BibleProject - Slandering the Angels in Word and Deed

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

The Letter of Jude E4 — In verses 5-7, Jude warns a Jewish Messianic community about a group of people in their midst who live without moral restraint and reject Jesus’ authority. After comparing them to a series of human and angelic rebels in the Hebrew Bible, Jude then calls out the corrupt church members in verses 8-10 as ones who “slander the glorious-ones,” referring to angels. What is Jude talking about, and why would slandering spiritual beings be considered offensive? In this episode, Jon and Tim explore the Hebrew Bible and Second-Temple period apocryphal literature to understand the unique role and revered status of angels among 1st-century Jewish people.FULL SHOW NOTESFor chapter-by-chapter summaries, referenced Scriptures, and reflection questions, check out the full show notes for this episode.CHAPTERSRecap of Introduction and Setup for Verses 8-10 (0:00-10:21)Angels in the Hebrew Bible and Second-Temple Literature (10:21-39:02)Michael the Archangel’s Restraint (39:02-1:06:12)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.BIBLEPROJECT JUDE TRANSLATIONView our full translation of the Letter of Jude.REFERENCED RESOURCESGod and Spiritual Beings Podcast SeriesCheck out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books.SHOW MUSIC“Chillbop ft. Me & The Boys” by Lofi Sunday“Cherish ft. PAINT WITH SOUND” by Lofi SundayBibleProject theme song by TENTSSHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty writes the show notes. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Bible has all sorts of warnings about things you should not do in life. Don't murder. That's one of the Ten Commandments. Do not be afraid. God says that to Joshua. Do not judge. That's a teaching of Jesus. Well, today, we're going to talk about a warning you've probably never thought of before.

Don't slander angels. What's that about? We're working through the letter of Jude, and slandering angels is on the brain, as Jude accuses certain men in his community of doing just that. They slander the glorious ones. Glorious ones, as we're going to see, is a way of referring to heavenly spiritual beings. Angels.

These people criticize them, think they're better than them. So why? What is going on here? And if this isn't confusing enough, that's just one of three accusations that he strings together. He says, These people claim to have divine revelations. Look what they do.

They pollute the flesh. They are rejecting the Lord's authority. And they slander the glorious ones. Okay, if you're like me, you've probably got into sections like this in the Bible and think, yeah, this is a bit complicated. I'm going to move on. Well, today, we're not going to move on. We're going to dig in, and we're going to talk about all of it, including angels, the role in the Bible, and what it means to slander them. Up there are God's delegated rulers to order the functioning of the cosmos. They're pretty key players. Why does the Apostle Paul say God's law was given to Israel through angels? Why did the author of Hebrews take an entire chapter to talk about how Jesus is greater than angels?

And why does Paul write that one day will judge angels? It turns out the first century Christians had a lot of thoughts about angels. And one of those thoughts is to respect them, because in some way, respecting angels is respecting God. Jude says these people, the things about which they have no knowledge, they slander. They claim to have knowledge. And actually, they have no clue. They are slandering both God and God's delegated powers. That's today on the podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hey, John Collins. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Jude. Mm-hmm.

Judah. Judea. The letter of Judah. Yeah. Yeah, there's 25 verses, one of the shortest documents in the New Testament. Hmm. But it is jam-packed. Like, we're not making our way quickly, here are we?

No. You want a big picture again before we dive in? Walk us through. Where have we been? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is a short emergency letter, right? Written by Judah, the brother of Jacob, both of whom are men who grew up with Jesus of Nazareth in their home. And Judah's become a house church leader, most likely up in Galilee, are the last traces of him.

Okay. In early church history is where he landed. His grandsons, you know, are spotted there a couple generations later. And so he writes this emergency letter. I mean, we're not but a decade or two out from like Resurrection Sunday. I mean, we're talking about early house church network, certainly mostly just Jewish followers of Jesus, probably lots of relatives of Jesus in these communities.

He said he wanted to write a whole theology of our shared salvation. He wanted to do like a Hebrew Bible, like design pattern, hyperlinked theology of salvation. But he needed to write the short letter because some people have started hanging out in their house churches. And he has the deep conviction that their way of life is actually destructive and is going to erode not just the faith, but also the moral integrity of these followers of Jesus. us. And so he wants to warn them. And the way that Second Temple, Hebrew Bible, nerd, Jewish people thought and wrote to each other was to talk about everything in their lives within hyperlinked design patterns from the Hebrew Bible. So he wants to warn them that these people in their communities actually fit the bill of all these type characters from the Hebrew scriptures that ruin themselves

of them bring ruin on each other and why you should stay away from them. So he uses six biblical stories and that takes up verses five to 13. We're halfway through that. Okay. Then he's going to bring up two prophecies, one from ancient times from Enoch, another from contemporary times from the apostles and say, we've been warned about these types of people and the effect that they can have and to stay away from them. And then in verse 2023 will be the only positive instructive things that he tells them to do. We'll probably get there in the very last conversation in this little series.

And then he praises God at the end. So there you go. That's the shape. That's the shape of the letter. We are right here in verses 5 through 13. We just finished three biblical design patterns that he linked together. The story of the rebellion of the spies,

who rebelled against Moses and God in the wilderness. So they're like the leader. of the people of Israel who are rescued and now are betraying God. They're like the angels in that they have been given their own proper realm of responsibility and they grab for more.

They want more than what God has allotted to them. Okay. That's that analogy. And then he likens it to the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who tried to gang rape the angels that came to them and it's connected to sexual immorality. But then also

to an inappropriate view of spiritual beings. And that's what he's about to go into right now. An inappropriate view of spiritual beings. Yeah. I'm going to leave that ambiguous because we'll fill it in. Okay. So that's what he just went through. Remember, we also went through how he's going to quote from ancient biblical text

and then use this interpretive technique that was real popular in Second Temple Judaism, which was in the common elements between network of texts. They see a larger idea emerging out of it. Yeah. And then they say, that bigger idea, these kinds of people, that's these people who are coming into our churches. So during our series where we looked at the formation of the Bible, at the very end we did a Q&R where someone asked about God's Word. Like, why do we call the Bible God's Word? And you start talking about how God's Word is that bigger thing.

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like scripture, the things written were like the stories and the design patterns and a lot of stuff. But then when you read that, you're encountering some bigger ideas. Yeah, the voice of God. The voice of God. Speaking to you and your community in this moment. The wisdom of God.

And then in Hebrews, it talks about that. That's alive. It's a living and active. Yeah, that's good. So that's what he's doing. He's like, he's connecting to that living alive. Like there's something bigger here and I can apply it to my community. Yeah.

Yep. And maybe even more specific, Judah sees himself and his communities living in the moment of the last days. That is, the days brought on by the arrival of God's kingdom through the Messiah. So all of the pointers to a final reckoning of God bringing justice in and through his Messiah to bring about the rebirth of heaven and earth. like that's top of mind. I mean, Messiah just rose from the dead a few years ago. Okay.

There was an intensity, a fervor in that first generation because they're praying in Aramaic, Maranata, Maranatha. Come, Lord, come back, Lord. And they really did think this was likely the last few generations. Yes.

I think that's going to come through loud and clear as we read through the letter. And it comes through in other writings of the apostles too. Yeah. The end of days has begun. Yeah. But yet here we are like 100 generations later.

Exactly. Yep. Which is why 2nd Peter had to write his letter near the end of his life and say, listen, you might think the Lord's slow in coming because it's been a few decades now. But time to God is fundamentally different than, in fact, what time is to us, there's no real relationship. or reference to God and time the way we think of time. So I know 2,000 years

seems a long time for us, but if you get cosmic about it, it's not even the blink of an eye. Right, from the perspective of a rock? Oh man, I was just down in the redwoods not long ago. And they had this old growth ring of a redwood tree.

I mean, I didn't measure it. It was gigantic. Yeah. how wide it was. These things are a thousand years old, right? Dude, they had actually marked on it the ring that was like the birth of Jesus. Oh, okay. And it was not at the center.

It was like... Oh, so this thing's thousands of years old. Yeah. Yeah. So from the perspective of a tree, you know, anyway, that's a much bigger question. So he's going to apply those three biblical stories, rebellion of the spies, the rebel sons of God, and the men of Saddam, Mora. He's going to apply it to these people. And that's what we're going to look.

look at now, shall we? Mm-hmm. Go. So, verse 8, you dives in. We actually looked at this right at the end of the last conversation. Okay. But in a similar manner, similar to the three examples, those three stories, even these people being inspired by dreams, and they do three things.

Everything comes in triads in this letter. So they're inspired by dreams, which is in Second Temple Judaism, even throughout the Hebrew Bible, dreams are a form of apocalypse, the way God shows people, heavenly divine realities, like Pharaoh's dreams that Joseph interprets. Yeah. So these guys are having some sort of nighttime, like dream experience? Or ecstatic trance experiences through prayer. These types of experiences are described all over the prophets, and it's a thing.

Connected to intense experiences of, God's presence, often bring on an elevation of consciousness where you're seeing things on a different dimension or something. Okay, but it doesn't always mean that you're really connecting to the source. Exactly. Yes, and this was a huge problem, especially the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah encountered this where there were prophets in Jerusalem who claimed, I had a dream last night, it's from Yahweh, and there's no way Babylon's going to take the city. We're just fine. God's good with us. He's going to protect us.

And Jeremiah was saying, I had a dream. And Jerusalem's going to burn, and we're all going to go into exile. So what do you do when there's two contradictory prophecies? He's saying these people claim to have divine revelations. But look what they do. It says three things. They pollute the flesh, which is Leviticus 18 style terminology for they're sexually promiscuous. So that's the first thing.

So that's how you know they aren't really speaking for God. they don't have moral integrity in their relationships. And if they don't have moral integrity in their relationships, that means they are rejecting the Lord's authority. That is the Lord Jesus.

Sermon on the Mount like integrity in relationships is... That is the language of the kingdom of God, right? It's doing to others what you want them to do to you, loving your neighbor,

that kind of thing. So they reject the Lord's authority. those two were kind of like, okay, it's an interesting way to say it, but I think I can understand that. Third thing they do, they slander the glorious ones. Yeah, okay. What's this about? What a great response.

You're just like, what is going on? Yeah. This is one of those moments in the Bible. I go, what does that mean? Yeah. Except you can't really skip over it because verse 9 is entirely dedicated to giving an illustration. Oh. of what that means.

Well, you see, I wouldn't realize that. I'd just be like, I'd be on to the next weird thing. Okay, that's true. Yeah. So he's going to, they slander the glorious ones. Glorious ones, as we're going to see, is a way of referring to heavenly spiritual beings. Okay.

They show contempt for spiritual beings. Contempt for spiritual beings. Yeah. What does this mean? We can actually probably spend most of this conversation. Slander means to speak poorly of someone, right? Yeah. But in a public way.

In a public way. Yeah. To speak publicly in a way to lower someone's value or social status. And you're saying behind that is contempt. Mm-hmm. In the attitude of contempt. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Think of how politicians or public officials get attacked, you know, on like social media post. Right. And not necessarily for a policy decision they made, but attacking their character. Mm-hmm. You know, that's what it is. There's beings that have a glorious, a high status, like angels and spiritual beings. But these people criticize them, think they're better than them, and speak about it. So why? What is going on here?

Okay. So before we dive in, because next he's going to quote from a Second Temple text, what's happening here? Okay. First of all, the role that angels played in the Hebrew Bible, is fairly indirect. There's the angel of the Lord who comes onto the scene. And then occasionally they're right there in the foreground, like Sodom and Gomorra, for example. Yeah, there's a couple angels.

It's not super common. Yeah, Dick Daniel has his encounter with angels. So let's just notice that. The first book of the Bible has loads of angels. Like they're just kind of appearing to Jacob. They're appearing to Hegar. Lots of angels. And then it just kind of chills.

Yeah, that's true. Exodus, the angel of the Lord, appears in some stories guiding the people through the wilderness. And in Mount Sinai. And at Mount Sinai. But after, oh, you're saying in the burning bush. In the burning bush with Moses. Yes, with Moses, that's right. And then they kind of chill out.

And then Joshua encounters a man with the sword. What story is that? That's when Joshua goes into the promised land. And the captain of the armies of the Lord is standing there. It's the angel of the Lord. He's just not called that. Oh, okay. And then...

We haven't looked at that. No, it's such an important story. We'll get to Joshua one day, John, and judges, and then Samuel and Kings. But right now we're doing Jude. So the point is, is that angels are, there's a lot in Genesis, they are moderate throughout the rest of the Torah and prophets. And then they really come into prominence in the prophets. when the prophets have visions, often they're encountering

these humanoid, angelic figures, and like in Daniel. It's really interesting. The book ends, Genesis, and then the prophets in Daniel is where you get the most angels. And in Second Temple Jewish thought, what Jewish Bible nerds did

was take all of these clues within the Hebrew Bible, and they took the worldview that comes from Genesis 1, the seven-day creation narrative, in days four through six of creation. where day four is the sun, moon, and stars, which are the rulers above. The rulers of the sky.

The sky rulers. And they mirror the human images of God that are rulers below. The day six, rulers, land rulers. And that concept of heaven and earth as mirrors of each other, that idea is then carried forward, and Second Temple Jewish Bible nerds began to think through the implications of that. And so they begin to fill out a portrait of the spiritual realm, but they do so using language and vocabulary from the earthly realm. And so you get a lot more detail about angels as you get into Second Temple Jewish literature,

but it's the result of them meditating on the Hebrew Bible. Like Enoch. Yes, yeah, yeah, and loads of text. I'm about to show you a bunch. So what I'm going to show you are two examples of how Jewish thought about angels took the ideas of the Hebrew Bible and developed them. This is like early biblical theology. So first is that idea I just mentioned

that on day four of creation, God appoints the lights in the sky as rulers and governors of day and night. So that idea of the lights in the sky, and they're called the hosts of heaven in Genesis 131, the hosts of heaven, which is the phrase for angels, spiritual beings. One of the terms.

Yeah, one of the terms, that's right. That turns into this portrait of the lights in the sky and angels as delegated rulers of the cosmic order of day and night, which is a pretty important rhythm for life in our world. I mean, it's super important. And so there's all sorts of texts in the Hebrew Bible that talk about how the light of the sun and the stars. It's all designed by God, ordered by God, and those are lights in the sky, images of God's light, and they follow God's orders all the time,

except for the handful of ones that wander. Yeah. The wandering ones, which Jude's going to mention. Okay. Now, just to state it, these are the planets and the sun and the stars. Planet comes from the Greek word planeto, which means to wander. To wander, yeah. And in the ancient perspective, these were the creatures.

These were the heavenly hosts. Yeah, right? To me, that's a different category. Like, there could be heavenly hosts. Let's talk about the spiritual realm. That's right. But that's different than the stars and the sun. We think of them as different.

In Genesis 1, the lights in the sky are called Ootot in Hebrew, which means signs or symbols, which is a synonym of humans being called images of God or likenesses. Okay. So just like humans image God, the stars are symbols of God's light. And if you want, this would be a good time to pause this conversation and go back to our long, series from years ago called the God series. We have multiple episodes on the stars and spiritual beings in a lot more detail. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you could kind of hyperlink to that maybe in the show notes. I don't think I've closed a loop in my mind about it. Yeah. I've actually had a whole bunch of new thoughts about this recently that I've been just looking for time to write it down

so I can fill it out and then talk with you about it. About spiritual beings? Yeah. And particularly the stars and then the way they mirror heaven and earth. where the names come from. Because here's what's interesting also is that all many angels get names. Let me just show you a bunch of examples. Actually, one of the latest books in the Hebrew Bible names a couple of these. Their names are who is like God and God is a powerful warrior. We know them as Michael and Gabriel. But Michael means who is like God. Gabriel means God is a powerful warrior. But in later Second Temple Jewish texts, they get names. Ah, in the book, of Enoch, there is a chief angel who is the leader of all the lights in the sky, and his name is named after what God shines into the darkness on day one. Let there be Ure. His name is Uriel.

My light is God. So it's a name of a chief star, and the name of it is the light that I shined is God's light. Isn't that rad? That is cool. Yeah. Would there have been a star in the sky that they would have pointed out? I mean, that's a real. You know what? Probably. I haven't looked that up. Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know. In another passage in the book of Enoch, chapter 82, it just starts naming all of the leaders, all of the chief stars. And all their names are symbolic that have God in them.

Okay. It's the word L. Yeah. So the point is that star beings up there are God's delegated rulers to order the functioning of the cosmos because you get light and then light shines on the ground and you get fruit and right the plants it makes everything grow so they're pretty key players yeah in the order of the cosmos okay that's important here's another important thing connected with angels again this comes from the hebrew bible there's a poem in deuteronomy 33 that moses sings and in this poem he's retelling poetically the

moment God showed up on Mount Sinai. And he includes a detail in the poem that wasn't explicitly there in the narrative in Exodus about when God showed up. And he puts it this way. As a Deuteronomy 33, 2. Yahweh came down from Sinai.

He donned upon them from Seir, which are the mountains like east of Sinai. He shone forth from Mount Peron, which is another way to refer to that mountainous region there. He came with myriads of holiness, thousands of holiness.

Literally. Our English translations, many of them do thousands of holy ones, but singular noun, thousands of holiness. And at his right hand was a fiery law for them. And them is the holiness? them, you got to wait for the them. Okay. He loves his people. All of the

holy ones, and there it is plural, were in your hand. They bowed down at your feet each one accepting direction from you. The you is God. A Torah, Moses,

commanded for us, as a possession for the assembly of Jacob. So Yahweh came down with whole bunch of holy ones onto the mountain and in God's right hand was a well and he came down with the thousands of holiness that's true thousands of things that fit in the category of holiness okay holiness is the unique set-apartness that is that is associated with God mm-hmm so thousands of ones who participate or share in God's

holiness and in God's hand was a law that was on fire. Yeah. And this is the Torah. Yes, it's a way of conceiving of God's word. Becoming Torah. That the people heard, and what they heard was lightning and thunder. They saw lightning, heard thunder. That's why they freaked out. Yeah. So that's being described poetically as a fiery law. A fiery law in God's hand. Oh, is that actually the word Torah there? It's fascinating. It's an Aramaic word. Oh. The Hebrew word for Torah is down here in verse four. the Aramaic word that's equivalent

in Aramaic for Torah is dot. Is an Aramaic word in Deuteronomy? Yeah, not interesting. This phrase Ishtat is a whole rabbit hole. We can spend a whole episode

actually just on that word? That one word. Okay. Or two words. Fiery. Eshdad. Then verse 3 goes on to say God loves his people

the ones to whom he came on the mountain. I'm thinking now the people who got to make a covenant with. Yes. Okay. This is the them. This is the them. And so he loves them.

He loves this people. He loves his people to whom he came with a fiery law in his hand accompanied by thousands. Thousands of holiness. Okay. And his people, whom he loves, are then called the holy ones in your hand.

Okay. And they bowed. So God has holy ones above, with whom he comes down. Okay. Thousands of holiness, right? That he comes down with. Okay.

And then he were, as it were, the Torah becomes a fire from heaven that comes down to earth in the form of God's words and commands. And then when they touch down on earth, they meet God's beloved ones who are also holy ones. I see. So this is the mirror of the land and the sky rulers. Yes. So the holy ones above, the holy ones below. And the holy ones above accompany God as he comes down to give the Torah.

What is so interesting. You see it appear in the New Testament in Paul and in the book of Acts and in Hebrews, this idea that the law given to Israel at Mount Sinai was actually given through angels. Paul explicitly references this in Galatians 319, where he is talking about. talking about, you know, why and where did the law come from for Israel? Yep. And he describes that as being ordered through angels by the hands of a mediator, Moses. Okay.

In Stephen's speech in the book of Acts, chapter 7, he talks about our ancestors received the living oracles of God, the law, by the direction of angels. Right. And you can look in Josephus, first century Jewish historian. You can look in another Second Temple Jewish text. There's a book called Jubilees, the retelling of Exodus, that just retells the story of Mount Sinai and the Israel there with Moses, and it just puts it in an angel. And the only one Moses ever talks to is the angel.

The angel is called the angel of the face. That is God's face. And that's who gives the Torah. Okay. So here's why this is all relevant. Why is Jude saying it's a real problem that... To slander the angels. That these people show public contempt for spiritual beings.

In Second Temple Jewish thought, angels were associated as delegates of God over the cosmic order and over the covenant relationship. The Torah. The Torah, yes. Well, actually, there's one, another step here. So Adam and Eve were destined to be images of God who rule over heaven and earth. That's Genesis chapter 1. And they, right, they blow it. And so they end up going back to the dust, and so does all their children.

So when the messianic hope starts to build momentum through the Hebrew Bible, and really important kind of summary moment where all those hyperlinked ideas come together is in the book of Daniel, which we've talked about many times, Daniel chapter 7, such an important chapter. And there, there's a whole bunch of beasts and mutants. It's a dream that he's having. Beast mutants that represent violent empires and kingdoms come up out of a dark, chaotic ocean. Kingdoms that actually don't bring order, but actually bring chaos and they decreat the world through violence. So they come up out of the chaotic sea.

They're returning the world back to the chaos from which they came. This is Daniel's way of describing... Babylon. Yeah. Kind of intense. Some intense political rhetoric. Yeah. He and Jude would have been great friends, right?

But Daniel, this vision that God's going to raise up a son of Adam, one like a son of Adam, who's going to be enthroned in the heavens, sit on God's throne, a human-like figure, and all powers, human kingdoms, but also heavenly beings, will bow down to him. That's in the portrait. And so Paul the Apostle comes on. to the scene, and he believes that Jesus is Israel's Messiah. And he believes that Jesus in his resurrection and ascension to God's right hand, now is the ruler over heaven and earth, over all humans, and over all spiritual beings. Even more. What he says is, man, if you put

your trust in the Messiah, his life is your life. His identity is your identity. So even you. So Paul says, for example, in the letter to the Ephesians, okay, so there is the Messiah whom God raised from the dead, seating him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. Then Paul can go on to then say of the Ephesians, hey, guys, you should know that you all used to be dead in your transgressions and sins. you were slaves to the spirit at work in people who live against God's wisdom. He calls them the sons of disobedience.

The spirit. This isn't like referring to multiple angels. I think he's referring here to the chief evil one. Okay. The satan. But because of God's love for us, he's rich in mercy. He made us alive with the Messiah. This is key.

Ephesians 2 verse 6. He raised us up with Christ. He seated us in the heavenly right. realms. Like we have a Daniel 7 identity now. Okay. So we rule over the angels. Yeah. It may not feel like it, but that's our future. Yeah. In fact, Paul explicitly says this a couple of times. Like in First Corinthians, he tells them, don't you know that you are the holy ones and you're going to be responsible for ruling the whole world one day? We're going to even judge angels. Right. Okay. And that's where he gets this from.

Yes. Okay. Can I say it back? Yeah. Not only are the angels ordering the sky and the cosmos and the order of how things work, they're actually involved in giving us God's order for our lives. That's right. Yeah.

Over the moral order, you could say. Yeah. So, in other words, it's a vision of a realm of spiritual mediators between heaven and earth. There's God above, the heavens and the heavens. Yeah. And then there's the lights in the skies that are signs or things. symbols of spiritual beings. And when God who is above makes contact with Earth, he does it through these delegates. The delegates do what God did on day one, separating night from dark. So they're

cosmic orders. And then also through the gift of the Torah to Israel, angels have this honored role of being the mediators of the moral order. Didn't we kind of completely lose this idea then in Christianity. Like, we never talk about some sort of angelic mediation between God and us. And that is because the apostles were convinced that Jesus Messiah

is the human image of God that was destined from the beginning to rule over heaven and earth. So we don't need the angels. That's exactly right. Oh, okay. And you could just say this is why the letter to the Hebrews begins with a whole chapter dedicated

to talking about why Jesus is more important than angels. That's right. And he has to write that to a Jewish audience to signal a shift in how they see the world. Listen, your whole life you've been raised, the author of Hebrews is saying, thinking that angels are the thing.

And you know what? They're awesome. Yeah. Okay. And so in your world, to say you have contempt for the angels is like, that's just saying you don't get it at all.

Like you're misunderstanding God's, like, design for you. Yeah. because God gives you his instruction through the angels. Yeah. And now we realize the one in charge of the angels, Jude will say, as the risen Lord Jesus Messiah. But don't diss the angels, man. Yeah.

Like, they have an honored role still in the college. But such insider language, don't diss the angels. Oh, my goodness. Don't dis. That comes from being raised on the West Coast in the 1990s. Yeah, saying diss is insider for West Coast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But don't slander the angels.

is such a like insider term that makes sense to them. Yes, exactly. Out of that sense of let's honor the angels they mediate on our behalf came this realization of oh, but Jesus is the one we need. Jesus is there now

and the angels respond to him and we have direct access to Jesus. In fact, we're like kind of seated there with him because we're part of his crew. Exactly right. And so like the whole angel thing switches and changes. But you can still say something

like, oh, well, they're dissing the angels. Yeah. And that would make sense. Yep, exactly. That was a long setup. Now, let's go back to what he said. So he says, listen, I'm going to paraphrase here. In verse 9, he's going to say, hey, friends, here's a text in our church library.

You all have read the Testament of Moses, right? You know, we all read it together. And you've also referred to as the ascension of Moses, right? Oh, it's known by two names in ancient descriptions of it. Okay. And as a rabbihole attached, but I'm just going to call it the Testament of Moses. Testament of Moses. Also known as the ascension of Moses.

Okay. Yes. It's a second temple Jewish work that's imagining Moses giving a final speech like right before he dies. And he's forecasting the whole history of Israel right up to the destruction of Jerusalem. Okay. So this is like, Deuteronomy speeches happen. And then Moses like, one more thing. One more thing.

And then, yeah, he forecast. This is the Testament of Moses. exile of Babylon, he then talks about the return from Babylon, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and then the destruction of Jerusalem again. Okay. In it is a story about the burial of Moses, and it's a story about Michael the Archangel being the one to bury Moses. But then the Satan shows up. Oh, really? Yes. In the Testament of Moses, the Satan, the evil one, shows up. And the Satan says, Moses is not worthy of honorable burial because he murdered that Egyptian.

That's how the story goes. Then Michael has this response, and that's what Jude is quoting from here. And so here's what Jude says. He says, listen, even Michael, like the chief angel of God. Yeah. When he was disputing the slanderer,

often translated the devil, don't you remember, even Michael didn't dare to bring about a judgment of slander. Rather, he said, may the Lord rebuke you. If there was anybody

who was in a right position to bring divine judgment on the evil one, surely it was Michael in that moment. And even Michael didn't take it upon himself to render a judgment about even a rebel spiritual being. He said, let God take care of that one.

So then Jude goes on. He says, but these people, man, the things about which they have no knowledge, they slander. And, man, whatever they think they do understand, like irrational instinct-driven animals, by these things they are destroyed. So they claim to have knowledge,

and actually they have no clue. They are slandering both God and God's delegated powers. They don't understand the workings of heaven, but they think they do. They claim to have knowledge of the working of heaven and earth, we've been enthroned with Messiah over the spiritual beings. That gives us freedom to rule the world as we see fit. Remember? They pollute the flesh. They reject God's authority. So that would have likely been something they would have said, maybe. You look guys, like,

aren't we greater than the angels and aren't we, like, seated in the skies? So let's just party. Let's party. We are enthroned above the angels with the Messiah. And so sleeping around is not a big deal. But that doesn't affect my eternal destiny. This was actually a widespread distortion of early Christianity that became really popular. Paul was confronting a version of this in a more Greek-Romanized version in Corinth. But it's very similar. He calls it being worldly, cosmicose, thinking in a worldly way. And so that guy who's sleeping with his mother-in-law and they think it's all fine. Still going to the Greek and Roman temples, sleeping with the cult prostitutes there. What does that have to do with me acknowledging Jesus as my Lord?

And Paul's like, good night. It has everything to do. But that was a new way of thinking, especially for Greek and Roman people. And this is what taking the grace of God and turning it into permission to just do what you want. Yeah. So here's what I love about this paragraph of Jew. He's naming a book in their church library. Yes. That I've never read. Yeah. And that it's not in the Hebrew Bible, but it was a text that his church community read and read the Hebrew Bible in light of. Yeah, okay, let's talk about this story more because I don't think I fully understand what's going on. Yes. Why is this Second Temple text talking about the burial of Moses as a disputing ground for an angel and the Satan? Yeah, why that? And what didn't Michael mean by, I'm not going to slander Satan? Like, what's really going to? I don't. I

I don't get it. Okay, yes. All right. So, welcome to the mind of Second Temple Messianic Jewish Bible nerds. So their minds are so saturated. They're simultaneously thinking of about half a dozen hyperlinked biblical texts all of the time. Okay. Okay.

So we're gonna have to take this step by step, like for all of the pieces. First of all, the story about Moses' burial. We'll start there. Okay. It's the last chapter of the Torah, Tuderonomy 34. And it has a little detail in it. Most of us would read over,

but it sparked a whole lot of meditation for ancient Jewish readers. So Tudorani 34, verse 5, we read, then Moses, the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to the command of Yahweh. And he buried him in the valley,

in the land of Moab. Opposite Bait Pior. And until this day, nobody knows where he's buried. And who buried Moses? Yeah. So the last words of the previous sentence are, he died according to the command of Yahweh, and he buried him. Hmm, Yahweh buried Moses.

What does that mean? What does it mean? We know that Second Temple Jewish Bible nerds were puzzled by this. What is fascinating is there is a dead. Red Sea Scroll manuscript of Deuteronomy for this very section. And when it comes to this part of God-bearing Moses, it actually has a plural verb, not a singular. And they buried him, which is just as puzzling,

because you're like, well, who's the they? Well, who's the they? But then what we get in other Jewish Second Temple literature, we find out who the they is. So there were Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible, and some of these Aramaic translations were also a form of commentary woven into the translation. And all the Aramaic Targams have a plural. They buried him.

Wait, an Aramaic Targum is a translation of... Targum means translation. Okay. Yeah. So Aramaic translation. And there's multiple versions of these Aramaic translations, and all of them have the plural buried. One of them, which is called Targum's Sudo-Johnathan, tells you who the they is.

And this is how they translate Deuteronomy, what we just read. Yeah. Deutonautonomies 3.4. Therefore, Moses, the servant of the Lord, was gathered there in the land of Moab by the kiss of the word of the Lord. Okay. Gathered means to die. Okay. So God gave him a kiss as his body gave out.

Oh. Michael and Gabriel arranged a golden couch set with diamonds, sardonyx, and beryl. These are tavernacle jewels. Okay. They arranged with silk, cushions, and purple cloth, and white robes. Also, Metatron, and Yofiel, and Uriel, and Yefafia. Are these other angels? Four masters of wisdom carried him upon it.

Oh. So he's actually getting buried by six angels. Ooh, and like some very fancy procession. Super fancy, like, funeral couch. Yeah. Then, by means of his word, the Lord led him four miles and buried him in the valley opposite Bate Pior. So Yahweh still buried him, but now there's all these angels involved. Yeah, it's like an angelic procession.

So when would this have been made? Well, the Targums are very difficult to date. Okay. But in the late second temple period, or right after. What this reflects is Jewish Bible readers. Okay. Doing commentary? Yeah.

What do we mean when we say God personally does something? Or that there were multiple people involved? Yeah. Well, usually when God does things on earth, the Bible might say that. But then there are other stories of God coming to do something. And the way he's doing it is through angelic mediators, like the visitation of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the visitation of angels at different events

in the life of Elijah or Elisha. So it must mean that actually it was angels who came and buried him. Okay. It's an interpretive imagination that's doing theology, but by means of hyperlinks. Okay. And so the ascension of Moses, that we're calling it? The ascension of Moses, yeah, assumes that Michael was there,

at the burial of Moses. Why? Why? Why? Yeah. And so it's all generated out of interpretive reflection on what it means that Yahweh buried him. Right. That's why Michael's there. Okay. So that's first step. Okay. Why is Michael there? Why is Michael there in the first place? Burying Moses. Yeah. No. Why is the satan there? This is even more wild. But this is so fascinating. So the idea of the satan standing there accusing Moses after his death before God, where is this idea coming from?

So this is the result of a Jewish Bible nerd who is hyperlinked about half a dozen other biblical texts together. And here's, I'm just going to list them all. And you'll start to see how they work together. First of all, think of the snake in the garden who heard God's command and is there trying to undermine Adam and Eve's trust in God's command not to eat from the tree. Okay. Okay.

Think of Abraham with Isaac in Genesis 22. And Yahweh tests Abraham and asks him to surrender the life of Isaac, right, by offering him as a going up offering on Mount Moriah. Okay. Okay, but there's no Satan there. Nope. These are all the necessary ingredients.

All right. To get to... We're making the stew. We're making the stew. Next is a weird story in Exodus 4 where Yahweh comes to put Moses to death. Oh, right. The night before he arrives back in Egypt to confront Pharaoh. And then his wife saves him.

And his wife, Zbora, saves him. Why is Moses going to be put to death by Yahweh? Well, the narrative logic and the hyperlink in that stories, I think is most of the most of most likely that it's a measure for measure consequence, God's holding Moses accountable for his murder of that Egyptian. Oh, right. And bearing him in the sand. Okay.

So next, think of the story of David counting up all his fighting forces with the census. There's two versions of that story in the Hebrew Bible. Okay. The first version in Second Samuel 24 says, Yahweh was testing David. You read the parallel story to that in First Chronicles 21, and it says, the Satan tested David. Oh, okay. All right. Who's doing the testing? Who's doing the testing? Let's hold in our minds also Job chapters one and two.

You got Job, righteous guy, faithful, and everything that he's done. The Satan comes and accuses Job of having ulterior motives for serving God. Yep. And last but not least, we need to hold. in our minds the text that actually is being quoted from in the Testament of Moses that Jude quotes. That little phrase that Jude says, Michael responded, may the Lord rebuke you. He's quoting from the Second Temple text, the Testament of Moses. But that's quoting from...

But that is quoting from Zechariah Chapter 3. Zechariah Chapter 3 is a story about, after Ezra and Nehemiah come back, and lead a whole bunch of people back from Babylon to go rebuild Jerusalem and live there. They're rebuilding the temple. And they're going to install like the old priesthood, but in the new Second Temple in Jerusalem. And Zechariah chapter 3 has this scene

where the guy named Joshua, he's the high priest about to get installed in the newly built Second Temple. But then Zechari has a vision. And it's as if Joshua is standing in the heavens. Right before the angel of the Lord. And guess who else is there? The satan is standing at his right hand to accuse him.

So he's got an angel on his lap. He's got a, yeah. Is this where this comes from? Yes. Oh, yes. The angel on one side. The Satan on the other. This will evolve in Christian thought and theology to an angel on your shoulder on one shoulder and a devil on the other.

But what this is is Joshua while he's alive. and Zechariah is seeing, as it were, a heavenly dispute over whether or not Israel deserves to get another shot in the land. Yeah, okay. Because what we see is that Joshua and Zechariah, chapter 3, verse 3, is closed with filthy garments standing up there. In the vision. Yeah.

So basically, we've got the high priest of Israel who represents Israel. They've come back into the land. after exile, and their high priestly representative is still, his clothes are still stained with the sins of Israel. So you can see the scene here, basically, the satan is like the, like, see guys, you can't do it. Like the snake. Coming up before this new Adam figure and saying, this guy doesn't deserve to be here. Yeah. He comes from a people with a whole history of idolatry and violence and injustice. That guy doesn't deserve to be here. So that's the scene. Yeah.

Then we're just told in verse 2, all of a sudden, Yahweh said to the accuser, the satan, may Yahweh rebuke you, oh, accuser. Oh, wow. Yawai says it. And may Yahweh, who chooses Jerusalem rebuke you. Yeah, none of that. So it's Yahweh speaking.

Get behind me, Satan. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So in the scene, though, we've got the high priest, you've got the satan on one hand, the accuser. He's like a prosecuting attorney. And then you have the defending attorney.

The angel of the Lord? Is the angel of the Lord. But then all of a sudden, it's just verse two. It's then Yahweh says, may Yahweh repeat you. This is another one of those angel of the Lord moments where you're like, wait, is this? Yes. Is this Yahweh? Yeah.

It's like Moses and the burning bush. And what happens is Yahweh forgives Joshua and says, take the dirty garments off of him, give him clean. robes, and he's going to have walking access in and out of heaven and earth in the temple. So what you get in Second Temple Jewish literature is all of these stories hyperlinked together. So, for example, there's a Second Temple Jewish text called Jubilees that's a retelling of Genesis and Exodus written by a super Bible nerd. When he retells the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 20, and that story begins with Yahweh tested Abraham.

He begins it by saying the Satan tested Abraham. And he imagines a whole scene that happened right before that. And it's basically Job chapters one and two, but with Abraham in the story. So you're talking about when Yahweh said to Abraham, go up and give me your son. Yep, yeah. Very clearly in Genesis 22, it says this was a test from Yahweh. Yes. But in this Jubilee's passage, it's going, yeah, but I bet there was some real tension there.

Yeah, it's reading that story in Genesis in light of what happened to Job and saying, well, I know the test that Job faced where he lost his sons. Lost everything. Happened because Yahweh was talking about how proud he was of Job as a faithful one. And that's how the story begins in Jubilee, telling about. Abraham. It begins, this is in Jubilee's chapter 17, that words came in heaven about Abraham, how faithful he was in everything that God told him, and he loved the Lord. He was faithful even in affliction. And so the Satan comes. In Jubilee he's called Prince Mastema, which is a variation of the word Satan. And then he starts saying, well, you know, actually Abraham loves Isaac,

his son more than he loves you, God. That's the accusation. Yeah. And if you were to tell him to offer up Isaac, I bet he wouldn't do it. Right. That's the Satan's accusation here. So, in other words,

these are Jewish readers that are now, anytime Yahweh tests anybody, they're letting all the stories illuminate each other and they'll fill in the details missing in one story from these other hyperlinked texts.

So any test that was from Yahweh, They're like, I know there was the accuser there, too. There was a Job, one and two scene happening, and it'll import. So this happens. This is a lot. Dude, this is all. But this happens with the story of Moses in the book of Jubilee. This Jubilee's chapter 48.

Okay. When God commissions Moses, it imagines a scene where Prince Mastema, the Satan, comes and says, you can't use Moses. He's a murderer. Yeah. You can't use a murderer to liberate people from a violent Pharaoh. He's not qualified. He's not qualified.

So that's how Jubilees does that. So what we're talking about is anytime God tests somebody in the Hebrew Bible, it's reading all those stories in light of the Satan's test of Job in Job 1 and 2 and in light of this little story in Zechariah, of the Satan accusing Joshua. Okay, and the Zechariah's story seems. was really important because that's what he's quoted from. That's what he's quoted from. And I think this is where I still don't fully appreciate.

So in Judah's library is the testimony of Moses. Also, he reads Jubilee's. Oh, yeah. Like, he knows all these stories. And so he's meditated a lot on these themes we've just talked about, how the Satan is always there to set a trap and accuse. Okay. And so there's a story in the Testament of Moses where Moses's burial,

is happening. We actually have another version of that story where there's six angels. But in this one, it's focused in on Michael. Yeah. Okay. And the Satan is there. Just like in Zachariah's story of the new Joshua at the new temple

saying, hold on. Like Moses, remember he's a murderer. Like, we can't give him this kind of honor. That's right. So just like in Zechariah, Yahweh says, may Yahweh rebuke you. to Satan, which is a little rabble.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the Testament of Moses, Michael says to Satan, may Yahweh rebuke you. That's right. So he uses the words of God at that moment. You got it. And what does he mean? May Yahweh. Yeah, in other words, this messenger of Yahweh is not taking it upon himself to offer this judgment about the slander of the Satan against Moses.

So if there is anybody qualified To offer a judgment against the satan and say You slandering, lying, scum, get out of here Like, Yahweh's generous, he's merciful, get out of here with your accusations That's what Michael could have said that But instead, he just says, you know what, I've got a boss, his name's Yahweh We're going to let him have the say Let Yahweh rebuke you.

I've got a lot of things I want to say to you right now, Satan. but I'm going to let Yahweh do it because he's in charge. Yeah. Yahweh has a plan for all of this. Yeah, and Yahweh's generous. And Yahweh forgave Joshua and Zechariah. And therefore, if we imagine that Moses was being accused at his death for having a dirty past, Yahweh will be generous to Moses and that that doesn't disqualify him.

Okay. And even Michael didn't take it upon himself to offer a judgment against the Satan. So now apply this argument. Judah has this group of bad news people who are hanging out in his house church community. And they think that they are risen with the Messiah, elevated above heaven and earth. They're going to rule the new creation with the Messiah. But they've got a deep misunderstanding of what that freedom and honor. means. They think what it means is, dude, we can sleep around. Yeah. Because our bodies are all going to

turn into something else, right? In the new creation, and Judah's like, no, that's a deep misunderstanding. And Paul the Apostle had to address that too. We talked about that a few minutes ago. But now, what Judah also really wants these people to understand is that, yes, while God is going to elevate humanity as his stewards and rulers over the new creation, back to our line, don't diss the angels. Just because you're going to have authority over them doesn't mean that you get to bring accusations against them now. Be like Michael, who just says, let Yahweh deal with you.

What would that mean that they're accusing the angels? Because what these teachers are doing, as he talks about elsewhere, is they're dismissing the relevance of God's moral wisdom in the Torah. Right? So angels delivered the wisdom of the Torah to Israel. And, well, if with the Messiah, I'm exalted over the angels, it must mean like the laws of the Torah are irrelevant for us. I can dismiss those too.

I can dismiss those, dismiss the Ten Commandments and all the wisdom, right, that they have. And it must be that I can now both angels around. And so then Judah says, okay, no, no, no, no, remember that we have this book in our library, our church library, that brings all these passages in the Hebrew Bible together. Even Michael, the most exalted angel, didn't take it upon himself to think that he could bring an accusation against the most corrupt angel. The most corrupt angel. And he said, let Yahweh deal with you. So these men should have an attitude of what I really want is Yahweh's final word. Yes.

That's what matters the most to me. Yes. And if that's what I want, I'm going to recognize that God's moral order is important. Yes. And still has relevance in my life. And the moral order that's issued through the wisdom of the commands in the Torah are relevant. This is why Jesus had to himself clarify, I didn't come to set aside the Torah and the prophets. I came to fulfill them.

So this is another group that's misunderstood Jesus and they think they can just set aside the laws of the Torah as irrelevant and live how they want. And in so doing, they are slandering the angels because they read them as the

ones through him God gave the Torah. So I kind of get it now. I kind of get it now. I know. I know. But like we're entering into such a foreign worldview for me. Yeah. I just don't, I've never read these passages and never think about this. Me too, yeah.

So fascinating. But here we have a letter in our Bible that we read that brings God's wisdom to us. Yeah. And it's quoting Second Temple Scroll and a story written by Jewish Bible nerds reflecting on the Hebrew Bible and all these other texts. Yeah. That for them is also God's wisdom. Yeah. And I need to kind of figure out what to do with it. Yeah.

This Testament of Moses passage is itself meditating and reflecting on an idea found throughout the Hebrew Bible, that when human beings fail to discern between good and bad, we make stupid decisions that hurt ourselves and hurt other people. It creates a real question of like, well, if God's going to forgive and restore us, does that just like whitewash all the bad stuff that we've done? done and the trail of pain that we've left behind in the world, like, that's still real. All that pain's real. And you could bring all that up and say, like, we deserve to pay for all that. And that's a real tension that the biblical authors are exploring and they're doing it through all of these hyperlinked kind of testing stories. And that is what's at stake in all the hyperlinked text, you know, that I was naming, Adam

and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, Moses. in the murder of the Egyptian, the story of Job. And so Jewish Bible nerds of Judas period wanted to probe that question more. And so they did a theological exploration, but their minds do it by linking all these texts together. And now Jude is doing it to address another crisis in his church community.

So maybe it's just a little window into a subculture of early messianic Jewish Christianity that they were such Bible nerds, they could talk about moral issues that we recognize. Yeah. Like not sleeping around, obeying God's, right? Moral, moral wisdom. But the way they talk about it and try and persuade each other, it seems so weird to us. Yeah.

Yeah. Because they lived in a different time and place. But there you go. I don't know what else to say other than... And then remind me again what he goes on. to say about these people after this? Ah, he says, they take it upon themselves to slander the angels that gave the Torah

and ignore God's moral wisdom in the Torah. What they're slandering are things that they really have no clue about. And the things that they think they do understand, they don't really understand because they're destroyed by the little they do understand just like an irrational animal driven by instinct.

He's really frustrated that these people have made relational inroads in his house church. And he is painting them in very unfavorable colors, we could say. Yeah. Okay. So we're from here. Yeah. So what he's now going to do is compare these people to three characters in the Hebrew Bible, whose stories are all hyperlinked together, that not only,

disobeyed God's commands, but they did so in a way that led other people to ruin and destruction. Kane, Balab, and Korah. And why he's going to bring them up and how their stories are connected, that's what we'll explore next. Thanks for listening to Bible Project podcast. Next week, Jude's going to reference more wayward characters in the Hebrew Bible, including Kane, Cora, and Balam. What links them together is subtle in the Hebrew Bible. These are three stories of people who themselves made bad decisions, but then they bring other people into their deception.

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