Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Jude 8-13, Michael and the body of Moses, and hidden reefs at the love feasts
The intruders claim dream visions, defile the body, despise authority and slander the glorious ones, though the archangel Michael, disputing with the devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to slander him but left the rebuke to the Lord. They have taken the way of Cain, Balaam and Korah; they are hidden reefs at the love feasts, waterless clouds, wild waves and wandering stars.
Jude 8-13, in every translation this tool compares.
Jude turns on the intruders, who claim visions, defile their bodies, reject authority and insult the glorious ones. He contrasts them with the archangel Michael, who would not pass judgment even on the devil in their dispute over Moses' body but left it to the Lord. Jude places them in the line of Cain, Balaam and Korah and piles up images from nature, such as rainless clouds, dead trees, foaming waves and wandering stars, to show how dangerous and empty they are, hidden reefs at the community's love feasts. Who the glorious ones are, and where Jude found the story of Michael, are both read in more than one way.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/angels\/","n":"Angels","s":"God's messengers and his heavenly army. Jews of Jesus' day spoke of guardian angels, of the greatest angels standing before God's face, and of angels coming with God at the judgment.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-satan\/","n":"The satan, the tempter","s":"The accuser, tempter and deceiver of Jewish belief, seen as the power behind human and political evil. In the Gospels he tests Jesus and is the strong man Jesus binds, and John calls him the ruler of this world.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/balaam\/","n":"Balaam, the prophet for hire","s":"The seer from beyond the Euphrates whom Moab's king hired to curse Israel, who could only bless, and who then, Numbers says, showed Midian how to lead Israel into sin. Jewish tradition remembered him as the greatest prophet of the Gentiles and a byword for greed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-abyss-and-bound-angels\/","n":"The Watchers, the flood and the bound angels","s":"Most Jews of the period read the sons of God of Genesis 6:1-4 as angels who took human wives before the flood. Their books, above all 1 Enoch, had the guilty angels bound under the earth in darkness until the judgment, and 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude speak of that prison.","r":""}
The glorious ones are read as the ranks of angels set over nations and nature (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes); divine beings close to God's glory (Heiser); probably evil angels (the ESV Study Bible); or angels the intruders cursed in healing spells (Wright and Bird). Charles pieces the lost story together from later fragments: "Michael was commissioned to bury Moses", and Satan opposed it. Most commentators, Wright's commentary among them, hear Zechariah 3 behind the Lord rebuke you. Heiser disagrees: the Old Testament is not the source, but "it is the inspiration for it". Moses died outside the land, and Michael, guardian of the Lord's own domain, contends with the devil, lord of the dead, to bring the body there; he will not curse the devil, who even in rebellion is one of the divine beings. Whether the love feasts included the Lord's Supper (the ESV and CSB Study Bibles) or it "properly followed, but was distinct from, the love feast" (the Zondervan dictionary) is debated. Wandering stars were the planets, which most people took to be "spirits, gods and supernatural powers" (Arnold), or star-angels imprisoned in 1 Enoch (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Jude 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Jude 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Jude 8-10, 11 and 12-13
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Jude 9 and 12-13
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 31, Opponents in Jude, The Argument of Jude, section 3, and box Emails from the Edge: Sources in Jude
- R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2, The Assumption of Moses, Introduction, section 2, and its note
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 37, This Means War, section The Glorious Ones in Peter and Jude
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 3, Astrology, and ch. 4, Judaism, section Angelic Powers over the Nations
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry agape
- N. T. Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, comment on Judah 5-16
- Michael S. Heiser, Naked Bible Podcast, episode 436, The Epistle of Jude, Part 5
