In article , basicallyblues says...

>ENOCH: The son born to Jared at the age of 162; the seventh man in the
>genealogical line from Adam. In addition to Methuselah, who was born to
>him when he was 65 years old, Enoch had other sons and daughters. Enoch
>was one of the "so great a cloud of witnesses" who were outstanding
>examples of faith in ancient times. "Enoch kept walking with the true
>God." (Ge 5:18, 21-24; Heb 11:5; 12:1) As a prophet of YHWH, he
>foretold God's coming with His holy myriads to execute judgment
>against the ungodly. (Jude 14, 15) Likely persecution was brought
>against him because of his prophesying. However, God did not permit the
>opposers to kill Enoch. Instead, YHWH "took him," that is, cut
>short his life at the age of 365,

What a bold and imaginative stroke of eisegesis! "Took him" does
NOT mean "cut
short his life", not in this period (it took that meaning only much later). If
it had meant this then, the author of Hebrews could not have written,

  "By faith, Enoch was translated so that he did not see death (Hb 11:5)"

And no, the excuses you cook up below to avoid the plain meaning of 'see death'
do NOT change this fact: Enoch did not die.

[snip]

> an age far below that of most of his
>contemporaries. Enoch was "transferred so as not to see death,"
>which may mean that God put him in a prophetic trance and then
>terminated Enoch's life while he was in the trance so that he did not
>experience the pangs of death. (Ge 5:24; Heb 11:5, 13)

More highly imaginative eisegesis. No, that is not what it means. You have
cooked up that explanation to make your own false dogma sound reasonable.

Since WHEN, 'Blue', is being put in a trance referred to as being 'translated'
or 'transferred'? Even more fatal to your mockery of reasoning is that the
_same_ 'translation' resulted in Enoch not being found dead or alive. So it
really _is_ a translation to another _place_, not just in a vision.

[snip]

>How was Enoch "transferred so as not to see death"?

Didn't you ask this question already? And your answer there was pretty lame,
too.

> Or as rendered
>in the translation by R. A. Knox, how was Enoch "taken away without
>the experience of death"?

One wonders why Knox thought 'experience' was better than 'see'. But it is
incredible that _your_ wild speculation could be his reason.

> God peacefully terminated Enoch's life,

Scripture never says this. That is your bad guess. A bad guess that makes a
mockery of the words of Scripture "did not see death".

>sparing him the pangs of death from either sickness or violence at the
>hands of his enemies.

What enemies? Scripture never mentions these either. But YOU find it necessary
to turn so often to what is NOT mentioned in Scripture to rationalize your
impossible interpretation of what _is_ mentioned in Scripture. For you are bound
and determined to _deny_ what Scripture really says: Enoch did not die.

> Yes, YHWH cut short Enoch's life at the age of
>365-quite a young person in comparison with his contemporaries.
>
>How was Enoch given a "witness that he had pleased God well"? What
>evidence did he have? Likely, God put Enoch into a trance,

More wild, non-scriptural speculation. No wonder you have to resort to what is
merely _likely_ and then magically promote it to 'proof'.

>even as the
>apostle Paul was "caught away," or transferred, evidently receiving
>a vision of the future spiritual paradise of the Christian
>congregation.

A Paradise which those who deny the words of Scripture can never enter. So stop
denying the words of Scripture which say that Enoch did not die.

> (2 Corinthians 12:3, 4) The witness, or evidence, that
>Enoch had been pleasing to God could have entailed a visionary glimpse

Key phrase: _could_ have. But who knows? Despite your confident tone, you do not
know.

>of the future earthly Paradise

That makes another non-biblical assumption, that there _will_ be a "future
earthly Paradise". For that assumption is based on the recklessly literal
interpretation of highly symbolic metaphors. But there is NOTHING 'biblical'
about the ignorant and reckless insistence on _literal_ interpretation of
_obvious_ metaphors.

>in which all those living will support
>God's sovereignty.

And since no one who denies the Trinity is cooperating with God's sovereignty,
expect to be excluded.

>As for Enoch's life being cut short while he had
>a vision, this is based on Paul's remarks at Hebrews 11:5,

Nonsense. There is NO support for that in Hb 11:5 at all.

>which
>reads: "By faith Enoch was transferred so as not to see death,

And it _amazes_ me what lengths of fantasy you will resort to in order to _hide_
the plain sense of these words: "see death" means DIE. Therefore,
Enoch did NOT
DIE.

>and he
>was nowhere to be found because God had transferred him;

Have you _really_ thought about what this must mean? I doubt it. After all, if
we insist on the same mindless insistence on overly literal interpretation you
insist on in John 3:13, we would have to read this as follows: 'nowhere to be
found' means he disappeared _completely_. He was neither in heaven _nor_ on
earth, nor anywhere else. Instead of dying, he vanished from existence.

But isn't this obviously absurd? Some reward for righteousness _that_ would be!
Not to mention there is the obvious problem of 'transfer' being from ONE PLACE
TO ANOTHER.

See how much trouble you can get into with overly literal interpretation? So
stop it already.

>for before his
>transference he had the witness that he had pleased God well." That
>these words do not mean that Enoch was taken to heaven, as is generally
>held in Christendom, is apparent from the following Scriptural
>testimony:

No, it is not 'apparent'. Why, it does not follow by _any_ means. I don't even
know why you think it does, your reasoning is so hopelessly bad.

>At Matthew 11:11 are recorded Jesus' words that there had not risen
>one greater than John the Baptist, yet a lesser one in the kingdom of
>heaven would be greater than John,

True...

>indicating that John would not be in
>heaven.

False. For "in heaven" does NOT equal "in the kingdom of heaven".

>If not John, then certainly not Enoch.

Also false. For God could choose to reward one righteous man with entrance into
heaven and have the other wait, regardless of which man is greater. It would
certainly sound odd, but there is no a priori reason why He could not do this.

>Further, we have
>Jesus' plain words at John 3:13, that up to his day it was true that
>'no man had ascended into heaven,'

Which you interpret overly literally, even while you _deny_ the same privilege
of overly literal interpretation to Heb 11:5.

>not even Enoch.

No, that is not what it says.

>Only by means of
>Jesus' death was a new and living way to get to heaven opened up.

Aha! Now you admit the inconsistency of your own position! For you called it a
"NEW and living way"! But if there is a _new_ way, then there
must have been an
OLD way. Enoch and Elijah made it the old way.

>Jesus has become "the one who is first in all things," including
>entrance into heaven.-Col. 1:18; Heb. 10:20.
>
>More than that, the apostle Paul, in Hebrews, chapter 11, discusses
>such faithful ones as Enoch, Noah and Abraham. In verses thirty-nine
>and forty of this chapter, Paul contrasts the men of faith before the
>Christian congregation with those who, like himself, were a part of it:
>"And yet all these, although they had witness borne to them through
>their faith, did not get the fulfillment of the promise, as God foresaw
>something better for us, in order that they might not be made perfect
>apart from us." In other words, only after the members of the
>Christian congregation receive their reward will these faithful men of
>old receive theirs.

Finally, you give what is _almost_ a reasonable argument! But even this fails.
For you have still made a rash and unsupportable assumption, that the "these
all" of 11:39 refers to _all_ the faithful mentioned in the chapter. But this is
not so. It could, for example, refer to the somewhat smaller set of faithful
mentioned in the closer context, at 11:32-33, where he has switched from topic
to sub-topic, discussing now the later prophets and martyrs.

Once you realize this, you will realize that the author of Hebrews does NOT
contradict himself: he says that Enoch did not die, and that the overwhelming
majority of other OT saints had to wait until the Ascension to enter into
heaven. Enoch must have been really special.

>Therefore,

No 'therefore' is justified here. Your premise is still unproven.

> since we cannot conclude that by Enoch's being transferred
>is meant his being taken to heaven,

Even if one were to concede that it was not -heaven- he was transferred to, you
are still insisting also that he did not die. This too is groundless. But you
would have at least a ghost of a chance of constructing a coherent argument if
you did not stubbornly insist on carelessly intertwining different topics.

>to what does it have reference?
>Evidently in Enoch's case death came differently than to the rest of
>mankind, for which reason it is written that he "was transferred so
>as not to see death."
>
>The Greek word at Hebrews 11:5 rendered "transferred"  has the
>meaning of "transfer," "transport," or "change the place
>of."

Right. From one place to another. For example, from earth to heaven. The word is
METATIQHMI Strong's # 3346. NOT the same word Paul uses below.

> It seems that the experience of the apostle Paul throws light on
>this matter, since he was transferred or caught up to the third heaven;

There's that key phrase again: it SEEMS. But the Apostle uses a _completely
different word_ here! How could you miss this?

>whether in the body or out of the body, he was not able to say. In this
>state he caught a vision of the future spiritual paradise of the
>Christian congregation. (2 Cor. 12:1-4)

But how can you so rashly compare the two? It is because you are already so sure
of the result? Is it because you have the attitude of an exegetical Captain
Farragut, "damn the facts, full speed ahead"?

> Apparently

There's that word again: APPARENTLY!

> it was in a similar
>state of spiritual rapture or ecstasy, while having a vision of the
>earthly paradise (Enoch not knowing anything about a spiritual one),

Is the best you can do? A string of "it seems" and "apparentlys"?

No, it was not the same. The Greek even uses different words here, which
certainly does not help you. For the Apostle in 2 Cor 12:14 is ARPAZW #726. Not
the same at all. Unlike METATIQHMI, ARPAZW really _is_ used of religious
ecstasies and the like.

In fact, NOWHERE in the NT is METATIQHMI used for a trance or religious ecstasy
or anything like that. You should have noticed this, and realized how _forced_
your argument is for making it mean that here.

And even that is not the end of how _bad_ your argument is! For not even in the
pagan Greek literature is there ever an instance of METATIQHMI being used for a
trance or religous ecstasy! Nor in the LXX.

Even leaving aside all the other considerations I have mentioned, this should
have been enough to convince you that METATIQHMI _CANNOT_ mean what you want
here. But you are no "objective observer", nor have you any
patience with the
words of an "objective observer". You would rather damn the
facts, and go full
speed ahead.

Take the hint from the choice of METATIQHMI: your 'reasoning' is simply wrong,
wrong, wrong.

>that God took Enoch away or put him to sleep. He did not see death in
>that he did not see his own death approaching, and therefore Enoch did
>not experience any pangs of death. In his instance the resurrection
>will mean a transition from his vision to the reality of the New World
>life he was privileged to see.

You are merely repeating the same wild, ungrounded speculation with no
additional proof except _more_ wild ungrounded speculation.

[snip]


-- 
---------------------------
Subudcat se sibi ut haereat Deo
quidquid boni habet, tribuat illi a quo factus est.
(St. Augustine, Ser. 96)

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