In the New Testament, Christ quotes the Ethiopian book of Enoch. How do the Sola Scriptura folks square this circle?
08.06.2025 16:37
I like to allude to the Council of Trent’s differentiation between assensus and fiducia, but, as a Baptist, I have not found it necessary to enforce the rest of that body’s decisions in any church.
First, Jesus does not quote the book of Enoch, though he may allude to it.
So from the point of view of most Protestants, the authoritative word of God in respect of the marriage of angels is Jesus’ words, regardless of who else held the same opinion.
Second, whether he quotes the book of Enoch is immaterial to any questions of Biblical canon. St Augustine points out that all truth is God’s truth. Jesus said many things, and no doubt was influenced by many sources. His discussion of divorce, for example, shows his awareness of the teachings of competing Rabbis. His allusion to Enoch — if that is what it is — gives no more authority to the entirety of Enoch than does Paul’s quoting of Aristophanes gives to that writer’s works.
Third, it is clear that the Bible uses sources. Even if you don’t precisesly subscribe to the documentary hypothesis for the early chapters of Genesis, you can see that it is likely that the bulk of chapter 2 came from a different source from chapter 1, and it is even clearer that the story of Abraham’s meeting with Melchizedek is a not very well patched in story from a different source. What counts is not that editing has taken place, but that what we have now is the canon.
There is no complicated geometry involved. “Gotcha!” questions are usually like that. A bangle can look like a rectangle, viewed from the edge.
In the New Testament, Christ quotes the Ethiopian book of Enoch. How do the Sola Scriptura folks square this circle?
And that is how sola scriptura works. At the base is the accepted canon of scripture, regardless of what written or intellectual streams might have played a part in its development.
What many people fail to get is that sola scriptura is not nuda scriptura. I don’t reject what Trent said about fiducia and assensus because these are not Greek or English terms in the New Testament. That would be nuda scriptura. Nor do I say that Christians must accept these rulings because they come from the very much not ecumenical Council of Trent. That would be mediaeval conciliar Christianity. But I do suggest that they are important to understand because they reflect ideas found in the New Testament.