I'm interested though, how you reconcile Enoch’s plain and direct teaching of the preexistence of man with that of orthodox Christianity? Mormons are almost alone in that belief.
Here are some examples.
..... And every thing found in the world has been before and has passed before him and has been organized before him ...AII the creations Of the World have existed in each generation before they came to this world .All the souls of the children of men have been before they came down to the world formed before him in Heaven in the very likeness that they have in this world ...For all souls are prepared to eternity before the formation of the world.
And the Angel said to Enoch sit down and write All of the spirits of men and those who have not yet been born yet, the places which have been prepared for them . All things were prepared since before the foundation of the world” 2 Enoch 9:
“Enoch answered the people saying hear my children ,before anything was and before the whole creation took place, the Lord established the age of creation; and after that he made all of the creation both visible and invisible and after that he created man in his own image. He gave him eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to think with and a mind to council. I swear to you my children that before man was in the womb of his mother we were prepared, each individual and a place for each spirit that each should sojourn here in his proper time, that man might be tested in the balance ...” 2 Enoch 17:
” Enoch went to the Lord who taught him all about creation and his works... He saw matter unorganized before the creation...the council in heaven... He saw Satan aspire and get cast out to become the foundation of lower things, beyond which there ii great darkness and nothing”
2 Enoch 11:
” Then the angel Braboil said: Sit down and write all the spirits of men, all those who have not been born yet, and the places which have been prepared for them. All these things were prepared since before the foundation of the world. And I wrote down all the affairs of men. Secrets of Enoch 10: (Vaillant)
Further, and interesting little tidbit I came across recently....
Ancient Book of Enoch text quoted in Book of Mormon.
(From the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.2, Ch.1, Pg.8)
A quotation from an Enoch text occurs in the thirteenth chapter of Helaman. “Ye have trusted in your riches,” Enoch tells the people. “Ye have not remembered the Lord in the day he gave you your riches.” (Cf. Helaman 13:33.) This is also Samuel the Lamanite speaking, an expert in the scriptures; he knew all about these things. He had access to the plates of brass and other records. And here Enoch speaks in a writing not discovered until 1888: “Ye have not remembered the Lord in the days he gave you your riches; ye have gone astray that your riches shall not remain, because you have done evil in everything. Cursed are you and cursed are your riches.”
NOTE: Nibley’s citation, above, raises three interesting issues:
1. The text discovery took place in 1888. The Book of Mormon provides the citation in 1830. If the author of the Book of Mormon was not an ancient historian, how did know this?
2. The Book of Mormon has been criticized for using New Testament language before New Testament times. But the New Testament abounds with quotations from Enoch and other ancient writers. When the New Testament and the Book of Mormon both quote (without attribution, in the ancient style) from lost, ancient writings, it's going to look like the Book of Mormon is (to quote mark Twain) “smouched from the New Testament, and no credit given.”
3. I claimed earlier that it can be proven that the Book of Mormon repeatedly flies in the face of the best knowledge and belief of the 1800s, only to be proven exactly right by subsequent discoveries. This is a prime example. No one would be so stupid in an 1800’s forgery as to expect a Bible-reading public not to recognize Bible phrases. But the ancient author of the Book of Mormon blythly cites his ancient sources (as Enoch, above) without attribution, thus ignorantly putting Joseph Smith's reputation in jeopardy.
Enoch 2 is not Scripture, not inspired, and not written by Enoch. It has many things in it which contradict the book called 1 Enoch, OT and NT. It has some things in it taken from the writings of Enoch, but horribly corrupted, and therefore, is a fraudulent document.
1 Enoch was kept as Canon by the Ethiopian Coptic Church from the beginning of the Church there, and the Essene’s used the same in their studies, with parts of many copies found in the Qumram caves, but not one whole book.
YHWH is the Father of the spirits of all flesh, as to being the Creator of them, in their kinds. The Head of each kind that was created to multiply was created with the seed within itself. The spirit of the kind causes the life of the kind to do what it was programmed to do; to multiply it’s own kind. We have, as it were, an “Adamhead” as to our kind, and in each of us dwells all the fulness of the same created “Adamhead”, bodily.
In Jesus Christ, all the fulness of the Living Spirit, YHWH, -the Godhead- dwells bodily.
In 1 Enoch, the OT and the NT, each soul to be born in Adam is seen as written in the Book of Life. In 1 Enoch, the OT, and the NT, all the persons who would come forth in Adam are not only written in the Book of Life, but their days -boundaries of time- and the details of their own bodies of flesh are written, even the numbers of their hairs are written in that book.
In Enoch, the OT and NT, the names can get blotted out of that book, but never written in, for it is finished before the foundation of the world, and if one’s name is blotted out, there is no remedy for them having eternal life by any means, in the regeneration of all things. They will then be cast aways in the everlasting fire -the Abyss which Enoch saw- and will never be “metamorphosed” into the image of the son of God at the resurrection and or at the rapture, and will remain “worms that never die” in the Abyss, forever.
The only way to assure that one’s name is never blotted out of the Book of Life, after one comes to the age of accountability, is to be born again, in Christ, while one has their being intact. Un-accountable souls who die without having done good or evil -with understanding- belong to the LORD, who ransomed Adam by His once for all Atonement. Accountable souls are ransomed by their own freewill of choice and are led to Him by seeking Him who seeks them, first, by His Light that lights every man that comes into the world.
Because all in Adam were made to be sons of God, in Adam, every detail of their being in which they would come forth was written before the foundation of the world -with no corruption of parts caused by sin.
In the resurrection and regeneration there will be no corruption of parts, and all will receive the body they were written in the Book to have, before Adam fell and lost sonship and the indwelling Glory.
Because Jesus Atoned for all Adam, as Kinsman, then no person/soul born in Adam will be resurrected with any parts missing or corrupted, but if they refuse to seek the Light that lights every person who comes into the world while they have their being, or reject that Light, and follow lies, then they will be forever in the Adam body, -minus the Adam spirit which drives Adam to “be”- and will be cast away, into the Abyss, body and soul intact, and forever remain in that same stage, which is called the “undying worm”. For that, there is no remedy. They will never be metamorphosed into the beautiful and glorious image of the second and only living human being kind Son of God.
And yet; it happened!
Go figger.
You also raised a cogent point which you don't even realize: the true author of the text from which Smith plagarized was in fact an educated being, familiar with scriptures and different languages and texts.