In the Beginning There Were a lot of Opinions

I didn’t intend on making a couple posts and disappearing into the aether for months. To say this summer has been long and strenuous would be an understatement. I do have some reflections to write up, but those will have to wait until I can attempt to do them a bare minimum of justice.

In the meantime, some brief thoughts concerning current reading materials. Most of us who “grew up goddy” cut our teeth on the Picture Bible, among other things. We were saturated in the Bible, read it, heard sermons of it, did studies in it. That said, I’ve come to realize much modern Christian understanding of the Bible is a mile wide and an inch deep. We’ll hand it to unbelievers and tell them to read it when we don’t even know how to deal with much of it ourselves. The Old Testament comes to mind.

It is in that vein that it has been interesting to read through a new book by Fr. Patrick Reardon, Creation and the Patriarchal Histories: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Genesis. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Fr. Patrick speak on a couple of occasions. This does enhance my personal reading a bit, he writes like he speaks.

I’ll just post a brief excerpt covering one of those obscure Biblical characters we aren’t necessarily sure what to do with:

Genesis 5

In this first biblical genealogy we draw special attention to the figure of Enoch. After the Epistle to the Hebrews gives its initial definition of faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (11:1), there follows the famous list of the “great cloud of witnesses” (12:1), those “elders” who “obtained a good testimony” by exemplifying such faith (11:2).

One can hardly fail to observe in this list the strong emphasis on death with respect to this saving faith. Throughout Hebrews 11 faith has to do with how one dies, and “these all died in faith” (11:13). This emphasis on death in the context of faith renders very interesting the inclusion of Enoch among the list of faith’s exemplars, because Enoch departed this world in some way other than death. Indeed, in the genealogy here in chapter 5, the verb “died” occurs eight times with respect to the patriarchs from Adam to Lamech, but in the case of Enoch, “the seventh from Adam” (Jude 14), our text says simply he “was well-pleasing to God, and was not found [ouk eurisketo], for God translated [metetheken] him” (v. 24).

By way of commentary on this passage, the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “By faith Enoch was taken away [metethe] so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found [ouk eurisketo], because God had taken [metetheken] him’; for before he was taken [metatheseos] he had this testimony, that he pleased [euariestekenai] God” (11:5). That ancient “testimony,” cited here in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is found in the Wisdom of Solomon, where Enoch is thus described:

[He was] pleasing [euarestos] to God and loved by Him,
And while living among the sinners he was taken up [metetethe].
He was caught up lest evil change his understanding
Or deceit deceive his soul.
For envy arising from lack of judgement obscures what is good,
And a whirling of desire undermines an innocent heart.
He was made perfect [teleotheis],
For in a short time he fulfilled long years,
For his soul was pleasing [areste] to the Lord;
Therefore, He took him early from the midst of evil. (4:10-14)

Such is the biblical witness about the “short time” what Enoch spent on this earth (a mere 365 years according to v. 23). Unlike the other heroes listed in Hebrews 11, Enoch did not die in faith, for the unusual reason that he did not die at all. He nonetheless deserved a place in that heroic list, we are told, because “he pleased God” by his faith. Thus, when we believers “come boldly to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16), when we approach “the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven,” there stands Enoch among “the spirits of just men made perfect [teteleiomenon]” (12:23).

Living before Noah, Abraham, and Moses, Enoch was a participant in none of the covenants associated with these men. Not a single line of Holy Scripture was yet written for him to read. Much less did Enoch ever hear the message of salvation preached by the apostles. Yet, he was so pleasing to God by his faith as to be snatched away before his time, not suffering the common lot of death from which the Almighty spared not even His own Son.

What, exactly, did Enoch believe, then, that he should be such a champion of faith, an example for the Church until the end of time? The Epistle to the Hebrews explains: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (11:6). That was the sum total of all that Enoch’s faith told Him—God’s existence and his own duty to seek God in order to obtain the singular blessing that Holy Scripture ascribes to him. It is the Bible’s portrayal of Enoch, then, that affords us some hope for the salvation of those millions of human beings who must pass their lives on that bare minimum of theological information, for which Enoch rendered such a marvelous account.