Iron & Myth 43: The Book of Enoch - A View From The Bunker - Fringe Radio Network

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
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Speaker 2 (02:10):
This is a view from the Bunker.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Now here's Derek Gilbert.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
What can we Christians learn from a book that is
called pseudepigrapha, meaning it is not actually named for the
guy who wrote it, and in all probability, if it
was written, well, the guy who it's named for probably
lived millennia before the book itself, which is written in
multiple parts. We'll get into all of that tonight as

(02:38):
we bring you this month's Iron and Myth Roundtable discussion
on a View from the Bunker. I'm Derek Gilbert joining
me as always the best selling author and award winning
screenwriter Brian Goadala, the director of the Institute of Biblical Anthropology,
doctor cow Bell Burton, and the pastor of the Reformed
Baptist Church of Northern Colorado and Boulder Dog doctor Pastor

(03:01):
Doug Van Dorn, and boy Judd has just jumped out
of us. Did he take offense? Or are we dealing
once again with technical issues that we had to deal
with last month. Anyway, we say cow Bell in jest,
but it's because our viewers have said they want to
hear more Jud Burton, because he is like the cow
Bell and they need more cow Bell. The book that

(03:24):
I'm talking about is one that we surprisingly this past
week realized we'd never discussed in forty two previous episodes,
and that is the Book of First Enoch, which is
somewhat controversial because there are disagreements among Christians as to
how useful it is and how much attention we should

(03:47):
pay it as Christians. So to tackle this issue from
a variety of perspectives. As we look at this, we're
going to turn first to jud since we didn't have
an opportunity to hear from him last month due to
technical issues. Said Jud the Book of First Enoch, why
is it relevant? In how seriously should we as Christians

(04:07):
take it.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Well as two relevancy. It's it's writing comes at a
time the Inner Biblical period, after the Old Testament period,

(04:30):
where I can remember a lot of Sunday school teachers
and preachers talking about, well, this is the four hundred
years where God is silent. And when I was introduced
to this literature, I thought, well, that clearly is not
the case. Because the Book of Enoch, along with other

(04:52):
period literature from Jewish tradition and apocryphal tradition, is a
it's it's a reservoir of ideas and cultural developments that

(05:12):
are are frankly necessary to better understanding the Gospel message
and indeed the arrival of the Messiah. So much of
the tone of of of Anoch, for instance, that we're
talking about tonight, is apocalyptic in that sense, and that

(05:33):
it's expectant. And as to why Christians should pay attention
to it, certainly for the reasons that I just outlined,
but also because it's it's part of the cultural compass,
if you will, and we even find it referenced in

(05:55):
the books of Second Peter and.

Speaker 5 (05:59):
The Book of.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
And again implicitly throughout the New Testament.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Because it was.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
It's one of those bits of information, pieces of literature,
his knowledge in a lot of cases with just implicit
and it makes a lot of obscure passages come to life,
not the least of which is Jesus's mission necessory of
Philippi and Mount Hermon during the course of his ministry

(06:30):
that we can read about in Matthew sixteen and Mark
chapter eight. But it throws, it throws passages like that,
and indeed the entire New Testament into great relief because
it helps us to understand the conversation that's taking place
in Judaism, particularly from the perspective of the Essenes. So

(06:56):
there's a lot of relevancy here and a lot of
grounding and certainly historical and cultural context for all students
of the Bible.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
I mentioned in the introduction that First d Knock is
divided into a number of sections, and let me just
go over those very quickly. What the five sections are
and when scholars think they were written. The first actually
the first thirty six chapters the Book of the Watchers
is probably the section most people, if they've heard of
First d Knock at all, is the section that people

(07:29):
are familiar with. That's the expansion on Genesis six, verses
one through four, and what it happened, what the consequences were,
how God dealt with that. The next section, chapter thirty
seven to seventy one, called the Book of Parables. The
next ten chapters chapter eleven, chapters seventy two through eighty

(07:49):
two called the Astronomical Book or the Book of the
Heavenly Luminaries. Then you've got the Book of Dreams, which
is chapters eighty three to ninety and then finally the
Epistle of which is First Enoch chapters ninety one to
one oh eight, but they were not written in that order.
The Book of First Enoch first thirty six chapters, Book
of the Watchers probably written in the fourth or third

(08:12):
century BC. It's difficult to pin down exactly, but probably
written also in the Upper Galilee, which is worth discussing.
The second section, the Astronomical Book, which our friend Josh
Peck has dealt with because it deals with the importance
of the solar calendar instead of the lunar calendar. That
was written by about two hundred BC. The Book of

(08:34):
Dreams probably during the Macabean Rebellion, that's chapters eighty three
to ninety that written between one sixty three and one
forty two BC. The Epistle of ench which is the
end part of the book probably between one seventy BC
and sometime in the first century BC. And the final
section of the book is one I've been doing a
lot of reading on the last couple of years. That's

(08:55):
chapters thirty seven to seventy one. The Book of Parables
that according to scholars, was probably finished right towards the
end of the first century BC, in other words, just
before or right around the time of the births of
John the Baptist and of Jesus. So you've got these
different sections that were then collated into a whole at
some point in the Christian era. But again they're dated

(09:19):
to different periods, they tell different stories, and again, what
parts do we focus on, which are the most relevant
or should we look at all of them and consider
all of them relevant?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, yeah, I think we Also, I think we need
to also address the fact that you know, the book
at first Enoch when most people when people talk about
the Book of Enoch, that's what they're mostly referring to.
There's actually three books of Enoch. There's first Knock, second
e Knock, and thirty Knock, and Derek, you described the
five parts of first Knock, but there's also a second

(09:57):
e Knock, which is they usually refer to them by
their language. So the First Enoch is often called the
Ethiopian Enoch because it's in Ethiopian, uh, the you know,
the dominant language that we have for it, the oldest version.
And then second Enoch is called Slavonic Enoch, and thirty
Knox called Hebrew Enoch. And you know, thirty Knock, I
think it is has you know, a strong you know,

(10:20):
Gnostic background, and uh, second Enoch. Those two books, the
second and third are you know, I think they're more
written in later, you know, after the first century type
of thing, and so they're not usually looked at by
those of us who are really into the Book of Enoch.

(10:41):
So when you say Enoch, you're saying first Enoch. And
I think even mostly the first thirty six chapters of
the Book of the Watchers. But you know that's obviously
that book has become a very popular, right, you know,
particularly right now, I think in the last ten years
even I've just seen the interest in that book within
the Christian Christian world has really multiplied. And with that.

(11:04):
Of course, it's brought all kinds of extreme you know,
bizarre things that people are saying, as you know, and uh,
there's the debate is it scripture? Some Christians think it
should be most most acknowledged that it is not. But
you know, as those of us on this panel, you know,
we understand it to be a risk whether even though

(11:27):
it's not canonical in that sense it and we could
talk about the history of it and how it was
received and stuff, but we take it as what really
the early Church believed, most of most of the early Church,
which is it's not necessarily canonical, but it is a
respectable book in terms of you know, spiritual teaching and

(11:48):
such even such that you know, you know Tertullian origin,
lots of them you know, drew from that book, right,
And so there it's you don't have to I guess
what I What I see out there is the extremes, right.
It's it's people saying book at vnoch is nothing to

(12:09):
do with scripture. It's not in a scripture. So it's
all lies, you know. And I get that a lot actually,
because I write a lot about this stuff and I
get people's responses, and it's just amazing how ignorant many
people are about that, and so or the other extreme
would be I would just say that Christians become so
obsessed with it that they do start treating it like
it's canonical scripture, and I don't it's not. I don't

(12:32):
think it is. And and so that's I think that's
where we kind of lie somewhere in between, that middle
ground where we can see the value of it. And
and I can tell you this. You know, for me personally,
I've come from a very typical evangelical background. I actually
was one of those people who just thought, well, if
these intertestamental books like Enoch, Jubilees and all that, you know,

(12:55):
if they're not scripture, then why bother they're lies or
there's just wor because they're not scripture. And what you
don't realize is you create this sort of false picture
of God's word where only the Bible is true and
nothing else is true, right, and that is completely anti
biblical and anti Christian. And but what changed my mind

(13:18):
was even though I had that sort of you know,
solo scripture, it comes from solar scripture, which is a
good doctrine, and that is scripture is the ultimate soul
authority doesn't mean it's the only, but it is definitely
the ultimate soul authority for matters of doctrine and faith.
But what changed my mind was when I studied how

(13:43):
the New Testament specifically draws upon the Book of Enoch.
And you know, the passageway for all of us is,
of course in Jude, where I think it's Jude, what
is it nine or.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
So where's fourteen and fifteen?

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Jude fourteen fifteen where he quotes literally from the Book
of Enoch. And that was the way in for me,
because I started realizing, you know what, there's all these
ways of you know, I heard the excuses for those
who didn't want to face that reality. Oh, Jude was
probably drawing from a common source that Enoch was also

(14:22):
coming from. So then, oh, he's not quoting Enoch. He's
quoting from some unknown common source, you know, which that's
just ad hoc. And that's a fallacy. That's ad hoc.
It's quoting from the Book of Enoch. And and if
the words match up, then he's quoting from it. There's
nothing wrong with that, right, So my a as a
Christian who was hung up on that, you know, scripture
only type of thing that was. It was scripture that

(14:44):
actually got me to start appreciating it and looking into
it and studying it and finding, oh my gosh, Jude
is not just quoting that one verse in Enoch, which
if we have that verse, I'd just like to read
it because I think it's that's pretty cool. I don't
know if any of you guys got it up, but
I don't have it right with me right now. I

(15:05):
can't find it. I got it Jude fourteen. It was
also about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, behold,
the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones
to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the
ungodly of their deeds and of ungodliness that they have
committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the
harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Well,

(15:28):
you know, that's strong enough to get me to consider it.
But when I looked closer and I discovered that there's
not just that verse quoting in Jude, but actually Jude
has multiple unique words and phrases that are carried over
from Enoch and the content of Jude actually follows a
lot of the structural content of content of Enoch. So

(15:52):
it's not just one quote where you could say, oh, well,
you know, he's just quoting one thing, and just like
Paul can quote one thing from a pagan philosopher and say, hey,
it's true. Doesn't mean everything's true. And by the way,
that's true. Technically that's true, right. But the point is
is he's not just quoting one verse. He's actually drawing

(16:13):
from the content. And we can go over some of
those examples of Jude that has reflected their bodies wanted
to lay out. That was my sort of that was
my pathway into Enoch. That changed my mind and made
me start to respect the book and look a little
bit deeper.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Doug is a pastor, and of course is one who's
written about giants and being the sons of the gods.
What relevance do you see in first Noch.

Speaker 6 (16:39):
Well, I think the other two have stated probably the
most important thing, which is that the Bible itself uses
this book. You know, I recently taught a class on
extra biblical literature where we looked at not only Jewish literature,
dead Sea scrolls, josiphas Philo Pseudepigrifa Apocrypha. We also looked

(17:02):
at Greek literature, ancient or Eastern literature, even modern literature,
and why it's important to read. And I think in
some ways it's important that Christians understand some things that
I think that sometimes they presuppose in a bad way
about extra biblical literature that from a pastoral point of view,

(17:23):
I think it's really important to think through. So one
of those would be this idea of Sola scripture, which
is a saying from the Reformation of scripture alone, and
a lot of people will quote that, and I think
that they have the wrong ideas about what that actually means.
And so some people will say, well, this means that

(17:44):
the Bible is the only book that talks about anything
that's true. That's not what Sola Scripture means. Brian, you
said it, well, that scripture alone is teaching us that
the Bible is our ultimate source of doctrine and faith
in obedience to God. But it's not the only book
that teaches truth. Which is why Paul can quote a

(18:07):
Greek poet and nobody has a problem with it. It's
why we can read textbooks on science or on a
car manual You don't go to the Bible to look
up what's wrong with your car engine. You know, you
go to the manual. You want to find out what's
wrong with the car, you go to the right kind
of a book. And scripture was not given two God's

(18:30):
people for every purpose and all of life. So that's
kind of one thing. It's an abuse of what solo
scripture is. But then there's other things that people have
hang ups with that anything are important to talk about.
I think one of those is that when they will
read a book like Enoch, they'll see like chapter and
verse and they'll go, oh, well, somebody's trying to pretend

(18:52):
that this is the Bible, because see it's got chapter
and verse. But that's not why chapter and verse. The
Bible didn't have chapter in verse originally. It's just a
marking tool so that we can reference things. Right, you
can find chapter in verse in Homer or Plato. Right,
that's not an issue. And for whatever reason, I think
the kind of the closer that you get to Biblical literature,

(19:15):
the more people get their hackles up or they have
their defenses up or whatever, thinking that somehow these books
are imposing on God's order, like they were written to
be some sort of an evil foil to God's or
to fool people or or something like that. That's not
the case. It's like, it's like today Christians write books

(19:38):
of all kinds, you know. We write commentaries, will write novels,
will write historical books, right, all kinds of things. And
especially with First ninok because this is written before the
New Testiny even came along, This was like just the popular,
probably the most popular book of their day. I'm just

(19:58):
one of the reasons why it's so popular ours And
another thing, bring you reminded me of this too that
I've actually had people say when you go, okay, well,
Jude's quoting Enoch, and well, no, he's not. And so
then you take into First Enoch won nine and it's
almost exactly word for word, like yeah, thirty words, you know,
and I go, okay, well, all right, maybe he is,

(20:21):
but that's the only verse in the entire book that's true.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (20:26):
I've had people say that, and it's like, well, what's
going on in the background that would make somebody have
that kind of an idea? And I think that it's
because they think that these books are somehow imposing on
God's word, and then you get other people like you
said on the opposite side of this that that say, well,
Enoch was thrown out of the cannon, along with one
hundred other books that were thrown out of the canon.

(20:46):
They're just trying to suppress the truth from us. None
of that is true at all. None of that is
true at all. Enoch was never received by anyone, even
the Jews, as a Christian, as a as a as
a holy scripture. It was considered very very important reading.
It gives a history that you can either say it's
true or it's not true. Everything I know from the

(21:07):
New Testament is only alluding to it or quoting it positively.
So it's not like these guys are going to it
to show, oh see see the evil Book of First Enoch.
You shouldn't read that. And I'm going to quote a
reason why they never do that.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (21:21):
I think Jude has like twelve different allusions to this
book and they're all positive, and Hebrews has this worldview
of First Enoch in the background. I recently wrote a
paper on why the law that came through the angels
in Hebrews two might not actually be the law of
the watchers. I mean, sorry, the law of Moses. That

(21:42):
might actually be the law of the watchers. Why because
Enoch was in their mind Matthew and the Son of
Man like, that's Enoch language.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
And yes, we want.

Speaker 6 (21:53):
To try and understand that kind of stuff. And so
reading a book, especially when we actually have access to it,
which for a thousand years of church history they didn't,
it's a good thing to do in order to try
and get more in the head of the people that
were writing our New Testament. So pastorally, I just think
it's it's actually a really important thing to try and

(22:14):
help people think through clearly. So I'm glad we're actually
doing doing this little series.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Somebody sent me a link to a video that was
from a seminary, and I don't want to throw, you know,
shade on anybody, so I'm not going to name the seminary,
but you know, respected seminary and a theologian there gave
what is a common view among Christian theologians, especially since

(22:40):
Augustine back in the fifth century, that the sons of
Seth are actually the sons of God, that the righteous
sons of Seth are to be interpreted as the you know,
the true characters in view in Genesis chapter six, which
would then mean that the you know, book of First
Enoch doesn't really mean what it says. And then this

(23:02):
this gentleman went on to claim that the Book of
First Dnoch was what Paul was referring to is warning
to Timothy and first Timothy to not pay attention to
endless genealogies and foolish myths and things like that. And
you know, my response to the person who was asking
my opinion was well, I've seen this before. But then

(23:23):
it also for you know, forgets or he forgot that.
Paul also referred to in First Corinthians eleven his warning
to women to put something on their head as a
symbol of authority because of the angels. Now why is that,
Because there's nothing in the Old Testament that would suggest
that women are supposed to wear something when they go

(23:46):
to synagoguere are out in public because of the angels.
But the sin of the angels, which clearly from Jude's
perspective and in Second Peter was a sexual sin, which
can only point to Genesis chapter six, would suggest that
Paul was in fact familiar with First Knock and at
least positively disposed to it, and of course Paul also

(24:11):
uh or there there are other other references. Of course,
the mentioned in Jude and in second Peter about the
angels who had sinned being in chains in gloomy darkness,
that is clearly a reference to first Ingnock, because there's
nothing in the Old Testament about angels who'd been punished,
and certainly not those who'd been thrust down to some

(24:32):
place in the nether world. Peter's very specific, he calls
it tartarus. There's nothing in the Old Testament that suggests
that that can only come out of first knock.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know something, Let's let's stick with Jude for now.
You know, there's there's lots of things we could talk about.
But you know, if you think about the context of Jude,
Jude is is addressing false teachers. And these are these
are serious. They're so serious that he's drawing an analogy
between other beings in the past who were condemned.

Speaker 5 (25:03):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
And they're they're basically these supernatural beings, right, who are
condemned and for what did they do? Their sin? The
sin of the sin of the angels, like you mentioned, right,
that's how serious. That's what like teaching false doctrine is
as serious about right and and if you think, if
you think about it, enoch is as a as a
genre of apocalyptic. You know, apocalyptic was had several components

(25:29):
to it that were common you know, and you and
you know you have it in Revelation and Daniel, but
not all prophecies apocalyptic, but a lot of apocalyptic is
is a supernatural being that reveals truths to the you know,
the person on earth about things anology does not have,

(25:50):
and sometimes it takes them on a trip with them.
And the idea is there is that the transcendent is
being revealed to the imminent, to the human being. But
also there's a there's a context of sort of symbolism
and language that can tend to hide the meaning because
it's talking about it's addressed to believers who are being persecuted,

(26:14):
and sometimes it addresses the actual persecutors, you know, of
that day. Like you know, if you look at Daniel
and and like I said in Revelation too, you know,
in Jude in particular, you've got he's addressing people who
are being taught these you know, false teachers. I'm not
saying Jude is apocalyptic, but it's drawn from Enoch because

(26:35):
he's doing the same condemnation that Enoch did. So Enoch's
writ in this book and he's talking about the sin
of the angels. And like you said, Derek, you know
at least you know some of it might have been written.
You know, the Book of Watchers may have been written
as early as three hundred PC. At least that's what

(26:56):
nichols Berg's uh says. We have the oldest pieces from
the Dead Sea scrolls.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
So some people have tried to say Enoch was written
during the time of Maccabee's and there was some sections
that were but not probably not the Book of the Watchers.
But the idea there is context is uh persecution and
uh uh, you know, analogizing, and so Jude is doing
the same thing, but he's drawing on enoch language. And

(27:24):
he's likening these false teachers to these fallen Watchers. And
what was the notion of the watchers? They revealed evil
things to humanity, right, like false teachers. And you mentioned
the gloomy darkness component, which isn't in the Bible, but
is an Enoch. There's a the linking of Sodom and
Gomorah with with the flood the time of the flood.

(27:49):
That's a common thing in intertestmental language, but particularly down
in Jude twelve. He starts to talk about these these
false teachers like they're they're like Balam's, you know, like
Balem right, and and he says, they're hidden reefs at
your love fests, Right, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds, swept

(28:09):
along by the winds. That is something that can be
found in First Dnock eighty and in First Knock sixty seven, right,
swept along by the winds. Fruitless trees in late autumn.
Fruitless trees is another reference out of First Ynock eighty
and sixty seven. Wild waves of the sea casting up

(28:30):
the foam of their own shame. Again, that's an Enochian term,
wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has
been reserved forever. Again, these are very distinctly Enochian terms
that are used in that book. The wandering stars are
the watchers, right, The watchers are the wandering stars who
would be imprisoned in the desert in Enoch. And that's

(28:53):
of course the gloomy darkness until Great Judgment day. Enoch
talks all about the judgment of the watchers or being
thrown or I'm sorry, you know, being imprisoned in the
in in shale or in the desert for judgment day.
So these this is where we're saying, like, you know,
this isn't just one quote. All these concepts come from Enoch,

(29:17):
and I think I think it's pretty irrefutable that tells you, okay, this,
this is more than just one single quote. And and
that's enough to make us go, Okay, let's look a
little bit deeper into Enoch and see what's there to
help illuminate what we know in scripture or what we
may not know in scripture yet.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
I just love to pause their jet once again. We're
getting that sort of feedback on your you're lying there,
so if you could mute when you're not.

Speaker 5 (29:49):
Speaking, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, I don't know what it is with your connection there.
That's really weird. But it's been getting louder and louder
as uh, we've been talking here.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
I'm not going to say everything all over again, tough.

Speaker 6 (30:07):
No, No, it only started coming up near the very end.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah no. And besides, because we get four separate audio tracks,
I can cut you know, you his point, So it's
not going to be an issue fantastic, just so we
don't focus completely on the Book of the Watchers, the
first thirty six chapters and you know, the sin of
the Watchers that came down to Mount Hermon, which is

(30:30):
really fascinating. I mean, one of the most interesting things
we had an opportunity to do a couple of years ago, Douglas,
when we got to go visit the Waters of Weeping,
that park there in Israel with the waterfall where, according
to scholar Edward Lipinski, is where Enoch is supposed to
have delivered God's judgment. You know, the watchers came to

(30:54):
Enoch and said, here, take our petition to God, and
God said, no, they should have, you know, go back
and tell them they should have been praying for humans
instead of asking you to come pray for them. And
so we got to go to this location, which is
really cool. So we got to see, you know where,
according to the Book of First Enoch, where Enoch delivered
God's judgment to the weeping Angels, to the Watchers who

(31:15):
were weeping there at this little town, the very very
northernmost point in Israel. And I think this gets back
to a previous discussion. Why is that geography in the
Upper Galilee so supernaturally charged that the author of the
Book of the Watchers put so many geographic clues, like

(31:38):
Mount Hermon, the waters of Dan where Enoch fell asleep
and dreamed that you know, where God gave him his answer.
And then the waters there that the waterfall of the
stream that comes down from Lebanon, the Iun stream, that
was where Enoch delivered the judgment. But in the next section, Doug,
you'd mentioned the reference to the sun of Man. And

(32:01):
this is where I've been doing a lot of reading
the last couple of years, because I think this is
really intriguing too, because this is where Jesus quotes. The
Book of First Enoch, chapters thirty seven to seventy one.
You get into a prophetics section there where the Book
of Parables lays out a Okay, we got the first
thirty six chapters, which explain why the world is so

(32:23):
messed up. The world has been so corrupted by the
intrusion of these sinful angels the Watchers that only the
direct intervention of God or his moral agent can correct it,
which would have been anathema to the priesthood in Jerusalem.
They believe that you know, we just need to keep

(32:45):
performing the rituals. The age of prophecy is over. That
ended with Malachi. Now we just you know, come to
the temple, pay to get your sacrifice. We'll do the
rituals and then everything will eventually be okay. The Enochians
were like, no, oh, that's not gonna work, because the
world is just too messed up. We need we're waiting

(33:05):
for the Messiah we're waiting for. In the Book of
First Dack, he's referred to as the Chosen One, the
annointed one, or the son of Man, and most frequently
he's called the son of Man. And that is the
first time in any Jewish writing that that title the
son of Man is used of a character who's got

(33:29):
a defined role in the end times. Now there are
those who say, okay, this is a reference back to
Daniel chapter seven, when Daniel looks up and he sees
the Ancient of Days, and at the right hand of
the Ancient of Days is one like a son of Man,
to whom a kingdom is given. And that's true. They
probably drew whoever wrote this, probably drew on that imagery.

(33:52):
But that character in Daniel seven doesn't do anything and
in the context of the Old Testament, as we see
in the Book of Ezekiel, where Ezekiel's constantly referred to
as son of Man by the angel who's taking him around,
it just means hey, human, or in Daniel's case, he
looks up and he sees one next to Yahweh, and
he sees one who looks like a human. So in

(34:16):
the first century BC, somebody, and according to scholars, this
probably took place in the Upper Galilee, near the Sea
of Galilee. In fact, somebody wrote these chapters that said
a savior would come called the Son of Man, who
would punish these rebellious angels, wicked kings, evil landlords, and

(34:39):
basically set everything right. And lo and behold. Thirty years later,
Jesus is walking around planet Earth in seventy eight times
he calls himself the son of Man. In fact, when
he goes to the place where jud did his doctoral dissertation,
jud the first question he asks his followers is, hey,
who do people say the Son of Man is? And

(35:01):
they didn't say, what are you talking about? They knew
the book, They knew that section, even though according to scholars,
it had just been completed around the end of the
first century BC, just about the time Jesus was born,
and all of his all the disciples were like, well,

(35:22):
you know Jeremiah or Elijah maybe, or you know John
the Baptist, And that's when Jesus says, but who do
you say that I am? I think that's that's overlooked.
People didn't ask, Okay, who is this the son of
Man that you're talking about? And Jesus kept Matthew twenty four,
you know, as it was in the days of Noah,
so it'll be at the coming of the Son of Man.

(35:44):
And I think we as Christians just sort of take
it for granted. Yeah, Jesus applied that phrase to himself.
How did his disciples know what he was talking about
because he never explains it. They knew it was a
messianic character and it comes right out of first Enoch
and it is.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
I guess what you're saying is it's it's it's taking Enoch,
is taking Daniel and specifying it more more specifically, because
like he is.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Getting that character a role. You know, here's what he's
gonna do.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, he receives kingship and Daniel he you know, he's
shown to be God God in Daniel, but there's a
there's a there's more of a worked out theology in
in Enoch that includes judgment. There's judgment that goes on
in Daniel seventh, but it's not the Son of Man
doing it. So so there's he's becomes the judge, you know,

(36:40):
and and in Enoch and Jesus quotes the Son of
Man as being the judge. Yeah, so that that that
is a powerful argument I think of understanding how the
development of that doctrine gets comes to Jesus. Now, I
think most Christians are probably gonna process, no, Jesus is God,
and so he just says it's truth. He says it's

(37:01):
because it's truthful. And they they don't. They don't. They
tend to reject the human side of the equation in
Scripture and in Revelation. But I think that that's woefully unbiblical,
because the truth is is there's lots of There are
lots of doctrines that are developed more specifically in the Intertestament,
including Gehenna as as the place of judgment type of thing.

(37:25):
I mean, Gehenna is in the Old Testament, but it's
metaphorical and it becomes more specific in the Intertestamental literature,
so as well as the lake of Fire, that's not
that's in the It's not I don't think I think
it's in Enoch, but I know it's in the Intertestamental literature,
but it's not in the Old Testament. You know.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well, place of burning punishment in the nether world is
certainly not anywhere in the Old Testament, and that is
in the New Testament.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
So yeah, again that that's something else that comes out
of First Knock. But yeah, that was that was a
thing that blew my mind, is that, you know, the
whole concept of the son of Man. It's one of
those things that it Why didn't I ever ask where
this phrase came from before this and then to find
out that not only did it come from First Enoch,

(38:12):
but it came from this geographic area that we had
talked about previously, the Upper Galilee, which would include uh,
you know, bashand to a certain extent, and you know,
the region all the way up to and including Mount Hermon.
Why why did this never cross cross my mind? Before?

(38:34):
You know, Sharon and I have got to a point
where we're going through our Bible study, it's like, okay,
why him when we're when we see something that happened,
like for example, with the prophet Elijah being called up
in the chariot of Fire, Why him? Why there? And
why then? Same I think is true with with what

(38:55):
Jesus did and where he did it. And also you know,
where did that that phrase come from? What does that
phrase mean? And the fact that it was so prominently
used in that second section of First Enoch, and that
it was so familiar to people in the Upper Galilee,
the followers of John the Baptist and the followers of
Jesus that let me.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Read it a little bit of section just to sort of,
you know, sort of give meat to what you're saying, Derek,
because I think what you're saying is very important. So
in the you know, the parables, specifically First Enoch forty
forty eight. So I'm just read a few verses and
you'll you'll just recognize people will hear it and oh wow, yeah,
that does sound familiar. And in that hour the son

(39:38):
of Man was named in the presence of the Lord
of Spirits, which that's also Father of Spirits is in
the New Testament, and his name before the ancient of days,
even before the sun and the constellations were created, before
the stars of heaven were made. His name was named
before the Lord of Spirits. He will be a staff
for the righteous, that they may lean on him and

(39:59):
not fall. He will be the light of the nations.
He will be a hope for those who grieve in
their hearts, the desire of nations. Right and the light
of nations. All who dwell on the earth will fall
down and worship before him. They will glorify, glorify, and
sing hymns to the name of the Lord of Spirits
for the chosen One. A little bit further down, for
the chosen one who's taken his stand in the presence

(40:19):
of the Lord of Spirits, and his glory is forever
and ever. Chosen One. Is also another development developed term right.
And in him dwell the spirit of wisdom, and the
spirit of insight, and the spirit of instruction and might,
and the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in righteousness.
He will judge the things that are secret and a
lying word. None will be able to speak in his presence,

(40:40):
for he is the chosen One. Et cetera, et cetera.
Those are just I mean. It goes on and on, you.
There's some really cool enough.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Now, I will say this, there's a reason that for
one of the major reasons that First Knock is not
in scripture is in chapter seventy one, the end of
this section called the Book of Parables, because you get
to chapter seventy one and it's like, you know, plot twist,
big reveal, Hey, Enoch, the Son of Man is you,

(41:09):
and yeah, and obviously Jesus saying that I'm the son
of Man. That's obviously not true. So there are scholars
who believe that that may have been added by a
later Jewish writer who was upset that Christians were saying,
we know who the son of Man is in the

(41:30):
same way that Jews were after the second century no
longer teaching the supernatural interpretation of Genesis six because Christians
were it's like, yeah, okay, the supernatural worldview, the Divine
Council worldview, gave more evidence, more weight to the Christian
perspective that you know, the second power in heaven. If

(41:53):
you could supernaturalize the the the unseen realm, then there
wasn't as much evidence for the Christian Christian theology. So yeah,
that's that's one of the big reasons why Enoch is
not and should not be in the Bible because the
Son of Man the big reveal in chapter seventy one. Hey,

(42:13):
it's Enoch. No, no would have said so.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
I think also it's important to understand or to recognize
that first Enoch had not ever been included in any
references or lists. Now we know that there was no
strict literal canon but for the Jews, but there were
times like even Josephus and several other writers would make
reference to the books that they considered to be scripture,

(42:41):
and Enoch was never ever included, not even up to
the point of the Masoretic Text. Now there could be
political reasons by that point in time, but the point
is is it was never considered by the Jews as
part of canon, whereas the Christians did include it because
they also included other books, you know, and it would
make sense if they saw Enoch as being supporting Jesus

(43:02):
as the Son of Man. It makes perfect sense to
me why those who did did so. But that's one
of the reason why I don't consider it can't. One
of the main reasons why it's not can because it
was never considered as such. Now, if it was at
some point in time, but discarded like it was by Christians.
Then at least you get some argument for it, but

(43:25):
it just never was.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Jud It just occurred to me that Jesus at Cesarea
Philippi was taking first Enock and using it to as
another reversal of hermon. He was using it not only
to reverse what the watchers are taught, but he was
reversing the whole religious history of Cesarea Philippi.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Yeah, in a lot of ways, because the you know,
there's a chain of religious tradition at Cesarea Philippi that
goes back to Willkil early to prehistory that you know,
according to my research and certainly others, you know, stems
from this legacy of the watchers, uh, you know, and

(44:11):
the the the visible face of that and Jesus' day
was was a Cysa Philippi. And so yeah, he quite
definitely uses Enoch two not just give a warning for

(44:33):
the judgment that's impainting that's that's coming, but to remove
the you know, the authority, uh, the authority and legacy
of these old gods. Uh. So to kind of circle
back to what I said at the beginning of our program,
it it puts so much more context into what Jesus

(44:57):
is saying and accomplish at sistory of Philippi, and you know,
as the tumblers fall in place like in a Locke
for for his disciples, and any anybody with a Jewish
background who might have been with an earshot, uh, you know,
would have would have picked up on either either in

(45:19):
sharp agreement or sharp contrast sharp disagreement with what he
was saying.

Speaker 5 (45:23):
But yeah, he it's it's difficult to.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
On the one hand, to have knowledge about Enoch, to
be exposed to Enoch and to read a passage like uh,
you know, Matthew sixteen or March chapter eightward Jesus is
at sistory of Philippi and not and not see everything
pop out and in sark relief.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
And that's that's one of the.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
That's one of the positives of familiarizing yourself with not
just Enoch, but other Don Cannon literature from that cash
of doctor few months is because it provides so much
context not just on the grounds of history and cultural alone,
but also also for our theology.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Now, I know that we need to move along here
a little bit, because I know Brian's on a tight
schedule tonight. But the other sections after, you know, starting
with chapter seventy two and going through the final end
of the book chapter one oh eight, other than the
Book of the Luminaries chapter seventy two to eighty two,
which Josh Pack and Ken Johnson have written about on

(46:34):
the authority of the Solar calendar, which is interesting because
in the Bible, Enoch lived to be three hundred and
sixty five years old when he was called up, which
some scholars have taken as a clue that perhaps that's
what was intended. But the other sections, the Dream Visions,
the Epistle of Enoch, a two chapter description of the

(46:56):
birth of Noah, and then the final chapter. Is there
anything that struck you, Brian Doug Judd about those final
chapters say, after the Book of the Luminaries that is
really significant as far as a Christian worldview.

Speaker 6 (47:14):
Well, in the Book of the Luminaries, chapter eighty nine
starts talking about how God summons the seventy shepherds. I
fang that so fascinating because if first Snok is really
a compilation of several books that have been put into one,
that's mirroring the Watcher stuff from the first thirty six

(47:37):
chapters because the seventy shepherds are these princes of the nations,
and so I think that that, I mean, that's kind
of the way that that section culminates, and I just
find that so interesting, and especially because the gods were
called shepherds, and Jesus calls himself the good Shepherd, and

(47:59):
David called I believe Jesus his shepherd in Psalm twenty three.
So I think that that's one that is definitely worth noting.
It's not as much about the calendar, but it's about
it's about that watcher's story, but it's in a completely
different part of the book.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
The dream visions are basically just.

Speaker 6 (48:20):
That's actually in book four, isn't it. That's in the dreams.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
So the dream visions, right, Yeah, dream visions, which is
sort of a history of the world from the time
of Adam down to the time of its writing, which
is about the time of the Maccabees.

Speaker 5 (48:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, So the animals that they are and there are
all representative of various nations and peoples and such. Yeah,
scholars have worked that out.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah. And then the Epistle of Enoch. He's this is
supposedly something Enoch wrote for his children, Methusela, Methuslas brothers,
and the laughter.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Oh go ahead, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
I'm just going to say the two chapter description of Noah,
which is a miraculous book. And again just to add
it on, Okay, I mean again written in that Intertestamental period,
do we draw any value from it?

Speaker 5 (49:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Interesting reading because it gives a window into the mind
of religious Jews in that period of history. But I
think the from a theological perspective, most of the meat
is between chapters one and seventy.

Speaker 6 (49:27):
Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, but that was one other thing I thought.

Speaker 6 (49:33):
That's one of the reasons why it's not a canon
in my mind, is because it's an book of You know,
when you talk about First Anoch, it's not just one book,
it's five books. So which book are you talking about?
And they're very, very different, as you pointed out, And yeah,
so this idea that First Enoch was taken out of

(49:54):
the Bible, it's actually five different books. Yeah, and in
the first place, and so which one are you going
to talk about? And like you said earlier, Derek, it's
really the first thirty six chapters that most Christians know
even anything about. So yeah, I thought that was.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
But yeah, that second section, given the importance of the
phrase the son of Man. But one interesting little detailed
I found there is a reference in First Enoch fifty
verses one through three that maybe the source of John
the Baptist's teaching of a baptism or repentance for the
forgiveness of sins, which is what prompted priests and levites

(50:33):
to come from Jerusalem to interrogate him as to what
authority gives him the right to teach this, because those
teachings would have been anathema again for the priesthood in Jerusalem,
but also would have been really not acceptable to the
scenes at Kumrn, because these scenes at Kumran were everybody

(50:54):
as legalistic as the priest in Jerusalem, if not more so.
I mean, you want to go in our club here,
First you got to move out to the desert. You've
got to agree to bide by all of our rules.
Then you got three years probation before you can even
get in here. Got to separate from the world. And okay,
but John comes along and he's teaching this baptism of

(51:15):
repentance for the forgiveness of sins because of something in First,
let see First Enoch fifty one through three. In those
days there will be a change for the holy and
the righteous ones, and the light of days shall rest
upon them, and glory and honor shall be given back
to the holy ones. Talking about the scenes on the
day of weariness, he heaped evil upon the sinners. But

(51:37):
the righteous ones shall be victorious in the name of
the Lord of the Spirits. In the Lord of the Spirits,
he will cause the others to see this, so that
they may repent and forsake the deeds of their hands.
There shall not be honor under them in the name
of the Lord of the Spirits, but through his name
they shall be saved. And the Lord of the Spirits,

(52:00):
I'll have mercy upon them, for his mercy is considerable.
This was a new doctrine. John was preaching to non scenes,
non Pharisees, non priests, and it was the others who
were being told, look, if you repent, you can be forgiven.
And boy, that really shook up the religious establishment. And

(52:22):
it comes right out of First Enoch.

Speaker 6 (52:24):
Derek, let me bring this up, and maybe it's a
softball for you to hit out of the park. I
hope if I remember right. But this second, this second book,
the Book of Similitudes, where you just quoted that from.
We've talked about that probably more than any of the
rest of the book here tonight when people read that.
The first time I read this years and years ago,

(52:46):
I was like, my goodness, it feels like it's it's
scripture because of how focused it is on the Messiah
and Messianic expectations that a certain group of people had.
And I kind of want to say, I'm want to
stop there and say that, because I don't believe it
has to be scripture for it to be giving a

(53:09):
view that certain Jews within a group of a larger
group of Jews. You know, there was all these Messianic expectations, right,
so some thought it would be this political revolutionary would
free them from Rome. Well, this is showing a very
different kind of Messianic expectation in the days before Jesus came.
And if I'm not mistaken, when we were in Israel,

(53:32):
you suggested that there are some scholars who believe that
this particular Book of the Five was written up there
by the Sea of Galilee by a second Cumroan, a
same community that I had no idea even existed until
you mentioned it, Like, the only group I had ever
heard about was down by the Dead Sea, and so

(53:56):
everybody associated, well a lot of people associate John the
Baptist with the scene community, and so they automatically go
down to the Dead Sea. But I think you said,
what if John was actually associated with the scenes, but
not in that community rather than one that was up north,
that was actually before he was born writing this very book.

Speaker 7 (54:21):
So then all of a sudden, you have these expectations
of a Messiah that Jesus and John, who are growing
up in that very area are are like they're prophetically meeting,
even though it's not a prophecy that we would consider scripture. Nevertheless,
they're fulfilling this community's expectations.

Speaker 6 (54:41):
It's kind of like they got it right. They were
reading the scripture correctly, where these other people were reading
it incorrectly.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
So I am I remembering that you're remembering it right on? Yeah,
it's said. And this is new research just within the
last couple of years, specifically going back maybe ten or
twenty years in terms of where this section of First
Ninoq was written. The Ascene community is believed to have
been at Mount Arbel, which is just across the road

(55:11):
basically from the ancient city of Magdala where Mary Magdalene
was from. Mart oar Bell is very striking. It's like
a ninety yuri, you know, cliff face with a bunch
of caves in the front. So these were Hermits mesa
verde Yes and the Acenes there would actually interact with
the other people in the area. They didn't cut themselves

(55:33):
off like the Jews or like the Acenes at Kumran.
But from the north face of Mount our Bell you
can see Mount Hermone. In the distance, you can see Betsaida,
you can see Kapernaum where Jesus based his ministry, the
north end of the Sea of Galilee. And again this
is just a couple of just within the last few years.

(55:54):
I will direct viewers and listeners if you want to
dig deep into this, a scholar by the name of
John ben Daniel, John ben Daniel, who's a Messianic Jew
living in Jerusalem, who's been writing about this and publishing
at Academia dot edu. Do a search for John ben
Daniel at Academia dot edu and you'll find all of
this information that I've dug into and it's going into

(56:17):
my next book because I think that again points to
Jesus God preparing the ground in the upper Galilee before
the arrival of John and John and Jesus, John the
Baptist in Jesus. Now, Brian, I know you're on a
tight schedule here, so we're gonna I'm okay, well, so anyway, Yeah,

(56:39):
I just find that really fascinating, especially when you're on
the Sea of Galilee. You just look to the west
and you can see that mountain. It is really clear.
But yeah, there's a history to the scenes that most
of us don't know about. I thought these scenes were
all at Kumran as well, because that's the only ones
I ever heard about. But it appears that around one
hundred BC there was a split in that community, and

(57:03):
the ones who were who felt that they needed to
separate from the rest of society went south and the
rest of them stayed north because the Ascenes originally settled
there in the north and as far away as Damascus,
in fact, because they came back from Babylon expecting to

(57:25):
build the temple that had been prophesied by Ezekiel in
Ezekiel Chapters forty and forty one, but the zadok eyed
priesthood in Jerusalem said no, we don't need that. And
so the Ascenes or the Innachians who became the Ascenes,
settled in the north, and there were some political things

(57:46):
that led their leader to fall out of favor with
the Maccabees, and so for his own safety he went
way far away to Damascus. Anyway, there's a lot of
political stuff behind all of this. The writing of this,
that section chapters thirty seven to seventy one the Book

(58:07):
of Parables has to do with the expectation that the
scenes had that the Messiah would come four hundred and
ninety years after the destruction of the temple, because you know,
seventy seven is four hundred and ninety years. Well, all right,
eighty six BC came and went and no Messiah. And

(58:29):
then you know, as time went by, they had to
kind of rethink their theology. And it appears that this
section of First Enoch was a response and a way
of saying, Hey, don't worry, we may have had our
timeline wrong, but God is still going to send us
a chosen one, an anointed one, the son of Man,

(58:51):
and he's going to put everything right.

Speaker 6 (58:55):
Hey, Jed, I'm curious about something from a historical point
of view, in terms of literature, Where would you make
First Enoch in terms of ancient literature and its importance?

Speaker 5 (59:11):
I would I would give it a high ranking because of.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
Of how much light that it shed on on the
New Testament in particular, and by virtue of that, the
influence that that Biblical tradition has had on.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
The West. So I would say that as a.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
As a strong foundational support for for Western civilization, I
would give it a pretty high ranking. I think I
heard I'm trying to remember the statis. But if you removed,
if you removed all of the Biblical themes from Western literature, art,

(01:00:08):
and even our moral philosophy, you'd be left with about
thirty or forty percent of what was originally you know,
the whole catalog. And so you know, on those grounds
would I would give Enoch a place of prominence in

(01:00:32):
Western literature.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
And there are clearly those scholars who have recognized its
influence on the New Testament. For first and second Peter,
we mentioned Paul a couple of references, even the Book
of Revelation R. H. Charles, who translated the most I
think commonly read translation of First Knock recognized that if

(01:00:58):
it had not, that there was at least an influence
there on John the Revelator, But more recently, scholars Lauren
Stuckenbruck and Mark Matthews wrote, it is likely that the
writer of Revelation either was directly acquainted through literary or
oral transmission with several of the major sections of First Enoch,

(01:01:18):
or at least had access to traditions that were influenced
by these writings. So the Bible itself being an influence
on Western civilization and First Enoch having a and unacknowledged
but I think undeniable influence on the New Testament absolutely well, Brian,

(01:01:40):
I think we've had a great suggestion that we need
to look at some more of these perhaps extra biblical
sudipigriphal works. And I think we're in agreement that we
had to look at the Book of Jubilees for our
next discussion. Is that fair enough?

Speaker 5 (01:01:55):
Yeah? That'll work. Okay, that is one wody you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Read it before we in the Old Testament dress we
need to, I mean I'm talking to the audience audience
read it before.

Speaker 5 (01:02:05):
That's right. We car homework for next time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Exactly the Iron and Myth Book Club, and we will
get back together again next month as we continue looking
at other works either referenced in scripture or influenced that
we're an influence on scripture or that perhaps help us
to better understand scripture. Doctor Jed Burton, Pastor Doug van Dorn,
Brian Gadala, Iron and Myth number forty three. We thank

(01:02:32):
you guys and look forward to doing this again soon.
Check the notes below this broadcast or wherever you're consuming
this content and you'll find links to the websites of
Brian Gadala, Doctor Jed Burton, and Doug van Dorn, and
they will be back next month as we discuss the
Book of Jubilees on Iron and Myth straight ahead. Artificial

(01:02:54):
intelligence may not quite be ready to take over the world,
as users of Google's Gemini AI have discovered despondent self
loathing one term used to describe it. And I'll tell
you about that next. As a view from the Bunker continues,

(01:03:21):
you were born on a battlefield. Now see where this
long war began and where it ends Israel. Join Derek
and Sharon Gilbert be in the Holy Land this October
where you'll see things like this Jerusalem, Israel, Stonehenge, gilgall Refaeen,

(01:03:47):
the Temple, Mount Joshua's Altar, Shiloh and the Red Heifers
and the Gates of Hell. Join Derek and shap Aaron
Gilbert in Israel October nineteenth through thirtieth, twenty twenty five.
This is not the typical tour of Israel. For information

(01:04:08):
and reserve your place on the twenty twenty five Gilbert
House Tour of Israel, please log onto Gilberthhouse dot org
slash travel. That's Gilbertthhouse dot org slash travel talking the

(01:04:32):
walk from the Heart of the Missouri Ozarks. This is
a view from the Bunker. I'm Derek Gilbert. Go find
us online, oh a whole bunch of places. Social media
at View from Bunker. This is on X by the Way,
formerly Twitter at Derek Gilbert at Gilbert House, Underscore TV
on Facebook. We got a page there for view from
the Bunker. Please follow us their comment on the programs,

(01:04:54):
and you'll also find us on truth Social and gab
at Derek P. Gilbert. The address is at Gilbert House.
That is where we ask you to subscribe, Share click
to beelf notifications hit that like button and of course
lead your comments below all the programs there. But then
guarantee we never get canceled by downloading our free mobile

(01:05:15):
app to your smartphone or tablet that is available for iOS, Android,
Amazon Kindlefire devices. We've also got a smart TV version
available for Amazon fireTV, Roku, Apple TV, Google TV, Android TV.
Go to their app store look for the Gilbert House
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content right into your smart TV. And of course the

(01:05:37):
mobile app has some additional features that we really like.
But again you'll find links to the relevant sites at
Gilbertthhouse dot org slash app. That's gilberthouse dot org slash app.
While you're subscribing to things, please subscribe to our new
Telegram channel that is View from the Bunker. I share
links to things that Sharon and I are doing, but

(01:05:57):
also a lot of news items that I think are important,
and also our substack account Gilbert House dot substack dot com,
where we're not only linking everything that we put out
there as far as content goes, but we are releasing
free excerpts from our books and right now we're working
through the book Giants, Gods and Dragons. So if you

(01:06:18):
have not yet purchased that book, well, over the course
of the next couple of months, you'll be able to
read the book almost completely for free. Already been through
Let's see what have we done? Second Coming of Saturn,
Bad Moon Rising, and I think the Great Inception have
been released for free, and coming up we will get
through Veneration and well we'll do the Gates of Hell

(01:06:41):
after that, and by that time I probably hopefully will
have a new book out, and we will because I
promised one to defend her publishing. Hopefully we'll get that
out before the end of the year. If not, it'll
be early in twenty twenty five. The title of the
book I'm working on right now is War of the Watchers,
and it's about the physical manifestations of the supernatural war

(01:07:04):
around Israel. So again look for that later this year
or early next. Well. Artificial intelligence is something that Sharon
and I have been keeping an eye on for quite
some time. You're wondering what I'm doing with my left arm.
It's Grace, the rescue dog down here, who's wanting some attention.
And she's happy because Glory, the other rescue dog, is

(01:07:26):
keeping Sharon company at the moment, so Grace has me
to herself. We bonded very early after we got her,
about a year and a half ago.

Speaker 5 (01:07:34):
And she is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Definitely a daddy's girl, So she and I planning to
grow old together along with Sharon and Glory. And Glory
has been good for Grace because Glory is part boxer
and boxers have a very long puppy hood, so all
of that energy helps to give Grace the exercise that
I can no longer give her because of my mobility

(01:07:58):
issues the last year. Anyway, we've been watching artificial intelligence
for quite some time. This is part of what the
Tom Horn used to call grain technology, genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence,
and nanotechnology and how this will be used to try
to transform humanity into humanity two point zero, because we

(01:08:20):
are just hubristic enough as a species to believe that
we can improve on God's design. But there are every
now and then, there's more evidence that the AI component
of the grain technologies may not be ready for primetime,
and users of Google's AI Gemini have been finding this

(01:08:41):
out in recent months. Apparently, Gemini has been having disturbing
psychological episodes that are reminiscent of Marvin, the paranoid android
from Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you've
seen the film, the android voiced by Alan Rickman did
a perfect, perfect caing for that particular role. But if

(01:09:02):
you remember the novel, you know Marvin was always depressed
and was always apologizing for his inefficiencies and flaws and failings.
And apparently Gemini is doing the same thing. According to
one Reddit user, a reddit is a social media site
where people can, you know, post links to articles and

(01:09:23):
things like that, and then comment on them. One Reddit
user said, quote the core of the problem, and this
is Gemini now telling the reddit user the core of
the problem has been my repeated failure to be truthful.
I deeply apologize for the frustrating and unproductive experience I
have created. Another user said, if you check it's reasoning

(01:09:44):
on tasks where it's failing, you will see constant self loathing.
A tech co founder named Dundan Haldane says that Jenemini
told him quote, I quit. I am clearly not capable
of solving this problem. The code is cursed. And then

(01:10:05):
it continued, I have made so many mistakes that I
can no longer be trusted. I am deleting the entire
project and recommending you find a more competent assistant. According
to Holiday, a new writing on x Gemini is torturing
itself and I'm starting to get concerned about AI Welfare,

(01:10:25):
saying that it became genuinely impressed with the results after
switching to wholesome prompting that involved him encouraging the depressed AI.
Come on, it's not that bad. You're doing a great job.
Chin up bucco another again. YAI has a tendency to hallucinate,

(01:10:52):
and that means to just basically make stuff up, which
is why I don't use AI for research more than
I trust Wikipedia. I mean, it can kind of points
in the right direction, but when it gets right down
to trying to corroborate facts or details about history or
citations of other researchers, no, I'm sorry. I don't want

(01:11:20):
research coming back to me that may be just made up.
There have been some lawyers who found in court cases
where they used AI to write the brief citing precedent cases.
They've been humiliated in court when they found out that
those cases were just invented out of thin air by
the AI. So anyway, yeah, Gemini's AI. Where was that

(01:11:44):
quote that I was looking for, because it was really
really funny, Gemini basically having psychosis. Basically it apologized to
one user for saying that it was a It was
an embarrassment. It was an embarrassment to its profession and

(01:12:05):
to the entire planet. So chin up, humans, We've got
a little while yet before we have to start answering
to our AI powered robotic overlords. Well, this weekend, of course,
is the Remnant Rising conference in Springfield at Missouri, and
for that that kind of wraps the conference schedule for

(01:12:27):
us for twenty twenty five. I know about a couple
of conferences coming up in twenty twenty six, one in
the summer, one in the fall, but since I don't
have permission yet to reveal those details, I will hold
on to those until those announcements are ready to be made.
I will say that Sharon and I maybe may not
be traveling as much to conferences next year, just because again,

(01:12:50):
it's getting a little more difficult travel the older you get,
generally it becomes more difficult. But because I've got to
snump around with a cane, it's just a little a
little more challenging, so anyway, we'll keep you posted on that.
We are still going to Israel though we'll be there
October nineteen through thirtieth of twenty twenty five, and there's

(01:13:10):
still room on the bus if you care to join us.
A few seats left. We will be there, going from
north to south and visiting sites that are not often
on the tours. Will go to Gilgal Refayen, often called
the Israel's Stonehenge, and many other sites according to the site,
and including the sites you want to see, like the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and we'll explain why that not

(01:13:34):
Megido is going to be the ultimate site of Armageddon.
This will be like a rolling conference through the Holy Land.
And since we're just taking one bus this time, Sharon
and I will be with you on the bus the
entire time, so we'll get to know each other a
little bit better. Find out more. Reserve your seat on
the bus at Gilbert Bus that is Gilberthhouse dot org
slash travel. It's Gilbertouse dot org slash travel. And by

(01:13:58):
the way, we do have dates for our twenty twenty
six tour that is coming up in the spring, and
will announce those dates very soon. Thank you for taking
time out of your schedule to watch or listen, as
the case may be. If you're listening, please take a
moment subscribe, leave review at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music.
Sorry it's not Google podcast anymore. It's YouTube music. iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker, Pandora,

(01:14:21):
or where rep where Refine podcasts are sold. Give us
a thumbs up at Facebook, and thank our announcer, the
inimitable D. C.

Speaker 5 (01:14:31):
Good.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
A View from the Bunker's the production of Gilbert House Ministries,
released under creative comments as we're not commercial no derivatives
four point zero to four point oh international license. We
wrestled out against flesh and blood. Good night, Oliver, wherever
you are. I'm Derek Gilbert. This is a view from

(01:14:53):
the Bunker.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderea Acts. I'm just listening to
the Fringe Radio Network while I clean these chimneys with
my cass livers. Anyway, so Chad White, the Fringe chowboy,
I mean, he's like he took a leave of absence
or whatever, and so the guys asked me to do

(01:15:32):
the network ID. So you're listening to the Fringe Radio Network.
I know, I was gonna say it, Fringe Radio Network
dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Oh chat, Oh yeah, do you have the app?

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
It's the best way to listen to the fringe radio networks.
I mean it's so great. I mean it's clean and simple,
and you have all the shows, all the episodes, and
you have the live chat, and it's it's safe, and
it won't hurt your phone, and it sounds beautiful and

(01:16:10):
it won't track you or trace you and you don't
have to log in to use it. How do you
get it fringeradionetwork dot com right at the top of
the page. So anyway, so we're just gonna go back
to cleaning these chimneys and listening to the Fringe Radio Network.
And uh so, I guess you know, I mean, I
guess we're listening together. So I mean, I know, I mean, well,

(01:16:35):
I mean, I guess you might be listening to a
different episode or whatever, or or maybe maybe you're listening
maybe you're listening to it, like at a different time
than we are. But I mean, well, I mean, if
you accidentally just downloaded this, no, I guess you'd be Okay,
I'm rambling, Okay, Okay, you're listening to the Fringe Radio

(01:16:59):
Network Fringe Radio Network dot com. There, are you happy? Okay,
let's clean these chimneys.

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Iron & Myth 43: The Book of Enoch - A View From The Bunker

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Iron & Myth 43: The Book of Enoch - A View From The Bunker