A Final Word on Sons and Watchers
In response to: Micah Longmire’s rejoinder to “When the Logos Interprets”
Micah has written a careful and substantive rejoinder, and I’m grateful for the exchange. Iron has sharpened iron. But his response clarifies something I suspected from the beginning: we’re not merely disagreeing about Hebrew grammar or the referent of a phrase. We’re operating from different hermeneutical frameworks.
Micah’s case depends, at crucial points, on the Watchers tradition. The specific identification of the Genesis 6 transgression as sexual union between angels and humans, the imprisonment in Tartarus as punishment for that particular sin, the Nephilim as angel-human hybrids: none of this is stated in Genesis. It comes from 1 Enoch and the interpretive tradition it represents. Micah can trace a canonical chain through Job and the Psalms, and he does so ably. But when he reaches Genesis 6, the chain requires links forged outside the canon.
He acknowledges as much when he notes that Jude “knew the Enochic literature,” “drew from it,” and “expected his readers to recognize the reference.” The argument is that Jude’s audience would have heard Genesis 6 through Enochic categories, and therefore we should too.
I cannot follow him there.
The analogia fidei is my standard. I will gladly consult extra-biblical sources for historical and grammatical context. But I categorically refuse them in matters of spiritual interpretation. If the Watchers can supply the meaning of “sons of God,” why not Lilith? Why not the Book of Jubilees’ elaborations? Why not the Testament of Reuben? The line must be drawn somewhere. I draw it at the canon.
This doesn’t make Micah’s reading absurd or his scholarship careless. It makes our frameworks incompatible on this particular question. He reads Genesis 6 through a tradition that includes 1 Enoch as interpretive context. I read it through the rule of faith and the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture, with no tradition holding veto power over the canonical text.
We’ve both made our cases. The readers can judge. And I’ll look forward to his forthcoming work where perhaps we’ll find more common ground.
In the meantime, I remain his father, his brother in Christ, and his grateful interlocutor.
The original exchange:
Against the Genesis 6 Connection in Jude 6-7 and 2 Peter 2:4-10 — JD Longmire
Job 1:6: An Ancient Consensus on Angelic Titles — Micah Longmire
When the Logos Interprets: A Response to the Angelic Consensus — JD Longmire
The Things Revealed: A Rebuttal — Micah Longmire