Enoch and the Gospel of Matthew

Richter

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781621893929
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Matthew's Gospel contains material unique to it among the canonical Gospels. What is the background for this material? Why does the writer of Matthew's Gospel tell the story of Jesus in the way he does--including women in his genealogy, telling the story of the birth of Jesus in his particular way, and including the visit of the magi led by a star? Enoch and the Gospel of Matthew shows that the writer of Matthew was familiar with themes and traditions about the antediluvian patriarch Enoch, including the story of the fall of the angels called watchers, who transgress their heavenly boundaries to engage in illicit relations with women and teach them forbidden arts. The Gospel writer shows that Jesus brings about the eschatological repair of the consequences of the watchers' fall as told in the Enochic legend. This study focuses on Matthew's genealogy and infancy narrative and also has implications for the study of women in Matthew, since it is often through the stories of women in Matthew that the repair of the watchers' transgression takes place.

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Introduction

This book shows that the writer of the Gospel according to Matthew1 was familiar with themes and traditions about the antediluvian patriarch Enoch, including the story of the fall of the watchers, which is recorded in the apocalyptic and pseudepigraphical work known as 1 Enoch.2 Matthew was familiar with the Enochic watchers’ template and Enoch’s role in responding to the watchers’ transgression. My use of the word “template” follows John Reeves who uses the phrase “Enochic template” in his research on early Jewish mythologies of evil, including the books ascribed to Enoch. The Enochic template is one of three groupings of elements found in early Jewish myths about the advent of evil in the world (the other two templates are the Adamic template and a Transitional template). In summary form, the Enochic template contains these elements:

• Humanity already present on earth
• Women are born among mortals
• Some angels in heaven see them and desire to possess them sexually and beget children
• The angels bind each other with oaths to effect this deed
• Angels descend from heaven
• Angels fulfill their desire: engage in sexual activity and teach magical spells
• Result: bastard race of giants engendered
• These hybrids engage in violence and lawlessness against humanity and each other; blood spilled
• Earth and humanity complain to heaven
• Loyal archangels relay the complaints to God
• God dispatches these archangels to punish the watchers by binding/burial/fire
• Flood purges earth of giants’ corruption
• Immortal spirits of dead giants become the origin of demons and continue to plague humankind.3

However, not only was Matthew familiar with the elements of the Enochic watchers’ template, he also refers to them in his Gospel in such a way as to show that Jesus completes what Enoch does not. That is, Jesus is able to bring about the eschatological repair of the consequences of the fall of the watchers. The use of Enochic themes and material can be seen in Matthew’s genealogy and infancy narratives (Matt 1:1—2:23), the focus of this dissertation. However, as the infancy narratives set the stage for future developments in the Gospel, the Enochic themes present in the infancy narratives are also developed in stories of the adult life and ministry of Jesus. Matthew does not directly quote material from 1 Enoch4 and this fact warns us against claiming any literary dependence of Matthew on a text of 1 Enoch.5 However, Matthew does refer to material that may be described as “Enochic,” that is, material similar to that found in the pseudepigraphical literature ascribed to the seventh antediluvian patriarch, particularly in 1 Enoch, the Enochic work which will be explored within this dissertation. Matthew’s familiarity with and use of Enochic themes and the Enochic watchers’ template, as shown in Matthew’s opening two chapters, are the subjects of this dissertation.

In light of the knowledge of the Enochic watchers’ template and attendant traditions about Enoch as part of the background to Matthew’s Gospel, a number of the aspects unique to Matthew’s Gospel are elucidated, including Matthew’s inclusion of four women named in the canonical Hebrew Bible in his genealogy, Joseph’s suspicions of Mary’s pregnancy, the revelatory dreams which drive the narrative action forward, and the magi led by an astral body to worship the child. This dissertation, then, contributes to scholarly understanding of the unique Matthean aspects of the understanding of Jesus’ origins and identity. The child Jesus is shown by Matthew to be the fulfiller to the legacy of Enoch, the promised one who will redeem and save his people, establish righteousness on the earth, and ultimately redress the effects of the watchers’ transgression. Moreover, by viewing Matthew’s genealogy and infancy narratives through the lens of the Enochic watchers’ template, one gains a view into how, according to Matthew’s Gospel, women play a particular role in the story of Jesus. That is, alongside Joseph, Herod, the magi and some other notable male characters in the narrative, women’s participation in Matthew’s Gospel is prominent. Women in Matthew’s Gospel are more than merely the necessary means by which the generations are born and Jesus comes into being, or people “important not as women but as Gentiles,”6 or as characters whose role is “finally only to serve as messengers to the (male) disciples.”7 It is often in the examples of women and Jesus’ interaction with women in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus overcomes the watchers’ transgression described in 1 Enoch.

In addition, by seeing the particularly Matthean aspects of the Gospel in light of the Enochic material, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of Matthew’s association with apocalyptic literature—the apocalyptic book of 1 Enoch, in particular. The prominence of apocalyptic eschatology in Matthew’s Gospel, and even the understanding of Matthew as an “apocalyptic gospel,”8 has come to the fore during the last fifty years.9 However, this dissertation, by linking Enoch and the Enochic watchers’ template with Matthew’s Gospel, shows more clearly how Matthew’s apocalyptic vision is present even within the first two chapters of the Gospel. Further, in focusing on the story of the watchers’ transgression, this dissertation shows Matthew’s familiarity with 1 Enoch separate from a discussion of the Book of Parables, also known as the Parables of Enoch and the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71). Although scholarly consensus may be moving in the direction of accepting a date for the Book of Parables, or at least of the traditions within the Book of Parables, which might pre-date the composition of the canonical gospels,10 there is a great advantage in establishing the possibility of Matthean knowledge of Enochic traditions while avoiding the pitfalls of arguments concerning the date of the Book of Parables. Very few studi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Transgression
• Chapter 3: Transgression Reassessed
• Chapter 4: Transgression Redressed
• Chapter 5: The Legacy of the Watchers’ Transgression versus the Legacy of “God with Us”
• Conclusions
• Bibliography