From: (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Jude 9
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 05:02:02 GMT
As promised, some verifiable evidence about the background of Jude
verse 9.
In a large volume titled "The Old testament Psudepigrapha" vol. 1
(DLT, 1983) in an article introducing the text of "The Testament of
Moses (1st Century), J. Priest (pp 919ff) writes that the Testament of
Moses is a virtual rewrite of Deuteronomy 31-34. It is generally held
to have influenced the following NT passages:
Jude 9, 12-13, 2 Peter 2:13, Acts 7:36-43, Matthew 24:19-21.
"Jude 9 refers to a story of the disputes between Michael and Satan
over the body of Jesus, an account that does not appear in our text.
That the episode was contained in the lost ending of the Testament of
Moses, or in a cognate work, possibly called the Assumption of Moses,
is possible, but our present information does not warrand any positive
conclusion.
... The possibility exists that some NT authors were familiar with the
testament of Moses, but it would be better to say that both the
Testament of Moses and certain NT texts show familiarity with common
traditional material."
In the Word Biblical Commentary on Jude, 2 Peter, (Word Books, 1983),
R.J. Bauckham includes an excursus on pp. 65-76 on the sources of Jude
9. This is the most comprehensive text I could find - eleven pages on
tis one verse! It is worth looking up, if you are interested and have
access to a theological library. Bauckham details the relation of Jude
9 to OT and other sources, and writes
"There is widespread agreement that Jude's source in verse 9 was the
lost ending of a work sometimes known as the Assumption of Moses, but
more appropriately known as the Testament of Moses"
"Although the ending of the Testament of Moses is no longer extant, a
number of Christian sources seem to have preserved the substance of
the story it contained"
Sources are listed, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dydimus
the Blind (!), Gelasius, ...
The article concludes that the "Assumption of Moses" is a second-
century edited version of the Testimony of Moses", and that Jude was
aware of, and alluded to, at least the tradition, if not the precise
wording of the Testimony.
Peake's commentary on the Bible, sv "Jude".
"Jude drew on the OT (Septuagint version), Enoch, and the Assumption
of Moses..."
The Epistles of James, .Peter and Jude - Anchor Bible commentary
(Doubleday 1980).
Bo Reicke writes "According to well known authorities of the early
Church like Clement, Origen and others, the reference to Michael's
contention with the Devil comes from an apocryphal intertestamental
book entitled "The Assumption of Moses". (p. 202)
Introducton to the New testament (SCM Press, 1983)
R.F. Collins writes "... the small letter of Jude cites both the
Apocalypse of Moses (Jude 8-9) and 1 Enoch (Jude 14-15) in a
reverential manner..." (page 10)
Jude and the relatives of Jesus in the early Church (T&T Clark 1990)
R Bauckham (I think the same person who wrote the Word commentary)
writes
"According to the Alexandrian Fathers... the story of the dispute over
the body of Moses, to which Jude 9 refers, was contained in an
apocryphal work called the Assumption of Moses.
... some 19th century scholars took the account of Jude to be a
factual one, ...and denied any dependence on the Assumption of Moses,
which [they] argued was a second century Christian work based on Jude"
(p 141)
Bauckham concludes that it is most likely that Jude used the lost
ending of the Testament of Moses, and that "The story in this version
can be reconstituted [from extant sources] with some confidence"
(p.144).
The above shows that the matter of the background of Jude 9 is by no
means an easy or simple matter. I could not find any texts which dealt
with Jude 9 and did not mention the Testament/Assumption/Apocalypse of
Moses, and only Bauckham's incidental reference suggested that there
was any likelihood that Jude wrote without getting his information
from the written or oral Jewish tradition.
What I have collected above is the kind of evidence with which
scholars work. It still leaves many questions and possibilities open,
but points towards a fairly strong consensus that Jude 9 is an
allusion to a Jewish pseudepigraphal work which was well known to both
Jude and his readers.
Cheers
N+
Nigel B. Mitchell
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