St. Augustine, Letter 164, chs. 15–17; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, part 3, question 52, art. 2, reply to obj. 3; Leighton, pp. 354–366; Zahn, p. 289; W. Kelly, Christ Preaching to the Spirits in Prison (London: Morrish, 1872), pp. 3–89; D. G. Wohlenberg, Der erste und zweite Petrusbriefe und der Judasbrief (Leipzig: Deichert, 1923), pp. 106–115; Guthrie, NTT, p. 842; recently, P. Patterson, A Pilgrim Priesthood (Nashville: Nelson, 1982), pp. 134–146, 195–199, with several theological objections to other views.
Reicke, esp. pp. 90–91, 118, 120–122, 130–131 (includes preaching also to disobedient angels); Cranfield, pp. 84–86 (but hesitantly); A. M. Hunter, IB, vol. 12, pp. 132–133 (preaching to the rebellious generation of the flood); Hart, pp. 68–69 (preaching to disobedient angels, who repented); Bigg, pp. 162–163; Beare, pp. 170–173; Best, pp. 140–147; others listed in Reicke, pp. 47–49 and in Dalton, p. 21, note 34; A. T. Hanson, ExpT 93 (1981–82), pp. 100–115.
Reicke, pp. 44–45, lists several 17th-century supporters of this view, which he calls the ‘orthodox Lutheran theory’; it is strongly supported by Lenski, pp. 160–169.
This position began with Robert Bellarmine in 1586, and has been common among Roman Catholic interpreters; so H. Willmering in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, ed. B. Orchard (London: Nelson, 1953), p. 1179; others listed in Reicke, pp. 42–44, and Dalton, pp. 30–31.
This is probably the dominant view today, primarily because of the influence of Selwyn’s commentary, pp. 197–203, 314–362, and then of the detailed work by Dalton, esp. pp. 135–201. (Dalton sees the preaching as having occurred during an ‘invisible ascension’ of Christ on Easter Sunday morning, just after his appearance [John 20:17] to Mary in the Garden: see pp. 185–186.) Others who favour this view (but who place the preaching at various times, either before Christ’s resurrection, immediately after it, or at his ascension) include: Kelly, pp. 151–158; J. Fitzmyer, JBC, vol. 2, pp. 366–367; Stibbs/Walls, pp. 142–143; Blum, pp. 241–243; Leaney, pp. 50–52; France, pp. 264–281 (a good recent statement of this position).
For the view of R. Harris (1902), E. Goodspeed (1945), and others that the text should be emended to read, ‘Enoch went and preached …’, see objections in Reicke, pp. 41–42. Most commentators have been left unpersuaded by this view, preferring to interpret the text as it stands rather than attempting to alter it by inserting the name ‘Enoch’, a proposal supported by no ancient manuscript.
The fullest statement of this position is in Dalton, pp. 135–201, but a briefer yet very clear statement of this view is found in France, pp. 264–281, or in Kelly, pp. 151–158.
Some have suggested that this verse means simply, ‘Into your hands I commit myself’ (so Dalton, p. 146). However, in the light of the very similar expressions in Matt. 27:50, John 19:30, and Acts 7:59, where such a meaning is not possible, this suggestion is not persuasive.
Gk. text in M. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi Graece and A.-M. Denis, Fragmenta Pseudepigra-phorum Quae Supersunt Graeca (Leiden: Brill, 1970), p. 32. A recent English translation by E. Isaac is found in OTP, vol. 1, pp. 13–89.
This count is taken from the concordance in C. Wahl, Clavis Librorum Veteris Testamenti Apocryphorum Philologica (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972, p. 548), and excludes the variant readings.
At this point in the discussion I shall assume, for the sake of argument, the validity of the common Eng. translation ‘who formerly disobeyed’, even though at a later point I shall argue on grammatical and contextual grounds that it would be better to translate this phrase, ‘when they formerly disobeyed’.
Although the meaning of Gen. 6:2, 4 is still widely disputed, something near to this statement of Philo seems to be the most satisfactory interpretation: note the emphasis on sonship as including likeness to one’s father in Gen. 5:3, and the tracing of descendants from God through Adam to many ‘sons’ in all of chapter 5. The structure of the narrative is tracing the parallel development of the godly (ultimately Messianic) line of Seth and the ungodly descendants of the rest of mankind. Thus ‘sons of God’ are (as in Deut. 14:1) people belonging to God and like him, walking in righteousness (note Gen. 4:26 as an introduction to Gen. 5), and ‘daughters of men’ are the ungodly wives whom they marry. Cf. the argument of H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953), vol. 1, pp. 249–254; also J. Murray, Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), pp. 243–249. (But also note the view of Meredith G. Kline, WTJ 24 (1961–62), pp. 187–204, who sees the ‘sons of God’ as human kings.)
However, a marginal gloss of unknown date at Targum Neofiti on Gen. 6:4 reads ‘sons of the angels’.
Neusner, vol. 3, p. 156.
See the detailed chronologies in other Jewish literature, such as Josephus, Ant. 1.81–88 (with extended note in LCL edition, vol. 4, pp. 38–39); also Babylonian Talmud, Abodah Zarah 9a (with note in Soncino Eng. tr. [ed. I. Epstein; London: Soncino, 1961], Nezkin, vol. 4, p. 44).
This section of the Sibylline Oracles is dated in the late 1st century BC or very early 1st century AD by J. J. Collins, in agreement with A. Kurfess: see J. J. Collins, ‘Sibylline Oracles’ in OTP, vol. 1, p. 331.
For ‘disobeyed’, see pp. 112f. and 167.
For ‘disobeyed’, see pp. 112f. and 167.
BAGD, p. 83: ‘await eagerly’.
Lauterbach, vol. 2, pp. 39–40.
Here Philo uses the noun kērygma, ‘announcement, proclamation’, which is cognate with Peter’s verb kēryssō, ‘preach, proclaim’, in 1 Pet. 3:19.
This section was written perhaps fifty years before the time of the NT: see above, p. 225, n. 16.
E. Isaac, ‘1 Enoch’, OTP, vol. 1, p. 8.
Reicke, pp. 110–111, understands en ho to mean not ‘in which’ but ‘on which occasion’ (on the basis of similar meaning in 2:12; 3:16, and, so he argues, elsewhere in 1 Peter). But the words and the phrase itself are so common that there is no reason to think that Peter only used it in one specialized way: relative pronouns should be understood to refer to whichever (grammatically correct) antecedent makes the most sense in each particular context. Here, ‘spirit’ is near at hand and makes good sense; it is the antecedent Peter’s readers would have naturally understood.
As argued by France, pp. 268–269. France rightly sees the contrast in v. 18 as between the ‘natural human sphere of existence’ and the ‘eternal spiritual state of existence’ (p. 267), but then (p. 268) overly restricts the ‘eternal, spiritual sphere’ to mean only the resurrected state of Christ. The ‘flesh-spirit’ contrast in v. 18 is rather between two spheres of activity, than between the two things mentioned in those spheres in v. 18, the pre- and post-resurrection states of Christ.
See Gk. text or NASB, AV. The text is literally ‘in his own language, in which he was born’.
Luke 2:5; 16:14; Acts 24:24; and 1 Pet. 4:12 all have participles which might be thought to be exceptions, but they are all actually adverbial (of attendant circumstance), even though they may be loosely translated in an adjectival way. 2 Corinthians 11:9 may be an exception, but here again the participle immediately follows the noun, unlike 1 Pet. 3:20; moreover, elthontes in 2 Cor. 11:9 may well be adverbial rather than adjectival (the NASB understands it adverbially: ‘when the brethren came from Macedonia’); cf. P. Hughes, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, NIC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), p. 386.
After completing this Appendix, I obtained a copy of John S. Feinberg’s article, ‘1 Peter 3:18–20, Ancient Mythology, and the Intermediate State’, WTJ 48 (1986), pp. 303–336. I am pleased to see that Dr Feinberg and I, working entirely independently and with widely differing methods of approaching this text, have reached very similar conclusions. His arguments on pp. 327–336 are especially forceful in showing several still-unresolved contextual and theological difficulties faced by any view which argues for a ‘preaching of condemnation’, whether to human beings or to angels (Views 3 and 5 above).
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