This is based on combining two Naked Bible podcasts – Naked Bible 93: The Book of Enoch in the Early Church and Naked Bible 94: The Sin of the Watchers and Galatians 3-4.
The first is a fuller explanation of something we should have already absorbed. The Early Church leadership took the 1 Enoch seriously enough that some argued for making it part of the canon. He names some major figures in early church teaching. The primary reason is because it was clear the Apostles took the story of Enoch seriously.
I’ve already explained that there is obviously an oral lore behind the written version. While the book is obviously embellished with rabbinical nonsense, the core of the narrative is clearly referenced in the New Testament. It helps to explain where demons come from and how they act with a very clear strategy of persuading mankind to destroy itself.
Clearly, a very significant element in God’s wrath on sin is turning the Nephilim loose to sucker humans into self-degradation. This in itself is a form of punishment for rejecting Him. If you will not embrace His Word, you shall have more sin and self-destruction than you can comprehend. This is as important as natural disasters in trying to understand things like the Book of Revelation. God’s wrath starts with delusion and depravity.
After laying this groundwork, in the subsequent podcast Heiser explains how Galatians 3-4 are best understood in light of this. Adam sinned only once. The Fall cannot account for the Law of Moses because the Fall in itself is not sufficient explanation for human depravity. This is one of the myths of common church teaching, particularly in evangelical circles. Paul was well schooled in Second Temple theology, and that would include the concept that there were no Nephilim outside of Eden until much later. The level of human depravity we see leading up to the Flood cannot be explained by the Fall. There was that second rebellion mentioned in Genesis 6 but explained in the story of Enoch.
Second Temple teaching insisted that the Law of Moses was given because of the sins of the Watchers and their progeny teaching human depravity. If you survey the Old Testament, you’ll see very little mention of blaming Adam for the sorrows of the world. The strategy of Babel could not have come from the Fall alone. There had to be some outside source for such grand planning. What Paul writes in Galatians is best understood by recognizing that he had the Watchers in mind.
It’s obvious that Paul says the gospel does everything the Law of Moses could not do. The Law was a good thing, but it was never meant to open the door to Eternity. It was meant to preserve a nation from the gross sins of the Watchers so that the final solution could be born from that nation – the Messiah.
And the idea that the Law was not the pinnacle of revelation was already established in Jewish teaching. The notion of the primacy of the Law for the Jewish people is a common myth among modern theologians. It was not so. They felt the Book of the Watchers (the critical part of 1 Enoch) and Jubilees were more important. Those two books focus on the wider plan of God to redeem the whole human race, not just Israel.
Thus, Paul says the Torah was not really part of the Covenant of Abraham; it did not fulfill the promise God made to him. Enoch was granted this refined depth of revelation – a sort of tour of the cosmos – that is not part of the Torah but covered a much larger divine strategy that we think of as the thesis of the Unseen Realm. His revelation was prior to that of Moses.
Thus, for the believers in Galatia to hunker down from persecution and try to go back to the Law of Moses was an unspeakable tragedy. Take a look at Galatians 3.
When you get to verse 19, Paul asks, “Why the Law?” What was the point? The notion that the Law clarified what sin is would be missing the point. The grammar points us to the pre-existing condition of depravity arising from the sin of the Watchers and their plan to infest humanity with the Nephilim. The Law was never meant to help Gentiles, but only to set things up for His own portion of humanity. Their struggle with the Law would expose the need for a Messiah. The Messiah came to reverse all Three Rebellions (Genesis 3, 6 and 11).
Humanity did not become guilty because of Adam. Everyone became mortal with Adam. This is also stated in the Second Temple literature, specifically 4 Ezra 3:20-22; 7:116ff; 2 Baruch 54:13-22; Life of Adam and Eve, sections 12-17; these inform our understanding of Romans 5:12. The image we get is where Michael commands the Council and Lucifer to revere the humans who carried the Spirit of God and were made to manifest His image in Creation. Lucifer refused contemptuously and this was the birth of his rebellion.
The Watchers transgressed God’s design for them; they “left their first estate” says 2 Peter 2:4-5 and Jude 6. They seduced the humans and permanently changed Creation itself.
The mediation mentioned in Galatians 3:19ff refers to the whole Council being involved in what happened at Mount Sinai. Remember, the NT term “angels” covers all the Heavenly Host because there is only one Greek word for all of that, and no grammar to differentiate unless Paul uses terms that normally refer to “principalities and powers”. Moses was not the “intermediary” here. Rather, the “one” Paul refers to is God in a human manifestation (Deuteronomy 9:9–10).
Envision Moses ascending into the cloud to see God enthroned with a host of beings sitting in council, and the Living Word of God handles the tablets. Paul says don’t get lost here, folks – God is One. Read the rest of Galatians 3.
Now recall the scene in Psalms 82: God is not happy with the negligence of His Elohim Council. God is going to preserve a remnant of humanity with the Law. The Law is important, but it’s not the final answer. The Messiah is that answer. Galatians 4 describes humanity in that custody under the Law. The custody ends with the coming of the Messiah. The reference to “elementary principles” (4:3, 9) would be better translated as “cosmic entities”. And 4:10 refers to pagan astrology, not the Jewish calendar. Paul is denying that the celestial bodies are deities.
Also, note that Jesus being born legitimately (“under the law”) is in contrast to the Watchers and their Nephilim children. Thus, we see how Jesus reversed all Three Rebellions. We will eventually take the place of the Elohim Council.
