Tragic Destiny: Better Never Born

Jesus says of his betrayer that it would have been better for that man if he had not been born. The phrase has a close cousin in 1 Enoch, where the wicked are told it would have been far better for them not to have been born.
That parallel sits in a numbered list of places where Enochic language and New Testament language run alongside one another. It is presented as a parallel - not as an argument that Jesus was quoting Enoch.
Worth holding that line. The sources give the two texts side by side without claiming literary dependence, and saying Jesus quoted Enoch goes further than the evidence does.
What the parallel does show is the world these words were spoken into. The idiom was already available, already carried that weight, and the first hearers would have recognised it.
Scripture links:
- Matthew 26:24 - it would have been better for that man if he had not been born.
Jesus was speaking a language his hearers already knew. That is usually the most useful thing a parallel can tell you.