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Drug Abuse in Scripture (Jesus and Drugs - Drugs in the Bible) and Other extra-Biblical Writings
The Fallen Angels and the Nephilim Hybrid
An Angel called
 Pharmarós ‘Drug Agent’
‘An Incantation’, ‘Spell’
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‘And they [the fallen] taught charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made [men] acquainted with plants’
Enoch 7:1 from the Ethiopic, Trans. R H Charles 1912
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In the ancient Ethiopic version of the extra-Biblical Book of Enoch, which deals, among other things, with origin, fall and last estate of the Biblical fallen angels, (the Hebrew ‘sons of God’ or, ‘gods’ at Genesis 6:4 etc.) the phrase corresponding with the φαρμακεία pharmakeia or ‘drug magic’ of the Greek Enoch version and other related Early Writings (New Testament / Septuagint / LXX Apocrypha etc.) concerning spells, charms, drugs and magic in Scripture is:
‘[A]nd they [the fallen] taught charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, [the Old Testament כשף kashãph lit. ‘cuttings’, or magical plant ‘off-cuttings’ LXX / NT φαρμακεία pharmakeía ‘drug magic’] and made [men] acquainted with plants’.
Enoch 7:1 trans. R H Charles from the Ethiopic
Though whether one sees these ‘angels’ as a Spiritual reality, or an ancient figure of natural or supernatural phenomenon, must, of course, remain with the reader.
The Enochian literalism, partic. 7:1 must substantiate the lexic. where the Oxford Hebrew Lexicon at p.506, also maintains
‘כשף kashãph, ‘acc. to RS prop. herbs etc. shredded into a magic brew’
where the root, cognate in Arabic and Syriac, is seen as meaning to ‘cut up’ or ‘cut off’, hence ‘cuttings’.† This was noted also by the erudite Hastings’ B.D. Scholars of Edwardian times. The literalism, along with the metaphoric, is further not dismissed by the editors of the academic Cambridge and Expositors Greek Testaments at Revelation 17:5-18:23 (the Apocalyptic Babylon).
The New Bible Dictionary p.766 (1962) also maintains the root probably means ‘to cut’ and with the accumulated evidence as such it is now generally accepted that this word must refer to the ‘cutting up’ or shredding of herbs in the preparation of narcotic philtres. Hence the Greek LXX equivalent φαρμακεία pharmakeía, is seen also to stand generally, though not always, in the LXX and Greek New Testament for a literal ‘drug enchantment’ (KJV ‘witchcrafts’ etc.)
See ‘Concordance’ for full versification and metaphorical equivalents
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The Fallen
In the Old Testament and again the extra-Biblical Enoch the fallen ‘sons of God’, (or ‘gods’ בני־האלהים if the Hebrew takes the plural form, though the Alexandrian text of the Greek LXX records the various άγγεοι ‘angel’) (Jubilees 5:1 ‘angels of God’) are seen as making an original descent on Mount Hermon, which means either ‘Sacred’ or ‘Curse’, ‘Destruction’ (חרמון) because it was here they swore the original ‘oath against God’ and bound themselves with mutual imprecations’. (Enoch 6:4, Cf. also Isaiah 28:15-18).
Genesis Chapter 6:1-4 = Enoch Chapter 15:1-6
The extra-Biblical Book of Enoch, in agreement with the Old Testament (Cf Daniel 4:13) records the original fallen as ‘the Watchers’, from an Aramaic root עיר ‘îr meaning ‘to watch’ or ‘be wakeful’, the eternal angelic that ‘kept not their first estate’ and fell from ‘the high, holy, and eternal heaven’. (Genesis 6:4 = Enoch 15:2-6 = Jude 1:6.) As such, in taking wives of all they chose, (according to the apocryphal Book of Jubilees ii:387 ‘having overstayed an allotted time’... that etc.) the once eternal befell the Earth with a race of giants, the Néphilim hybrid, where the word נפילים néphilim itself (root נפל) means ‘to fall’ or, ‘that fall upon others’.
(Cf. Symmachus βιαιοι, Aquila οι επιπίπτοντες, 140 CE. HBD vol. iii p.512 for further etym.)
In the Greek LXX and Latin text the Hebrew נפילים néphilim translates as Γίγαντες Gigantes, (Ch. 6:4, also הגברי Gibôre KJV ‘mighty’) the primal ‘giants of old’ (or, pos. from literal Hebrew, ‘of the name’ השם). In the LXX these same ‘men of renown’ (v.4 of the EV) are cited as απ αιωνος ‘from the age’ or ‘eon’ from the original Hebrew מעולם where the appellation ‘giant’ itself would apparently not refer to physical stature alone. (See Genesis Ch. 6 verses 1-4). Scholars are however agreed that there is much uncertain in the interpretation of ‘this strange passage’. (ISBE vol. iv p.2133).
In the New Testament the fallen Watchers are cited as the sinful angels of 2 St. Peter 2:4, and St. Jude 1:6 subsequently bound in the the underworld prison of Tartarus (τάρταρος, 2 St. Peter 2:4 Gk) to await the final judgment of the Great White Throne. (Enoch 10:12 = Revelation 20:11-12). The Nephilim Giants, the hybrid offspring, are seen as destroyed at the time of the Great Flood and their disembodied spirits given to become demons to roam the earth and work destruction until the Last Judgment. (confer St. Matthew 12:43-45). The Jewish Haggada, an ancient historical commentary also records that the patriarch Noah, who found favour with God and was saved from the flood, also wrote a lost treatise on medicine from knowledge drawn from the antediluvian world, that is, the ‘ancient world’ of the ancients. Confer 2 St. Peter 2:4, See also column The Firmament.
The Book of Enoch, which compliments fully the Genesis account, records that the initial Watchers themselves, as the Host of Azâzâl, numbered two hundred in all, that fell in the days of Jarad (meaning ‘descent’). As such they each had names and corresponding functions, though much of this ancient nomenclature or ‘system of naming’ is obscure if not lost; though not all:
One Angel leader was Semjâzâ (meaning uncertain, pos. ‘my name has seen’). Semjâzâ (or Sêmîazâz) according to the Ethiopic text ‘taught enchantments and root-cuttings’ (Enoch 7:3). Another Angel was named Armârôs, who taught the resolving of enchantments (Enoch 7:1). In the Greek fragments called Φαρμαρός Pharmarós who taught φαρμακίας pharmakías ‘drug magic’ (Enoch 8:3 Greek Gs see below). Consequentially in the ancient world and Scripture drug abuse and the cognate φαρμακεία pharmakeía is inextricably linked with the occult, the fallen angels and the dark arts.
The Angelic Nomenclature
(Errata: R H. Charles = 1855 - 1931)
For Armârôs = Pharmarós (sometimes Abaros) see also A Dictionary of Angels Gustave Davidson p.55 (Free Press 1967). For the full listed nomenclature see Charles p.17.
THE ADDICTIONS
See Concordance for full versification
Confer the Greek text of the Gizeh MSS (8:3)* (Charles p.280 below) with page Babylon
Mini Book Reader for
Book of Enoch
R.H.Charles 1855-1931
Public domain
See also Bible Search
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For a further discussion as to the possible origins and judgment of the fallen Angels and the subsequent Nephilim hybrid, with full text and other various concepts and explanations...
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Biblical Source Index
† A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, William Gesenius, Trans. Edward Robinson, Eds. Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, Charles A. Briggs. Clarendon Press: Oxford. Second Printing 1975. p.506. (ii) The Book of Enoch Gizeh Edition R. H. Charles Oxford 1912. (iii) International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia ISBE vol. iv p.2133
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