Weird Stuff in the Bible

Jesus the Second Enoch
I Peter 3

Introduction
I know in these episodes I often talk about wacky spiritual things going on in the unseen realm. Angels and demons and spiritual legal rights and all that kinda stuff. And, of course, the Bible is our best source of information about all that.
Today, I want to talk about how we study our Bible. I hope you read your bible. I hope you pay attention to what you’re reading as you’re reading it. And if you’re listening to a podcast like this, I’m sure you are a Bible reader.
So for today’s episode, my challenge to myself is: how can I make your Bible study time just a little bit richer in the 20 or 30 minutes of this episode?
And you know what? We’ll also learn a bit today about our own role in the story God is telling with history.
How about a weird Scripture to kick us off, though?
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.
Now when did Jesus go and proclaim to the spirits in prison? Well this is during the time that Jesus’s body was dead for three days. Peter tells us what Jesus was doing during that time: he was visiting the Watchers- these fallen Sons of God that we’ve been reading about in the Book of Enoch- and makes proclamation to them. But what exactly did Jesus proclaim? The Bible doesn’t tell us directly, but the Book of Enoch might help us find that answer.
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible… and in the Book of Enoch.
But first, turn to Romans 5, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

What is Typology?
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 the subject of typology.
It’s not typography, which is the study of fonts. I could probably do an episode on typography. Several episodes actually. If you want to know how weird my brain is, I’m kinda of obsessed with fonts. Ever since college, where I worked on the school paper and then other local newspapers, where I got a degree in Communications, where I got my first job in graphic design- ever since then, my brain has been kinda obsessed with fonts.
We go out to eat and my wife is looking at the menu to figure out what she wants to eat, while I’m over here distracted by what font they used for the lettering. If I like it, I’m trying to figure out what it is. If I don’t like it, I’m judging them for their font choices. I got problems, guys. I’m very judgmental about fonts. The Lord needs to deliver me from this. Like, if your church logo is in Papyrus, I can’t visit your church. I’m sorry.
Clean fonts are how I like to do things. And the more you read your Bible, the more you see how God likes to do things. And one of the ways that God likes to do things is in patterns.
I love it when I’m reading in my Bible and I start to notice God’s patterns.
You have chiasms where a series of things happen, and then those exact same things happen again in reverse order. Those are very common.
You have prophetic foreshadowing where something strange happens that doesn’t quite make sense at the time, but then it points to a greater fulfillment. Like the baby Jesus receiving myrrh from the wise men. Myrrh is a funeral ointment. It seems strange to give that to a baby. Yet it foreshadowed the purpose of Jesus.
Another type of pattern in Scripture is something called typology. Typology is when something happens in one person’s life that is then repeated or re-imagined in the life of Jesus.
James Hamilton Jr. wrote the book on Typology. I mean, it’s literally called Typology. If you want the scholarly definition, he defines typology in that book as “God-ordained, author-intended historical correspondence and escalation in significance between people, events, and institutions across the Bible’s redemptive-historical story.” [Source: an article on Gospel Coalition] Generally speaking, what this takes place when something happens in the Old Testament that is repeated in the New Testament.
This is not just a theory; it’s something that the Bible explicitly does. Sometimes it draws attention to it. Usually it’s more subtle, and that’s more fun because then you get to discover these things on your own.
But to prove that it’s not just theory, let me go somewhere that the Bible makes it very plain. Something in the book of Romans where Paul discusses Jesus as the Second Adam.
Romans 5:12-14
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Why does it call Adam a “type” of the one to come? That’s a strange thing to say. The word “type” here is the Greek word “Tupos” (toop-oss), and it means a form or example.
Adam brings death to all men. Jesus brings life to all men. By one man’s action, death came to all. But another man’s action, life became available to all. Paul also returns to this idea in
I Corinthians 15:21-22
21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
And verse 45
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
And if you want to keep digging into this further, there are so many parallels between Adam and Jesus. Adam was tempted and failed in a garden. Jesus was tempted and overcame it in the garden. Adam was naked and received clothes. Jesus was clothed and stripped naked. Adam brought death because of a tree. Jesus was hung on a tree. Adam brought the curse of the thorns. Jesus took a crown of thorns. This is typology.
The thing that came first is called the type; the thing it prefigures or comes later is the antitype. Adam is the type; Jesus is the antitype.
There are so many parallels like these in the Bible. You could actually go through dozens just from Adam. And it’s not just Adam. Think about how Moses was born at a time when the Pharaoh- the evil ruler- was killing all the baby boys. Jesus was born at a time when the evil ruler Herod tried to kill all the baby boys. There are dozens of parallels with Moses and Jesus. Dozens of parallels with Joseph and Jesus. With David and Jesus. Types and antitypes.
One of my favorites is Jonah. Jesus said it himself in
Matthew 12:40
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
When you read these things in your Bible- like when you read that something took three days, for example- these are not coincidences. God is the author of history. God orchestrated all these events that may have seemed random at the time, yet they pointed to a future fulfillment.
Not all patterns are types. Some are foreshadowing. Some are so subtle they can be debatable. Not all of them are about Jesus specifically.
Nimrod is a type of the Antichrist. (By the way, we have a series of episodes about Nimrod coming later this year.) Nimrod’s brief story in the bible actually prefigures this future world ruler known as the Antichrist or the Beast of Revelation.
Nebuchadnezzar is a type of the Antichrist. He created a statue to himself and said everyone must worship it or they would die. The Antichrist does the same thing in Revelation 13.
Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar are kings of Babylon. The Antichrist is said to have his home base in Babylon in the end times. So Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar are types; the Antichrist is the antitype.
Speaking of the end times- the flood of Noah is a type of the Tribulation period- a judgment that washes across the entire world. The 10 plagues of Egypt in the book of Exodus are a type of the judgments that will fall on the whole world in the book of Revelation.
The word “type” actually works quite well. Let’s talk typography for a minute, and I’ll try not to get carried away. Back in the old days, before phone books, we had these devices called typewriters. A computer without a screen, if you will. You stuck a piece of paper in it, rolled it through the little rollers, and you could type onto the page with this mechanical device. We had one when I was a kid and I loved to type on it.
On a typewriter, when you push a key on the keyboard, it would trigger a lever that punched the page with that letter’s hammer. The hammer contained the reverse image of a letter on it, which was wet with ink. So when that hammer imprinted on the page, it made an impression of that letter with the ink on the piece of paper. Now, most of you know how a typewriter works, but did you know this: the text on the page is called type. But the hammer that makes the impression is the antitype.
The antitype is the real thing. It’s solid. It’s what lasts. The type is just an image of the antitype. It’s just an impression. A copy. And that’s what typology is: the theory/doctrine that these things throughout your Bible that paralleled Christ are pointing to Christ. That’s how typology works. And that’s how typography works.
See how I was able to blend these two things without getting carried away? Now here’s a list of my top 10 favorite fonts… no, not really. I’ll save that for the newsletter this weekend.

Jesus, the Second Enoch
Actually, what I want to do real quick is talk about a typology between Jesus and Enoch. Peter seems to make a typological connection between Jesus during his three days after the cross and Enoch during his time talking to the imprisoned Watchers.
So, let’s start with that. If you’re new today, we’re in a series in the Book of Enoch where we’re looking at places where it intersects with the Bible. The Book of Enoch is NOT part of the Bible, and we’ll discuss that today; but it’s a book that Peter, Jude, and even Jesus all referenced and believed in. First, let me just catch you up on where we are in Enoch’s story.
We’re in the middle of Enoch 14. Up to this point, we’ve learned about how the Watchers or Sons of God descended and cohabitated with human women in the pre-flood world, as discussed in Genesis 6. This produced the giants. And because of the sins of the Watchers, God had his angels imprison them within the earth. So that’s where they are right now in the story. And in Enoch 14, Enoch has been raptured into the spirit realm, He’s goes to the underworld and takes down an appeal from the Watchers, who complain that their judgment is more than they can bear. Enoch then goes to speak with God and conveys their appeal. God sends Enoch back to deliver a message of judgment and condemnation to the Watchers.
Enoch tells them in chapter 14: yea (your petition) will not be granted unto you⌉⌉. And from henceforth you shall not ascend into heaven unto all eternity, and ⌈in bonds⌉ of the earth the decree has gone forth to bind you for all the days of the world.
And one more detail that I think is very relevant here, and I discussed this last Christmas in an episode called “Did Enoch Predict the Timing of Christmas?” The Watchers had been said to be bound here under the earth for 70 generations.
From Enoch’s 10th chapter: And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated.
This pronouncement was given in Enoch’s generation. According to the genealogy in Luke 3, 70 generations after Enoch was Jesus. Enoch was 7th from Adam; Jesus was 77th from Adam. I’m not a math guy; I’m more of a words guy, so much that I’m even picky about what font those words come in; I’m definitely not a numbers guy; but I can do 7 + 70.
So 70 generations from Enoch, we come to Jesus. Jesus dies and, as we heard earlier in Matthew 12, spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And what was He doing there? He was doing the same thing Enoch did. He was proclaiming a judgment on the Watchers.
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.
The spirits in prison are those same spirits- the Watchers- who we’re reading about in the Book of Enoch. And Peter says that Jesus did the same thing that Enoch did: he made proclamation to the Watchers, a message of condemnation. Jesus tells them that their plans failed. They were not going to rule the world as gods and steal dominion of the earth away from humanity. If they thought that the crucifixion of Jesus derailed God’s plans, they were wrong; it actually fulfilled God’s plans of redeeming humanity and reclaiming the title deed of the earth.
So in other words, Jesus was acting as a second Enoch. Dr. Michael Heiser writes about this in his book The Unseen Realm. He says, “Peter uses typology in I Peter 3:14-22. Specifically, he assumes that the great flood in Genesis 6-8, especially the Sons of God event in Genesis 6:1-4, typified or foreshadowed the gospel and the resurrection. For Peter, these events were commemorated during baptism.” (Page 406 of the expanded version)
Heiser adds, “Just as Jesus was the second Adam for Paul, Jesus is the second Enoch for Peter. I Peter 3:14-22 has Jesus descending to these same spirits in prison to tell them that they were still defeated, despite his crucifixion. God’s plan of salvation and Kingdom rule had not been derailed- in fact, it was right on schedule.” (Page 407)
And there’s also a whole thing about baptism as spiritual warfare right here: I go into that in episode 33, so I won’t repeat myself here, but check that episode out if you want to understand more about how baptism is a loyalty oath to the spiritual realm. There’s a whole typology thing going on there, too, with how the world was flooded with water to wash away the stain of the Watchers, and how we are baptized to wash away the stain of our sins.

The Bible’s Use of Extrabiblical Sources
But I want to deal with one more question that might be on your mind before we go: Is it weird that we’d get typology from the Book of Enoch? Like, is it going a little far to say that Peter saw Jesus as a Second Enoch; that Peter would even write about Jesus in this way because the story of Enoch and the Watchers isn’t from the Bible- it’s from a non-canonical, extra biblical text? Why would Peter seemingly make a reference to something that wasn’t Scripture and somewhat treat it like a fulfillment of that story?
I would just say, it’s actually pretty common in the Bible for the writers to reference things that are not in the Bible. Sometimes even things that come from pagan sources.
For example, Psalm 29 is said to be a hymn to Baal, repurposed as a hymn to God. In Psalm 29, it’s written to a storm god. It compares God’s voice to thunder and lightning. In ancient Ugaritic tablets, they have the same words inscribed to Baal. They’ll say things like, “the thunder of Baal is full of majesty.”
Psalm 29:3-4 says
3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
    the God of glory thunders,
    the Lord, over many waters.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
    the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
So basically, Psalm 29’s writer took popular lyrics to Baal and said, “I’m going to sing these same words about Yahweh.” And there are verses and chapters like this throughout the Bible; taking things from the culture of their time and rephrasing them or repurposing them as worship to the true God.
I mean, can you imagine taking a song like “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston and singing it as “I will Always love God”? Or taking YMCA by the Village People and making a song called YHWH? Or taking “Who let the dogs out” and rewriting it as “Don’t let the Watchers out”? Imagine that.
And then imagine singing these songs at church??? That would be nuts to us, right? People would be saying, “that’s blasphemy! You can’t take secular songs and rewrite them as worship songs!” That’s actually what some passages in the Bible did.
The Canaanites had a story about a storm god who defeats a sea creature called the chaos dragon. Psalm 74 has a similar story about God slaying the chaos dragon of the sea to respond to those myths. The original audience would have heard those words and understood that the Bible was making pop culture references.
In I Corinthians, Paul says, “Bad company corrupts good character.” Scholars are basically in agreement that Paul was quoting a well-known saying by the Greek playwright Menander. Paul quoted him in the text of the Bible. And put his stamp of approval on it! In other words, Paul was inserting their version of a movie quote. Right in the pages of the Bible!
So when I quoted Iron Man two episodes ago, that was very spiritual of me. You probably didn’t realize how biblical I’m being when I quote movies. I will probably do it more. I once watched a documentary on Helvetica; I don’t think it had anything worth quoting, but I would if it did.
I’m not saying Enoch’s is necessarily a myth or a just a story. For Peter, it was a true story. A story of how Enoch visited the underworld, pronounced a judgment, and then 70 generations later, Jesus came down and did it again.

Next Time
Next time on this podcast, we’ll take a look at what Enoch did next. Because after Enoch visits the gloomy darkness of the Underworld, he gets to take a tour of heaven, and he’ll have a face-to-face experience with God. Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
If you want to get the newsletter to receive some supplementary or extra info on the weekends, you can sign up for the newsletter using the link in the show notes. Thanks to all who have reached out lately. And I want to take about two minutes here and recognize a few people who have written in.
Shout-out to Nicholas Daigle who messaged me this week; he wrote a book called Genesis 6 and the Ozarks. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but I live in the Ozarks of Missouri, so I’m gonna have to check that out and see what it’s all about.
And to Nikki who just moved to Wales, a new official weirdo who said she’s listened to all the episodes. An official SUPER WEIRDO. Thanks for going down the rabbit hole with me! I also heard from another longtime super weirdo named Beau once again this week, good to hear from him.
Shoutout to two ladies I met in my church today that I didn’t even know listened to the podcast- to Hannah and to Jessica. Thank you both for finding me today at church; I never know what to say when I meet someone face-to-face who listens to my podcast. I haven’t figured out the right response yet. I’m usually frozen in fear like: “oh no, someone else who knows I judge people for their font choices.” But it’s truly an honor to get to meet you and be part of so many peoples’ lives for 30 minutes of the week, even if I haven’t met them. Thank you to Rachel at my church who has probably been my biggest promoter, because I’ve heard from several people who heard about this podcast from her. I told her if I made any money off this, I’d have to give her a commission at this point. Rachel has a wonderful family who are a blessing to so many.

Closing Thoughts
And in closing today, when you read your Bible, be on the lookout for these patterns that you see coming up. Types and shadows, as they’re often called. To me, they show the sovereignty of God and His hand in all these historical events.
I remember one of the men in my church was sharing a while back about how he was studying the route David took out of the city when Absalom was trying to overthrow him, and how David wrote a psalm about being betrayed by his friend during that time, and then Jesus quoted that psalm right before Judas betrayed him, and then the route that Jesus took that night mirrored the same route David took in II Samuel. And I’m like, wow; that is not a coincidence.
When you come across these patterns, these recurring elements, they are treasures God placed in His Word for you to unearth. When you come across one, keep digging into them; there are probably more parallels in that same story. They might be types, or a chiasm, or a prophetic foreshadowing. But they aren’t coincidences. They’re signposts that the Bible was written by numerous men across hundreds of years, but only one Author.
I want to talk about another type and antitype I see in Scripture, and that’s with us. I believe that we Christians are an antitype of the Watchers ourselves. Let me unpack this before we go.
By the way, this is not a gendered thing. Women are said to be the sons of God, just like men can be the bride of Christ. It’s language of the inheritance and gifting we receive as being in Christ, as depicted in Galatians 3:28 through chapter 4, verse 7.
Anyway, when God created the earth, He gave dominion of the planet to mankind (Genesis 1:28). However, by submitting himself to Satan, it meant Satan took that dominion authority from Adam. Just like, if your church logo is using Papyrus, or Arial Black, or Copperplate, I would like to take dominion of your church logo.
OK, focus Luke. Jesus purchased the dominion of the world back with the cross. Now, when we live obediently to God, we reclaim our dominion; when we sin, we give dominion back to the devil. Romans 6 is probably the best chapter to look at for this, but I want to focus on what the Watchers did for a minute.
In Genesis 6, these beings the Watchers- which are called in that chapter The Sons of God- created the giants, which were a hybrid beings who were part man and part god. The giants could do something the Sons of God could not do by themselves: fulfill man’s dominion mandate and take legal rights of the earth. If the giants could just dominate the earth, there would never be a Messiah born through the seed of the woman, and the Watchers would have won.
And their plan was working for a while.
Genesis 6:11 tells us
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.
The original Sons of God brought violence to this planet. The first thing Enoch’s book told us that they introduced were new weapons for humans to kill each other. The giants themselves were bloodthirsty, cannibalistic, savage killers. This is what caused God to want to flood the planet: the corruption and the violence. God doesn’t like violence. It doesn’t mean violence is always bad. God sometimes allows or uses violence, but only because He wants to prevent something worse. God would prefer a world with no violence. And if the original Sons of God had stayed loyal, that’s what we would have had.
But since they failed, God had to create new Sons of God. New beings who would watch over and rule this world. And that’s us. But we aren’t to increase violence. When we bring peace, here is what Scripture says about us:
Matthew 5:9
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Where the first Sons of God brought violence, the new sons of God bring peace. We can fix the world where the original Sons of God failed the world.
So be a peacemaker today. And that might mean calling someone you had a fight with two years ago to apologize for something you never apologized for, and now it’s kinda weird to call them out of the blue like this, just do it. Romans 12 says if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Be a peacemaker that you may be called a Son of God.
So if you think starting fights with people for their font choices is weird, you would be correct about that. You shouldn’t do that.
But as a Son of God, if you have someone on this planet you need to make peace with, do it. And if that feels weird, do it anyway. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.