A Bit of Gossip.

The Apocrypha is a collection of  ancient books excluded from the official Bible. The term means, ‘things hidden away’, and they had to be for hundreds, even thousands of years. Possession of one of these books could get you killed.

Painfully killed.

And why?

because they were complicated?

No, because they made people think and ponder and ask embarrassing questions.

like why is God so cranky?

Yes, but way more than that. Some books were sooo forbidden that they didn’t even make it as far as the Apocrypha. The book of Enoch was one such super forbidden book.

How forbidden?

Well, it was thrown out by the Council of Laodicea in 364 AD…… and never seen again until the late 19th century when an explorer found a few copies in Ethiopia that had been squirreled away before the Council got their angry paws on it.

They suppressin’ consciousness…..

Big time. And when you read it, which you can these days without having your finger nails pulled out, it reads like a fairly standard Old Testament book. And it was written by Enoch himself mostly, who was only 7 generations from Adam which made him Noah’s great Grandad.

Aw, and still they didn’ wannit?

Nope, one of the few truly antediluvian texts, nearly 6 thousand years old, full of stuff about floods and wrath and angels. Just what you’d expect.

So, what was the problem?

Well, it didn’t quite match up to St Augustin’s veiws on… morality.

They had rude bits?

Very rude, and also.. er.. a different account of why the flood was necessary….

I know, because we’re bad..

Not quite. It was all a very embarrassing kerfuffle. The problem wasn’t human lust but Angels’ lust…

Angels got lust?

have a peek..

In the generation of my father Jared some of the angels of heaven transgressed the word of the Lord.  And behold they commit sin and transgress the law, and have united themselves with women and commit sin with them, and have married some of them, and have begot children by them….

There was more than  the one fallen angel…?

Yeees, about 200 of them actually, rebelled against you know who and decided to come down to earth and find human wives. Which is why women in that part of the world wear shawls over their hair to this day.

So, the Angels can’t spot them?

Quite so, anyway they didn’t stop there. They taught us all kindsa interesting stuff, like Secrets of Plants and Healing and beautification of the eyelids…

Wisdom/Hokmah stuff….

Shhhh….!

DONT SPEAK HER NAME…

Sorry, please forgive my foolish friend…. Like Prometheus, Azazel and his mates gave us lots of knowledge which pissed God off really badly. And there’s more…

more embarrassment?

You bet. Why do you think all those angels showed their fancy to the ladies?

‘Cos God was getting divorced and they were on …..Her side?

Ssshhh… and more…. The angel Uriel who was ‘good’, went and showed Enoch all the stars of Heaven and their names and what they meant.

They were constemlations  of power…….

Yes, he’s given the tour of heaven, knows where the powers are and how to access them. And it seems like even Uriel prefers the moon over the sun if you get my drift…

For the sun changes oft for a blessing or a curse,
And the course of the path of the moon is light to the righteous

Oooohh…

Yeah, and it turns out that the flood was sent to wipe out the children of the angels except…

What?

Noah was the child of an Angel himself…. when he was born

his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah. 5. And he said unto him: ‘I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. 6. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me….

Ooops! An God let him live..?

that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons.

That is a bit embarrassing…

There’s worse.. He mentions She Who Must Not be Named himself…

Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men,
And found no dwelling-place:

 Whom she sought not she found,
And dwelt with them,

As rain in a desert
And dew on a thirsty land.

So, Wisdom lives  amongst us .. and Noah was the son of an Angel…but if he, then we…

Ssshhh….