Why Does the New Testament Cite Extrabiblical Sources
00:00:00.000 | Well, sometimes on the podcast, we talk about textual matters.
00:00:07.200 | And Joe from Santa Barbara, California writes in, "Hello, Tony and Pastor
00:00:12.240 | John, Jude 9 and 14 to 15 confuse me.
00:00:16.300 | Where is Jude getting the information from these verses?
00:00:20.000 | Paul usually quotes the Old Testament and it tells us where he's quoting
00:00:23.960 | from at the bottom of our Bibles.
00:00:25.800 | But I have no clue where Jude gets his quotations.
00:00:30.060 | I've asked others about these texts and they usually say something
00:00:32.540 | like Paul quoted pagan prophets.
00:00:34.520 | But it seems to me that Jude is actually quoting scripture.
00:00:37.400 | What do we know and what do we not know about who Jude is citing here?"
00:00:42.040 | Well, here's what we know and what we don't know.
00:00:45.620 | Jude is not quoting scripture.
00:00:47.620 | That's pretty plain.
00:00:50.500 | He doesn't claim to be quoting scripture, but we'll get to that in a minute.
00:00:53.600 | Here's what we know and what we don't know.
00:00:56.480 | We know that Jude was in the middle of rebuking some arrogant opponents in the
00:01:03.880 | church, and we know that in verse 9, he does this by contrasting their willingness
00:01:12.080 | to blaspheme what they don't understand with the Archangel Michael's unwillingness
00:01:17.780 | even to pronounce a blasphemous judgment against the devil.
00:01:20.680 | So that's the point.
00:01:22.560 | They're trying to rebuke their arrogance and presumption.
00:01:26.600 | And so he says in verse 9, it goes like this, "But when the Archangel Michael
00:01:32.440 | contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not
00:01:37.880 | presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you.'
00:01:42.120 | But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand."
00:01:48.280 | So we know that Jude refers to a situation at the burial of Moses where
00:01:56.480 | Michael, the Archangel, and the devil are disputing over what can be done with
00:02:03.720 | Moses' body.
00:02:04.760 | And we know this is a story that's not in the Old Testament.
00:02:08.200 | Nothing is said except that God took care of the burial up there in the mountain.
00:02:13.160 | Nobody knows where he was buried.
00:02:15.960 | What we don't know for sure is exactly where the story comes from, according to
00:02:21.840 | verse 9.
00:02:22.720 | There's more down lower in verses 14 and 15 that we do know, but here we don't
00:02:27.960 | know where it comes from.
00:02:29.280 | There is a Jewish book called The Assumption of Moses, written between the
00:02:32.960 | Old and New Testaments, which has a story like this, but Jude doesn't seem to be
00:02:37.920 | giving an exact quote.
00:02:39.600 | So we can't say for sure that's where he's getting it.
00:02:43.960 | So the answer so far for verse 9 is we just don't know where he got that story.
00:02:51.520 | But he got it from somewhere, and he doesn't make any claim to get it from
00:02:55.880 | Scripture.
00:02:56.880 | Here's a further issue in verses 14 and 15.
00:03:01.280 | Jude is still criticizing the ungodliness of his opponents, and this time he
00:03:08.600 | actually quotes a source outside the Bible.
00:03:13.640 | It doesn't say what it is.
00:03:15.080 | At least it looks like a quote.
00:03:16.840 | Most people think it's a quote, namely from 1 Enoch.
00:03:20.560 | This is a Jewish book written about 300 BC and not regarded as inspired or
00:03:26.200 | scriptural by Protestants or Catholics.
00:03:28.520 | And it was not in the Old Testament that Jesus used and endorsed.
00:03:35.760 | Verses 14 and 15 are fairly close rendition of this verse.
00:03:40.400 | That's why everybody thinks, most people think it's a quote.
00:03:43.480 | These verses go like this.
00:03:44.840 | "It was also these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied saying," so he's
00:03:53.400 | quoting now this prophecy that Enoch gives, "Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000
00:04:00.120 | of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of
00:04:06.920 | all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way,
00:04:11.960 | and of all the harsh things that the ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
00:04:17.880 | So Jude quotes Enoch, the seventh from Adam, a seventh generation from Adam, as
00:04:23.720 | prophesying, and he turns his words against the opponents as a judgment on
00:04:30.880 | them, and that's the judgment they can expect.
00:04:33.880 | Now, here's the question.
00:04:35.800 | What does this mean for Jude who cites this from outside the Bible?
00:04:43.120 | Where did he get it?
00:04:44.640 | What's he doing?
00:04:45.440 | Here are two possibilities.
00:04:47.840 | One, he believed that even though these sources, first Enoch and wherever he got
00:04:53.760 | the verse nine idea, the story, these sources, though not inspired, contain
00:05:01.280 | truth that he's willing to use.
00:05:03.600 | That's one possibility.
00:05:05.240 | A second possibility, and I kind of lean toward this one, but it's impossible to
00:05:11.000 | prove, namely that Jude knew that his opponents in the church, the people that
00:05:18.080 | he's so upset with, his opponents in the church loved to make use of first Enoch
00:05:26.720 | and maybe the assumption of Moses, these books, and they were their favorite books
00:05:32.760 | to use from, and so he's citing their own documents in an ironic way to bring them
00:05:39.480 | in a reverse way back on their own heads.
00:05:42.440 | Now, that's where this issue about Paul quoting the poets becomes relevant,
00:05:47.040 | because that's what Paul did when he quoted the poets in Acts 17 from the
00:05:53.520 | pagan authors, he said, "God is actually not far from each one of us, for in him
00:06:02.760 | we live and move and have our being.
00:06:04.520 | Even some of your own poets have said this, for we are indeed his offspring.
00:06:10.520 | Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think of the divine being as like gold
00:06:19.000 | or silver or stone or an image formed by the art or imagination of man."
00:06:23.480 | So Paul reached into sources that he didn't believe were inspired, saw something
00:06:30.800 | that was written there, drew it out, used it in a Christian way, and turned it back,
00:06:37.000 | as it were, on his conversation partners there in Athens.
00:06:42.600 | So even though we don't know for sure, my inclination is to say that Jude chose
00:06:50.480 | to cite these extra biblical sources because his adversaries put such a high
00:06:57.520 | premium on them, and then he turned them around and used them to indict
00:07:03.400 | the very pride that was using them.
00:07:05.560 | Interesting.
00:07:06.440 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:07.240 | And thank you for the question, Joe.
00:07:09.360 | If you have a Bible question that you just can't quite figure out, or some
00:07:13.080 | issue that seems confusing to you, send us an email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:07:18.680 | That's our email address.
00:07:19.800 | And of course you can find our audio feeds in the episode archive of over a
00:07:24.360 | thousand episodes that we've released to date at our online home,
00:07:28.040 | desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:07:31.440 | I am your host, Tony Reiki.
00:07:33.800 | We'll be back on Wednesday.
00:07:34.960 | I'll ask John Piper, "When should we use satire to make a point?"
00:07:39.600 | You do not want to miss this episode.
00:07:42.240 | We'll see you next time on Wednesday.
00:07:44.480 | Bye.
00:07:44.720 | Bye.
00:07:44.720 | Bye.