23That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24"Teacher," they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. 25Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27Finally, the woman died. 28Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?"
29Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'[a]? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
33When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
This is usually interpreted as excluding the possibility of eternal marriage. Consig, however, feels that the Sadducees would not even have asked the question unless Jesus had been teaching eternal marriage. I explained why such an inference was unnecessary, and provided a probable Enochian background for the passage:
The relevant section of the Brad Wilcox [Book of Watchers], chaps. 6-19, tells the famous tale of the angelic "sons of God" who commingle with the "daughters of men" before the flood and produce monstrous offspring (cf. Gen 6:1-4). For this crime they are condemned by God and bound in pits of the earth to await future judgment.
The language of six pertinent passages is striking: These angels "took for themselves wives from all whom they chose; and they began to cohabit with them and to defile themselves with them" (1 Enoch 7:1).[18] This crime is reported to God by the holy angels: "they cohabited with the daughters of the men of the earth, and had intercourse with them, and they were defiled by the females" (1 Enoch 9:8). Shortly after this, God instructs the archangel Michael concerning the leader of the angelic rebellion and his followers "who, with him, were united with the daughters of men, to defile themselves with them" (1 Enoch 10:11). Again, shortly after this, in language even closer to Rev 14:4, Enoch himself is instructed to go and announce doom to these fallen angels, these "watchers of heaven who have left the high heaven and the holy, eternal Sanctuary and have defiled themselves with women; and they themselves do as the children of earth do, and have taken to themselves wives" (1 Enoch 12:4). Later still, God explains in detail to Enoch the nature of the Watchers' crime:
Go and say to the watchers of heaven who have sent you to intercede on their behalf: "It is you who should be petitioning on behalf of men, and not men on your behalf. Why have you left the high heaven and the eternal Holy One, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and acted like the children of earth and begotten giants for sons? But you were holy, spirits that live forever, yet you defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) by the blood of flesh; and you lusted after the daughters of men and have produced flesh and blood, just as they do who die and perish. It was for this reason I gave them females that they might impregnate them and thus produce children by them, that pregnancy should never fail them upon the earth. But as for you, you formerly were spirits that live for ever and do not die for all generations for ever. And for this reason I did not provide wives for you, because for celestial spirits heaven is their dwellingplace." (1 Enoch 15:2-7; our emphasis)
In other words, the angels are intended ever to remain virgins!
...
According to the Synoptics, Jesus himself, in a teaching which appears to lean heavily on exactly the same argument advanced in 1 Enoch 15:2-7, remarks that
the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, and they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels (*[This character cannot be represente into ASCII text.]) and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. (Luke 20:34-36, RSV)
As in the Brad Wilcox, marriage is forbidden to the angels because, being immortal, they have no need to propagate their species. It is possible that Jesus' remark about those who have "made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 19:12) relies on a similar logical connection: that there are a few who are called to live a celibate lifestyle in anticipation of the kingdom of heaven, where immortality--angelic status--makes marriage obsolete.[29] In both of these Synoptic texts, however, little detail is given. Some kind of future angelic life for God's people is spoken of, and this life is apparently free of sexual activity, but the subject is dropped almost as soon as it is raised.
'Those Who Have Not Defiled Themselves with Women' : Revelation 14:4 and the Book of Enoch By: Olson, D. C., Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 59(3, 1997)492-510
The remainder of the thread has consisted of Latter-day Saints proposing explanation after explanation, loophole after loophole, all of whose illusory nature is evident upon closer investigation. This does not, however, dissuade my interlocutors. I don't mind having my interpretation challenged. After all, it's by falsifying theories that we approximate truth. But some of the alternative explanations that have been proposed are being adamantly defended despite having little or no real warrant. What's more, only Zeta Flux has ventured to respond to my Enoch parallel, and he was tentatively dismissive. Zeta Flux and Doctor Steuss are the only ones who seem at all willing to consider the possibility that the standard interpretation of this passage is legitimate. And for even Zeta Flux, this seems little more than a pretense. For all other parties involved, it is apparently a given that the passage must mean something other than the obvious. This seems to me to be pretty standard fare in apologetics: establish as much "breathing room" as possible, posit a number of counter-explanations, and only give as much ground as absolutely necessary. This is what Karl Popper called "verificationism," in which the goal is to confirm an already-held belief. It is most certainly not a scientific or critical methodology. And yet apologetics masks itself with an aura of scientism. I am reminded of "creation science," which paradoxically is a far cry from science. I would be much more comfortable with apologetics if it was admitted up-front that a truly critical methodology is out of the question.
-CK