I’m a few Sundays behind schedule, thinking about the City of Enoch and the Mormon folk imagination. At least in the past, but possibly also in the modern Mormon mind, the impression we have of the City of Enoch is that the material city itself – its buildings, its farmland, its roads – was taken intact, with all of its inhabitants, from this earth. Well, except Methuselah, that is; Moses 8:2 tells us that “Methuselah, the son of Enoch, was not taken, that the covenants of the Lord might be fulfilled, which he made to Enoch that Noah should be of the fruit of his loins” (Moses 8:2).
We see that popular conception in beliefs of an earlier generation that the Gulf of Mexico was created when the physical City of Enoch was pulled off the surface of the earth and taken to heaven (conflating the heaven of God with the space beyond the earth’s sky) – Wilford Woodruff and Joseph Young, Sr., and perhaps others remembered that idea as coming from Joseph Smith, but to the best of my knowledge, there is no known statement in Joseph Smith’s own writings, and no contemporaneous report to that effect. Others have thought that so much material was taken from the earth in a knob to serve as a foundation for the City of Enoch so that the city is on its own small planet, perhaps revolving around the earth on the far side of the moon. Or something.
What brought the issue to mind this morning is a 1932 letter wherein a Church member disputed the claims of modern geology that the earth has a molten core and an upper crust (overlooking its vast mantle: “According to scripture … the city of Enoch was taken away from this earth … If the earth has a crust … would not the removing of the City have reached the molten interior and left a hot spot?” he reasoned.
I hope I’ll be forgiven for my levity, but this image added to all the rest makes me ask whether we see the City of Enoch as a sort of spiritual Brigadoon, its righteous inhabitants blessed? cursed? to continue living in the physical surroundings they knew thousands of years ago. I suppose we could imagine them progressing independently, but the image I get is of the city’s inhabitants doomed to living in their cold and drafty first millennia huts, without running water or central heating, presumably aware of our own wi-if and indoor plumbing and binge watching our favorite TV shows. Well, okay, maybe they don’t envy us that last. But they’d have to be jealous, wouldn’t they, of the variety of fruits and vegetables we enjoy, the variety of animal life we admire, that were presumably not living in whatever part of the earth’s surface was caught up into heaven along with their houses and playgrounds?
I have not paid particular attention to the account and am sure there are far more serious, far more scholarly thoughts about the City of Enoch in the history of Mormon philosophy and letters. But I see no need to read the scant scriptural details in the way they seem to have been traditionally understood.
Moses 7.69:
And Enoch and all his people walked with God, and he dwelt in the midst of Zion; and it came to pass that Zion was not, for God received it up into his own bosom; and from thence went forth the saying, ZION IS FLED.
Doctrine and Covenants 45:11-12:
Wherefore, hearken ye together and let me show unto you even my wisdom – the wisdom of him whom ye say is the God of Enoch, and his brethren, who were separated from the earth, and were received unto myself – a city reserved until a day of righteousness shall come – a day which was sought for by all holy men, and they found it not …
Moses 7:63-64:
And the Lord said unto Enoch: Then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there [people of the New Jerusalem], and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other; and there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made …
It’s the people who make Zion, not the buildings of a city nor the dirt and rock under and around it. References to the special nature of City of Enoch are really references to its people – those so righteous in their obedience to God and their care for each other that they walked with God. I see no reason to suppose that when the Lord translated them and “separated [them] from the earth” and took them to “his own bosom” that their cooking pots and plowshares and and apple trees were translated with them, or that when the people of that Zion in Enoch’s day come back to meet the people of the New Jerusalem in the last days, they will inconveniently bring their ancient buildings and fences with them. Every one of the scriptural references to the departed City of Enoch can as easily, if less sensationally, be read as referring to its people and not its infrastructure.
What I see in the traditional Mormon imagination is a hyper-literal understanding, one that reads “city” as the physical structure in which the people lived, somehow overshadowing the people who made that place what it was. To my mind, the perhaps unconscious emphasis on the physical city and its whereabouts distances us from what matters; we speculate about the trivial terrestrial location and overlook the righteousness and cooperation of its inhabitants. It’s a minor thing, but one I’m going to work to uproot from my own assumptions and imagination.
(Image from Universal’s 1936 Flash Gordon movie, “City in the Sky.”)
Finally, a Mormon urban legend that I was not taught in Seminary!! I am kind of tickled (and also a bit appalled) to discover that people thought the City of Enoch was taken up from the Gult of Mexico.
I learned something else new, too. I had to go look up the plot of Brigadoon; I’d always had a vague idea that it was mainly singing cowboys.
Ach, noo! 😀
Fun post! In Chris Heimerdinger’s Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites scripture time travel series, he has the Enochites live on a satellite-type city that the Tower of Babel builders are trying to reach.
Since the Gulf of Mexico is an impact crator of sorts, it is exactly the opposite of what is proposed.
I heard the Gulf of Mexico thing from Randy Bott, in his BYU mission prep class. In retrospect, he may have had a thing for outdated teachings…
In all seriousness, Mike, I think there might be something to that. There’s a sort of gnostic attitude, isn’t there, common to Randy Bott, and the missionaries who pass around dog-eared, faded photocopies, and the authors of pieces that crop up on fringey blogs, even some of the stories in Timothy Ballard’s books? It’s like they pore over very old books and talks, combing out speculations and ill-founded hypotheses, with the notion that they’re rescuing forgotten truths and the old wisdom that has somehow been forgotten or perhaps deliberately buried by evil forces, those things that have been lost in the dumbing down of correlated materials. They know truth that has been lost by the rest of us, and they don’t stop with one such story; they have an affinity for them all.
I actually did hear about the Gulf of Mexico from a long-ago seminary teacher. But I remember him presenting it mostly as unsupported speculation that he had heard.
Your comments about the City of Enoch made me think of the Colesville Branch. The people moved from place to place, always being identified as the Colesville Branch. But actual town of Colesville, NY remained right where it was.
To add to the confusion, Genesis 4:17 mentions another city by that name:
“And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.”
Several thoughts:
— Wow! Something like a decade ago I went through a phase of thinking the Gulf of Mexico was once Enoch’s Zion; I didn’t ever realize others had thought it too! I think if the Lord had wanted us to know, he’d have mentioned it before now. 🙂
— If you check the dates carefully (I’ve recently been making a chart), Adam and Seth died while the City of Enoch was on the earth; all the other patriarchs born before Enoch continued living on the earth after the city was taken. So Methuselah had some good people to keep him company.
— I’d be willing to bet, Ardis, that they’ve probably modernized the city a bit. Don’t know about TV, but I’m betting their wives talked them into, at least, indoor plumbing. 🙂
I thought it just dematerialised like the TARDIS…
“Missionaries who pass around dog-eared, faded photocopies.” That’s exactly it! I’m trying to decide if the internet has made this better or worse. I will admit to having harbored some odd beliefs myself, mainly because my parent’s bookshelf was the best source of doctrine I had access to. I also remember temple trips on my mission — the associated trip to the only LDS bookstore in the mission seemed like there was treasure to unearth. I’m more discriminating in my doctrinal tastes now, possibly because good information is *so* much more accessible than it used to be. But it seems like the rapid flow of information has also allowed error (like certain published “hypotheses”) to propagate at light speed.
“Their wives”: As much as men have the reputation for a “the world is my bathroom” attitude, I’d be willing to bet that indoor plumbing is desirable to all. The implication that the “righteous inhabitants” of the city of Enoch and “their wives” are two separate groups is unfortunate; because the quality of commenting is high here, I’m choosing to believe this implication was unintentional.
I’ve always figured that Enoch and Noah were contemporaries. The righteous people fled to the City of Enoch and what was left (except for Noah) drowned in the flood. That explains everyone but Cain.
Mike R — yes; the last comment in my post above was not intended the way you are reading it. Please do not take offence from my following clarification; I am merely explaining my intent, hopefully to the satisfaction of anyone who has misread my post.
My wording was not meant to degrade anyone. In rereading my post, I don’t see that I used the phrase “righteous inhabitants” as a separate group from “their wives”. I used the non-gender “they”, and my intent was to be non-gender at that point, as both men and women would of course be working together to upgrade their city.
I only separated the genders into two groups with the use of the phrase “their wives” in the following sentence, and my intent was that of showing respect to the truth that it is “usually” the beloved wife who is able to inspire the beloved husband on to such good works as extensive home repair. And I am of the age and culture that I DO in fact mean respect to the women who do so in love and kindness.
I am somewhat taken aback that you interpreted my imprecisely-worded comments to imply that the “the world is my bathroom” attitude was implied for an in-city situation; I’m sure the men of the City of Zion were more modest than that. What I was picturing was much more modest: in my travels around the world, outhouses and chamber pots have become familiar concepts, and I assure you I am a man who thanks his Maker for miracle and blessings of indoor plumbing. Zion would not be Zion with anything less than indoor plumbing.
Carol — here is a link to a simple chart that shows the lifespans of the ancient patriarchs and who was contemporary to who:
http://i.pinimg.com/736x/0c/ff/db/0cffdb9f4108ba0b863717ad4a1f4e69.jpg
Thank you, Bruce. I’m holding on to that.
I can see that I missed it by *that* much.
But still, I suppose a lot of righteous people could have run off to Enoch instead of *everyone* but Noah and the animals being wicked. I wonder how big the city is.
A slight nit. The Gulf of Mexico is not an impact crater; the Chicxulub impact produced a much smaller crater, centered more or less on the north coast of Yucatan.
It is a characteristic feature of Mormonism that it is thoroughly grounded in a physical universe in which spirit is simply a higher form of matter. This is a wonderful thing in most respects — but it gets carried away with the gnosticism you speak of. Which is ironic, since the original Gnosticism was very anti-materialist.
Once again I stand corrected. (Sigh)