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So I’ve been studying the book of Enoch for a series of episodes I’d like to begin next year, and I found something that just can’t wait until 2026. It’s too cool.
The Book of Enoch- which is a controversial book- which is not part of the biblical canon- which has a lot of legitimate questions about its authenticity- which was written before Jesus was born- predicts the timing of when the Messiah would come into this world.
I truly did not realize that a prophecy which was this specific was supposedly told to Enoch all the way back before the flood of Noah.
And we can confirm it by the Bible itself, because Luke 3- which you may have read this month if you’ve been looking at the Christmas story this time of year- Luke 3 gives us a genealogy of all the generations from Adam to Jesus.
Genealogies are not usually the most interesting thing to read, but the Bible has a lot of them. And I find that to be weird, and I’d like to explore whether what the Book of Enoch predicts about the future correlates with what’s in the Bible.
Turn to Luke 3, and let’s get weird.
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0:00 - Introduction
2:00 - God’s Number
6:20 - Sixes and Sevens
14:20 - Preaching to the Spirits
18:05 - Next Time & Giveaway
20:20 - The 78th Generation
If you want to get in touch, my email is weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
Hosted by Luke Taylor
If you’re intrigued by strange Bible stories, uncovering Bible mysteries, or learning about unusual biblical teachings, this podcast is for you! Dive deep into weird Bible facts, biblical controversies, and the supernatural in the Bible, while exploring the hidden stories of the Bible you may have never heard. Get a fresh perspective as we explain the Bible in ways that challenge the norm and uncover the unexpected. I’m so glad you’re here- don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE so that you never miss an episode!
What is Weird Stuff in the Bible?
Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
Dive deeper! Sign up for the newsletter (and catch up on past newsletters) at this link: https://weirdstuffinthebible.beehiiv.com/
Did Enoch Predict the Timing of Christmas?
Matthew 1
Introduction
So I’ve been studying the book of Enoch for a series of episodes I’d like to begin next year, and I found something that just can’t wait until 2026. It’s too cool.
The Book of Enoch- which is a controversial book- which is not part of the biblical canon- which has a lot of legitimate questions about its authenticity- which was written before Jesus was born- predicts the timing of when the Messiah would come into this world.
I truly did not realize that a prophecy which was this specific was supposedly told to Enoch all the way back before the flood of Noah.
And we can confirm it by the Bible itself, because Luke 3- which you may have read this month if you’ve been looking at the Christmas story this time of year- Luke 3 gives us a genealogy of all the generations from Adam to Jesus.
Genealogies are not usually the most interesting thing to read, but the Bible has a lot of them. And I find that to be weird, and I’d like to explore whether what the Book of Enoch predicts about the future correlates with what’s in the Bible.
Turn to Luke 3, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
The Genealogy of Luke
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about what we can learn from the genealogy in Luke 3- including whether it verifies a prediction or prophecy given in the Book of Enoch.
So let’s talk about the genealogy we find in Luke 3. Specifically, Luke 3:23-38. It begins like this:
23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi,
And on and on and on it goes, recounting names of individuals that we recognize, as well as many that we don’t. It goes through Zerubbabel and King David and Boaz and Jacob, going all the way back to Noah and on back to Adam. In fact, let me just read the last 6 or 7 names so you can see how it finishes out:
the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
And then after Adam, it says:
the son of God.
Because Adam was directly created by God, and that’s what it means to be a son of God: to be a direct creation of God.
Jesus is also called The Son of God, as Jesus was supernaturally created- not of a man’s seed but of a supernatural conception- and placed within the womb of the virgin Mary. That’s why it said at the start of the genealogy that Jesus was the son “as was supposed” of Joseph.
Anyway, we could have read the entire genealogy, but the entire thing is 77 names long and it would have taken me a while, and most of you probably would have turned this off if I did. So you can go read it if you like, but I want to point out a few technical details about it.
First of all, the number of names in there: 77. There were 77 generations from Adam to Jesus. That’s quite interesting because 7 is God’s number. It’s considered the number of perfection or completion. Many many many things in the Bible seem to be in 7s or in multiples of 7. 7 days of creation, 7 feasts in Leviticus, 7 parts of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11, 7 marches around Jericho in the book of Joshua with 7 times on the 7th day. The book of John famously has the 7 miracles and 7 I Am statements of Jesus. And then you get into the book of Revelation where it’s 7 after 7 after 7.
And those are just some of the explicit ones. There are a lot of implicit 7s in the Bible as well. Many of us know about Jesus writing the 7 letters to 7 churches, but did you know Paul wrote to 7 churches as well? He has like 13 New Testament epistles, but he only wrote to 7 churches.
Here’s one of my favorites: how many books does the Bible have? Most Christians would tell you there are 66 books in the Bible, but I like to say there are 70. No, I am not saying the book of Enoch is Scripture; and anyway, that would only make it 67. When I say there are 70 books in the Bible, I’m not adding any books; I’m actually splitting Psalms up into 5 books, because that’s actually how it’s supposed to be. You’ll notice chapter 1 says “Book I of the Psalms,” and when you get to chapter 42 it says, “Book II of the Psalms,” and Psalms is actually in 5 parts. So that means there are 70 books of the Bible. Which makes perfect sense, because so many things in Scripture are in multiples of 7. Chuck Missler calls this the Hepatic Structure of the Bible. It’s God’s signature. When you see something in a grouping of 7 or a multiple of 7, it’s kind of like God is saying: I did that. That’s God’s framework.
So last week, we kind of had an English lesson with our digging into words and puns. Today, we’re going to go into the only thing I hate more than puns: math.
And don’t worry, we’re not doing something complicated today like finding the square root of 4,489. If you can count to a hundred, you’ll be more than well equipped to follow today’s lesson. I am a words guy, not a numbers guy. So if I can get it, you can get it.
Sixes and Sevens
Now, before we go on, I’ll mention that Luke’s genealogy of Jesus is just a little bit different from Matthew’s. This is not a contradiction. Luke’s genealogy goes from Adam to Joseph, the father of Jesus. In Matthew’s genealogy, it actually starts at Abraham and traces Jesus’ lineage down to Mary.
Matthew’s genealogy therefore doesn’t have as many names. That one only counts 52 generations, and it splits them into 14s: 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David to the Babylonian exile, and 14 generations from the exile until Jesus.
14, of course, is a group of two 7s. So in Matthew’s gospel, there are six 7s of generations, and Jesus begins the seventh seven.
The significance there is that God rested on the seventh day of creation back in Genesis, so one could say that seven is a number of rest. From then on, the seventh day was known as the Sabbath rest. And then Hebrews 3-4 tells us that Jesus is our Sabbath rest. So we have a really cool correlation there with Jesus as the 7th seven. He is the rest of God.
What’s also interesting about Matthew’s genealogy is that not only is the number of names divisible by 7, and the number of generations divisible by 7, but it also includes the mention of 7 women.
So both Matthew and Luke’s genealogies have names grouped in 7s; and again, Luke has more of them because his goes all the way back to Adam, so his genealogy has 77 names.
Now let’s talk about the 7th guy in Luke’s genealogy: Enoch. This is one of the most fascinating characters in the Bible because he was taken to heaven without dying, which makes him the first rapture in Scripture. (I’ve done a few episodes talking about that). Enoch also had a prophecy- recorded in the book of Enoch- which was quoted in
Jude 14-15
It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
This is a prophecy about the end times, the world at the second coming of Christ. Enoch was saying that when the Lord returns, it will be judgment day. Anyone who isn’t on Team Jesus by that point is toast.
Since the book of Enoch is not Scripture, some have tried to explain away this true prophetic word by saying it was a different Enoch. Or that perhaps some true prophet was just writing this in Enoch’s name, but that Enoch himself didn’t actually say it. But Jude quotes it by specifying: “Enoch, the seventh from Adam.” Therefore, it can’t be some rando. It must be the Enoch who lived before the flood.
And so he must have written this prophecy down and someone took it on the Ark and it was preserved for all that time. And by the time of the First Century, the Book of Enoch was well-known literature, even though it wasn’t preserved as perfectly as the Bible. There’s some words and maybe entire sentences missing here and there. But it was a book known to the readers of the early church and ancient Jews, including Jesus himself, and some of the New Testament authors refer to details in it.
By the way, that prophecy is found in Enoch’s first chapter. Jude quotes it word-for-word in his letter. So we have scriptural verification that this was a legitimate prophecy written by Enoch, 7th from Adam, who lived before the flood.
Something else interesting about Enoch’s book is that there’s another prophecy given in its tenth chapter. In this chapter, God is pronouncing a judgment on the Watchers or fallen Sons of God, and Enoch is writing it down.
For some context: before the flood- actually, this was the reason there was a flood- some angelic beings called the Sons of God (AKA the Watchers) came down to the earth and had relationships with human women. The Watchers and the women created the or giants that Genesis 6 tells us about. And these were exceedingly violent, wicked beings. They- along with the influence of the Watchers- created an exceedingly wicked world.
This is what caused God to say in Genesis 6:7
So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
And if you read Genesis chapters 6, 7 and 8, you’ll read the story of how this caused God to send a worldwide flood; Noah and his family were spared because Noah had a perfectly pure bloodline, and his family was used to restart the human race.
If you want to know more about this whole scenario, I encourage you to go back way to the beginning of this podcast- about two years ago- and listen to episodes 5, 6, 7 and 8. I did those episodes early on because I knew the information about the Sons of God and the giants would be foundational to a whole lot more things I would talk about on this podcast.
Now let’s get back to the book of Enoch. It has a prophecy about what’s going on at this time, a statement supposedly from God about how the Watchers or Sons of God would be forced to witness the destruction of their giant children, and then the Sons of God would be confined after that. Here’s the quote:
Enoch 10:12 - When they have seen their sons slay one another and all their loved ones destroyed, bind them for seventy generations under the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment and of their end, till their last judgment be passed for all eternity.
So, Enoch is saying that they would be bound for 70 generations. Now, are they going to be released and set free after 70 generations? No. They will be judged again, and that last judgment will be final for all eternity. So for the first 70 generations, they are bound “under the valleys of the earth.” Then they will be given a final judgment.
Now, we already have scriptural verification for the prophecy Enoch 1. But is there scriptural verification for this prophecy in Enoch 10? What happened 70 generations after Enoch?
Well, I’ll tell you what happened. Look at Luke 3. Enoch was 7th from Adam, so he was the 7th generation. 70 generations later would have been the 77th generation. And that 77th generation began with Christmas. Jesus was the 77th generation. He was 70 generations after Enoch.
I don’t know about you, but this blows my MIND. The Watchers were said to receive their final judgement 70 generations after Enoch, and exactly 70 generations later, we come to Jesus. That is so strange how that lines up. And let’s go just a little deeper here.
Preaching to the Spirits
Maybe you’re thinking: that’s quite a coincidence. But what does Jesus have to do with passing final judgment on the Watchers? Because that’s what the prophecy said. Let me read it again:
Enoch 10:12 - When they have seen their sons slay one another and all their loved ones destroyed, bind them for seventy generations under the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment and of their end, till their last judgment be passed for all eternity.
The Watchers were to be bound for 70 generations under the valleys of the earth. Now, why under the valleys? I believe this means they were given a front-row seat to how their plan to corrupt the seed of mankind would fail. They were forced to watch, but they were bound and could do nothing for thousands of years as the giants were wiped out time and time again.
And then Jesus was born. The 70th generation from Enoch. Jesus lived a perfect life and died as a sinless sacrifice on the cross. And then His body lay dead for three days and three nights until He resurrected.
But what was He doing for those three days? He wasn’t taking a three-day nap, even though He deserved one by that point. He was now taking a victory tour in the underworld.
I Peter 3:18-20
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
Verse 19 is key: He proclaimed to the spirits in prison.
The NKJV renders it:
by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison
The NIV reads:
After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—
So Jesus went and made proclamation to the spirits who were imprisoned. What spirits? The Watchers. The Watchers whose job was to watch, but they did a little more than watch, they left their heavenly spiritual dwelling and came down to earth and caused a lot of problems. They tried to corrupt the seed of the woman, and their plan failed.
And I don’t know what all Jesus said to them, but I imagine He proclaimed His victory over them. They were not able to stop God’s plan of the Messiah being born. After being bound up for 70 generations, Jesus Himself came and proclaimed their final judgment, and I believe since then they have been locked up in Tartarus- the deepest dungeon in hell.
And all of this took place on the exact timeline that Enoch laid out for us in chapter 10 of his book.
Which means…Enoch’s book- while it may not be Scripture- is indeed reliable and trustworthy prophecy.
And that’s why we’re going to study it on this podcast next year. And I can’t wait; I’ve been studying it slowly the past several weeks. I’ve got many many episodes planned. I am so excited to get to share them with you because it’s going to unlock so many fascinating things in Scripture.
This is not a Weird Stuff in the book of Enoch podcast. That would be a fun podcast. But this is Weird Stuff in the Bible. So I am only interested in studying Enoch insofar as it helps us understand our Bible. So if you want to go on that journey with me, we’ll be starting that in January.
Next Time
In the meantime, I will not have an episode on Christmas Eve. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, but I will not be there to make it weird. However, I will have an episode on New Year’s Eve, so you’ll get one more episode from me in 2025. That episode is going to analyze this question: are there dinosaurs anywhere in the Bible?
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
And one more thing I’ll do for New Years is this: I’m gonna give away a mug. An official Weird Stuff in the Bible mug, which are available in the website’s store. And you can be entered to win by signing up for the newsletter, which has a link to sign yourself up in the show notes.
I will just say right upfront, though: I am not gonna be able to ship it overseas. That’s way too expensive. But if you’re in the USA, I can ship you a mug. I’ll email the winner right after New Years.
I was very gratified to get a picture of one of the listeners- shoutout to Joe- drinking from a Weird Stuff mug this week. Also shoutout to Jodi and Chuck who I heard from this week.
So if you’d like to enter the contest, just make sure you’re on the newsletter list. And use a real email, or I won’t be able to get ahold of you to send you the prize.
One more reason you may want to be on the newsletter: this weekend, I’ll send out a list of the 77 generations of mankind up until Jesus. The Bible doesn’t number them off; it just crams all their names into like 16 verses. But it’s just really amazing to see it for yourself in a numbered list. So I encourage you to get this weekend’s newsletter so you can see it for yourself. It’s so cool to see how the Bible just lines up perfectly.
Every word of God is perfect and it’s there for a reason- even the genealogies. That’s why we should stand on the Word. And memorize scripture. And follow Scripture. And trust its commands. That’s why it reads:
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” As it says in Deuteronomy 6:7
The 78th Generation
One more thought I had. Jesus was the 77th generation. And that’s where the Biblical record stops. Who was the 78th? Well, Jesus didn’t have any children, so one might say that the genealogy stopped with Him.
But on the other hand, I would suggest that you and I are the 78th generation. Because we’re all the children of God.
One of my favorite sections of Scripture to read at Christmastime is not the genealogy of Luke or the genealogy of Matthew, but the genealogy of John. It’s the spiritual genealogy, and it reads like this in the King James:
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And then as you go down to verse 9, this is what it tells us:
9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Remember what I said before: a son of God is a direct creation of God. Adam was a son of God because He was directly created by the Father. Jesus was a Son of God because He was supernaturally conceived by God within Mary. The Watchers were the Sons of God because they were direct creations of God.
But you know who else the Scripture says is a Son of God? You and I. (Even if you’re a woman and would technically be a daughter of God, you still have the legal rights of sonship. That’s another subject for another day, but I’d just want you to know that now.)
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
That’s our genealogy. We are sons of God. We are the next generation after Jesus, once we receive Him.
Everyone who has become a believer in the 2,000 years since Jesus died on the cross has become a child of God. Nobody is a grandchild of God. Whether you are 7 or whether you are 67, whether you are a grandkid or someone’s grandparent, once you get saved, you are God’s child.
So if you think being the 78th generation sounds weird, I hope you’re a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, Merry Christmas, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.