Ancient Affinities within the LDS Book of Enoch Part Two

Abstract: In this article, we will examine affinities between ancient extracanonical sources and a collection of modern revelations that Joseph Smith termed “extracts from the Prophecy of Enoch.” We build on the work of previous scholars, revisiting their findings with the benefit of subsequent scholarship. Following a perspective on the LDS canon and an introduction to the LDS Enoch revelations, we will focus on relevant passages in pseudepigrapha and LDS scripture within three episodes in the Mormon Enoch narrative: Enoch’s prophetic commission, Enoch’s encounters with the “gibborim,” and the weeping and exaltation of Enoch and his people.

Having examined ancient affinities in the prophetic commission of Enoch, let us turn our attention to the events of his subsequent teaching mission.

Enoch’s Encounters with the Gibborim

The Book of Giants is a collection of fragments from an Enochic book discovered at Qumran. Though it is missing from the Ethiopic book of 1 Enoch[1]  and resembles little else in [Page 30]the Enoch tradition, material related to the Book of Giants is included in Talmudic and medieval Jewish literature, in descriptions of the Manichaean canon,[2] in citations by hostile heresiologists, and in third and fourth century fragments from Turfan published by Henning in 1943.[3] Later, several fragments of a related work were identified among the Qumran manuscripts. These fragments showed that the “composition is at least five hundred years older than previously thought”[4]  and thus they help us “to reconstruct the literary shape of the early stages of the Enochic tradition.”[5]

Although the Book of the Giants scarcely fills three pages in the English translation of Martinez, we find in it the most extensive series of parallels between a single ancient text and Joseph Smith’s Enoch writings. Note that the term giants in the title of the book is somewhat misleading. Actually, this book describes two different groups of individuals, referred to in Hebrew as the gibborim and the nephilim.[6] In discussing the [Page 31]gibborim, we will use the customary connotation elsewhere in the Bible of “mighty hero” or “warrior.” In his Enoch writings, Joseph Smith specifically differentiated the “giants” from Enoch’s other adversaries.[7]

Consistent with the concept of the gibborim as “mighty warriors,” Joseph Smith’s Enoch writings describe scenes of wars, bloodshed, and slaughter among the people (see Moses 6:15; 7:7, 16). For example, in Moses 6:15 we read: “And the children of men were numerous upon all the face of the land. And in those days Satan had great dominion among men, and raged in their hearts; and from thenceforth came wars and bloodshed; and a man’s hand was against his own brother, in administering death, because of secret works, seeking for power.”

[Page 32]The Book of Giants account likewise begins with references to “slaughter, destruction, and moral corruption”[8]  that filled the earth.[9] The mention of “secret works” and “administering death” (Moses 6:15) in the Book of Moses recalls a similar description in the Book of the Giants:[10]  “they knew the se[crets[11]  . . . ] and they killed ma[ny . . . ].” Elsewhere the Qumran manuscripts refer to the spread of the “mystery of wickedness.”[12]

In the Book of Moses, Enoch’s preaching first attracts listeners out of pure curiosity: “And they came forth to hear him, upon the high places, saying unto the tent-keepers: Tarry ye here and keep the tents, while we go yonder to behold the seer, for he prophesieth, and there is a strange thing in the land; a wild man hath come among us (Moses 6:38).

The term wild man (Genesis 16:12) is used in only one other place in the Bible, as part of Jacob’s prophecy about the fate of Ishmael. We see a more fitting parallel, however, in a passage in the translation by Wise of the Book of the Giants, where the wicked leader of the gibborim, ’Ohya, boasts that he is called “the [Page 33]wild man,”[13] just as in the Book of Moses the same term is used—sarcastically—to describe Enoch.

Then, out of nowhere, appears Mahijah, the only named character besides Enoch himself in Joseph Smith’s story of Enoch: “And there came a man unto him, whose name was Mahijah, and said unto him: Tell us plainly who thou art, and from whence thou comest?” (Moses 6:40).

In the Book of Moses, the name Mahijah appears a second time in a different form as Mahujah (Moses 7:2).[14] Likewise in the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Bible, the variants MHYY [Mahijah] and MHWY [Mahujah] both appear in a single verse (with the suffix “-el”) as references to the same person, namely Mehuja-el.[15] Because the KJV renders both variants identically, [Page 34]Joseph Smith would have had to access and interpret the Hebrew text to see both versions of the name. But there is no evidence that he or anyone else associated with the translation of Moses 6–7 knew how to read Hebrew or, for that matter, even had access to a Hebrew Bible. Joseph Smith did not begin his Hebrew studies until a few years later after he engaged Joshua Seixas as a teacher in Kirtland, Ohio.[16] Moreover, even if it were postulated that Joseph Smith must have been working from the Hebrew, it would still be difficult to explain why, assuming that he indeed possessed this information, Joseph Smith would have chosen not to normalize the two variant versions of the name into a single version as virtually all English translations of the Hebrew text have done. Instead, both of the attested variants of the name are included in the Book of Moses in appropriate contexts, preserving both ancient traditions. Moreover, the Joseph Smith versions of the name drop the “-el” suffix to the name,[17] thus differing from the Hebrew text of the Bible and in accord with its Dead Sea Scrolls[18]  equivalent, as we will describe.

There are intriguing similarities not only in the name but also in the role of the Mahijah/Mahujah character in Joseph [Page 35]Smith’s Book of Moses and the role of a character named Mahujah [MHWY] in the Book of Giants.[19] Hugh Nibley observes: “The only thing the Mahijah in the Book of Moses is remarkable for is his putting of bold direct questions to Enoch. [Page 36]And this is exactly the role, and the only role, that the Aramaic Mahujah plays in the story.”[20]

In the Book of Giants, we read the report of a series of dreams that troubled the gibborim. The dreams “symbolize the destruction of all but Noah and his sons by the Flood.”[21] In an impressive correspondence to the questioning of Enoch by Mahijah in the Book of Moses, the gibborim send one of their fellows named Mahujah to “consult Enoch in order to receive an authoritative interpretation of the visions.”[22] In the Book of Giants, we read: “[Then] all the [gibborim and the nephilim] . . . called to [Mahujah] and he came to them. They implored him and sent him to Enoch, the celebrated scribe[23]  and they said to him: “Go. . . and tell him to [explain to you] and interpret the dream. . .”[24]

[Page 37]Cirillo comments: “The emphasis that [Joseph] Smith places on Mahijah’s travel to Enoch is eerily similar to the account of [Mahujah] to Enoch in the [Book of the Giants].”[25]

A reasonable case can be made for the identification of the Book of Giants Mahujah with the biblical Mehuja-el, who was a descendant of Cain and the grandfather of the wicked Lamech.[26] [Page 38]The case for identification is only made stronger when we consider the additional material about Mehuja-el’s family line included in the Joseph Smith account. Note that in the Book of Moses, Mehuja-el’s grandson, like the other “sons of men” (Moses 5:52, 55), “entered into a covenant with Satan after the manner of Cain” (Moses 5:49). Similarly, in 1 Enoch we read that a group of conspirators, here depicted as fallen sons of God, “all swore [Page 39]together and bound one another with a curse.”[27] Elsewhere in 1 Enoch we learn additional details about that oath: “This is the number of Kasbe’el, the chief of the oath, which he showed to the holy ones when he was dwelling on high in glory, and its (or “his”) name (is) Beqa. This one told Michael that he should show him the secret name, so that they might mention it in the oath, so that those who showed the sons of men everything that was in secret might quake at the name and the oath.”[28]

The passages in 1 Enoch are reminiscent of a passage in the Book of Moses that describes a “secret combination” that had been in operation “from the days of Cain” (Moses 5:51). As to the deadly nature of the oath, we read in the Book of Moses: “Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die” (Moses 5:29),[29] just as in 1 Enoch the conspirators “bound one another with a curse.”[30]

In 1 Enoch, the conspirators agreed on their course of action by saying:[31]  “Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men.” Likewise, in the Book of Moses, Mehuja-el’s grandson became infamous because he “took unto himself . . . wives” (Moses 5:44)[32]  to whom he revealed the secrets of their wicked league (to the chagrin of his fellows; Moses [Page 40]5:47–55).[33] In 1 Enoch, as in the Book of Moses,[34] we also read specifically of how “they all began to reveal mysteries to their wives and children.”[35]

In answer to the second part of Mahijah’s question, Joseph Smith’s Enoch says: “And he said unto them: I came out from the land of Cainan, the land of my fathers, a land of righteousness unto this day” (Moses 6:41).

Amplifying the Book of Moses description of Enoch’s home as a “land of righteousness,” the leader of the gibborim in the Book of Giants says that his “opponents”[36]  “reside in the heavens and live with the holy ones.”[37]

In the Book of Moses, Enoch describes the setting for his vision: “And it came to pass, as I journeyed from the land of Cainan, by the sea east, I beheld a vision” (Moses 6:42).

Enoch’s vision as he travelled “by the sea east”[38]  recalls the direction of his journey in 1 Enoch 20–36 where he traveled “from the west edge of the earth to its east edge.”[39]  Elsewhere [Page 41]1 Enoch records a vision that Enoch received “by the waters of Dan,”[40]  arguably a “sea east.”[41]

In preaching to the people, the Enoch of the Book of Moses refers to a “book of remembrance” (Moses 6:46), in which the words of God and the actions of the people were recorded. Correspondingly, in the Book of the Giants, a book in the form of “two stone tablets”[42]  is given by Enoch to Mahujah to stand as a witness of “their fallen state and betrayal of their ancient covenants.”[43]  In the Book of Moses, Enoch says the book is written “according to the pattern given by the finger of God” (Moses 6:46). This may allude to the idea that a similar record of their wickedness is kept in heaven[44] as attested in 1 Enoch: “Do not suppose to yourself nor say in your heart, that they do [Page 42]not know nor are your unrighteous deeds seen in heaven, nor are they written down before the Most High. Henceforth know that all your unrighteous deeds are written down day by day, until the day of your judgment.”[45]

As Enoch is linked with the book of remembrance in the Book of Moses, so he is described in the Testament of Abraham as the heavenly being who is responsible for recording the deeds of mankind so that they can be brought into remembrance.[46] Likewise, in Jubilees 10:17 we read: “Enoch had been created as a witness to the generations of the world so that he might report every deed of each generation in the day of judgment.”[47]

In the Book of Moses, Enoch’s reading of the book of remembrance put the people in great fear: “And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence” (Moses 6:47).

Likewise, in the Book of the Giants,[48] we read that the leaders of the mighty warriors “bowed down and wept in front of [Enoch].” 1 Enoch describes a similar reaction after Enoch finished his preaching:

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Then I [i.e., Enoch] went and spoke to all of them together. And they were all afraid and trembling and fear seized them. And they asked that I write a memorandum of petition[49]  for them, that they might have forgiveness, and that I recite the memorandum of petition for them in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For they were no longer able to speak or to lift their eyes to heaven out of shame for the deeds through which they had sinned and for which they had been condemned. . . . and they were sitting and weeping at Abel-Main,[50] . . . covering their faces.[51]

Among the declarations that Joseph Smith’s Enoch makes to his hearers from the book of remembrance is that their children “are conceived in sin” (Moses 6:55). This has nothing to do with the concept of “original sin” but rather is the result of their moral transgressions. As Nibley expresses it: “[T]he wicked people of Enoch’s day . . . did indeed conceive their children in sin, since they were illegitimate offspring of a totally amoral society.” The relevant passage in the Book of Giants reads:[52]  “Let it be known to you th[at . . . your activity and that of [your] wive[s and of your children . . . through your fornication.”[53]

[Page 44]Both the Qumran and the Joseph Smith sermons of Enoch “end on a note of hope”[54] —a feature unique to these two Enoch accounts: “If thou wilt turn unto [God], and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions” (Moses 6:52).

In the Book of Giants, Enoch also gives hope to the wicked through repentance:[55]  “Now, then, unfasten your chains [of sin]. . . and pray.”[56]  In addition, Reeves[57]  conjectures that another difficult-to-reconstruct phrase in the Book of Giants might also be understood as an “allusion to a probationary period for the repentance of the Giants.”[58]

Any conjectured move toward repentance was temporary, however, and eventually Enoch’s enemies began to attack, as we read in the Book of Moses: “And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and [Page 45]the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness” (Moses 7:13).

[Page 46]Similarly, in the Book of Giants, ’Ohya, a leader of the gibborim, gives a description of his defeat in such a battle: “[. . . I am a] [mighty warrior] (cf. Moses 7:15), and by the mighty strength of my arm and my own great strength[59] [I went up against a]ll mortals, and I have made war against them; but I am not . . . able to stand against them.”[60]

Of special note is a puzzling phrase in Martinez’s translation of the Book of Giants that immediately follows the description of the battle: “the roar of the wild beasts has come and they bellowed a feral roar.”[61]  Remarkably the Book of Moses account has a similar phrase following the battle description, recording that “the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness” (Moses 7:13).

Both the Book of Moses and the Book of Giants contain a “prediction of utter destruction and the confining in prison that is to follow”[62]  for the gibborim. From the Book of Moses we read: “But behold, these . . . shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them” (Moses 7:38).

Similarly, in the Book of the Giants we read: “he imprisoned us and has power [ov]er [us].”[63]

Note that the parallels with the Book of the Giants we have cited are not drawn at will from a large corpus of Enoch manuscripts but rather are concentrated in a scant three pages of Qumran fragments. These resemblances range from general themes in the story line (secret works, murders, visions, earthly and heavenly books of remembrance that evoke fear and trembling, moral corruption, hope held out for repentance, and the eventual defeat of Enoch’s adversaries in battle, ending with their utter destruction and imprisonment) to specific [Page 47]occurrences of rare expressions in corresponding contexts (the reference to the “wild man,” the name and parallel role of Mahijah/Mahujah, and the “roar of the wild beasts”). It would be thought remarkable if any nineteenth-century document were to exhibit a similar density of close resemblances with this small collection of ancient fragments, but to find such similarities in appropriate contexts relating in each case to the story of Enoch is astonishing.

The Weeping and Exaltation of Enoch and His People

In a vision of Enoch found in the Book of Moses, three distinct parties weep for the wickedness of mankind: God (Moses 7:28; cf. v. 29), the heavens (Moses 7:28, 37), and Enoch himself (Moses 7:41, 49). In addition, a fourth party, the earth, mourns—though does not specifically weep—for her children (Moses 7:48–49). Daniel Peterson has discussed the interplay among the members of this chorus of weeping voices, citing the arguments of non-LDS biblical scholar J.J.M. Roberts that identify three similar voices within the laments of the book of Jeremiah: the feminine voice of the mother of the people (corresponding in the Book of Moses to the voice of the earth, the “mother of men”; Moses 7:48), the voice of the people (corresponding to Enoch), and the voice of God Himself.[64] In addition, with regard to the complaints of the earth described in Moses 7:48–49, valuable articles by Andrew Skinner [65] and [Page 48]Peterson,[66] again following Nibley’s lead,[67] discuss interesting parallels in ancient sources. Finally, taking up the subject of previously neglected voices of weeping—namely the weeping of Enoch and that of the heavens—we have written, with the additional contributions of Jacob Rennaker, a comparative study of ancient texts.[68]

We will not attempt a summary of these discussions. However, below we will sketch and extend previous analyses of the weeping of Enoch and of God while noting resonances between ancient literature and the Book of Moses.

The tradition of a weeping prophet is perhaps best exemplified by Jeremiah, who cried out in sorrow, “Oh that my [Page 49]head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”(Jeremiah 9:1).[69] Less well known is the story of Enoch as a weeping prophet. In 1 Enoch, his words are very near to those of Jeremiah, “O that my eyes were a [fountain] [70] of water, that I might weep over you; I would pour out my tears as a cloud of water, and I would rest from the grief of my heart.”[71]

We find the pseudepigraphal Enoch, like Enoch in the Book of Moses, weeping in response to visions of mankind’s wickedness. Following the second of these visions in the 1 Enoch account, the prophet is recorded as saying: “And after that I wept bitterly, and my tears did not cease until I could no longer endure it, but they were running down because of what I had seen . . . I wept because of it, and I was disturbed because I had seen the vision.”[72]

Enoch’s weeping is not only the result of his visions but also a precursor to additional ones. For example, in the Cologne Mani Codex, Enoch’s tearful sorrow is directly followed by an angelophany: “While the tears were still in my eyes and the prayer was yet on my lips, I beheld approaching me s[even] angels descending from heaven. [Upon seeing] them I was so [Page 50]moved by fear that my knees began knocking.”[73] A description of a similar set of events is found in 2 Enoch, which Moshe Idel called “the earliest evidence for mystical weeping”[74] : “In the first month, on the assigned day of the first month, I was in my house alone, weeping and grieving with my eyes. When I had lain down on my bed, I fell asleep. And two huge men appeared to me, the like of which I had never seen on earth.”[75]

The same sequence of events—Enoch’s weeping and grieving followed by a heavenly vision—can be found in modern revelation within the song recorded in Joseph Smith’s Revelation Book 2: “Enoch. . . gazed upon nature and the corruption of man, and mourned their sad fate, and wept, and cried out with a loud voice, and heaved forth his sighs: ‘Omnipotence! Omnipotence! O may I see Thee!’ And with His finger [God] touched his eyes and [Enoch] saw heaven. He gazed on eternity and sang an angelic song.”[76]

[Page 51]Turning from the weeping of Enoch to the weeping of God, the relevant passage in the Book of Moses begins as follows:

And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept. . . . And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? . . . The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood; (Moses 7:28–33)

[Page 52]Because of its eloquent rebuke of the idea of divine impassibility[77] —the notion that God does not suffer pain or distress—this passage that speaks of the voice of the weeping God has received the greatest share of attention in LDS scholarship compared to the other voices of weeping, eliciting the pioneering notices of Hugh Nibley,[78] followed by lengthy articles by Eugene England[79]  and Daniel C. Peterson.[80] Most recently, a book relating to the topic has been written by Terryl and Fiona Givens. They eloquently summarize the significance of this passage as follows:

The question here is not about the reasons behind God’s tears. Enoch does not ask, why do you weep, but rather, how are your tears even possible, “seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?” Clearly, Enoch, who believed God to be “merciful and kind forever,” did not expect such a being could be moved to the point of distress by the sins of His children. And so a third time he asks, “how is it thou canst weep?”

The answer, it turns out, is that God is not exempt from emotional pain. Exempt? On the contrary, God’s pain is as infinite as His love. He weeps because He feels compassion. As the Lord explains to Enoch, “unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood . . . and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; [Page 53]wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?”

It is not their wickedness, but their “misery,” not their disobedience, but their “suffering,” that elicits the God of Heaven’s tears. Not until Gethsemane and Golgotha does the scriptural record reveal so unflinchingly the costly investment of God’s love in His people, the price at which He placed His heart upon them. There could be nothing in this universe, or in any possible universe, more perfectly good, absolutely beautiful, worthy of adoration, and deserving of emulation, than this God of love and kindness and vulnerability. That is why a gesture of belief in His direction, a decision to acknowledge His virtues as the paramount qualities of a divided universe, is a response to the best in us, the best and noblest of which the human soul is capable. But a God without passions would engender in our hearts neither love nor interest. In the vision of Enoch, we find ourselves drawn to a God who prevents all the pain He can, assumes all the suffering He can, and weeps over the misery He can neither prevent nor assume.[81]

Joseph Smith’s account of a God who weeps for human misery can be contrasted with Jed Woodworth’s observation that the God in 1 Enoch shows remorse “only after it becomes obvious the floods did not have the desired effect.”[82] In 1 Enoch, according to Woodworth:

[Page 54]

God is most concerned with exacting maximum justice. “Destroy all the souls addicted to dalliance,”[83] he tells his righteous angels. Then bind the wicked “for seventy generations underneath the earth, even to the day of judgment,” when they will be “taken away into the lowest depths of the fire in torments; and in confinement shall they be shut up forever.”[84] Enoch’s angel-guide tells him how four of God’s faithful servants—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Phanuel—will be given special power to “cast them [the ungodly] into a furnace of blazing fire, that the Lord of spirits may be avenged of them for their crimes”[85] . . . The crimes are so great, “never shall they obtain mercy, saith the Lord of spirits.”[86] Only crimes worthy of sentences without parole, it seems, could exonerate God from sending out the floods.

Unlike [the God in 1 Enoch], the God in Joseph Smith works for maximum mercy. When the wicked reject Enoch’s entreaties, God does not jump to send the flood but rather a second wave of servants. Immediately after seeing the earth’s inhabitants in Satan’s grasp, Enoch beholds “angels descending out of heaven, bearing testimony of the Father and the Son” (Moses 7:27). The Holy Ghost falls upon those who hearken, and they are “caught up by the powers of heaven into Zion” (Moses 7:28). Even at the midnight hour, Zion is still enlarging her borders to include those who will turn from their evil ways. Those who refuse the invitation bring God great pain. Looking down from the heavens, God [Page 55]weeps for his wicked, even “as the rain upon the mountains” (Moses 7:28). He anguishes for those who reject their Father and who now “hate their own blood” (Moses 7:33). Not only He suffers, but also “the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands” (Moses 7:37). When the floods finally come, we feel them as sobs of remorse, not as rains of retribution. . . .

What is the fate of those who perish in the flood? In [1 Enoch], there is one fate only: everlasting punishment. Those who are destroyed in the flood are beyond redemption. For God to be reconciled, sinners must suffer forever. Enoch has nothing to say because God has no merciful side to appeal to. In Joseph Smith, however, punishment has an end. The merciful side of God allows Enoch to speak and be heard. God and Enoch speak a common language: mercy. “Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look,” God says to Enoch after the flood (Moses 7:44). There is hope for the wicked yet: “I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. And that which I have chosen hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment” (Moses 7:37–38).

The Messiah figure in [1 Enoch 45–47] and in Joseph Smith function in different ways. In Joseph Smith, the Chosen One will come to earth at the meridian of time to rescue the sinners of Enoch’s day. After the Messiah’s death and resurrection, “as many of the spirits as were in prison came forth, and stood on the right hand of God” (Moses 7:57; see also 1 Peter 3:20). The Messiah figure in [1 Enoch] does not come down to earth and [Page 56]is peripheral to the text; he presides over the “elect” around God’s throne[87]  but does not rescue the sinners of Enoch’s day. “In the day of trouble evil shall [still] be heaped upon sinners,”[88]  he tells Enoch.[89]

Clearly there are wide differences between 1 Enoch and the Book of Moses in their projections of the fate of the antediluvian sinners. That established, can any ancient parallels for the weeping God of Joseph Smith be found in other extracanonical accounts of Enoch?

Remarkably, such a passage does appear in the Midrash Rabbah on Lamentations, which portrays Enoch as weeping in likeness of God as a consequence of the destruction of the Israelite temple. We have found no similar scene in the ancient literature relating to any other prophet, but here in Midrash Rabbah and in the Book of Moses we find it specifically connected with Enoch:

At that time the Holy One, blessed be He, wept and said, “Woe is Me! What have I done? I caused my Shekhinah to dwell below on earth for the sake of Israel; but now that they have sinned, I have returned to My former habitation. . . .” At that time Metatron [who is Enoch in his glorified state] came, fell upon his face, and spake before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Sovereign of the Universe, let me weep, but do Thou not weep.” He replied to him: “if thou lettest Me not weep now, I will repair to a place which thou hast not permission to enter,[90] and will weep there,” as it is said, [Page 57]“But if ye will not hear it, My soul shall weep in secret for pride” [Jeremiah 13:17].[91]

The withdrawal of the divine presence through the loss of the temple that provoked God’s weeping in Midrash Rabbah is a fitting analog to the taking up of Enoch’s Zion from the earth in the Book of Moses. Whereas in Midrash Rabbah God withdraws His presence because of the wickedness of the people, the account in the Book of Moses (Moses 7:21, 23, 27, 31) has God removing the city of Zion in its entirety from among the wicked nations that surround it because of its righteousness. The two pericopes may have more in common than is immediately apparent. A study of Jewish literature reveals a significant correspondence between Zion and the Shekhinah (Divine Presence). Zion is often personified as the Bride of God (Revelation 21:2). Shekhinah is a feminine noun in Hebrew and often associated with the female personified Wisdom. It is likewise described in later Jewish writings as the Bride of God. In short, the idea of Zion being taken up and the Shekhinah being withdrawn are parallel motifs,[92] a topic treated extensively by David Larsen elsewhere.[93]

All this aside, it is our view that the most important thrust of the parallel passages in Midrash Rabbah and the Book of [Page 58]Moses is not the parallel motif of the withdrawal of the presence of God from the earth but rather the sympathetic union of God and Enoch in their sorrow. Enoch in Midrash Rabbah, like Enoch in the Book of Moses, judges the emotional display to be inappropriate for the holy, eternal God and responds with his personal commiseration. The weeping of Enoch is not merely significant in its own right but also because, according to the Givenses, it is an illustration “of what the actual process of acquiring the divine nature requires . . . Enoch is raised to a perspective from which he sees the world through God’s eyes.”[94]

In the Book of Moses, we read “And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook” (Moses 7:41).

The idea of raising the prophet to a level approaching godhood through shared sorrow with the divine is explored at length by theologian Terence Fretheim. Fretheim argues that the prophet’s “sympathy with the divine pathos” was not the result of merely contemplating the divine but instead a result of the prophet’s elevation to become a member of the divine council. He writes:

[T]he fact that the prophets are said to be a part of this council indicates something of the intimate relationship they had with God. The prophet was somehow drawn up into the very presence of God; even more, the prophet was in some sense admitted into the history of God. The prophet becomes a party to the divine story; the heart and mind of God pass over into that of [Page 59]the prophet to such an extent that the prophet becomes a veritable embodiment of God.[95]

Not surprising then, in the aftermath of Enoch’s soul-stretching emulation of “divine pathos” in the Book of Moses, is that the weeping prophet is given a right to the divine throne. Says Joseph Smith’s Enoch to God: “thou hast . . . given unto me a right to thy throne” (Moses 7:59).

The Book of Moses motif of granting access to the divine throne is nowhere more at home than in the pseudepigraphal Enoch literature. For example, in 3 Enoch, Enoch declares: “the Holy One, blessed be He, made for me a throne like the throne of glory . . . and sat me down upon it.”[96]

Summarizing other ancient literature relevant to this passage, Charles Mopsik concludes that the exaltation of Enoch is not meant to be seen as a singular event. Rather he writes that the “enthronement of Enoch is a prelude to the transfiguration of the righteous—and at their head the Messiah—in the world to come, a transfiguration that is the restoration of the figure of the perfect Man.”[97]  Following this ideological trajectory to its [Page 60]full extent, Mormons see the perfect Man (with a capital “M”), into whose form the Messiah and Enoch and all the righteous are transfigured, as God the Father, of whom Adam, the first mortal man, is a type.[98] Fittingly, as part of Joseph Smith’s account of [Page 61]Enoch’s vision, God proclaims His primary identity to be that [Page 62]of an “Endless and Eternal” Man, declaring: “Man of Holiness is my name” (Moses 7:35). Given the identity of God the Father as the “Man of Holiness,” the title “Son of Man,” which is a notable feature of the Book of Parables in 1 Enoch[99]  and also appears in marked density through the Book of Moses vision of Enoch (Moses 7:24, 47, 54, 56, 59, 65), is perfectly intelligible within LDS theology. So are the related titles of “Chosen One” (Moses 7:39; cf. Moses 4:2), “Anointed One” (i.e. Messiah; see Moses 7:63), and “Righteous One” (Moses 6:57; 7:45, 47, 67), that appear prominently both in 1 Enoch and the LDS Enoch story. After considering the sometimes contentious debate among scholars about the single or multiple referent(s) of these titles and their relationship to other texts, Nickelsburg and VanderKam[100] conclude that the [Page 63]author of 1 Enoch (like the author of the Book of Moses) “saw the . . . traditional figures as having a single referent and applied the various designations and characteristics as seemed appropriate to him.”  Consistent with texts found at Nag Hammadi,[101] Joseph [Page 64]Smith’s Enoch straightforwardly equates the filial relationship between God and His Only Begotten Son in the New Testament to the Enochic notion of the perfect Man and the Son of Man as follows “Man of Holiness is [God’s] name,[102] and the name of his [Page 65]Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous Judge,[103] who shall come in the meridian of time” (Moses 6:57).

Note that the single specific description of the role of the Son of Man given in this verse from the Book of Moses as a “righteous judge” is highly characteristic of the Book of the Parables within 1 Enoch, where the primary role of the Son of Man is also that of a judge.[104] Reviewing the passages in 1 Enoch, Nickelsburg and VanderKam conclude:[105]  “If the central message of the Parables is the coming of the final judgment,[106] the Son of Man/Chosen One takes center stage as the agent of this judgment.”[107]

[Page 66]As Mopsik observed, however, the story does not end here. Recall his conclusion that the “enthronement of Enoch is a prelude to the transfiguration of the righteous—and at their head the Messiah—in the world to come.”[108]  Indeed, in one of Joseph Smith’s revelations, this is idea is made explicit in the idea that these righteous will be ordained “after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son. Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God.”[109]  Unlike priesthood ordinations performed by men, the ordinance that conveys this power is administered directly by God Himself, just as this status was conferred upon Enoch as part of his heavenly ascent: “And [the high priesthood after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch] was delivered unto men by the calling of [God’s] own voice” (JST Genesis 14:29). In another of Joseph Smith’s revelations we are told that all of God’s earthly children are called, in essence, “Sons of Man”[110]  with the potential to “become perfect, even as [their] Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Making explicit the role of the Son of Man as the forerunner for the Sons of Man, the resurrected Jesus Christ varies this statement slightly in the Book of Mormon: “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48).

In his insightful discussion of the Greek word teleios, translated “perfect” in Matthew, John Welch writes:

[Page 67]

[I]n commanding the people to “be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48), it seems that Jesus had several things in mind besides “perfection” as we usually think of it. Whatever he meant, it involved the idea of becoming like God (“even as I or your Father who is in heaven”), which occurs by seeing God (see 1 John 3:2) and knowing God (See John 17:3). These ultimate realities can be represented [ceremonially] in this world,[111] for as Joseph Smith taught, it is through [the] ordinances [of the temple] that we are “instructed more perfectly.”[112]

This last statement brings us to the subject of Enoch and the temple. Hugh Nibley cited Caquot as saying that Enoch is:

“in the center of a study of matters dealing with initiation in the literature of Israel.” Enoch is the great initiate who becomes the great initiator. . . .[113] The Hebrew book of Enoch bore the title of Hekhalot, referring to the various chambers or stages of initiation in the temple.[114] [Page 68]Enoch, having reached the final stage, becomes the Metatron to initiate and guide others. “I will not say but what Enoch had Temples and officiated therein,” said Brigham Young, “but we have no account of it.”[115]  Today we do have such accounts.[116]

In line with the theme of Enoch as a forerunner in the “transfiguration of the righteous”[117]  is the Book of Moses idea that Enoch succeeded in bringing a whole people to be sufficiently “pure in heart” (D&C 97:21) to fully live the law of consecration. In Zion, the “City of Holiness (Moses 7:19), the people “were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there were no poor among them” (Moses 7:18). We are told that not only Enoch but also “all his people walked with God” (Moses 7:69) and they were eventually taken into heaven with him:[118] “And Enoch and all his people walked with [Page 69]God, and he dwelt in the midst of Zion; and it came to pass that Zion was not, for God received it up into his own bosom; and from thence went forth the saying, Zion is Fled” (Moses 7:69). This topic is treated extensively by David Larsen elsewhere.[119]

In LDS temples, the promise of being “received . . . into [God’s] own bosom” (Moses 7:69) like Enoch and his people is extended to all those who prepare themselves to receive it,[120] [Page 70]through the sanctifying power of Christ. One of Joseph Smith’s revelations identifies Zion with “the pure in heart” (D&C 97:21)—and, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, the reward of the pure in heart is that they shall “see God” (Matthew 5:8, 3 Nephi 12:8, D&C 97:16; cf. D&C 58:18). “Therefore,” the Lord told Joseph Smith, “sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will. Remember the great and last promise which I have made unto you” (D&C 88:68–69).[121]

Thus end the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses.

Conclusion

In a recent discussion of Mormon theology, Stephen Webb[122]  concludes that Joseph Smith “knew more about theology and philosophy than it was reasonable for anyone in his position to know, as if he were dipping into the deep, collective unconsciousness of Christianity with a very long pen.” More significantly, the Prophet recovered a story of Enoch that manifests a deep understanding of what it means to become a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4),[123] and in that process to become a partner with God Himself in the salvation and exaltation of His children,[124] being raised to a perspective [Page 71]from which we see the world through God’s eyes. Those who wish to follow the path of Enoch, which is the same path that was laid out by the great Redeemer, must take upon themselves its sufferings with its glory (Romans 8:17).[125] Nowhere is this fact more apparent than in the ordinances of Mormon temples, where, as Truman Madsen observed, “a full-scale covenant relationship, the Atonement of Christ may be written, as it were, in our very flesh.”[126]  “One is. . . obliged,” writes Eugene Seaich, to become not only “ ‘one flesh’ with Christ, but [also] one life, one sacrifice, thus participating actively in the eternal act of love which began in the heavens.”[127]

[Page 72]

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the kindness of Jared Ludlow, Stephen D. Ricks, David Calabro, and Chris Miasnik in providing helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Dan Bachman pointed our attention to the thesis of Salvatore Cirillo. We also extend our thanks to Tim Guymon for his expert assistance with technical editing and Alison Coutts for her long labors in typesetting and proofreading this article.

[Page 73]ADDENDUM: After part one of this study appeared, we became aware of a publication by Samuel Zinner[128]  that relates to allusions to the baptism of Jesus Christ in Moses 6:26–27 that were discussed in that article.[129] The allusion to baptism in those verses relating to the call of Enoch is strengthened by parallel wording in the later account of the descent of the Spirit at the baptism of Adam (Moses 6:65: “the Spirit of God descended upon him”) followed by a “voice out of heaven” (Moses 6:66) and a declaration of the sonship of Adam (Moses 6:68: “Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons”). Since God the Father is declared to be the “Man of Holiness” in Moses 6:57, the titles “son of God” and “son of Man” can be equated.

Zinner compares Hebrews 1:5–6 to passages relating to the father’s declaration of sonship at the baptism of Jesus in the Gospel of the Ebionites and the Gospel of the Hebrews. He also notes that the motifs of “rest” and “reigning” co-occur in these three texts as well as in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (logion 2).[130] [Page 74]Finally, he argues for a “striking isomorphism” shared between 1 Enoch and the baptismal allusion in the Gospel of the Ebionites in a promise made by Enoch to the righteous: “and a bright light will shine upon you, and the voice of rest you will hear from heaven.”[131]  In light of these (and additional passages relating these themes to the personage of the “Son of Man”[132]), Zinner argues for the likelihood that the ideas behind all these passages “arose in an Enochic matrix.” Hence, the strange parallel to Jesus’s baptism in the Book of Moses account of the calling of Enoch—which on the face of it originally might have been looked upon as an obvious anachronism—has turned out to be a passage with plausible Enochic affinities and possible Enochic origins.

(An expanded and revised version of material contained in this article will appear as part of Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, et al., Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. In God’s Image and Likeness 2 (forthcoming). Translations of non-English sources are by the first author unless otherwise noted.)

1. However, 1 Enoch and the Book of Giants both touch on some related themes as seen below. For a summary of the literary relationship between the 1 Enoch Book of Watchers and the Book of Giants, see Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr, 1997), 24–28. ↩

2. Homilies 25:2–5, Psalm-Book 46:21–47:4, Kephalia, 5:22–26. ↩

3. For a comprehensive study of the manuscript evidence, see John C. Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union, 1992). Reeves concludes that this foundational work of Manichaean cosmogony is indebted in important respects to Jewish exegetical traditions relating to Genesis 6:1–4. ↩

4. Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York City, NY: Harper-Collins, 1996), 290. Stuckenbruck dates the Book of Giants to “sometime between the late 3rd century and 164 BCE,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 31. ↩

5. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, p. 11. ↩

6. Reeves explains:

The term gbryn is the Aramaic form of Hebrew gibborim (singular gibbor), a word whose customary connotation in the latter language is ‘mighty hero, warrior,’ but which in some contexts later came to be interpreted in the sense of ‘giants.’ (The term is translated seventeen times with the Greek word for “giants” in the Septuagint. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 134 n.60) . . . Similarly nplyn is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew np(y)lym (i.e., nephilim), an obscure designation used only three times in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 6:4 refers to the nephilim who were on the earth as a result of the conjugal union of the [‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of Adam’] and further qualifies their character by terming them gibborim. Both terms are translated in [Septuagint] Genesis 6:4 by [‘giants’] and in Targum Onkelos by gbry’. Numbers 13:33 reports that gigantic nephilim were encountered by the Israelite spies in the land of Canaan, here the nephilim are associated with a (different?) tradition concerning a race of giants surviving among the indigenous ethnic groups that inhabited Canaan. A further possible reference to both the nephilim and gibborim of Genesis 6:4 occurs in Ezekiel 32:27. The surrounding pericope presents a description of slain heroes who lie in Sheol, among whom are a group termed the gibborim nophelim [sic] me’arelim. The final word, me’arelim, ‘from the uncircumcised,’ should probably be corrected on the basis of the Septuagint . . . to me’olam, and the whole phrase translated ‘those mighty ones who lie there from of old,’ ” Jewish Lore, 69–70. The conjunction of gbryn wnpylyn in QG1 1:2 may be viewed as an appositional construction similar to the expression ‘yr wqdys “Watcher and Holy One” (e.g., Daniel 4:10, 14). However, the phrase might also be related to certain passages that suggest there were three distinct classes (or even generations) of Giants, names for who of which are represented in this line .… [C]ompare Jubilees 7:22: ‘And they bore children, the Naphidim [sic] . . . and the Giants killed the Naphil, and the Naphil killed the ‘Elyo, and the ‘Elyo [killed] human beings, and humanity [killed] one another,” Reeves Jewish Law, 69–70.

For additional analysis of these terms, see also Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits, ed. Jörg Frey (Tübingen: Mohr, 2005), 79–95. ↩

7. Moses 7:14–15 distinguishes between “the enemies of the people of God” (gibborim?) and “the giants of the land” (nephilim?). ↩

8. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 67. ↩

9. Florentino Garcia Martinez, “The Book of Giants (1Q23),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, ed. Florentino Garcia Martinez, 2nd ed, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 9+14+15:2–4; Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Giants (1Q23), 9+14+15:2–4, p. 291. ↩

10. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Giants (1Q23), 9+14+15:2–4, p. 291. ↩

11. Martinez translates the term as “mysteries,” Martinez, “The Book of Giants (1Q23),” 9+14+15:2, p. 291. Stuckenbruck is more cautious and does not attempt translation: “Not enough is visible on 1Q23 14 to verify this reading,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 163. ↩

12. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Tales of the Patriarchs (1QapGen) 1:2, p. 91. Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, ed., The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2004), 1:2, p. 67; Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen ar).” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 1:2, p. 230: “mystery of evil.” See also 2 Thessalonians 2:7 (Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, 120 n. 1:2). For an extended discussion, see Samuel I. Thomas, The “Mysteries” of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scroll (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 180–82. ↩

13. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Giants (4Q531), 22:8, p. 293: “the wild man they call [me].” Contrast “and the hinds of the field are calling,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:8, p. 164, and “and they bellowed a feral roar,” Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” 2:8, p. 262: Regarding translation difficulties in this passage, see Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 163. ↩

14. “As I was journeying, and stood upon the place Mahujah, and cried unto the Lord, there came a voice out of heaven, saying—Turn ye, and get ye upon the mount Simeon.” On the basis of the pronoun “I” that is present in the OT1 manuscript (see Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts [Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2004] 103), and the use of the second-person plural “ye” that appears twice later in the verse, Cirillo argues (correctly, we think) for an alternate reading: “As I was journeying and stood in the place, Mahujah and I cried unto the Lord. There came a voice out of heaven, saying—Turn ye, and get ye upon the mount Simeon,” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 103, punctuation modified. This turns the name Mahujah into a personal name instead of a place name, i.e., Enoch is “standing with” Mahujah, “not on Mahujah” (Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 103). ↩

15. Mahijah (Moses 6:40) and Mahujah (Moses 7:2) are legitimate ways of transliterating variations of a single name that has been preserved in ancient manuscripts in two versions. For example, the Masoretic text of Genesis 4:18 includes both spellings of the name (Mehuja-el and Mehija-el), one right after the other in a context that leaves no doubt that each occurrence is referring to the same individual. See, e.g., Barry L. Bandstra, Genesis 1-11: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 1–11, p. 268). Ronald S. Hendel, The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 47–48 attributes this phenomenon either to a graphic confusion of “y” and “w,” cf. Hugh W. Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1978), 157; Nibley, Enoch, 278; or to linguistic modernization of what seems to be the older form (Mehuja-el). Note that instead of featuring each of the two forms of the name in succession as in the Masoretic text, the Cairo Geniza manuscript gives Mehuja-el twice, whereas the Samaritan version has Mahi-el twice. See Mark Shoulson, ed., The Torah: Jewish and Samaritan Versions Compared (LightningSource, 2008), Genesis 4:18, p. 11. ↩

16. Louis C. Zucker, “Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew,” Dialogue 3/2 (1968): 41–55. ↩

17. Because Joseph Smith retained the “-el” suffix in Moses 5:43, corresponding to Genesis 4:18, a reasonable assumption is that he did not himself recognize an equivalence among Mahujah, Mahijah, and Mehuja-el. ↩

18. John W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 62 n. 4:18 notes the existence of “Mehuja” as a variant spelling of Mehuja-el in a Greek manuscript of Genesis 4:18. Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 41–43 gives two possible meanings of the name Mehuja-el: 1. god/El enlivens; 2. life of god/El, i.e., divine life. Hess sees the former meaning as more probable. ↩

19. The rendering of MHWY from the Book of the Giants that is given most often in English transliterations is Mahawai (keeping the ‘h’ and transliterating the ‘w’ as a consonant), but Mahujah or Mahujah are equally acceptable alternatives. Nibley, Enoch, 278 notes that Mehuja-el appears in the “Greek Septuagint as Mai-el. See Cécile Dogniez and Marguerite Harl, eds. Le Pentateuque d’Alexandrie: Texte Grec et Traduction. La Bible des Septante (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2001), Pentateuque, Genesis 4:18, p. 145; Melvin K. H. Peters, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title: Deuteronomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), Genesis 4:18, p. 8) and in the Latin Vulgate as Mawiah-el, see Robert Weber, ed. Biblia Sacra Vulgata 4th ed. (American Bible Society, 1990), Genesis 4:18, p. 9, showing that Mahujah and Mahijah were the same name, since Mai- (Greek had no internal ‘h’) could come only from Mahi- [MHY-].” Wevers writes that “the Septuagint spelling of Mai-el follows the Samaritan tradition [Mahi-el], with the only difference being the dropped ‘h,’ Wevers, Notes, 62 n.4:18. The [Mahujah] version that we see in the Book of the Giants, which is probably related to Genesis 4:18, shows up in the Latin Vulgate as Maviahel likely due to the fact that Jerome went to the Hebrew version for his translation. He didn’t use the ‘h’ either and made the ‘w’ a consonant (‘v’) instead of a vowel (‘u’) in his transliteration. This is why in the Douay-Rheims Bible (based on the Vulgate), we see the name rendered as Maviael.” Note that the grandfather of the prophet Enoch also bore a similar name to MHWY: Mahalaleel (Genesis 5:12–17; 1 Chronicles 1:2; Moses 6:19–20. See also Nehemiah 11:4). As a witness of how these names can be confused easily, observe that the Greek manuscript used for Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint reads “Maleleel” for “Maiel.” (L. C. Lancelot Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), Genesis 4:18, p. 5).

Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 97, citing the conclusions of Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (Tübingen, Mohr, 1997), 27, considers “that the most conspicuously independent content” in the Book of Giants, “unparallelled in other Jewish literature,” is the names of the giants, including Mahaway [i.e., Mahujah].” Moreover, according to Cirillo: ”The name Mahaway in the [Book of Giants] and the names Mahujah and Mahijah in the [Book of Moses] represent the strongest similarity between the [LDS revelations on Enoch] and the [pseudepigraphal books of Enoch] (specifically the [Book of Giants]).” ↩

20. Nibley, Enoch, 278. Noting the possibility of wordplay, Nibley conjectures that “what the Ma- [in Mahijah] most strongly suggests is certainly the all-but-universal ancient interrogative, Ma (“who?” or “what?”), so that the names Mahujah and Mahijah both sound to the student of Semitics like questions.” ↩

21. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 292. Regarding the details of the first dream, see Reeves, Jewish Lore, 84–90, 95–102. On the second dream, see Reeves, Jewish Lore, 92–93. For more on the interpretation of the dreams, including a discussion of resonances between the Book of Giants and 3 Baruch, see Andrei A. Orlov, “The Flooded Arboretums: The Garden Traditions in the Slavonic Version of 3 Baruch and the Book of Giants.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 65/2 (April 2003): 184–201. ↩

22. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 84. ↩

23. Or “the scribe [who is] set apart,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 91, taking the Aramaic term to describe the separation of Enoch from human society by way of analogy to the description of how Joseph was “set apart from his brethren” (Genesis 49:26) when he went to Egypt Reeves, Jewish Lore, 77. Rashi understood “set apart” in the sense of “separated” or “isolated,” Rashi, The Torah with Rashi’s Commentary Translated, Annotated, and Elucidated. Vol. 1: Beresheis/Genesis, trans. Rabbi Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1995), Genesis 49:26, 4:559; Reeves, Jewish Lore, 139 n.107. ↩

24. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q530),” 2:20–23, p. 261. Cf. the word go in Enoch’s formal commission (Moses 6:32). For more about the use of this form in the commissioning of Mahujah and in similar contexts in the Enoch literature, see Reeves, Jewish Lore, 93–94. An additional phrase in Vermes’s translation implies that Mahujah was chosen because he had been to Enoch for advice before: “previously you listened to his [Enoch’s] voice,” Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, rev. ed. (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 550; cf. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:23, p. 294: “you have heard his voice.” This may correspond to Mahujah’s assertion that this is the second request he has made of Enoch, see Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q530),” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 3:7, p. 261: “For a second time I beg you for an oracle.” “Beyer understands this … passage to signify … that [Mahujah] was the only Giant capable of executing this mission due to his personal acquaintance with Enoch,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 94 n.23. Affirming the idea that Enoch and Mahujah had been previously acquainted, Stuckenbruck cites the Manichaean Uygur fragment in which Enoch calls out Mahujah’s name “very lovingly,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 127 n.140. ↩

25. Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 105. Since the Book of the Giants was not discovered until 1948, Cirillo is obliged to look elsewhere for what he takes to be Joseph Smith’s manuscript source of these ideas. He argues that: “This journey however is not unique to the [Book of the Giants], it is also found (and likely based on) the journey of Methuselah in 1 Enoch (The Birth of Noah, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 106:1-107:3, pp. 536-537) … This format, for one person journeying to Enoch to question him, is evident once more in 1 Enoch (The Apocalypse of Noah, Nickelsburg et al., 1 Enoch 2, 65:1-68:1, pp. 273–74),” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 105–106. A reading of the 1 Enoch accounts will show that the resemblance to the Book of Moses is weak and, moreover, there is no mention of Mahijah or Mahujah in the 1 Enoch accounts. In addition, Cirillo fails to provide any explanation for the other striking similarities between Joseph Smith’s accounts of Enoch and the Book of the Giants that are outlined in this paper. ↩

26. Mahujah identifies himself elsewhere (Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 6Q8, 1:4, p. 292) as the “son of Baraq’el one of the twenty fallen Watchers listed by name in 1 Enoch,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 93. See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:7, p. 174, 8:3, p. 188; Nickelsburg, et al. 1 Enoch 2, 69:2, p. 297, cf. 60:13–15, p. 224. See also Mopsik, Hénoch, 14:4, p. 109, 17:1, 3, pp. 110, 111). In Moses 5:43, the name of Mahuja-el’s father is given as Irad, a prominent member of the secret combination who was killed later by his great-grandson Lamech when he revealed their secrets in violation of deadly oaths he had taken (Moses 5:49–50). In Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:7, p. 174; Nickelsburg, et al., 1 Enoch 2, 69:3, p. 297, Baraq’el is the ninth chief, under the leader Shemihazah, of the Watchers who descended on Mount Hermon and “swore together and bound one another with a curse,” Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:5, p. 174, as they determined to “choose… wives from the daughters of men,” Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:1, p. 174. We learn the secrets that each of the heads of the Watchers revealed to mankind, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 8:3, p. 188,. Elsewhere, we read of their responsibilities of each of these in the governing of the seven heavens, Mopsik, Hénoch, 14:4, p. 109, 17:1, 3, pp. 110, 111; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 60:13–15, p. 224. Baraq’el appears as Virogdad in the Manichaean fragments of the Book of Giants, see Reeves, Jewish Lore, 147 n. 202, p. 138 n. 98. According to Jubilees 4:15, Baraq’el is also the father of Dinah, the wife of Enoch’s grandfather Mahalaleel; see O. S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Jubilees 4:15, p. 61, see also pp. 61–62 n. g. If one assumed the descriptions in the relevant accounts were consistent, this would make the prophet Enoch a first cousin once-removed to Mahujah.

In the Doctrine and Covenants, the name of Enoch (D&C 78, 82, 92, 96, 104) or Baraq’el (= Baurak Ale. D&C 103, 105. Note that Joseph Smith’s approach is simply to follow the lead of his Hebrew teacher, J. Seixas, who seems to have transliterated both the Hebrew letters kaph and qoph with a “k,” so it is difficult to trace what original name he is transliterating), was sometimes used as a code name for Joseph Smith; see David J. Whittaker, “Substituted Names in the Published Revelations of Joseph Smith.” BYU Studies 23/1 (1983): 6. Nibley, observes:

“That Baraq’el is interesting… because[, in the Book of the Giants,] Baraq’el is supposed to have been the father of [Mahujah] . . . A professor in Hebrew at the University of Utah said, “Well, Joseph Smith didn’t understand the word barak, meaning ‘to bless” [Zucker, “Joseph Smith,” 49. William W. Phelps had suggested that “Baurak Ale” meant “God bless you,” see Whittaker, “Substituted Names,” 6.]. But “Baraq’el” means the “lightning of God” [see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, p. 180]. The Doctrine and Covenants is right on target in that. (Nibley, Teachings, 268)

Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 111 cites the conclusion of Quinn, Magic, 224 that the transliteration “Baurak Ale” came from a “direct reading” of Laurence’s English translation of 1 Enoch. Note, however, that Laurence’s transliteration was “Barakel” not “Baurak Ale”—if Joseph Smith simply borrowed this from Laurence, why do the transliterations not match more closely? ↩

27. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:5, p. 174. ↩

28. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 69:13–14, p. 304. ↩

29. For more on the uses of such oaths within and outside of scripture, see J. M. Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Moses 5:29b-d, pp. 377–378; Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Ronan J. Head, “The Investiture Panel at Mari and Rituals of Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 4 (2012): 33–34. ↩

30. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:5, p. 174. ↩

31. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 174. ↩

32. See Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Moses 5:44a, p. 392: “The wording ‘took unto himself’ is paralleled in the description of the illicit relationships of the wicked husbands in the days of Noah (Moses 8:14, 21). Wright observes that “there is no indication … that a marriage actually took place, but rather [the phrase] could be translated and understood as ‘Lamech took to himself two women,’ ” Wright, Evil Spirits, 135–36. ↩

33. See Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Moses 5:47a-54c, pp. 395–99. ↩

34. Moses 5:53: “Lamech had spoken the secret unto his wives, and they rebelled against him, and declared these things abroad, and had not compassion.” ↩

35. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 8:3, p. 188. ↩

36. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q531, 22:5, p. 293. Cf. Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:5, p. 164: “adversaries.” Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” 2:5, p. 262 translates the term as “accusers.” ↩

37. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” 2:6, p. 262. Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:6, p. 164 “and in t]the heavens are seated, and among the holy places they dwell.” ↩

38. Note that LDS scripture teaches that Enoch’s ministry took place in the New World (D&C 107:53–57). ↩

39. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 290. In 1 Enoch, Enoch’s journey to the eastern edge of the world would have been seen as taking him to the “east sea” on the edge of the dry earth, where heaven meets the sea. Enoch’s cosmology is sometimes hard to follow, but at this place he sees the gates where the celestial luminaries emerge. Consistent with ancient perspectives, this “east sea” might be equated to the place of the gate where the sun arose each morning. ↩

40. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 13:7–8, p. 237. ↩

41. The “waters of Dan” in 1 Enoch arguably may be identified with the Sea of Galilee. Although the “sea east” in the biblical text usually refers to the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee (or Kinnereth) is also certainly an “east” sea. See Joshua 12:3; Numbers 34:11–12, where the Sea of Kinnereth is considered the eastern frontier of the Promised Land. In Numbers 13:29, the Canaanites live by this sea. The Sea of Galilee could probably be called the “waters of Dan,” as it borders on that land. Nearby Mt. Hermon is, of course, where the descent of the Watchers and the ascent of Enoch take place. It was also the site of the Transfiguration, the place marking both Heaven and Sheol. Jewish tradition links Mount Hermon with Jerusalem/Zion (the Jordan was thought to have its source at Mt. Hermon), especially for cultic events like the Yom Kippur liturgy. For more on this, see Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, “The Revelation of the Sacral Son of Man: The Genre, History of Religions Context and the Meaning of the Transfiguration,” in Auferstehung—Resurrection: The Fourth Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium, ed. Friedrich Avemarie and Hermann Lichtenberger, (Tübingen: Mohr, 2001), 266–271; Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100/4 (December 1981): 599. ↩

42. Reeves, Sundermann Fragment L I Recto 1–9, Jewish Lore, 109. See also p. 110 n.6 and p. 154 n.306. ↩

43. Nibley, Enoch, 214. See Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 8:1–11, pp. 260–61. ↩

44. Noting that the Book of Giants refers to the second tablet given to Mahujah by Enoch as being a “copy” (F. G. Martinez, Book of Giants (4Q203), 8:3, p. 260), Reeves conjectures: “Perhaps Enoch employed the ‘heavenly tablets’ in the formulation of his interpretation,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 111 n.3. ↩

45. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 98:7–8, p. 468. Cf. 81–82, pp. 333–334, 97:6, p. 467, 104:7, p. 513. ↩

46. Dale C. Allison, Testament of Abraham (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), 10:1, 6–7, 11, p. 254. Likewise, in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Dan, the son of Jacob-Israel, finds the record of the wickedness of the sons of Levi in the book of Enoch, see Howard C. Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Dan 5:6, p. 809: “I read in the Book of Enoch the Righteous that your prince is Satan and that all the spirits of sexual promiscuity and of arrogance . . . cause them to commit sin before the Lord.” See also ibid., Kee, “Testaments,” 5:4, p. 786: “For I have seen in a copy of the book of Enoch that your sons will be ruined by promiscuity”; Naphtali 4:1, p. 812: “I have read in the writing of holy Enoch that you will stray from the Lord, living in accord with every wickedness of the gentiles and committing every lawlessness of Sodom”; Benjamin 9:1, p. 827: “From the words of Enoch the Righteous I tell you that you will be sexually promiscuous like the promiscuity of the Sodomites.” ↩

47. O. S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 10:1, p. 76. ↩

48. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 4:6, p. 260. ↩

49. Nibley, Enoch, 216: “A Hypomnemata, or memorial.” ↩

50. “Abel-Main is the Aramaic form of Abel-Maim . . . (cf. 1 Kings 15:20 and its parallel in 2 Chronicles 16:4). It is modern Tel Abil, situated approximately seven kilometers west-northwest of ‘the waters of Dan,’ at the mouth of the valley between the Lebanon range to the west and Mount Hermon, here called Senir, one of its biblical names (Deuteronomy 3:8–9; cf. Song of Solomon 4:8; Ezekiel 27:5), Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 250 n. 9–10. For more on the history of the sacred geography of this region, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 238–47. ↩

51. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 13:3–5, 8–9, pp. 234, 237. See Nibley, Enoch, 214. ↩

52. Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q203, 8:6-9, p. 90. Cf. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 8:6–9, p. 260: “Know that […] not your deeds and those of your wives […] they and their sons and the wives of [their sons…] for your prostitution in the land.” ↩

53. Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” 160. See Reeves, Jewish Lore, 114 n. 9. Compare Kee, “Testaments,” Dan 5:6, p. 809: “I read in the Book of Enoch the Righteous… that all the spirits of sexual promiscuity … cause [the sons of Levi] to commit sin before the Lord”; Simeon 5:4, p. 786: “For I have seen in a copy of the book of Enoch that your sons will be ruined by promiscuity”; Naphtali 4:1, p. 812: “I have read in the writing of holy Enoch that you will stray from the Lord, living in accord with every wickedness of the gentiles and committing every lawlessness of Sodom”; Benjamin 9:1, p. 827: “From the words of Enoch the Righteous I tell you that you will be sexually promiscuous like the promiscuity of the Sodomites.” ↩

54. Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” 159. ↩

55. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 8:14–15, p. 261. ↩

56. Cf. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of the Giants, 4Q203, 8:14–15: “But now, loosen the bonds [ … ] and pray.” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 65 translates this as: “free your prisoners and pray!” He adduces conjectural evidence for this interpretation from the Manichaean fragments of the Book of Giants that “retain some isolated references to ‘prisoners’ or ‘slaves.’ ” Stuckenbruck similarly reads: “set loose what you hold captive . . . and pray,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q203, 8:14–15, p. 90. ↩

57. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 103. Cf. J. W. Etheridge, ed., The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum from the Chaldee. 2 vols, (repr. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005), Genesis 6:3, p. 47. ↩

58. Alternatively, this phrase is translated by Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q530),” 3:3, p. 261 as “the evidence of the Giants.” ↩

59. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 118 n.3 cites similar Jewish sources that highlight the pride and arrogance of the Giants: H. Anderson, “3 Maccabees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:4, p. 519; Flavius Josephus, Antiquities, 1:3:1; Wisdom of Solomon 14:6, in The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford Study Edition, ed. Samuel Sandmel, M. Jack Suggs and Arnold J. Tkacik (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). ↩

60. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q531, 22:3–7, p. 293. Cf. Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 269. ↩

61. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 2:8, p. 262. Cf. “]rh of the beasts of the field is coming and the hinds of the field are calling,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:8, p. 164. ↩

62. Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” 161. ↩

63. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 66. Compare Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q203, 7 B1:4, p. 83: “he has imprisoned us and defeated yo[u,” and Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 7:5–7, p. 260: “he has seized us and has captured you.” See also the parallel references to the fate of the Watchers in the Genesis Apocryphon, Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, 0:8, p. 65): “And now, look, we are prisoners,” Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Tales of the Patriarchs (1QapGen), 0:8, p. 91: “we are bound” and Martinez, Genesis Apocryphon, 1:1:4, p. 230: “I have oppressed the prisoners,” following Milik—see Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, 118 n.0:8. See also Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 14:5, p. 251: “it has been decreed to bind you in bonds in the earth for all the days of eternity”; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 10:11–13, p. 215: “Go, Michael, bind Shemihazah and the others with him, … bind them … in the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment … Then they will be led away to the fiery abyss (cf. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 221–22 nn.4–6, p. 225 nn.11–13), and to the torture, and to the prison where they will be confined forever.”

For discussions of the theme of the imprisonment of the wicked at the time of Noah as it appears in the Bible, see Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 239–74; Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Caption to Figure E24–1, p. 588; Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 48–51, 225–226; Davids, II Peter and Jude: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2011), 9–11, 69–70; Jerome H. Neyrey, 2 Peter, Jude: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 202; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 560; Annette Y. Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 104–107; Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 58–59; James C. VanderKam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), 172. ↩

64. Daniel C. Peterson, “On the Motif of the Weeping God in Moses 7,” Revelation, Reason, and Faith: Essays in Honor of Truman G. Madsen, ed. Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002), 285–317. Peterson cites J.J.M. Roberts, “The Motif of the Weeping God in Jeremiah and its Background in the Lament Tradition of the Ancient Near East,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays, ed. J. J. M. Roberts (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 132–42. ↩

65. Andrew C. Skinner, “Joseph Smith Vindicated Again: Enoch, Moses 7:48, and Apocryphal Sources,” in Revelation, Reason, and Faith, 373–80. In his discussion, Skinner cites ancient texts such as Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 7:6, 9:2, 87:1, pp. 182, 202, 364; Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q203 Frag. 8:9, p. 294. See also Bakhayla Mika’el, “The Book of the Mysteries of the Heavens and the Earth,” in The Book of the Mysteries of the Heavens and the Earth and Other Works of Bakhayla Mika’el (Zosimas), ed. E. A. Wallis Budge (repr. Berwick, ME: Ibis Press, 2004), 29: “[e]ven the earth complained and uttered lamentations.” Evaluating the wider context of parallels in the linkages between Enoch and Noah in the Book of Moses and 1 Enoch accounts, Cirillo writes: “A human-like earth is not a new idea. An expression of earth as human-like in an account related to Enoch and Noah together, however, is beyond parallels. This is a substantial similarity that cannot be explained away as mere coincidence. In the [Book of Moses] and in [1 Enoch]: A) Enoch has a vision of the impending flood (1 Enoch 91:5; Moses 7:43); B) Enoch sees Noah and his posterity survive (1 Enoch 106:18; Moses 7:43, 52); C) Enoch knows Noah’s future through an eschatological vision directed by God (1 Enoch 106:13-18; Moses 7:44–45, 51); and, D) an anthropomorphized earth suffers only to be healed by Noah (1 Enoch 107:3; Moses 7:48–50). It is not difficult to consider that [1 Enoch] and the [Book of Moses] might share the idea of Enoch and Noah having had a relationship. It is the substantial similarities of the expression of this idea that provide overwhelming cause for consideration, Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 94. ↩

66. In addition to discussing one of the 1 Enoch passages mentioned by Skinner, Peterson follows J. J. M. Roberts in citing examples of Sumerian laments of the mother goddess, Peterson, “Weeping God,” 298–306. ↩

67. Nibley, Enoch, 11–14, 74–75, 205–206. ↩

68. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Jacob Rennaker, and David J. Larsen. “Revisiting the Forgotten Voices of Weeping in Moses 7: A Comparison with Ancient Texts,” Interpreter 2 (2012): 41–71; at http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/revisiting-the-forgotten-voices-of-weeping-in-moses-7-a-comparison-with-ancient-texts/. ↩

69. Cf. Jeremiah 14:17. See also Isaiah 22:4: “Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.” ↩

70. The text reads dammana [“cloud”], which Nickelsburg takes to be a corruption in the Aramaic, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 463–64. Nibley’s interpretation of the motif of the “weeping” of clouds in this verse as a parallel to Moses 7:28 is arguable, Nibley, Enoch, 199. However his translation of 1 Enoch 100:11–13 as a description of the weeping of the heavens is surely a misreading, Nibley, Enoch, 198; cf. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 100:11–13, pp. 503. ↩

71. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 95:1, p. 460. Woodworth observes by way of contrast to the Book of Moses that Enoch’s weeping “comes after he learns that the wicked will not be rescued,” Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 193 n.45, emphasis added. See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 94:10, p. 460: “He who created you will overturn you; and for your fall there will be no compassion, and your Creator will rejoice at your destruction.” ↩

72. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 90:41–42, p. 402. ↩

73. J. C. Reeves, Heralds of that Good Realm, ed. James M. Robinson and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 183. ↩

74. Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1988), 76. Later adepts of mystical Judaism emulated the example of Enoch in a deliberate effort to obtain a vision by weeping. See pp. 75–88. ↩

75. Andersen, 2 Enoch, A (short version), 1:2–4, pp. 105, 107. ↩

76. Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 2, 48 [verso], 27 February 1833, pp. 508–509, spelling and punctuation modernized. The accounts of Enoch’s weeping followed by a vision can be compared profitably to the experience of Lehi who, “because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly,” and “he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit” (1 Nephi 1:6–7). Whereupon the heavens were then opened to him (see 1 Nephi 1:8). See also, e.g., Baruch’s weeping for the loss of the temple, A. F. J. Klijn, “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 35:2, p. 632, quoting Jeremiah 9:1, which was also followed by a vision.

Compare the Apocalypse of Abraham, in which Abraham recites certain words of a “song” taught to him by the angel in preparation for his ascent to receive a vision of the work of God. Abraham’s recitation ends with: “Accept my prayer and… sacrifice… Receive me favorably, teach me, show me, and make known to your servant what you have promised me,” R. Rubinkiewicz, “Apocalypse of Abraham,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 17:20–21, p. 697. The text relates that while Abraham “was still reciting the song” (i.e., a recitation of a fixed set of words he had been taught by the angel), he heard a voice “like the roaring of the sea” (cf. “voice of many waters” in Rubinkiewicz, “Apocalypse,” 17:1, p. 696) and was brought into the presence of the fiery seraphim surrounding the heavenly throne, 18:1–14, p. 698. In such accounts, once a person has been thoroughly tested, the “last phrase” of welcome is extended to him: “Let him come up!” Michael E. Stone, “The Fall of Satan and Adam’s Penance: Three Notes on the Books of Adam and Eve,” in Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays, ed. Gary A. Anderson, Michael E. Stone and Johannes Tromp (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 47; cf. Revelation 4:1: “Come up hither”; Matthew 25:21: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen, “The Apocalypse of Abraham: An Ancient Witness for the Book of Moses,” presented at the 2010 FAIR Conference, Sandy, UT, August 5, 2010, at http://www.fairlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2010_Apocalypse_of_Abraham.pdf.

In his lyrical description of the great and final song of Moses, Philo paints a similar scene, Philo, Virtues, 8:207, a depiction that would have powerfully evoked for Dura Europos synagogue worshipers both the portrait of the divinized Moses and the Orpheus theme in the adjacent tree of life mural, see Erwin R. Goodenough, Symbolism in the Dura Synagogue. 3 vols. (New York: Pantheon, 1964), 9:101, 116–18. For more on the angelic song of divinized humanity as represented within the Ezekiel mural at Dura Europos, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “The Ezekiel Mural at Dura Europos: A Tangible Witness of Philo’s Jewish mysteries?” BYU Studies 49/1 (2010): 17–20, 26–28. ↩

77. See, e.g., discussion in Peterson, “Weeping God,” 285–98. ↩

78. Nibley, Enoch, 5–7, 42–44, 68–70, 189–191, 198–199. ↩

79. Eugene England, “The Weeping God of Mormonism,” Dialogue 35/1 (2002): 63–80. ↩

80. Peterson, “Weeping God.” ↩

81. Terryl L. Givens and Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life (Salt Lake City: Ensign Peak, 2012), 24–25. ↩

82. Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 193 n.44. Similarly, in Paradise Lost, John Milton’s God, “in a particularly disagreeable moment of irony, feigning to be fearful of the rebel armies, laughs the apostate angels to scorn (J. Milton, Paradise Lost, 5:737, p. 115),” John S. Tanner, “Making a Mormon of Milton.” BYU Studies 24/2 (1984): 196). ↩

83. Laurence, Book of Enoch, 10:18, p. 12. ↩

84. Laurence, Book of Enoch, 10:15–16, p. 12. ↩

85. Laurence, Book of Enoch, 53:6, p. 60. The angel speaks specifically of the fallen angels that “seduced those who dwell upon the earth” (53:6, p. 60). ↩

86. Laurence, Book of Enoch, 39:2, p. 42. ↩

87. Laurence, Book of Enoch, 45:3–5, pp. 49–50, 56:3, p. 64. ↩

88. Laurence, Book of Enoch, 49:2, pp. 55–56. In 49:3–4, p. 54 he does, however, speak of “mercy” that will be shown to “others” who repent. ↩

89. Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 191–92. ↩

90. I.e., the inner chambers of the heavenly temple. See also Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 5b, cited in Herbert W. Basser, “A Love for All Seasons: Weeping in Jewish Sources,” in Holy Tears: Weeping in the Religious Imagination, ed. Kimberley Christine Patton and John Stratton Hawley (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 184–85. ↩

91. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, eds.,”Lamentations 24,” Midrash Rabbah 3rd ed. 10 vols. (London, England: Soncino Press, 1983), 41. ↩

92. A profitable comparison also might be made between Moses 7:69 (“Zion is Fled”) and the Dead Sea Scrolls theme of ascension. With texts like the Hodayot and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, it seems the members of the Qumran community were interested in the ascension of not only individuals, but the whole community (cf. City of Enoch in the Book of Moses)—or at least the governing priesthood. The idea that the Heavenly Jerusalem will come down at the Eschaton is another topic worthy of further exploration. ↩

93. David J. Larsen, “Enoch and the City of Zion: Can an Entire Community Ascend to Heaven?” Presented at the Academy of Temple Studies Conference on Enoch and the Temple, Logan, UT and Provo, UT, February 19 and 22, 2013. ↩

94. Givens and Givens, God Who Weeps, 105. ↩

95. Terence Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 149–50. See especially chapter 10, “Prophet, Theophany, and the Suffering of God,” 149–66. The relevance of Fretheim’s work on this topic for Moses 7 was first noted in Peterson, “Weeping God.” ↩

96. P. Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 3 Enoch 10:1, 3, pp. 263–64. ↩

97. Mopsik, Hénoch, 214. Based on careful study of the Aramaic that he presumes to lie behind all uses of the term “son of man,” Maurice Casey criticizes the work of earlier scholars such as Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh, trans. G. W. Anderson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956), and Frederick H. Borsch, The Son of Man in Myth and History (Philadelphia, PA: SCM-Westminster Press, 1967), dismissing their notions of a Primordial Man and of a titular “Son of Man” as “artificial construct[s],” Maurice Casey, The Solution to the ‘Son of Man’ Problem (London: Clark, 2009), 25. In a more recent study, however, Waddell, Comparative Study, 76–85 shows that Casey’s conclusions regarding the “son of man” are problematic in several respects, and marshals evidence from 1 Enoch that Casey ignored in his analysis. In particular, “Casey has not taken into consideration the important evidence that the ‘son of man’ expression in BP [1 Enoch Book of Parables] is developed by midrashing Ezekiel 1 as well as Daniel 7, and that the Son of Man figure in BP is clearly more than just a human being. He is also a preexistent heavenly messiah figure who functions as the eschatological judge … Taken together, these [and other reasons] are what should lead us to conclude that ‘Son of Man’ is a title in BP,” Waddell, Comparative Study, 85.

Significantly, Waddell’s analysis also “indicates that the concept of the messiah in Paul’s thought and the concept of the messiah in the oral transmission of the earliest communities of the Jesus movement (which were later included in the written gospel accounts) grew out of the same soil [as that of the Enochic Son of Man traditions]. They were developed from the same traditions about the Son of Man that Jesus Himself spoke and taught to his disciples. In other words, it is no longer possible to view Paul’s concept of the messiah figure in [the Letters of Paul] and the concept of the messiah figure in the canonical Gospels as distinct and irreconcilable conceptions. The old view that Paul’s messiah was shaped by a non-Jewish, Gentile context and that the messiah in the Gospels was shaped in a Jewish context is no longer tenable. The wedge must now be considered to have been permanently removed,” Waddell, Comparative Study, 208.

In addition, Waddell develops his reasons for the fact that Paul only used “Son of Man” concepts and not “Son of Man” terminology, Waddell, Comparative Study, 186–201. Instead of the traditional argument that Son of Man language would have made no sense to Paul’s Gentile followers, he concludes that Paul avoided this language because of a first-century soteriological debate about how one achieved eternal life.

For a summary of the uses of the term “son of man” in the ancient literature, see Sabino Chialà, “The Son of Man: The Evolution of an Expression,” in Enoch and the Messiah, ed. Bocaccini. For a broad discussion of the use of the term “Son of Man” in the Gospels and in Daniel, see John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 240–76. For additional arguments specifically relating the “Son of Man” title to the Enoch and New Testament literatures, see the work of Margaret Barker, e.g., Margaret Barker, The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity (London: SPCK, 1988), 91–104; Barker, Temple Themes in Christian Worship (London: Clark, 2008), 46–47, 154–65, 188–89, 195–97; Barker, Temple Mysticism: An Introduction (London:SPCK, 2011), 100–106, 134–43. ↩

98. Joseph F. McConkie, Gospel Symbolism (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1985), 147. See Moses 5:24, 32; John 17:12. Philip B. Munoa, Four Powers in Heaven: The Interpretation of Daniel 7 in the Testament of Abraham (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 102, cites rabbinical sources giving support to the idea that Adam and God were not only identical in appearance, but: “could be thought to share the same name, even Adam . . . Lacocque, when discussing how Gnostic speculations about ‘Man’ were anchored in the ‘older Israelite mentality,’ quotes Corpus Hermeticum 10:25 to illustrate how God could be understood as a man: Man on earth is a mortal god; God in the heavens is an immortal man.”

Though the analysis of Borsch has been justly criticized, his wide survey of sources relating to the idea of the “first man” is still useful, Borsch, Son of Man, 55–88. Fletcher-Louis discusses the concept of “angelomorphism” in Second Temple Judaism, as expressed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Enoch literature, and other pseudepigrapha. Describing the destiny of the righteous of the community at Qumran, one text announces: “For these are those selected by God for an everlasting covenant and to them shall belong the glory of Adam,” Rule of the Community 4:22–23 in Martinez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 7. Fletcher-Louis equates this “glory of Adam” to the glory of God, Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 479; see also 17–19. Cf. William Blake, “There is No Natural Religion,” in William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books, ed. David Bindman (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000), 41; Gordon B. Hinckley, “Don’t Drop the Ball.” Ensign 24, November 1994, 46; Lorenzo Snow, The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1984), 15 June 1901, p. 1; Waddell, Comparative Study, 186–201. See also the comprehensive study of the anthropomorphic conception of God in old rabbinic thought by A. Marmorstein, The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinical Literature and The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God (1. The Names and Attributes of God, 2. Essays in Anthropomorphism) (Three Volumes in One) (New York City: KTAV, 1968), vol. 3; James Kugel’s more recent study, The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York: The Free Press, 2003); Edmond L. Cherbonnier, “In Defense of Anthropomorphism,” in Reflections on Mormonism: Judeo-Christian Parallel, ed. Truman G. Madsen (BYU Religious Studies Center, 1978); Esther J. Hamori, “When Gods Were Men”: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature (Berlin: de Gryuter, 2008); and Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Commentary 1:12–c, p. 53, 2:26–c, p. 113.

For additional LDS statements about how God came to be God, see Smith, Teachings, 7 April 1844, pp. 345–46; Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 5 January 1860, p. 102; B. 12 June 1860–b, p. 81; George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, 6 January 1884, p. 26; Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1985), 64; James E. Talmage, “Knowledge Concerning God’s Attributes Essential to Intelligent Worship; The Relationship of Jesus Christ to God, the Eternal Father, Spiritual and Bodily; Relationship of Mankind to Deity” in Conference Reports (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1915), 6 April 1915, p. 123; Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 17 June 1866, p. 249. ↩

99. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 46:2-4, 153; 48:2, 166; 60:10, 233; 62:5, 7, 9, 14, 254; 63:11, 255; 69:26-27, 29, 311; 70:1, 315; 71:14, 17, 320. ↩

100. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 119, emphasis added. The entire discussion is found on pp. 113–23. For additional discussion of the “Son of Man” title from an LDS perspective, see S. Kent Brown, “Man and Son of Man: Issues of Theology and Christology,” in The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1989). In the view of Fletcher-Louis, much of the controversy can be attributed to false dichotomies that have been posited in various descriptions of the identity of the Son of Man, Fletcher-Louis, “Revelation of the Sacral,” 257:

For the interpretation of Daniel 7 commentators are divided into broadly three different camps: (1) those who think the “one like a son of man” is an angel, (2) those who think that he is an individual human, the (royal) messiah, and (3) those who think he is merely a symbol representing the people of God; Israel. The debate ranges widely yet positions tend to be entrenched.

A solution to the problem entails the removal of the boundaries which force a separation between the various alternatives. In the first place it is not necessary, as commentators on all sides assume, to separate out heavenly/divine and earthly/human alternatives. There is a well-established tradition, some of the evidence for which we have examined in the preceding part of this study, that a human being or community can be angelic/divine and so the data pointing to an Israel or earthy messiah is entirely compatible with that pointing to an angel, if we have an angelomorphic human in view. Secondly, whilst there is in fact within Daniel very little evidence for an interest in a Davidic messianism there is much to suggest that a priestly figure is in view in 7:13 (cf. 9:26 where Onias III is an “anointed on”). Israel’s high priest was widely, if not universally, believed to possess a divine or angelic identity. Of course, he also represented or embodied the people of God. This is vividly expressed in his bearing of the names of the twelve tribes of Israel upon his breastplate. He therefore fulfills the requirement for all three interpretations: he is angelic, he represents the people of God and yet he is a concrete individual figure.

↩

101. LDS scholar S. Kent Brown writes:

As we noted earlier, the portrait of an anthropomorphic deity is found repeatedly throughout Jewish and Christian literature. But such an observation does not bring us full circle to what we seek, namely, a title like Man of Holiness or Man of Counsel in Moses 6:57 and 7:35. Interestingly, it is in the Nag Hammadi collection that we draw the closest to such epithets. For instance, according to the documents known as Eugnostos the Blessed and The Sophia of Jesus Christ—or the Wisdom of Jesus Christ—the father of the Son of Man is known as Immortal Man. Within the theological system of these two texts, there “are four principal divine beings: the unbegotten Father; his androgynous image, Immortal Man; Immortal Man’s androgynous son, Son of Man; and Son of Man’s androgynous son, the Savior” (Parrott 206). Before we proceed further, it is important to note that whereas the text called The Sophia of Jesus Christ is certainly a Christian production and depends substantially on Eugnostos, the latter document has been judged to be pre-Christian in its composition (Parrott 206–7). Thus, it cannot have been influenced by Christian notions about Jesus as Son of Man. The extended significance is that any portrayal of Jesus as Son of God, when interchanged with the notion of Jesus as Son of Man, would have been far too late to suggest that Jesus as Son of Man would necessarily mean that his father was called Man as portrayed in the later document called The Sophia of Jesus Christ.

According to Eugnostos, the older text under review here, the name Immortal Man appears nine times (Parrott 214–16 [4]; 219 [1]; 221–24 [4]). Two alternative titles appear once each, First Man (Parrott, p. 215, 78:3) and Man, (Parrott, p. 216, 8:31), underscoring the idea that the father of the figure called Son of Man was called Man and that his chief characteristics were his primacy—and thus his title First Man—and his everlastingness, all leading to his epithet Immortal Man (cf. Moses 7:35; D&C 19: 10–12). And there is more.

In a tractate ascribed to Adam’s son Seth and entitled “the Second Treatise of the Great Seth,” God is referred to as “the Man,”[6] paralleling directly what we just saw in Eugnostos and the Sophia of Jesus Christ. Moreover, a fuller title for God appears as “the Man of the Greatness,” (Gibbons, p. 331, 53:4–5), an epithet which bears a notable similarity to the term Man of Holiness. The most significant observation in the text is that “the Man of the Greatness” is said to be “the Father of truth,” a clear epithet for God (ibid., 53:3–4). Furthermore, deity is also called “the Man of Truth,” (ibid., 53:17), presenting another instance of a remarkable similarity to a title in Moses, that of Man of Counsel. The pairings are not difficult to make, the Man of Greatness with Man of Holiness, and the Man of Truth with Man of Counsel. What is more, I think it not insignificant to note that the section containing the two titles in the Book of Moses is ascribed to a record of Adam, (Moses 6:51–68, especially v. 57), and the treatise in which appear the two corresponding epithets is ascribed to Adam’s righteous son, Seth. In other words, it is in records which come from the family circle of Adam that these almost identical titles for deity appear. To be sure, similar names occur in texts unrelated to Adamic documents such as that ascribed to God in Eugnostos the Blessed. But the names recorded there do not share the notable similarities that those from the Adam/Seth texts exhibit. (Brown, “Man and Son of Man,” 68–69).

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102. Cf. Moses 7:35. Elder Bruce R. McConkie comments: “[W]hen Jesus asked the ancient disciples, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13), it was as though he asked: “Who do men say that I am? I testify that I am the Son of Man of Holiness, which is to say, the Son of that Holy Man who is God, but who do men say that I am?” In this same vein, one of the early revelations given in this dispensation asks: “What is the name of God in the pure language?” The answer: “Ahman.” Question: “What is the name of the Son of God?” Answer: “Son Ahman” (see O. Pratt, 22 October 1854, pp. 99–100; Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 1 (verso), ca. March 1832, 144, pp. 265, 204,” McConkie, New Witness, 59. The term “Son Ahman” is used in Doctrine and Covenants 78:20 and 95:17 (see Edward J. Brandt, “Ahman,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow [New York: Macmillan, 1992], at http://www.lib.byu.edu/Macmillan/). D&C 78:20 originally was given as “Jesus Christ,” but was later modified in the handwriting of William W. Phelps to read “Son Ahman” (see Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 1, 1 March 1832 [D&C 78], 146 [verso], pp. 269, 209). The term also appears as part of the place-name of Adam-ondi-Ahman in D&C 78:15 (1 March 1832), 107:53 (Dating uncertain. See Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Excursus 40: Dating Joseph Smith’s Vision of Adam-ondi-Ahman, pp. 625–26), 116:1 (19 May 1838), 117:8, 11 (8 July 1838). On the meaning of Adam-ondi-Ahman, see Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Excursus 38: The Meaning of Adam-ondi-Ahman, p. 622. ↩

103. Cf. John 5:27: “And [the Father] hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.” For a comparison of the claims of Jesus in this verse to related ideas in the Old Testament (Moses, Daniel) and the pseudepigraphal literature, see Keener, Gospel of John, 1:651–52. Helga S. Kvanvig relates the theme of enthronement and the Son of Man role of judgment to Psalm 110 in which the declaration of sonship is made explicit, Helga S. Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 179–215. See also David J. Larsen, “The Royal Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” PhD diss., St. Andrews University. On the royal tradition, in which the king is the son of God (son of Man), who is raised up and made the righteous judge, with power given him to punish the wicked, see Psalms 2, 72, and 101, especially. Also, e.g., 122:5; 76:8–9; 99:4. ↩

104. E.g., Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 69:27, 311: “And the whole judgment was given to the Son of Man.” ↩

105. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 119. ↩

106. See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 49–50. ↩

107. Cirillo is convinced that “the prophet is right on target” in placing the explicit use of the “Son of Man” motif “on the lips of Enoch when he speaks about Christ,” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 90–91. With respect to the explanation for this congruence of texts, he can countenance no other explanation but that it “indicates knowledge of the Book of Parables [BP] accounts of Enoch and the Son of Man. . . . The NT relies heavily upon the BP and uses the motif extensively in discussions of the Son of Man, without once indicating that knowledge of the Son of Man is in any way attributable to, or can be associated with, Enoch and/or Enochic materials. Yet [Joseph] Smith’s [revelation on Enoch] exhibits a relationship between Enoch and the ‘Son of Man’ motif otherwise unknown to those reading only the Old and New Testaments. Smith recounts Enoch discussing the Son of Man a total of seven times. Could this be a mere coincidence? Of all the prophets in the [Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants], why Enoch?” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 91. ↩

108. Mopsik, Hénoch, p. 214. ↩

109. D&C 76:57–58 (16 February 1832). Cf. JST Genesis 14:27–28. ↩

110. “Sons Ahman, the human family, the children of men,” Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 1 (verso), ca. March 1832, 144, pp. 265, 206; spelling and punctuation modernized. ↩

111. For discussions of ceremonial representations of the process of becoming a Son of God in Mesopotamian and Jewish settings, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Ezekiel Mural”; Bradshaw and Head, “Investiture Panel.” Fletcher-Louis similarly describes an angelomorphic form of worship in the Dead Sea Scrolls community in Fletcher-Louis, “Reflections”; Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam. For analogues in the LDS tradition, see Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Oath and Covenant. ↩

112. John W. Welch, The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 57–62. Cf. John W. Welch, The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 116–20. See Smith, Documentary History, 14 November 1835, 2:312. More to the point, the Prophet urged his followers to “go on to perfection, and search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Godliness,” Smith, Teachings, 16 June 1844, p. 364. In this context, see also his frequent citations (and emendations) of Hebrews 5:1, Smith, Documentary History, 18 June 1840, 4:136; Teachings, 1 September 1835, p. 82, 15 October 1843, p. 328, 10 March 1844, p. 338, 8 April 1844, p. 360). ↩

113. A. Caquot, “Pour une étude de l’initiation dans l’ancien Israel,” in Initiation, ed. C. Bleeke (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 121; translation by Nibley. ↩

114. Alexander, “3 Enoch”; Mopsik, Hénoch. ↩

115. Journal of Discourses, 1 January 1877, p. 303. ↩

116. Nibley, Enoch, 19–20. ↩

117. Mopsik, Hénoch, 214. ↩

118. Woodworth sees this as one of the most significant differences between the Joseph Smith Enoch and the pseudepigraphal 1 Enoch: “Enoch in the book of Moses walks with God not alone, but with all the redeemed prodigals,” “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 192.

Other than the Mandaean Enoch fragment cited previously (Migne, “Livre d’Adam,” 21, p. 170), Adolph Jellinek provides the only explicit analog we have found so far to the Book of Moses idea that others besides Enoch ascended with him:

It happened at that time, that as the children of men were sitting with Enoch he was speaking to them, that they lifted up their eyes and saw something like a great horse coming down from heaven, and the horse moving in the air [wind] to the ground, And they told Enoch what they had seen. And Enoch said to them, “It is on my account that that horse is descending to the earth; the time and the day have arrived when I must go away from you and no longer appear to you.” And at that time that horse came down and stood before Enoch, and all the people who were with Enoch saw it. And then Enoch commanded, and there came a voice to him (literally “a voice passed over him”) saying, “Who is the man who delights to know the ways of the Lord his God? Let him come this day to Enoch before he is taken from us” (“him” is emended to read “us”). And all the people gathered together and came to Enoch on that day .…

And after that he got up and rode on the horse, and he went forth, and all the children of men left and went after him to the number of 800,000 men. And they went with him for a day’s journey. Behold, on the second day he said to them, “Return back to your tents; why are you coming?” And some of them returned from him, and the remainder of them went with him six days’ journey, while Enoch was saying to them every day, “Return to your tents lest you die.” But they did not want to return and they went with him. And on the sixth day men still remained, and they stuck with him. And they said to him, “We will go with thee to the place where thou goest; as the Lord liveth, only death will separate us from thee!” (cf. 2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6; Ruth 1:17) And it came to pass that they took courage to go with him, and he no longer addressed [remonstrated with] them. And they went after him and did not turn away.

And as for those kings, when they returned, they made a count of all of them (who returned) to know the number of men who remained, who had gone after Enoch. And it was on the seventh day, and Enoch went up in a tempest [whirlwind] into heaven with horses of fire and chariots of fire. And on the eighth day all the kings who had been with Enoch sent to take the number of the men who had stayed behind with Enoch [when the kings left him] at the place from which he had mounted up into the sky. And all the kings went to that place and found all the ground covered with snow in that place, and on top of the snow huge blocks [stones] of snow. And they said to each other, “Come, let us break into the snow here to see whether the people who were left with Enoch died under the lumps of snow.” And they hunted for Enoch and found him not because he had gone up into the sky. Adolph Jellinek, ed., Bet ha-Midrasch. Sammlung kleiner midraschim und vermischter Abhandlungen aus der ältern jüdischen Literatur. 6 vols. (Leipzig: Vollrath, 1857), 4:131–32.

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119. Larsen, “Enoch and the City of Zion.” ↩

120. Dallin H. Oaks, “The Challenge to Become,” Ensign 30, November 2000, 32–34. ↩

121. Smith, Teachings, 7 April 1844, 350. ↩

122. Webb, Jesus Christ, 253. ↩

123. For more on this verse, James Starr, “Does 2 Peter 1:4 Speak of Deification?” in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), and Blake T. Ostler, Of God and Gods (Draper, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 392–95. ↩

124. Elder John A. Widtsoe, cited in Archibald F. Bennett, Saviors on Mount Zion: Course No. 21 for the Sunday School (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1950), 11–12; Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 216. ↩

125. As Elder Bruce C. Hafen expressed it:

Christ’s love is so deep that He took upon Himself the sins and afflictions of all mankind. Only in that way could He both pay for our sins and empathize with us enough to truly succor us—that is, run to us—with so much empathy that we can have complete confidence that He fully understands our sorrows. So, to love as Christ loves probably means that we will taste some form of suffering ourselves, because the love and the affliction are but two sides of the same coin. Only by experiencing both sides to some degree can we begin to understand and love other people with a depth that even begins to approach Christ’s love. (Bruce C. Hafen, Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009], 30).

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126. Truman G. Madsen, “The Suffering Servant,” The Redeemer: Reflections on the Life and Teachings of Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 234. See Romans 8:17; 2 Corinthians 4:10; Galatians 2:20, 6:17; Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, 5:4–a, p. 355, Excursus 37: Traditions About the Role of Abel, p. 617; Solomon C. Malan, The Book of Adam and Eve (repr. San Diego, CA: Book Tree, 2005), 1:69, pp. 83–84; Isaac Mika’el, son of Bakhayla, “Discourse Concerning the Mystery of the Godhead and the Trinity,” in Book of Mysteries, ed. Budge, 136. ↩

127. John E. Seaich, Ancient Texts and Mormonism: Discovering the Roots of the Eternal Gospel in Ancient Israel and the Primitive Church (2nd ed., Salt Lake City: n. p., 1995), 550. Regarding the “eternal act of love which began in the heavens,” see Revelation 13:8: “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Gross notes that “to imitate the ‘passion’ of a hero-savior in order to ensure salvation” is the heart of the mysteries, Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica (Anaheim, CA: A & C Press, 2002), 87. Cf. P. E. S. Thompson’s observation that the story of God’s choosing of Abraham—and later of Israel—”was to demonstrate that it was not an election to privilege … but to responsibility for all mankind,” cited in LaCocque, Trial, 19. Commenting on Romans 8:17, LDS scholar James Faulconer observes: “Paul puts only one condition on the heirship of those who will be adopted into the household of God: We must suffer with Christ … He is not saying that just as Christ could not escape suffering, we too cannot escape. Rather, he says that we suffer the same thing as Christ if we are heirs with him: inheriting the same thing requires suffering the same thing,” James E. Faulconer, The Life of Holiness: Notes and Reflections on Romans 1, 5-8 (Provo, UT: Maxwell Institute, 2012), 405. For additional LDS perspectives on this idea, see Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Oath, 78, 180 n.389. ↩

128. Samuel Zinner, “Underemphasized Parallels between the Account of Jesus’ Baptism in the Gospel of the Hebrews/Ebionites and the Letter to the Hebrews and an Overlooked Influence from 1 Enoch 96:3: ‘And a Bright Light Shall Enlighten You, and the Voice of Rest You Shall Hear from Heaven,’ ” at http://www.samuelzinner.com/world-literature.html ↩

129. See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen, “Ancient Affinities within the LDS Book of Enoch, Part 1,” Interpreter 4 (2013): 19, http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/ancient-affinities-within-the-lds-book-of-enoch-part-one/. ↩

130. Although there is no mention of “rest” in the account of Enoch’s divine commission, the term appears frequently in later passages from the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses dealing with the lament of the earth and the promise that it should receive “rest” in the last days (Moses 7:48, 54, 58, 61, 64). Perhaps of greater relevance is the statement in Abraham 1:2 that, “finding greater happiness and peace and rest” for himself, the patriarch “sought for the blessings of the fathers” (i.e., the greater priesthood and its office of high priest). ↩

131. George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, eds., 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012), 96:3, p. 145. Cf. 1 Enoch 91:1, 136, which speaks of “a voice calling me, and a spirit poured out upon me.” Relating to the theme of reigning, Zinner also notes 1 Enoch 96:1 that speaks of the “authority” that the “righteous” will have over the “sinners” (Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch, 96:1, 145). ↩

132. Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch, 71:14–16, 95. ↩

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