Johnathan Arnold is described, in part, as, “husband and father, pastor of Redeemer Wesleyan Church, global trainer with Shepherds Global Classroom, and founder of holyjoys.org. He is the author of The Kids’ Catechism and The Whole Counsel of God: A Protestant Catechism and Discipleship Handbook (forthcoming).”
It was he and a certain Travis Johnson who wrote the article Fallen Angels and the Nephilim: Jude 6, Genesis 6, and 1 Enoch wherein they ask:
One such text is Jude 6, which speaks of rebellious angels who are now bound in eternal chains:
“The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.”
To which angels is Jude referring? Is Jude referring to “the sons of God” in Genesis 6, from whom the Nephilim descended, or to the Book of 1 Enoch?
Jude and 2 Peter 2 combined refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.
So, if they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring.
The only distinction between, “‘the sons of God’ in Genesis 6” and, “the Book of 1 Enoch” is that in the latter text they’re referred to as Watchers: 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
Due to what I noted about the Jude and Peter combo, when they note, “It’s possible that Jude is simply referring to fallen angels in general” that is the case and the Gen 6 Angels are the only game in town, they are the only fallen Angels.
As for what they put as, “fallen angel or ‘demon’”: there’s a technical difference since demons didn’t exist during what I term the Gen 6 affair: please see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
Part of my answer incorporates into this thusly into another point they made, “‘kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness’ could be understood figuratively—demons are constantly plagued…”:
Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
Thus, fallen Angels are physically kept in eternal chains while their spirits roam the Earth as demons.
As for what they put as, “demons are constantly plagued by the knowledge of the certain and inescapable judgment of God that is yet to come” that is part of why they dread being sent into the Abyss (correlateable to what Peter has as Tartarus) since when they are sent there, they reinhabit their Angel bodies and are stuck doing hard time for decades or centuries or millennia.
So, when they note, “While it’s possible that Jude 6 refers to fallen angels in general, there are reasons to think that Jude may be referring to a specific group of angels who committed a more heinous breach of authority and were uniquely punished by God” that is a false dichotomy since the, “fallen angels in general” are, “a specific group of angels” at once.
Focusing on Nephilim, they note:
Numbers 13:32–33 suggests that the Nephilim were also giants: “all the people that we saw in [the land] are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The Hebrew word “Nephilim” means “fallen ones,” but the Septuagint translates it as “gigantes,” meaning “giants.” This is significant, once again, because the Septuagint was the Bible translation of Jude’s day.
For some odd reason, they didn’t tell their readers that for, “Nephilim were also giants” they’re relying on:
1. One single unreliable sentence
2. From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim)
3. Of an unreliable “evil report”
4. By 10 unreliable guys
5. Whom God rebuked—to death
6. Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible
7. Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
This is part of why referring to citations if too vague since the statement ought to have been, “one unreliable sentence from one unreliable evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked suggests that…”
They noted, “Nephilim were also giants” and, “the Septuagint [aka LXX] translates it as ‘gigantes,’ meaning ‘giants’” but that just begs the question: what does giants mean. More specifically: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s the LXX’s and Arnold’s and Johnson’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
The fact is that gigantes actually means earth-born—see my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
They note, “some fourth-century church fathers, such as Julius Africanus and Cyril of Alexandria, began to interpret ‘sons of God’ as righteous men from the line of Seth (the Sethite interpretation), there was a consensus among the earliest Christian and Jewish commentators that Genesis 6 referred to an angelic rebellion (the angelic interpretation).”
Indeed, the Sethite view is late-dated (and premised on myth and prejudice) and the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the Angel view as I proved in my book On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not?: A Survey of Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries Including Notes on Giants and the Nephilim.
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