09-05-2008, 03:38 PM
Shlama AKhi Paul,
Actually what I think is going on is both Rav Shaul and Jude are using extra-canonical but well known works to make points to their audience that are confirmed elsewhere in Scripture. Let us take a look at what I am talking about:
28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
Acts 17:28
Now here is the REAL source Rav Shaul is trying to get across to his audience:
10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:10
23 Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the El who holds in his hand your life and all your ways.
Daniel 5:23
So Rav Shaul is using the Greek poets to speak for YHWH in the sense that he has found one of their quotes that matches Tanakh. He never introduces materials not confirmed from Scripture. Here's another example:
33 Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals.
1 Corinthians 15:33
This is a line from Menander, and he likes it A LOT because it is also in 1 Corinthians 6:9, Galatians 6:7 (the form of "do not be deceived" is identical in Greek and well known to his audiences). But from that familar place, "bad company corrupts good morals" is surely well reflected in Scripture elsewhere. Torah after all commands us not to follow a crowd into evil.
Next:
In Titus 1:12 Rav Shaul uses the vernacular in effect "to Cretianize" which means to lie. Where did he get this idea that Cretans lie? Answer: Epimemides. But where does Rav Shaul get the general concept? Again Tanakh, which deals with false prophets twisting truth, etc.
Now with these examples in mind, let's move on to Jude.
Two verses that no doubt give you pause are verse 9 and 14. This does not, as I have shown with Rav Shaul, mean that he or any other NT writer viewed these works as canonical. Rather it means they both knew they are POPULAR and could get their SCRIPTURE POINTS out more effectively.
So in verse 9 it says:
But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses did not produce a railing judgment but said, "YHWH rebuke you".
Now granted, the exact incident as a matter of history is NOT scriptural, but that isn't the point. The point was that the story Jude uses tells us by example what Scripture tells us plainly. You do not argue with Satan. You rebuke him and send him packing:
Submit yourselves, then, to Elohim. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7
Then we get to verse 14:
And about these also Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied saying "Behold YHWH comes with many thousands of his holy ones".
Well, my first point is surely YHWH does come in power and glory with myriads of his angels!!! That is a FACT. Just see Daniel 7--that is an accurate description of the Holy Throne.
My second point is here:
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found because Elohim took him up, FOR HE OBTAINED THE WITNESS THAT BEFORE HE WAS TAKEN UP THAT HE WAS PLEASING TO ELOHIM.
Hebrews 11:5
What does "obtained the witness" here mean? All Genesis tells us is that Enoch walked with YHWH and he was no more, but here there is another "witness"???
It can mean to me only this: it is ENOCH's OWN WITNESS to these same things because Torah shows the witness must be independent, i.e. NOT YHWH:
"Take this Book of the Torah and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the YHWH your Elohim. There it will remain as a witness against you. "
Deuteronomy 31:26
"And we said, 'If they ever say this to us, or to our descendants, we will answer: Look at the replica of the YHWH's altar, which our fathers built, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices, but as a witness between us and you.'
Joshua 22:28
Now when it comes to men (1 Sam 20:22) like Samuel the Prophet, he can appeal HIS RULING have YHWH as HIS WITNESS, but it also clearly works the other way around. A witness for YHWH can be a structure, a holy object or, as I believe with Enoch, a PROPHECY:
Isaiah 30:8-17
8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. 9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction. 10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. 11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!" 12 Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: "Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, 13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. 14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern."
True Scripture doesn't say directly Enoch said it, but Hebrews CLEARLY tells us some prophecy of Enoch existed, and what has come down outside of Scripture is reflected 100% perfectly IN SCRIPTURE.
I think that while to our modern eyes and sensibilities the situation with Jude and these sources is not ideal, but I also firmly believe the problem, if there is one, has been grossly exaggerated.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Actually what I think is going on is both Rav Shaul and Jude are using extra-canonical but well known works to make points to their audience that are confirmed elsewhere in Scripture. Let us take a look at what I am talking about:
28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
Acts 17:28
Now here is the REAL source Rav Shaul is trying to get across to his audience:
10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:10
23 Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the El who holds in his hand your life and all your ways.
Daniel 5:23
So Rav Shaul is using the Greek poets to speak for YHWH in the sense that he has found one of their quotes that matches Tanakh. He never introduces materials not confirmed from Scripture. Here's another example:
33 Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals.
1 Corinthians 15:33
This is a line from Menander, and he likes it A LOT because it is also in 1 Corinthians 6:9, Galatians 6:7 (the form of "do not be deceived" is identical in Greek and well known to his audiences). But from that familar place, "bad company corrupts good morals" is surely well reflected in Scripture elsewhere. Torah after all commands us not to follow a crowd into evil.
Next:
In Titus 1:12 Rav Shaul uses the vernacular in effect "to Cretianize" which means to lie. Where did he get this idea that Cretans lie? Answer: Epimemides. But where does Rav Shaul get the general concept? Again Tanakh, which deals with false prophets twisting truth, etc.
Now with these examples in mind, let's move on to Jude.
Two verses that no doubt give you pause are verse 9 and 14. This does not, as I have shown with Rav Shaul, mean that he or any other NT writer viewed these works as canonical. Rather it means they both knew they are POPULAR and could get their SCRIPTURE POINTS out more effectively.
So in verse 9 it says:
But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses did not produce a railing judgment but said, "YHWH rebuke you".
Now granted, the exact incident as a matter of history is NOT scriptural, but that isn't the point. The point was that the story Jude uses tells us by example what Scripture tells us plainly. You do not argue with Satan. You rebuke him and send him packing:
Submit yourselves, then, to Elohim. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7
Then we get to verse 14:
And about these also Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied saying "Behold YHWH comes with many thousands of his holy ones".
Well, my first point is surely YHWH does come in power and glory with myriads of his angels!!! That is a FACT. Just see Daniel 7--that is an accurate description of the Holy Throne.
My second point is here:
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found because Elohim took him up, FOR HE OBTAINED THE WITNESS THAT BEFORE HE WAS TAKEN UP THAT HE WAS PLEASING TO ELOHIM.
Hebrews 11:5
What does "obtained the witness" here mean? All Genesis tells us is that Enoch walked with YHWH and he was no more, but here there is another "witness"???
It can mean to me only this: it is ENOCH's OWN WITNESS to these same things because Torah shows the witness must be independent, i.e. NOT YHWH:
"Take this Book of the Torah and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the YHWH your Elohim. There it will remain as a witness against you. "
Deuteronomy 31:26
"And we said, 'If they ever say this to us, or to our descendants, we will answer: Look at the replica of the YHWH's altar, which our fathers built, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices, but as a witness between us and you.'
Joshua 22:28
Now when it comes to men (1 Sam 20:22) like Samuel the Prophet, he can appeal HIS RULING have YHWH as HIS WITNESS, but it also clearly works the other way around. A witness for YHWH can be a structure, a holy object or, as I believe with Enoch, a PROPHECY:
Isaiah 30:8-17
8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. 9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction. 10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. 11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!" 12 Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: "Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, 13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. 14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern."
True Scripture doesn't say directly Enoch said it, but Hebrews CLEARLY tells us some prophecy of Enoch existed, and what has come down outside of Scripture is reflected 100% perfectly IN SCRIPTURE.
I think that while to our modern eyes and sensibilities the situation with Jude and these sources is not ideal, but I also firmly believe the problem, if there is one, has been grossly exaggerated.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth