I couldn’t understand what this distress was or what had happened to me. Two huge men came to me, giants, like I’d never seen before on earth. Their faces were shining like the sun and their eyes were like a burning torch and from their lips, fire came out. I’m gonna jump ahead here. They were standing at the head of my bed and began to call me by name. I woke from my sleep and clearly saw those two men standing in front of me.

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I saluted them and was seized with so much terror that the appearance of my face was changed. Those men said to me, Be brave, Enoch, do not be afraid. The eternal God sent us to you, and you will ascend with us into the sky today. And you will tell your sons and all your family so your house on earth can continue without you and make sure they would come looking for you until the Lord returns you to them.

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From here, the two angels guide Enoch through a series of 10 heavens. In each of the heavens, more and more of the holy secrets of heaven are revealed to Enoch. He’s shown the secret of how the heavens keep their orderly movements. He’s shown the secret of the hierarchy of the hosts of heaven. He’s shown the secrets of the movements in heavenly cycles of the sun and the moon and the stars. He’s shown the secrets of quote, fiery armies of great archangels.

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with dominions, orders, and governments. In the 10th heaven, he’s shown the secret of God’s throne, and there he speaks with God face to face. And much like Adam in the Garden of Eden, God instructs Enoch. I’ll start in chapter 22, Enoch has just been shown the glory of God, and then God instructs one of the angels. The Lord summoned one of his archangels named Vervoil.

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which means Archangel of God, who was quicker in wisdom than the other archangels, who recorded all the deeds of the Lord. The Lord said to Vervoil, bring out the books from my storehouses and a pen for speed writing, and give it to Enoch and read him the books. So Vervoil rushed and brought me the books, a knife, ink, and he gave me the pen for speed writing. Chapter 23, he told me all about the things of the sky.

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earth and sea and all the elements and their movements and paths and about the living thunder the sun the moon the stars and their paths and changes the seasons years days and hours the coming of the clouds and the blowing of the wind the numbers of the angels and songs of their armies and all human lives and rules and instructions and song and all things that it is fitting to learn

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It’s interesting here that God not only relays important holy secrets to Enique, but he also teaches him everything that’s worth learning, like astronomy and agriculture and meteorology. This is also interesting because we find the same thing in Mesoamerican and Native American accounts, which tell of a God visiting the peoples and relaying a religious tradition, but also teaching the people how to plant crops and track the seasons and things like that.

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Vervoil instructed me for 30 days and 30 nights and never stopped talking in my hand never stopped writing all of the symbols and all the creatures. Chapter 24. This is the Lord speaking. Listen Enoch and pay attention to my words as I have not even told my secret to my angels. And I have not told them their origin or of my endless realm or how I created the creatures, which I will tell you today.

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Before all things were visible, I had come into existence. I, like one of them, I moved around among the invisible things, like the sun going from east to west and from west to east. But even the sun itself has rest, while I found nowhere to rest because nothing has been created yet. And I thought up the idea of establishing a foundation and of creating visible creation.

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Here God begins to instruct Enoch in the creation. And I’m not sure if you caught it or not, but Enoch pointed out in chapter one that the visitation of the angelic beings occurred on quote, the first day of the first month, which means the angels appeared to Enoch on New Year’s Day. And this is significant because in the ancient world, the people like us celebrated the new year, but that was not all.

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The ancients also believed the earth or the whole creation was renewed on New Year’s Day. So it’s quite telling here that God reveals to Enoch on this day, New Year’s Day, how the creation of the earth came to be. And what’s even more interesting is that God points out that he was troubled or at least it feels like he was troubled because before the creation of the earth, he had no place to quote rest.

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The use of the word rest here is extremely important because it’s almost always used in Judeo-Christian scriptures to refer to God’s temple, the palace where God can rest. Genesis chapter two, verses two to three say, by the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work.

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As we noted in episode number four, the first thing God did after finishing the creation of the earth was to plant a garden, which we established in the previous episode was a holy garden temple. The first thing he did was build or plant a place where he could rest. Hebrews chapter four, verses 10 and 11 invites everyone to join God in his rest, which is another way to say he invites everyone to join him in his temple, a privilege that’s restricted to the obedient.

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It reads, for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their work, just as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. The Lord continues with a description of how the creation took place. The Lord continued, I commanded the very highest. Let one of the invisible things descend and become

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and a doil descended very large. I saw him and saw in his belly he had a great light. I said to him, give birth a doil and let what comes out of you be visible. He dissolved and a great light came out. I was in the presence of the great light and so light was created and a great Aeon came out and lit up all the creation I had thought to create. And I saw that it was good.

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I set up a throne for myself and took my seat on it. This text makes the establishment of a temple in the garden even more explicit for here God says, I set up a throne for myself and took my seat on it. There’s so much more here. First, this is further evidence that God built a garden temple where he could dwell because God clearly indicates he created a place where he could place his throne, a place he could dwell, a place he could rest.

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This also clearly indicates that God is a king. He is sovereign over his creation and he reigns from his holy sanctuary. It also indicates he is an anthropomorphic being because God here clearly states that he quote, took my seat. Only persons with a body need a place to sit. Let’s continue. And then said to the light, go up higher and solidify yourself high above the throne.

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and become the foundation for the highest things. Skip to chapter 33. Now, Enoch, all that I have told you and all that you have understood and everything that you’ve seen in the sky and everything that you’ve seen on earth and all that I have written in books by my great wisdom, all things I have planned and created. Apply your mind, Enoch, and know that one who is speaking to you and take the books which you have written.

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Go down to earth and tell your sons all that I have told you and all that you have seen from the lowest sky up to my throne and all the armies. I created all the armies and forces and there’s none that resists me or is insubordinate to me as all subject themselves to my monarchy and labor for my dominion alone. Give them the books in your handwriting and they will read them and will know me as the creator of everything. Let them distribute the books you have written.

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children to children, generation to generation, nation to nations. God is clearly commanding Enoch here to share the wisdom and knowledge that was revealed by God with his family. He’s commanded to pass it down. Let’s continue. I will give you Enoch, my mediator, the chief general Michael to protect your writings and the writings of your forefathers, Adam, Seth, Enos, Canaan, Mahalalil, and Jared, your father.

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They will not be destroyed until the final age, for I have commanded my angels, who I have sent to the earth to protect them and to command the things of time to preserve the writing of your forefathers, so they aren’t destroyed in the flood, which I will create in your generation. Wow, if this is true, somewhere buried in the earth, preserved for a future day, are all of the writings of the early patriarchs, Adam, Seth, Enos.

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And I can’t wait until those are uncovered. Chapter 40, this is him sharing it with his family, Enoch’s now speaking. Now my children, I know everything, from beginning to end and the end to the beginning, either from the Lord’s lips or what my eyes have seen. Again, wow, Enoch was taught everything, including the entire history of the world directly from the Lord’s lips. And you heard that right, the Lord has lips.

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That’s a lot of sacred knowledge. He continues, I know everything and have written everything into books, the skies and their boundaries, their contents, their armies and their movements. I investigated and recorded all things that grow on the earth and all seeds both sown and un-sown that grow on the earth and all plants, grasses and all flowers and their sweet smells.

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Now my children, keep these thoughts in your hearts and pay attention to the words of your father which I have passed on to you from the Lord’s lips. Take these books in your father’s handwriting and read them. And in them you will learn the Lord’s words, all that has been from the beginning of creation and what will be until the end of time. But in none of them, explain it as directly as my writings.

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The last line here is interesting because it indicates that of the writings of the patriarchs, Enoch’s writings are distinct. They explain the holy secrets more directly than the other writings. So we should pay close attention to what Enoch is teaching in his books because they contain the Lord’s words, his doctrine. Finally chapter 48. My children, copy the books for your children, for all the generations and for the nations who are wise enough to fear God.

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Let them receive copies. May they come to love them more than any sweet food on earth and read them and follow them. I love the last line. May they come to love them more than any sweet food on earth. Although we aren’t privy to all of the Holy Secrets that were revealed to Enoch, there are a lot of clues into Enoch about those Holy Secrets, Holy Secrets that are directly linked to the theology of the ancient tradition.

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And we’ll check those out in future episodes. Suffice it to say here that this book is another excellent example of God revealing to human beings important sacred truths that are necessary for them to join him in his holy sanctuary or in his rest. This book also indicates that God didn’t just reveal the ancient tradition in the Garden of Eden and forget about it. Here in the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch, the ancient tradition and everything from the beginning to the end,

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was revealed anew to Enoch seven generations after Adam. Before I conclude this episode, I wanna share one more verse from 2 Enoch. In chapter 30, the Lord explicitly tells Enoch that he made Adam a king in the Garden of Eden. And this is inferred in the Genesis account, but here in the Enoch account, God makes it explicit. Speaking of Adam, God says this.

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I appointed him as king to rule on earth and to have my wisdom. There was none comparable to him on earth from all my existing creatures. I called his name Adam. I gave him free will and showed him the two paths, the light and the darkness. That wraps up this edition of the Ancient Tradition.

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If you’re interested in hearing an audio recording of the entire book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch, you can find it on our sister podcast, The Ancient Tradition Audio Rit. It’s a fascinating listen. That’s it for me. I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare. Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. I’m Jack Logan.

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You’ve been listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production.