Are all of the Apostolic Churches completely disproven by two Bible verses?

[TheReturnofLive]

So, I think as we all know, we all come across weird things about the New Testament - like "speaking in tongues," "Baptism for the Dead," etc. etc.

However, I have come across something in the Bible which has pretty much pierced a sword into my heart and has made me lose Faith in Christianity as a whole - I can't find answers to it anywhere, and I'm pretty much at the brink point because I can't logically reconcile it.



Let's talk about the Book of Enoch and Genesis 6.


The Book of Enoch is an Apocryphal Book which is non-canonical - only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Beta Zionists (Ethiopian Jews) accepted this Book as Canon.
It has origins in the 3rd century, during the time of the Babylonian exile.

And this book makes very weird claims.

But first off, Genesis 6: 1-7

"And after that men began to be multiplied upon the earth, and daughters were born to them,

The sons of God seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves wives of all which they chose.

And God said: My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown.

And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times,

It repented him that he had made man on the earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart,

He said: I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them."


The Book of Enoch claims that the "Sons of God" were actually angels - demons - who decided to have "marital relations" with women, and they created hundreds-of-feet tall giants.

And this is why God flooded the Earth, according to Enoch, and from this point on, the demons were thrown in Hades for their wicked crimes.


So, this poses a lot of problems.
1. According to Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, etc., angels are genderless, incorporeal beings who can't have relations. Were this Book true, the claims of these Churches would be dogmatically falsified.
2. According to Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the angels were condemned after some pre-creation conflict, but Enoch says no - they were condemned for having sex.
3. Assuming that this actually happened, how could the Giants live off the fruit and meat of the Earth?
4. How could women give birth to such Giants without dying?
5. After the Flood, when everyone allegedly dies off, the Israelites find these same "giants" from Genesis 6 with the Canaanites. How could there be any more of these giants after they die in the flood?
6. Goliath was allegedly one of the species of these "giants," but the Bible here only lists him as 6 ft tall or 9 ft tall (6 ft for the Septuagint, 9 ft for the Masoretic).
7. If demons could reproduce with women after the Flood, why do not reproduce with women today? Why are there no giants walking around the Earth?

On this last most point, Saint John Cassian even thought the mere idea was stupid, and he rejected Enoch as stupid.


Here's where the problems begin though.

Saint Peter and Saint Jude, in the New Testament, quote the Book of Enoch, in 2 Peter 2:4-5, and Jude 1:6-7.
What's more, is that Saint Irenaeus seems to think that yes, the Book of Enoch is canonical and did literally happen.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/irenaeus_02_proof.htm
Chapter 18.


Okay, so what. The Apostles quotes the Book of Enoch, and a Saint thought it was literal. So what.


The problem is that the two verses from Jude explicitly endorse the Book of Enoch as a part of Salvation history, and as Jude is an infallible Book of the Bible, what it claims must be taken true.

http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/jud1.pdf

"And the angels which kept
not their first estate, but left
their own habitation, he hath
reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness unto the
judgment of the great day."

"Even as Sodom and
Gomorrha, and the cities about
them in like manner to these, giving
themselves over to fornication,
and going after strange flesh,
are set forth for an example,
suffering the vengeance of
eternal fire."

In the Greek, the word "to these" is a dative plural masculine, and there is only one male plural noun to which "these" could refer to. angels.

So, the verse literally translates as

"Even as Sodom and
Gomorrha, and the cities about
them in a like manner to these angels, giving
themselves over to fornication,
and going after strange flesh,
are set forth for an example,
suffering the vengeance of
eternal fire."



So thus, the Bible endorses a purely illogical and demonstrably false Book as historical truth, and claims a doctrine - that angels can have sex with humans - which contradicts what the main Apostolic Churches definitively teach.

And therefore, Christianity is demonstrably proven false, with Jesus being dead.

The only possible solution I thought of was this quote from the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says:
"For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

But this verse doesn't say that the angels can't have intercourse, but rather, they aren't married, presumably because they are male (hence why in Genesis 6, they go after the daughters of men).


I feel depressed and hopeless now, and now I am facing the void, realizing that what I've been striving for in the past few wonderful years in my life is a lie.

My only hope is if someone can help explain this to me, but I don't see any other solution, other than Christianity is false.

End of story.

[Matto]

Wow this is interesting. Are you really contemplating apostasy over the Book of Enoch? I have always thought it to be interesting. I believe I am a heretic though, as I find the faith to be seemingly unreasonable. Or to be more specific, I find that no philosophy in this fallen world is fully compatible with human reason and that there will always be problems. So as much as we think we will always be seeing as though through a glass darkly and not face to face and that it is only in the after life when we can have understanding. But before you give up the faith (even though technically you might not have the faith because you are Eastern Orthodox) think about the other alternatives and whether or not they are rational, because I find the most popular alternative atheism to be completely absurd and even unimaginable.

[TheReturnofLive]

Wow this is interesting. Are you really contemplating apostasy over the Book of Enoch? I have always thought it to be interesting. I believe I am a heretic though, as I find the faith to be seemingly unreasonable. Or to be more specific, I find that no philosophy in this fallen world is fully compatible with human reason and that there will always be problems. So as much as we think we will always be seeing as though through a glass darkly and not face to face and that it is only in the after life when we can have understanding. But before you give up the faith (even though technically you might not have the faith because you are Eastern Orthodox) think about the other alternatives and whether or not they are rational, because I find the most popular alternative atheism to be completely absurd and even unimaginable.

I find atheism absurd as well in terms of the fruit it produces - no thanks, I don't want to be crying over an abused horse as I die from insanity - but I felt like, no matter how absurd the Old Testament could be, I always had the fact that no matter what I didn't understand, I knew that it always pointed to the New Testament and the God-man Jesus Christ.

But I've discovered now the New Testament says verifiable nonsense infallibly, I feel like I don't know what the point is.

I could use prayers, if there is a God or Christ.

[TheReturnofLive]

And you bring up the fact that I may not have Faith because I'm not Catholic. Well, according to this, Catholicism is false, so what's the point of Faith.

[TheReturnofLive]

Or to be more specific, I find that no philosophy in this fallen world is fully compatible with human reason and that there will always be problems.

For what it's worth, Sufism - Islamic mysticism - says the same thing. They say that even Islam is false in toto - that no religion can ever comprehend God in His fullness, it's just that Islam gets closer than all the others.

[TheReturnofLive]

I don't know.

[martin88nyc]

Books of Enoch are not inspired and may not have even been written by Enoch.
here is an answer from EWTN
http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage.asp?number=431316

[Vetus Ordo]

Saint Peter and Saint Jude, in the New Testament, quote the Book of Enoch, in 2 Peter 2:4-5, and Jude 1:6-7.

The quotation of apocryphal and extra-biblical literature in the NT is fairly common.

Remember when St. Paul quotes Seneca (Acts 17:24 et seq.) or Menander (1 Cor. 15:33). It doesn't prove per se any canonical or infallible status.

The problem is that the two verses from Jude explicitly endorse the Book of Enoch as a part of Salvation history, and as Jude is an infallible Book of the Bible, what it claims must be taken true.

I'm afraid you are jumping into unwarranted conclusions.

The evangelical writers often cited apocryphal literature to make a point, without equating it with God's word. A citation of God's word usually begins with the formula "It is written" or the immediate context of the text makes it clear.

Furthermore, your interpretation of Jude 1:7 doesn't disprove anything about Christianity.

Contextually, it is clear: "these" (toutois) refers to the cities around Sodom (Admah and Zeboim) and their inhabitants, meaning that they committed iniquity in the same manner as the inhabitants of Sodom did and were set forth in the same way as an example. The fact that the pronoun is masculine dative plural instead of feminine (not agreeing with cities, "poleis"), is not a stumbling block. Toutois could also be neuter dative plural, rendering the phrase "...and the cities about them in a like manner to these things," meaning thus the shameful behavior of their inhabitants. It seems to me that the author wants to signify by it the whole: the cities themselves and their inhabitants (and their behavior), hence the masculine or neuter plural. "These" are the ones who, like Sodom and Gomorrha, gave "themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Angels, as we know, are incapable of fornication.

[Vetus Ordo]

Or to be more specific, I find that no philosophy in this fallen world is fully compatible with human reason and that there will always be problems.

For what it's worth, Sufism - Islamic mysticism - says the same thing. They say that even Islam is false in toto - that no religion can ever comprehend God in His fullness, it's just that Islam gets closer than all the others.

This is a misunderstanding.

The shariah is the backbone of Islamic mysticism. Tasawwuf, as you know, has always been an integral part of Sunni Islam and it could not be so if it ascribed deficiencies or errors to Islamic doctrine. Rather, by fostering asceticism and personal piety, it constitutes an essential dimension of the religion, alongside the disciplines of jurisprudence and theology.

Keep in mind that the four stations of the spiritual life (exoteric path, esoteric path, mystical truth and final mystical knowledge or union) are mutually interdependent. When reaching the final station, the believer has a mystical intuitive knowledge of spiritual truth reached through ecstatic experiences, rather than revealed or rationally acquired. Naturally, such high degree of union with the Divine makes the rest of the religious disciplines look pale in comparison. However, the mystical knowledge is always congruent with Islamic revelation and Islamic law. To claim it would ascribe falsehood or deficiency to Islam itself would be tantamount to saying that Christian mysticism considers the religion false in toto or deficient, which is absurd.

Religious orthodoxy is the backbone of religious mysticism. Ibn Arabi, the famous Andalusian scholar, said, "wen we see someone in this community who claims to be able to guide others to God, but is remiss in but one rule of the Sacred Law—even if he manifests miracles that stagger the mind—asserting that his shortcoming is a special dispensation for him, we do not even turn to look at him, for such a person is not a sheikh, nor is he speaking the truth, for no one is entrusted with the secrets of God Most High save one in whom the ordinances of the Sacred Law are preserved." (The Reliance of the Traveller)

[Gardener]

Are you a whirling dervish or do you just have inner ear problems?

Take a break, man. Go talk to a priest and take up a hobby that doesn't involve reading for a bit.

Darts, archery, shooting range, rollerblading, throwing snowballs at your college's Democrat club while wearing a Bill Clinton mask, host a movie night of obscure Tamil films dubbed in English, pass out cigarettes on Earth Day, just get the heck out of your head for a bit.

If you have something you want to do but can't afford it, let me know. Seriously though, do something FUN. Go do something for recreation: literally, to create again. There's a reason Religious have recreation every day, and more on Sunday.

[Daniel]

1. According to Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, etc., angels are genderless, incorporeal beings who can't have relations.

This is false. Angels are genderless and incorporeal, but that doesn't mean they can't have sex. If angels can appear as men (cf. Genesis 18:2, Tobias 5:5, and all sorts of other verses), then I see no reason to deny that they can have sex (see also Genesis 19:5).
What's debatable is whether or not the sexual act between an angel and a human woman would be fertile. As far as I know, the Church doesn't teach one way or the other. Most (if not all) theologians say that it would be sterile, though.
Even so, that doesn't mean that there can be no offspring. One hypothesis is this: the angel first appears as a woman and has sex with a man. The angel then takes the man's semen and, that same night, while the sperm is still alive, that angel appears as a man and has sex with a woman. He inseminates her with that man's sperm, and she conceives a bastard child.
This could account for the fact that many historical persons have claimed to have been demigods (assuming all such persons weren't just lying, which very well may have been the case).
I think some people have further speculated that the angel can then also corrupt this child's genes/DNA in order to cause him to mutate and become gigantic. Angels do have power over matter, after all, and DNA is matter.

[martin88nyc]

I just got an electric, seated, scooter and it is so much fun

[TheReturnofLive]

Thanks for the posts guys - and I'm really sorry for this post.

I was really tired when I got back from Church last night - I just woke up after a couple hours of sleep - before I posted these things, and it seems that a lot of deep and suppressed feelings, opinions, and inner spiritual problems I had very irrationally made themselves appear.

Mainly, lately especially lacking Faith, having bad habits of sins that I feel like I can't escape from, being trapped inside my own head, and often times feeling lonely.

So, I apologize for my outrageous post - looking back at it when I'm less tired, I don't know why I came to these absolute, definitive conclusions that Christianity must be false because an Apostle seems to quote the fact that he think that angels had sex.

I'm kind of like a walking guy from the "Notes from the Underground," and quite honestly - despite all the selfish things I've done, I ask for your prayers.

[TheReturnofLive]

I'm sorry for my selfishness and blasphemy, and I think I need to take a break from theology and the Internet.

[Xavier]

Yes, we will always be praying for you. Recall that the enemy will srt many traps to separate us from Christ. Spend time yourself in prayer, devotion and recreational activities as others suggested. Be close to God and His Mother and live a happy life always, thanking God for His Creation and Redemption, and His Blessings and Graces. A Holy Life is a Happy Life. The key to a holy life is in the hand of all Catholics: Spiritual Communions, Rosary and other Devotions, Frequenting the Sacraments when we can. Sports are great recreation as well. Take up something you love doing and engage yourself in that. God bless.