Often, one will hear the argument that the Latter-day Saint appeal to 1 Pet 3:18-20 and 4:6 (cf. D&C 138:5-10) is misplaced, as Peter was borrowing from 1 Enoch and the myth about the “Watchers” (cf. Gen 6:1-4), and such is incongruous with the longstanding LDS interpretation of these texts. This argument was utilised by Evangelical apologist, J.P. Holding in his 2001 book, The Mormon Defenders: How Latter-day Saint Apologists Misinterpret the Bible (Self-Published). LDS apologist, Dr. Barry R. Bickmore (author of Restoring the Ancient Church: Joseph Smith and Early Christianity) wrote a respond to Holding’s appendix on this topic. The review used to be hosted on Kevin Graham’s Website, but that is no longer available online. As I have a copy saved in my files, I am reproducing the essay by Dr. Bickmore here.
Response to “Appendix: 1 Peter 3:18-20—
The Augustinian Interpretation”
By Barry R. Bickmore
The passage in question is a difficult one, because Peter alludes to a context with which his original readers would have been familiar, but with which we may not be familiar. In addition, the train of thought is not presented as a syllogism, but as a string of related concepts that lead back to the overall message. Holding’s argument is challenging in that it refers the passage to a literary backdrop that would have been familiar to the first Christians, and it attempts to integrate the passages into the overall context of Peter’s message. In order to answer his objections and show that our view is at least as plausible as his, we will have to go beyond proof-texting. Therefore, I will first reproduce the entire passage in question, in context, and then consider each of Holding’s major points.
1 Peter 3:15–4:6
For clarity, I reproduce the entire passage in question from the New English Bible, which is a modern English translation. The context of the passage is that Peter is exhorting the saints to stand fast in the face of persecution.[Chapter 3] 15Be always ready with your defence whenever you are called to account for the hope that is in you, but make that defence with modesty and respect. 16Keep your conscience clear, so that when you are abused, those who malign your Christian conduct may be put to shame. 17It is better to suffer for well-doing, if such should be the will of God, than for doing wrong. 18For Christ also died for our sins once and for all. He, the just, suffered for the unjust, to bring us to God.
19In the body he was put to death; in the spirit he was brought to life. And in the spirit he went and made his proclamation to the imprisoned spirits. 20They had refused obedience long ago, while God waited patiently in the days of Noah and the building of the ark, and in the ark a few persons, eight in all, were brought to safety through the water. 21This water prefigured the water of baptism through which you are now brought to safety. Baptism is not the washing away of bodily pollution, but the appeal made to God by a good conscience; and it brings salvation through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who entered heaven after receiving the submission of angelic authorities and powers, and is now at the right hand of God.
[Chapter 4] 1Remembering that Christ endured bodily suffering, you must arm yourselves with a temper of mind like his. When a man has thus endured bodily suffering he has finished with sin, 2and for the rest of his days on earth he may live, not for the things that men desire, but for what God wills. 3You had time enough in the past to do all the things that men want to do in the pagan world. Then you lived in licence and debauchery, drunkenness, revelry, and tippling, and the forbidden worship of idols. 4Now, when you no longer plunge with them into all this reckless dissipation, they cannot understand it, and they vilify you accordingly; 5but they shall answer for it to him who stands ready to pass judgement on the living and the dead. 6Why was the Gospel preached to those who are dead? In order that, although in the body they received the sentence common to men, they might in the spirit be alive with the life of God.
1 Enoch as the Backdrop?
The text above clearly refers to some background knowledge assumed for the readers, but whereas Holding refers to 1 Enoch as the literary backdrop, Latter-day Saints have generally referred to the ubiquitous early Christian tradition about Jesus’ visit to Hades (the world of the dead). Let us consider both points of view. 1 Enoch is a Jewish apolcalyptic book of unknown date, and in fact, it contains several sections that probably originated at different times. [1] In this book, there is no mention of the Fall of Adam, but rather the origin of evil in the world is ascribed to certain angels, called Watchers, who lusted after the daughters of men and came to earth to cohabit with them (1 Enoch 7). These angels taught their wives warfare, sorcery, and other forms of wickedness (1 Enoch 8-9), and their marriages resulted in the birth of giants, who were inhabited by evil spirits (1 Enoch 15). Enoch was told in vision that these giants would be destroyed in the Flood (1 Enoch 10; cf. Genesis 6), and that the Watchers would be bound until the end of the world (1 Enoch 14).
Holding cites the passage about the binding of the Watchers, and argues that this fits naturally with the passage in 1 Peter (pp. 92-93). For instance, if Christ were merely visiting the rogue angels (“imprisoned spirits” in 1 Peter 3:19) to announce His victory over evil, this would fit well with 1 Peter 3:22, which says that Christ entered Heaven after “receiving the submission of angelic authorities and powers.”
The irony of Holding’s appeal to 1 Enoch is that he begins his chapter on postmortem evangelization by claiming that he will stick to the question of whether the doctrine “can… be deduced from the Bible” (p. 81, emphasis in original). But then he immediately finds that he must look for extrabiblical material to supply context in support of his interpretations. In other words, Holding’s own position cannot be deduced solely from the Bible, and his sola scriptura pretence is so much rhetorical hot air. On the other hand, consider how easily Holding brushes aside LDS appeals to early Christian and Jewish sources that support the doctrine of postmortem salvation.
First, he asserts, “There is no evidence within first century Judaism for a conception of a salvific mission to the underworld…” (p. 99). In a footnote to this passage, however, he notes that John Tvedtnes “offers only one example of such a concept in Judaism, and that from a saying attributed to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi (c. 220-250 A.D.), who may have been influenced by Christianity” (pp. 154-155, n. 68). [2] So apparently, Christian doctrines can only be valid if they derive from first century Judaism, and if we find evidence for the doctrine of postmortem evangelization in third century Judaism, it could not have derived from a strain of Jewish thought that had survived from earlier times. Rather, it must have been borrowed from the Christians!
Regardless of the inherent coherence or incoherence of this argument, we can show that Holding’s speculation about Jewish rabbis borrowing this doctrine from Christianity is extremely unlikely on other grounds. Around A.D. 150 St. Justin Martyr told a Jewish acquaintance, Trypho, that the Jews had excised a number of scriptural passages from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament current at the time. When Trypho asked which passages had been excised, Justin gave one example from Esdras, one from the Psalms, and two from Jeremiah. One of those from Jeremiah said, “The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.” Justin remarked that “it is only a short time since [these passages] were cut out,” and that some of the passages were “still written in some copies in the synagogues of the Jews.” [3] It is apparent that Justin was claiming firsthand knowledge that 1) the copies of the Septuagint used by Christians still had this clear reference to Jesus’ preaching mission to the dead, and 2) the Jewish leadership had recently ordered the removal of these passages from their copies, although some still contained purged passages. Therefore, it appears that the Jews in the second century were actively trying to purge scriptural passages that Christians used to support a doctrine of postmortem evangelization, among other things. How likely is it, then, that a third century Rabbi would have adopted such a doctrine from the Christians? Even if the passage from Jeremiah were a Christian interpolation, it would be bizarre behavior for a Jewish Rabbi to adopt Christian doctrines that derived from a Christian corruption of scripture! It seems much more likely that Rabbi Joshua derived his doctrine from an older Jewish tradition that had been mostly stamped out by his time.
Holding dismisses this evidence from Justin, claiming,
There is, however, no other evidence for such a passage ever having been in Jeremiah. LDS apologists may reply that Jewish scribes had simply erased all of the evidence of this passage. However, we possess copies of Jeremiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls texts, which were written prior to the advent of Christianity, and would have been safe from tampering by post-Christian era Jews. These copies confirm that there is no indication of any such passage as the one that Justin describes. (pp. 94-95)
But this claim is simply false. Irenaeus (ca. A.D. 180) also mentioned the passage. “As Jeremiah declares, ‘The holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who slept in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them to make known to them His salvation, that they might be saved.’” [4] How likely is it that these two Christian apologists made up this passage from thin air? Is Holding implying that St. Justin and St. Irenaeus were liars? If not, then obviously the passage existed in some copies of the Septuagint during the second century.
Were the passages Justin referenced Christian interpolations? This is a possibility, but if Justin was truthful in his claim that some of them could still be found in the copies of Jeremiah in some synagogues, it seems highly unlikely. In fact, Methodist scholar Margaret Barker has recently amassed a large amount of evidence demonstrating that 1) “the earliest Church used very different Scriptures” than we have now [5] , 2) Justin was very likely right to accuse the Jews of his time of tampering [6] , and 3) later Christians such as Origen and Jerome began the practice of using the Jewish versions of the text, because they mistakenly thought they represented the “original Hebrew.” [7]
The fact that the passage from Jeremiah has not shown up in the Dead Sea Scrolls means exactly nothing, since one thing the Dead Sea Scrolls have made perfectly clear is that a number of textual traditions for the biblical texts coexisted at the time. [8] The hypothesis that some pre-Christian manuscripts contained the disputed passages, but others did not, and later Jews explicitly favored manuscript traditions that excluded these texts, is strictly in line with the facts. Indeed, Barker specifically uses the Qumran texts to point out several examples of passages the early Christians used, but which are missing from the received (Masoretic) text. She concludes that “given the very small amount of the biblical material found at Qumran, it is interesting how many differences from the MT [Masoretic text] support… Justin’s claim even though they are not examples he used.” [9]
In any case, the fact that Christians in the second century appealed to an Old Testament passage to prove a doctrine of postmortem evangelization strongly suggests that this doctrine had its roots in the first century. If not in first century Judaism, then in first century Jewish Christianity. In fact, the Odes of Solomon, thought by many to be a first century Jewish Christian work [10] , has this to say about Jesus’ preaching mission to the dead.
Sheol saw me and was made miserable: Death cast me up and many along with me. I had gall and bitterness, and I went down with him to the utmost of his depth... And I made a congregation of living men amongst his dead men, and I spake with them by living lips: Because my word shall not be void: And those who had died ran towards me: and they cried and said, Son of God , have pity on us, and do with us according to thy kindness, and bring us out from the bonds of darkness: and open to us the door by which we shall come out to thee. For we see that our death has not touched thee. Let us also be redeemed with thee: for thou art our Redeemer. And I heard their voice; and my name I sealed upon their heads: For they are free men and they are mine. [11]
Even if we allow for traditions like Justin’s and that of the Odes, Holding claims that they do not really support the LDS doctrine.
In Christian writings of the second century we see an idea of souls remaining in the underworld in places of either torment or of comfort, or of Christ visiting Hades as part of the process of death, but only coming to rescue those in the place of comfort at the time of the general resurrection, or else taking with him only those dead already righteous on a single trip with no indication of a future repetition. Postmortem evangelization also appears, but as one of a number of ideas which drew upon some of these verses for support. (p. 99, emphasis in original)
This statement is generally correct, but I fail to see how it does anything but support the LDS position. Holding himself quotes D&C 138 to show that the LDS believe that Christ only went personally to preach to the righteous dead, and then organized some of them to conduct the preaching to the spirits in hell (p. 81). We also believe that the righteous pre-Christian dead were resurrected and freed from the Spirit World after Christ’s Resurrection (Alma 40:16-20). The preaching mission has continued as saints have subsequently died and gone to the Spirit World (D&C 138). Therefore, the early Christian tradition that Christ preached only to the righteous dead “on a single trip with no indication of a future repetition” fits very nicely with our belief system. Add to this the fact that “postmortem evangelization also appears,” and we have explicit support for the essence of our entire doctrine.
More to the point of Holding’s appendix, some of the early Christian writers who taught postmortem evangelization specifically linked it to 1 Peter 3:18-19, e.g., Origen (third century). Arguing against certain “heretics,” he wrote:
They do not read what is written respecting the hope of those who were destroyed in the deluge; of which hope Peter himself thus speaks in his first Epistle: “That Christ, indeed, was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which He went and preached to the spirits who were kept in prison, who once were unbelievers, when they awaited the long-suffering of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was preparing, in which a few, i.e., eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto also baptism by a like figure now saves you.” [12]
Other examples could be cited, but since Holding essentially admits this point, we can now ask, “Why should we interpret 1 Peter 3:18-20 as a reference to the Watchers in 1 Enoch when not one early Christian writer makes such a connection? Why not interpret the passage as a reference to the spirits of dead men, when some early Christian writers did make this connection?” Were Christians outside of Palestine unaware of 1 Enoch? Obviously not, since some of them quoted it as scripture. [13]
Holding complains that LDS apologists who refer to the views of early Christian writers have a problem, in that we must explain why later Christianity rejected this comforting doctrine, if not because it was not part of the original deposit of faith (pp. 98-99). To answer, we need only refer to the later Catholic doctrine that unbaptized infants are excluded from Heaven, which developed in spite of the fact that all the earliest Christian writers who mentioned the fate of unbaptized infants maintained that they would be saved. [14] Why would such a “comforting” doctrine be abandoned and replaced with a doctrine so harsh that even the latest Catechism of the Catholic Church questions it?[15] I assume that Holding, as a good Protestant, has problems with the Catholic exposition of the relationship between faith, grace, and works, and perhaps with their lack of any doctrine of “eternal security.” Are not Protestant views on these subjects usually more “comforting”? It seems likely that even Holding would agree that spurious doctrinal developments sometimes occur along lines that are not motivated by the desire to make people feel good.
Holding calls this “the Apostasy Problem” (p. 98), but we have seen that it is not a problem for us at all. On the other hand, Holding really does have an “Apostasy Problem” if he wants us to believe that 1 Peter 3:18-20 refers to the Watchers of 1 Enoch! How did every early Christian writer who mentioned the passage from 1 Peter, in every part of the world, lose the knowledge that Peter was referring to 1 Enoch, when 1 Enoch was a commonplace among Christians? Whether or not the doctrine of postmortem evangelization was part of the Apostolic deposit of faith, the suggestion that this tradition lies behind 1 Peter 3:18-20 is at least plausible, given the historical evidence, in contrast to Holding’s interpretation.
Indeed, since Holding appears to believe that the story of the Watchers in 1 Enoch is fictional (see p. 92), one wonders why he prefers this interpretation at all. Why would Peter claim that Jesus visited fictional characters?
The Context of 1 Peter 4:6
Holding supports his contention that Christ proclaimed victory over the imprisoned angels by denying that 1 Peter 4:6 is connected with 1 Peter 3:18-20. He notes that the Greek verb the King James Version translates as “preached” in 3:19 can also refer to a simple “proclamation” of any message (as in the NEB above). The text does not say that Jesus proclaimed the Gospel to the imprisoned spirits, after all (pp. 92-93). However, 4:6 does state that the Gospel was preached (or “proclaimed”) to the “dead.” If 1 Peter 4:6 is referring back to 3:18-20, then the LDS are clearly right in their interpretation of the passage.Also, Holding asks why 3:18-20 refers only to those who died in Noah’s day, if the “dead” in 4:6 are equivalent to the “imprisoned spirits” in 4:6. What was so special about them? If the imprisoned spirits were the Watchers, who were swept from the earth in the Flood, then this apparent problem is solved.
Finally, Holding sides with scholars who assert that the LDS interpretation does not properly situate 4:6 in the context of the passage as a whole. In their view, the point of the passage is that, just as Christ was persecuted and triumphed over evil, so will faithful saints be persecuted and then vindicated when their persecutors are judged. Therefore, the “imprisoned spirits” in 3:19 and the “dead” in 4:6 refer to different groups who typify the same point. In 3:18-19, Christ is persecuted and dies, but is resurrected and proclaims His victory and vindication to the imprisoned Watchers. In 4:6, “the dead” are those of the righteous who were given the promise of the coming Messiah (i.e., the Gospel was preached to them) during their lifetimes. Just as they were faithful amid persecution, and were vindicated, so would the saints after the advent of Christ.
This appears, on the surface, to be a plausible interpretation, but I believe it neglects one crucial aspect of the overall context. That is, Peter not only speaks of the ultimate judgment of the persecutors, but also suggests that the patient perseverance of the saints in the face of unjustified persecution will be a witness to the persecutors. The saints who defend the faith with “modesty and respect” will “put to shame” their persecutors (3:15-16). Peter then reminds his readers that Christ, who was perfectly just, died for our sins, “the just suffered for the unjust, to bring us to God” (3:18). In other words, Peter’s Christian audience had once played the role of the persecutors, and Christ’s undeserved suffering had brought them to God. Peter next gives us an aside about what Christ did immediately after His death–He visited the spirits in prison to proclaim His message (3:19). What was the message? I believe it was the Gospel, rather than an “in your face” proclamation of victory, because the context of the passage requires an example of Christ proclaiming a message with the power to bring the hearers to God.
Why are only those of Noah’s day mentioned? Peter used these people, in particular, as a literary device to bring up the subject of baptism, because this is the means by which Christ has brought us to safety, just as He brought Noah and his family to safety through the water (3:20-21).
This salvation is brought by baptism through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. After his visit to the world of spirits, Christ was resurrected and ascended to heaven (3:21-22). As Christ ascended, he received the submission of the angelic authorities and powers who guard the way (3:22). But rather than an allusion back to the “imprisoned spirits,” this mention of angelic authorities and powers is merely a formulaic description of the path one takes in the ascent to heaven, common in both apocalyptic Jewish and early Christian texts. The second century Christian apocalypse, the Ascension of Isaiah, is typical in this respect. Here Isaiah sees the Messiah descend to Earth through the spheres of Heaven in disguise, giving the proper passwords along the way. However, after the Resurrection, Jesus ascends again through the Heavens in triumph, no longer in disguise.
And I saw when he sent out his twelve apostles and ascended. And I saw him and he was in the firmament, but he had not changed to their form, and all the angels of the firmament and the Satan saw him, and they worshiped him. And great sorrow was occasioned there, while they said, “How did our Lord descend in our midst and we perceived not the glory which was upon him which, as we see, was found on him from the sixth heaven?” And he ascended into the second heaven and was not changed, but all the angels on the right and on the left and the throne in the midst worshiped him and praised him saying, “How did our Lord remain hidden from us when he descended, and we perceived not?” And in like manner he ascended to the third heaven and they sang praise and spoke in the same way. And in the fourth and the fifth heavens they spoke exactly in the same manner; there was rather one song of praise and also after that he was not changed. And I saw when he ascended to the sixth heaven, and they worshiped him and praised him, but in all the heavens the song of praise increased. And I saw how he ascended into the seventh heaven, and all the righteous and all the angels praised him. And then I saw how he sat down on the right hand of that great glory, whose glory, as I told you, I was not able to behold. [16]
To be fair, I should mention that Holding’s interpretation seems to fit with the description of Christ passing by the evil angels inhabiting “the firmament,” but linking these fallen angels to the “imprisoned spirits” in 3:19 throws off the chronology of the passage. That is, Christ suffered and died (3:18), visited the imprisoned spirits (3:19), was resurrected (3:21-22), and ascended to heaven, receiving the submission of the angels along the way (3:22)
St. Justin also preserved an account of Christ’s Ascension to heaven. “When our Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, the rulers in heaven, under appointment of God, are commanded to open the gates of heaven, that He who is King of glory may enter in, and having ascended, may sit on the right hand of the Father until He make the enemies His footstool….” [17]
Peter again exhorts his readers to prepare themselves to endure suffering, just as Christ endured it, because people who endure suffering for God are enabled to live according to God’s will, rather than their own (4:1-2). In the past, the saints in Peter’s audience had lived just as the pagans, because they did not understand the truth (4:3). Now that they had received the Good News, their lives had changed. Seeing this, the pagans could not understand, and vilified the saints (4:4). However, they will answer for their conduct in the judgment (4:5). But once again, Peter wants to point out to his readers that the purpose of their suffering is not solely to condemn the wicked, but also to witness to them, if they will hear it. This is why the Gospel was preached to the dead, so that even though they had died they could still live Godly lives in the spirit, and everyone will be judged on an equal footing (4:6).
One final weakness in Holding’s interpretation of 1 Peter 4:6 is that Holding supplies an entire context for the passage (the “dead” as those who hoped for the promised Messiah in ages past, were persecuted, and finally vindicated) that is not at all clear from the surrounding text. On the other hand, the strength of the LDS interpretation is that the context for 4:6 is given just a few verses earlier in 3:18-19.
Conclusions
Holding offers a plausible interpretation of 1 Peter 3:18-20 that has several strong points. First, he links the Watchers in 1 Enoch to the “imprisoned spirits” in 1 Peter 3:19, and these fallen angels had been active on the Earth in the days leading up to the Flood (cf. 3:20). Second, if Jesus went to the imprisoned Watchers to proclaim victory, this seems to mesh well with 3:22, where Jesus is said to have ascended to heaven after receiving submission from the angelic authorities. Although Holding does not mention it, the Ascension of Isaiah mentions Jesus passing by the realm of the fallen angels during His ascension, although the Watchers are not specified. Finally, Holding attempts to integrate his interpretation with the textual context of the passage in question.However, Holding’s interpretation also has a number of very weak points. First, no early Christian writings link the story of the Watchers to 1 Peter 3:18-20, even though 1 Enoch was a commonplace among Christians at the time. On the other hand, some early Christian writers do link the passage to the ubiquitous tradition about Christ’s preaching mission to the underworld after His death. Why would no one remember the true context of this passage? Second, Holding neglects one important aspect of the message in 3:18-20 (perseverance in persecution as a witness to the ungodly), which links these verses to 4:6 in the overall context of the passage, strongly supporting the LDS interpretation. Third, in order to disallow the link between 4:6 and 3:18-20, Holding must invent a context for 4:6 that is nowhere alluded to in the text. Therefore, the LDS interpretation of these verses seems preferable, since it has significant early Christian support, is better integrated with the overall context, and links the ambiguous passages (3:18-20 and 4:6) to each other, giving the reader a plausible context for 4:6 within the text. And since neither the LDS nor Holding believe the story of the Watchers, it seems preferable to believe that Peter asserted that Christ had proclaimed His message to someone other than fictional characters.
[1] Margaret Barker, The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity (London: SPCK, 1988).
[2] John Tvedtnes, “The Dead Shall Hear the Voice,” FARMS Review of Books 10/2, 184-199.
[3] Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 71-72, in ANF 1:234-235.
[4] Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4:22:1, in ANF 1:493-494.
[5] Margaret Barker, “Text and Context,” in The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (New York: T&T Clark, 2003,) p. 298, emphasis in original.
[6] Ibid, p. 299.
[7] Ibid, p. 294-297, 305-306.
[8] Frank Moore Cross, “The Text Behind the Text of the Hebrew Bible,” in Herschel Shanks, ed., Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review (New York: Random House, 1992,) 139-155.
[9] Ibid, p. 304, emphasis in original.
[10] Rutherford H. Platt, The Forgotten Books of Eden (New York: Random House, 1980,) 120; Robert M. Grant, Second-Century Christianity (London: SPCK, 1946,) 11.
[11] The Odes of Solomon 42:15-26 in Platt, ed., The Forgotten Books of Eden, 140.
[12] Origen, De Principiis 2:5:3, in ANF 4:279.
[13] Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993,) 176.
[14] See Barry Robert Bickmore, Restoring the Ancient Church: Joseph Smith and Early Christianity (Ben Lomond, California: FAIR, 1999,) 171-186.
[15] Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1261. The catechism can be viewed at www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/baptism.html#WHO.
[16] The Ascension of Isaiah , in Willis Barnstone, ed., The Other Bible (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984,) 527-530.
[17] Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 36, in ANF 1:213.