The Book of Enoch and Kabbalah
Was just thinking there seems to be a strong link between the events which transpired in the book of Enoch and Kabbalah.
In the Book of Enoch Angels come down to earth and help humanity technologically progress at the same time humanity is "progressing" the angels are instructing humanity to be more wicked.
It is also heavily suggested that angels are genetically changing people into half human giants and monsters who excell at evil.
Thus in Enoch evil is described as changing the the nature God has given us into a nature that the evil angels see fit.
I cant help but draw parallels to Kabbalism whereby the kabbalist years for the primordial man, the man who had a different nature given to by God. The god the kabbalah also claims is broken and needs fixing. I cant help but believe that the Adam kadmon of Kaballah and the monsters of Enoch may be one and the same. And that we see the same drive towards technocracy, wickedness, and an evil ruling class today that was described in Wnoch as well, only supports this conjecture.
This would also give Matthew 24:37 a double meaning.
As a side note in Enoch the Angels are permitted to work their evil for a long time before.finally being kicked out of Heaven. This is interesting because we don't really know how how the fall (of the bad angels) happened. The conventional view I've heard is that it happened before the fall of man and it was a sudden affair. Catholic teaching that I've been told is that God gave the Angels a choice to and those that rejected what God asked were damned. However Enoch suggests that it was a long drawn out affair full of insufferable outrages that finally provoked God's wrath.
I tend to agree, Ryan. The Apocryphal Enoch is definitely on to something. The Church Fathers concluded that the Book was divinely inspired. Some believe God would never allow gene tampering to go on, but with hindsight in the technological age, we know that this is going on. I don’t know that anything is off the table at this point.
I think the end times will be a time where God lets the fullness of sin, the mystery of iniquity run its course. That way nobody can say this or that wasn't tried at the final judgement. We have to go through the process where the full effects of sin are revealed to all.