How Should Jude Influence How We Think About the Deuterocanon?

Hey Tim. Hey John. Hello. Hello. We get to do a Q&R, question and response, on the letter of Judah. Letter of Jude-ah. Judah. Uh-huh. Judah-ah-s. What? Well, Jude is in our standard English translations. Judah is the English translation of Yehuda. But the Greek translation of his Hebrew name, Yehuda, was Judas. So we're just... Any of those. Any of those. We'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I was worried putting this together and releasing it that this would maybe lose a number of people. People go, ah, I'm going to wait until the next series. Yeah. But I've been running into people who are following along. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, awesome. And people have been really enjoying it. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just an underexplored corner of the New Testament. Yeah. That's like a window into all this wild stuff. Yeah. One guy said, the nerdier, the better. So I guess that's a challenge. Yeah. Okay. Cool. You know, real time now, we had these conversations a while ago. And so I was trying to like upload and remember it all. Yeah. to come do this question and response time, but this is super fun. I really enjoyed working on this little letter. So much happening. And maybe part of why my interest was drawn to it is because it reflects how some of the earliest followers of Jesus both talked about their devotion to Jesus and then also their scripture reading habits. Yeah, how they read the Bible. Yeah, which is something you and I just are thinking about all the time, which is about... How do you read the Bible? How, yeah. And how do we, what does it mean to read scripture on its own terms, along the grain of its design as a unified story leading to Messiah Jesus. As meditation literature. As meditation literature. As wisdom literature. Yeah. And so this became this wonderful case study. But in a subculture of Christianity that feels super different than anything you and I have been a part of culturally, which is why I love that. Are we going to give out any gold stars today? I can't predict these things. I can't predict? Okay. It depends. Yes, so as always, we've asked for you all to submit questions, and a bunch of you did. And I try and pick the ones that hit the most repeated level, like what questions are rising to the top that many people are asking. So that's kind of my selection criteria. And there you go. Should we just get rocking? Let's rock. Okay. Yeah, let's begin with a couple questions. that came from a number of people about Judah as a, quote, brother of Jesus. What's up with the brothers of Jesus? I actually ended up forcing us to have a whole episode's worth of conversation about the relatives of Jesus. But many questions about that. So one question getting asked in two different ways, once from Ashley and then from Jeffrey. So let's hear your questions. Hi, Tim and John. This is Ashley from Cincinnati, Ohio. In your first episode of the Jude series, you really harped on two views of Jesus' brothers mentioned in the Gospels. You gave the theories of, one, they were his cousins, and two, they were his stepbrothers that Joseph had before marrying Mary. However, I grew up thinking that they were his half-brothers, siblings Mary and Joseph had after Jesus. You didn't really seem to touch on this viewpoint, so I was wondering if there's evidence for or against this. And in addition to this, why is the perpetual virginity of Mary so important to some denominations of Christianity? Thanks for all you do. Hello, fellas. I'm Jeff and I live in Texas. I've really enjoyed the series on Jude, but was struck by the observation that Jesus' siblings may have come from a previous marriage of Joseph. It had honestly never occurred to me. It also puts John 7 into better context, when his brothers challenged Jesus to make himself known at the Festival of Booths. As I thought it over, it definitely reminded me of the way Joseph's brothers and family reacted to him sharing his dreams of them bowing down to them. Or when Aaron and Miriam spoke out against baby brother Moses. It seems that not only is there a theme of the older serving the younger, but also of some built-in resentment from the older to the younger as well. Jeff doing some hyperlinks I like that That's probably a gold star We're in it Jeff for your observation The sibling rivalry theme We did a whole video on The first born series Is that Peeking out In the gospels but especially in John There's good reason to think that's part of why John brings it up, but it's also there in Matthew, Mark, and Luke when Mary and the brothers come to get Jesus. And Mark, they come to visit him while he's teaching because they think he's lost his mind. And Jesus makes that comment, you know, prophets actually welcome everywhere, but the place he grew up. Yeah. So there's some of that coming out there. And so I'm glad to put a different perspective on your radar, Jeff. though the fact that it was new to you is interesting and then i think that's kind of actually what you are putting your finger on too is um there are different perspectives and you're right ashley the view that i think i had assumed for a long time is the same as you ashley namely that the brothers of jesus mentioned in the gospels are his half brothers half brothers meaning from Joseph and Mary, even though Jesus was from Mary and the Spirit. Yeah, exactly. So you're right, Ashley, in saying I didn't spend time developing that view as much. I think because that was the default view that I had until I began to encounter evidence for other views. And I think why I was so interested in them was because I realized they were more than just options. Like there's some real compelling early evidence around them. So I wanted a chance to kind of drill down on that a little bit more. Okay. So I learned a lot from New Testament scholar, Brant Petra. The book's name is Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. And this was the first time in reading his book that I came across what I'm about to summarize. So first of all, there is a genuine puzzle in the story of the angel giving the announcement that she's pregnant to Jesus that I had never noticed the significance of. And Brant Petra draws attention to it. And the moment you see it, you're just kind of like, oh, you learn something new every day. So this is when the angel comes to Mary. This is Luke 1, verse 30. don't be afraid. Mary, you found favor with God. You're going to conceive in your womb, bear a son, name him Jesus. And Mary said to the angel, so I'm reading the New American Standard. How can this be since I am a virgin? So on that translation, I guess your question is, how can I become pregnant given the fact that I've never had sex with anybody? if you there's a little footnote and what the footnote in the new american standard says literally what she says in greek is i do not know a man okay which is a euphemism for to exactly right yeah yeah to for a man to know a woman is kind of hebrew idiom uh for having sex Genesis 4 verse 1 is the first time that appears. However, and this is what Brant Petra pointed out, is that's a weird question to ask. So what the angel says is, you are pregnant. And she asks, how can this be since I do not know a man? Now we know she's already engaged to Joseph. That's like in all the famous Christmas stories. but she's not saying i haven't had sex with joseph it's present tense in the greek it's present tense i do not know a man okay i'm not currently knowing a man yeah sort of like if say somebody's like quit smoking okay and somebody's like hey you want a cigarette i'm not smoking i don't smoke i don't smoke i do not smoke oh she doesn't say i haven't past tense because that would be more of the... Yeah, why would I smoke? I haven't smoked in 10 years. That's not what she says. Okay. What she says is, I don't smoke. I don't know a man. Oh. Which is less about the past, and it's more about like her present tense. Okay. Now that, you might just be like, yeah, whatever, I don't know, it's not that big of a deal. However, there is lots of evidence, and within the Hebrew Bible itself, a whole background about Jewish people taking vows of celibacy. In fact, there's a whole chapter of the Torah dedicated to this. We call it Numbers chapter 30. And there is a whole section in Numbers chapter 30 about what happens when a woman wants to make a vow of celibacy before God. And then it gets complicated because, well, then her dad or her fiancé or her husband have to weigh in on that decision. This is in Numbers chapter 30. But essentially, it was perfectly acceptable, even honorable, for a man or a woman for a period of time to make a vow to God of celibacy. This is exactly how Jesus saw himself. And part of actually why Jesus did that, he gives us the one little clue in the story that we talked about when we began the podcast, which was about, you know, in the new creation, people won't be married or given in marriage. This will be like the angels. They don't procreate. So it seems like Jesus chose celibacy because he was embracing here on earth like a heavenly mode of existence, which is apparently where we're all headed in the resurrection. So all that to say is Jesus himself embraced this kind of vow, the celibacy vow. And we know that that option was available for females too. So those are two little details. if Mary had made that kind of vow. Wait, so a woman could get married and still make that kind of vow? Yeah, a married couple could make that vow. But this would be a vow for a period of time? Could be. It could be permanent. A married couple would potentially make a permanent vow of celibacy. Really? Yeah. Never heard of that. Yeah. Paul mentions it in his letter to the Corinthians, because apparently some people in Corinth had started doing this, and he's like, man, I really think that's probably not wise for most of you. If you want to do it for a period of time. Oh, that's what he's talking about. Because you're devoted to prayer. Now that's in Corinth. And so it's a much more of a, I don't know if these types of vows existed in Greek and Roman culture in the same way. But it was definitely a part of like ancient Israelite and Jewish culture. So my point is that Mary's answer is a little bit strange. I do not know a man. I don't know men. is what she says. I don't know men. This is not a thing I do. I don't have sex with men. So how is it that I'm pregnant? Okay. Or actually, what the angel says is, you will conceive and give birth to a son. Right. Oh, is it? I was wondering, is it you have conceived or you will conceive? Yeah, you will conceive. And it's in the future tense. So, thank you. Yeah, I should have brought that out. So when the angel says, you will conceive and bear a son, in Mary's mind, what she could at first be thinking is, yeah, well, I'm engaged and we haven't consummated the marriage, but one day I will. Then she says, well, how can that happen since I don't know a man? And then the angel says the Holy Spirit. Okay. So you're building a case for the perpetual virginity, which is what Ashley asked about? Yes. How that may be hinted at here in scripture. Exactly. This is one little clue. Again, this is Brant Petra pointed this out, but it is true. Her response is kind of funny, but it actually makes sense if you link it together with vows of abstinence. But these aren't the only pieces of the puzzle. Another piece is in John chapter 19 when Jesus is like dying, hanging on the cross. And there's a well-known moment where his mom comes up to him while he's hanging there. Yeah. And his mom is standing there with the disciple whom Jesus loved. And so he says to them, he says, woman, behold your son and behold your mother. Basically, he is trusting the care of his mother to a disciple. That would be so strange if he has four brothers. That's weird. So just little things like, oh, that's interesting. Like, why is he doing that? Would it be so strange or is it that it just, it would be less necessary? It just makes it stand out. It just makes it stand out. All these things. This isn't a slam dunk case. This is just saying there are clues in the New Testament that have and do provide a background to say, well, maybe Mary had made one of these vows of celibacy. There's also a passage in Matthew's birth account of Jesus, Matthew 1.24, that says, Joseph did not know Mary until she had birthed a son. And that seems like in plain English, well, that means he did know her afterwards. However, the Greek and Hebrew words for until don't function the same way that they do in English. And just another example from Matthew, I think, is a good illustration of it. This took me a long time in learning Greek and Hebrew the word until Because when I say until I not going to have coffee until I get to work Yeah and then I will have coffee And the word until means I will have coffee then That's not how until has to function in Greek and Hebrew. It often functions to say I won't have coffee until I get to the office, and I will continue to not have coffee. Then why would you bring up the office? Because I'm headed to the office. Because you're headed to the office. Yeah. Wouldn't you just say, I don't know coffee? Yes, I could say that in a way. Why bring up the office? So the last sentence of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to his disciples, I am with you until the end of the age. It's the same word about Joseph didn't know Mary until she birthed a son. Is Jesus saying, hey, guys, I am with you all until the end of the age, and then I won't be. That's what it means in English. That's the opposite of what it means here in Greek. The until in English means something fundamentally is going to change at that moment. Yeah, exactly. In English. In English. In Greek and in Hebrew. So the way I would make sense of what Jesus said there. Say it again. What does Jesus say? Look, I am with you until the end of the age. Okay, I'm with you until the end of the age. And at the end of the age, something fundamentally is going to change, which is going to mean the way I'm with you is not going to matter anymore. That's how I would read that. But it won't be the opposite. It won't be, I won't be with you. No, it won't be. So it would be kind of like, hmm, I'm not going to drink coffee until they get to the office. And then I'm going to drink a Red Bull. I don't know. Okay, never mind. Yeah, yeah. My point is, if you look at many, many examples of the word until in the New Testament, you'll find it doesn't work the same as it does in English. Sort of. And the reason I bring it up is because many people point to that verse and say, See, it clearly says that they did have sex, and actually it doesn't. All it says is for the period that she was pregnant, they never consummated the marriage. So those are all little pieces. Then there's the fact, and this was what I mentioned in the podcast, that every single early church bishop, scholar, Bible nerd, going back to the second century, third, onward, all firmly believed, not just as a matter of theology, but as a matter of historical and interpretive fact that Mary never had sex with Joseph and that the brothers of Jesus were his cousins or relatives, but not his half-brothers through Mary. So that's why I was so interested in all of that and then forced you to go through another deep dive. So there were later kind of theological developments about the meaning of the virginity of Mary. And those are things I'm actually less qualified to talk about. But when we get many hundreds of years down the line, the role of Mary really increases in Orthodox Catholic tradition. That's what I think maybe some people are wondering then. Do I need to chase that down? Is there something in those traditions for me in the way I practice my faith? And you're saying... I'm just saying in the New Testament, there is ample room for the earliness of the view, the early nature of the view that Mary had taken a vow of celibacy. And that that's what all this is rooted in, is in that memory of that historical fact. If you take that view, a whole bunch of other pieces make sense in the New Testament. And I just thought that was super interesting. Also because then a commitment to celibacy for Jesus was intentional and meaningful. And the fact that he would be following his mom's lead on that is super cool to imagine. So there you go. If you want to learn more about this, Brant Petra's book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, is a great place to take a next step. But the brothers of Jesus, it's actually really, that's why I love the letter of Jude. because it forces you to think about things you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Okay. Okay. The next question is from Taylor. Taylor, yeah. Hi, Tim and John. This is Taylor from Houston, Texas, and I'm wearing my Bible Project t-shirt as I record this question. Yeah. In episode five, you talk about love meals or love feast. Can you explain more about those and recommend any good resources for further study? How should this inform how we think about the Lord's Supper and how we practice observing it in community with God and other humans? May the Lord bless you and keep you. Hugs from Texas. Thanks, Taylor. Thanks for that. Thanks, Taylor. I received that blessing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the love meals, love feasts. This is in Jude verse 12, which I'll just remind us all. So he's talking about these people, like those guys that had snuck into the community that Judah was so worked up about. And he describes them in verse 12 as hidden sea rocks attending your agapi meals, your loved meals. I love how you say agapi. Oh. How good is it? We got to soften the G. Yeah. Agapi. Love it. So, you know, the point of these meals is the celebration of Jesus' presence in your midst as the one who died for our sins. And there's hidden sea rocks that are going to run the whole ship aground there at the feast. That's his point. So it's a casual mention. Right. You're supposed to know what these feasts are. Yeah, exactly. So it is just the noun, achapi, love. Yeah. It's a verb in John 3.16, for God so loved the world. Yeah. Greater love has no one than this, Jesus said. What was the series that you showed me the work that our friend did on the word? It was in the Advent series. Advent series. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's the word. And how early Christians popularized what was a less common word for love. Yep. Like we need. Yeah. We've got words for love, but what we're experiencing feels fundamentally different. Mm-hmm. Let's make this word do some work for us. Yeah. Yeah. And then love, happy, becomes like the main word to describe the God they encountered in Jesus. Yeah. So it's a plural noun, love in Greek. So literally it's these men are hidden sea rocks at your loves, would be like the hyper letter. Oh, okay. At your moments of love. But then he later says in the sentence, when they are feasting together, and it's the word, it's the actual word for like eating. Oh, the word feast isn't there first? It's just the loves. Yeah. So our English translations call it the love feast. Right. It's literally just the word love in the plural. At your loves. At your loves, when they are eating together with you. Okay. Because that's what you do at the loves. Because that's what you do at the loves. So this is, actually here, I never do this. I'm just going to read from a commentary. My favorite commentary on the letter of Jude by Richard Baucom. Can't recommend his work enough. And he says this, This is the earliest occurrence of the term agape in the sense of a Christian fellowship meal. But this usage after the letter of Jude becomes very frequent. And then he has lots of references that are all post-New Testament, but in the earliest writings of the earliest church, a guy named Ignatius and a guy named Clement of Alexandria, a guy named Tertullian, they all just take for granted that this is the name of a weekly feast, a meal that followers of Jesus have together. He goes on, And it is equivalent to the much less frequent term used by Paul, the Lord's Supper. Okay. The Lord's meal. And that's what he calls taking the bread in the cup. Paul calls that by that term in his letter to the Corinthians. So he's saying this is the same meal? It's the same meal. Okay. Yeah. So he goes on. He says, in the background to the practice are the common meals of Judaism. so he means both like the feasts you know of Passover then there's the weekly Sabbath meal that you would have also we know about new meals introduced into the Jewish calendar like by the Dead Sea Scroll community they talk a lot about their special ritual meals and special blessings that they have for the meals and also Bakum goes on we know that meals were a part of the communal living rhythms in the earliest Christian communities, the book of Acts, where they are dedicating themselves, the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. So especially the meals, including the Last Supper, that the disciples of Jesus celebrated with him both before and after his resurrection. So that meal, the Passover meal that Jesus has with his disciples. That one was before. After, that was also a Passover meal? So in the background to the agape feast, which Paul calls the Lord's Supper, there are the general ritual meals in Judaism. Then there's also the last supper meal that's in the Gospels. Then there's also the community meals that are described in the book of Acts. Oh, that's the after his resurrection. Yeah, exactly. That's right. So he goes on. The agape feast or the Lord's Supper was a real meal. Paul talks about there being an actual meal in 1 Corinthians 11. It's also mentioned in the book of Acts, breaking bread from house to house. It was held in the evening, Bauckham says, and he appeals to a moment in Acts chapter 20, when Paul was in the city of Troas and we're told that they gathered together to break bread. And Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, but, well, he went long with his message until midnight. Oh, okay. And this is when the guy Eutychus falls out the window because he fell asleep at Paul's sermon. Yeah, I feel him. So it's the same phrase, you know, breaking of bread for the weekly gathering, but it was happening at night. Okay. Okay. So this meal was not in the earliest New Testament period, different from the Eucharist, taking the bread and the cup. Okay. Like the bread and the cup was just a part of this meal. Right. That makes sense. Like when you get to the part where you're going to pour some wine or break some bread, like that's when you do the remembrance of Jesus. Yep. So he says once you get past the New Testament, Ignatius, who was an important bishop in the late 90s, early 100s, he's still using the term Lord's Supper to describe the bread and the cup, the Eucharist. It's only once you get into the mid-100s with a guy named Justin that taking the bread and the cup as a ritual to remember Jesus has become different from a regular meal, just a meal that you would have together. So at some point, the ritual meal of just taking the bread and the cup separate from actually having a sit-down meal, that happened. Pretty early on. Pretty early, like somewhere in the mid-100s. And our sources don't give us a ton of information for how to pin that down. so Bauckham thinks that the name of the feast must derive from the dominant early christian sense of the love of god reaching people through jesus christ and creating a fellowship of love among christians um i this is now me not Bauckham have wondered if the account given of the meal in john's gospel where he washes their feet yeah and then talks about how much he loves them yeah love them to the full, this is my command. I love each other. That's not really the roots of this term. So yeah, the love feast. So maybe it's just good to name how people take the bread and the cup really differs now in your church tradition. But at the roots of it, you know, in the early first century, was it was an actual meal that people sat down together, eating together, lots of different kinds of people, celebrating the love of God that brought them all together in unity as the body of Christ. And you eat a meal that begins with this kind of ritual moment of the bread and the cup. Okay, so Sabbath meal in Jewish tradition is a weekly meal. Friday nights. Friday night meal. The Passover meal is a once a year meal. And then you're saying the Qumran community shows us that they could innovate other meals. They could and did. That's right. Yeah. Jewish sub-communities could and did develop their own little specialty, special meals. So the Jewish messianic movement that Jude was a part of said, okay, Resurrection Sunday is a big deal. And we're gonna have to eat. And actually, you know, when we get together and eat, this is more than just eating. And what we have is Jesus telling us what to do with the bread and cup. Like, let's really make this special. Yeah, and the word the Lord's Supper is matched by a term we have in the Revelation called the Lord's Day, referring to Resurrection Sunday. So the fact that the meal shifted from the Passover focus on Friday nights and was celebrated on Sundays as a resurrection meal to celebrate the love of God seems to be what the agape meal refers to. and that it was later that taking the bread and the cup got separated from an actual sit-down meal. So I'm not passing judgment on any of those developments, just saying that's what Jude is referring to. That's why he refers to it the way that he does. But this is the first mention of that feast being called by that name. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah. I could tell as Taylor asked the question, her wheels were spinning a little bit like, is there something for me here? a meal that I need to get in on Yeah You know yeah maybe I would just encourage there are many followers of Jesus many traditions that have never separated taking the bread and the cup apart from an actual meal And that is how many followers of Jesus do it. It's a little more work. Yeah. Right. Sure. Can I go? Yeah. But it's also really cool to actually have that moment with the people sitting around the table together. It's super cool. So if that's something you want to explore, Taylor, you should totally do that. You asked for a couple of resources. So one, I recommended Richard Balcombe's commentary, but that's the whole commentary. You know, I just read one paragraph. An older book that I learned so much from a number of years ago is by a New Testament scholar, I. Howard Marshall, called Last Supper, Lord's Supper. And it's a fantastic place to kind of accessible, but definitely a deep dive into the history of this meal in early Christianity. Great. Thanks, Taylor. Let's move on to a question from Ian. Yeah. Okay. Ian from Kaiser, Oregon. Just down south of here. That's where the In-N-Out is, right? The In-N-Out burger? Yeah. Is that in Kaiser? I think so. Right off Interstate 5? Yeah. I'd love that you know that. Clearly you've stopped there. Clearly. Ian, your question is another highly repeated question, which is about the expansive church library that Judah seems to have. with not just quoting from the Hebrew Bible, but also from, you know, some other texts that piqued many readers' curiosity. So, let's hear your question, Ian. Hi, Tim and John. My name is Ian, and I'm from Kaiser, Oregon. My question is, when Jude wrote this letter, I doubt that he knew his letter would end up in a collection of scrolls accompanying the Torah. Paradoxically, he's quoting from a scroll that some do not consider should be in a collection with the Torah. What does this mean for how we are to understand the significance of the widely accepted biblical books versus the Deutero canon? And what does this mean for how we view other recent writings, like letters, essays, and books, that are inspired by God and written by faithful followers, but are not as old as these scrolls? Thank you for the work you do to spread the good news. Such a great question. It is. For some reason to me, it feels like a dangerous question. Ooh, danger. Yeah. It's danger. Yeah. Because is this, well, can you discern why you're feeling that? Yeah. There's something about really, at least in the tradition I grew up in, for sure. But then I just feel intuitive. We've got to really protect what is scripture and kind of really keep a kind of tight lid on that. Otherwise, crazy is going to start happening. Sure. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I hear that. Yeah. I resonate with it in many ways. Mm-hmm. Maybe just as a hyperlink, we did the Crash Course in How the Bible Was Formed podcast series. It came out last year, about a year ago. Okay, so that would be a more in-depth place to go. Yeah. Because we go right at that question for like a couple episodes, Ian, and for those of you who haven't listened to that series yet. So there's a number of challenges here. One is we are acquainted with the Bible in a particular form of technology here in the 21st century. Two forms now, really. Digital Bibles that have, when you open up the table of contents in like a digital Bible, it's very clear. Like, there it is. But that is a derivative off of the previous main form of technology, which is the technology of the book or the codex. Yeah, bound collection of anything. Yeah. Many pages together in one thing. That's right. Yeah. So, and the nature of that technology forces the question of... What's in, what's out. What's in, what's out. Yeah. Because you brought up before that when you have a collection of scrolls that in your mind are all working together, but they're all distinct. Yeah. And you may even only have access to certain of them because scrolls are expensive. Yeah. Your library might not have them all. No, the scrolls is the technology that preceded the book. Yeah. In terms of the history of the Bible. Right. Right. And so with that, with the scroll technology, you know, you've also painted the picture of like going to a library and there's this little holes in the wall where you put in the scrolls. And so you'd have where you put all Torah and prophets and the writings, but you have your other scrolls too. And they would be there and you'd be able to look at your wall and you kind of know, okay, this is Torah, this is prophets, this is writings. Here's other literature I have, but it's not like it's all in one book. Exactly. So just the point of making that observation is just to say that the difference in technology, the shift from scroll collection to the codex or the book, forces a way of conceiving of a collection that wouldn't occur to you in the same way. So we know the Jewish people thought of the Hebrew scriptures as a unified collection. And you have this term, this phrase of the Torah, the prophets, and the writings, or the Torah, the prophets, and Psalms. And that three-part description is used all over ancient Judaism, including the teachings of Jesus and early Christianity. But I think just the fact that it was a scroll collection created an easier imagination to say, and that's not like the only literature we got hanging around. And so the flourishing of Second Temple scripture-like literature just abounded. I mean, it was an incredibly productive literary culture. Yeah. And not only did they read it and really appreciate it, they thought it helped them understand scripture. Yeah. And they thought it helped them hear from God. Yes. Yeah. And so suddenly it feels like, are you blurring the lines then between how you hear from God and scripture and how you're hearing from God with these other pieces of literature? Yeah. And I think in this question is, I think some empathy for how, yeah, we still kind of do that. Totally. Like our pastors or thinkers, they'll write something, we'll be like, that was inspired. Yes. I'm hearing from God from what you wrote there. But we don't call that scripture. That's right. So what is it that sets the Hebrew scriptures and the books of the New Testament apart from that? And because there are lots of different views out there in scholarship about this. I am persuaded that there is clear evidence that there was a sense of a unified scriptural collection. This is just now talking about the Hebrew scriptures. and that ancient Jews were able to tell the difference between what was a part of that core collection, but that didn't deter them ever from having bigger community libraries full of all this other literature that was all like in biblical interpretation. And there's one fact that I did include, because we have a video about the books of Deuterocanon, and there's one thing that really stood out to me and is still very significant, is when Jesus and the apostles quote from the scriptures, what would be like we call the Hebrew scriptures, they regularly merge the human author's voice with a divine voice. Like Jesus will quote from what he'll elsewhere call the scrolls of Moses and say, and God says. Same with the letter to the Hebrews. He'll quote from a psalm and say, David said here, and then in the next paragraph say, and the Holy Spirit is saying to us here. So they merge the divine and human voices when they talk about these scrolls. They don't ever do that when they quote from other literature. And the one exception that might be the difference is right here in the letter of Jude. Where he's quoting from Enoch. He's quoting from Enoch, but even what he's quoting is a quotation of Deuteronomy 33. That Enoch's quoting. That Enoch is quoting. And he doesn't actually say God says, but what he says is this found in the seventh from Adam. So I think it's more that because the technology of the book forces us who have only ever encountered the Bible that way, we tend to think in an either or. And if we can inhabit a community that had a scroll collection and they had a clear sense of what their scriptures were, But that didn't exclude in any way this in-between category of semi-scripture or texts that are super valuable to us. That doesn't mean we think they're in the Hebrew Bible, but they're still really valuable to us. So that's one piece of it. But it does raise a question of like, well, what is really the difference? Like, what would be the difference that matters? And historically, the difference that matters of how you segment these texts off from the others is, do they point to Jesus? Meaning, where do I go to hear what the Hebrew prophets and the apostles designated by Jesus who knew him? Where do I go to go to the source for the real stuff? And that's what the designation, the prophets and apostles, refers to, the two-part Christian Bible. And what you definitely have in the early Christian movement as you move into the second and third century then is lots of debate about where do I go to get the real Jesus? Like, where is the real Jesus represented? And it was consistently the writings of the prophets and of the apostles that kept rising to the top. And that's a very short form of like how the Christian Bible emerges out from the sea of other literature. But the fact that the Old and New Testaments emerged out as uniquely a divine witness written through human authors to point to Jesus, the fact that that was recognized as really special doesn't diminish the fact that most of these early communities also had wider libraries. I don't know. It's just— Got it. Oh, it's clear to you now? Well, yeah, but I mean, I'm also uploading all the things we talked about in that other conversation. Yes. Yeah. I think the right type of ambiguity is clear to me. Should I say it back? Please. Okay. Yeah. So there's a clear sense of what we call the Old Testament, Torah prophets writings. That became really clear what's in and out. And that became a unified collection. That became really clear of what it is as a coherent collection. Okay. The question of what is out, I think, was less important. I mean, it's inferred. Yeah. But what matters is just this is a unified collection of scrolls. Okay. And we're telling it apart from other things that are very similar, like the Enoch scroll or the testimony of Moses. And there's other literature that's being written in the spirit of the same. Imitation of. Yeah. And it's actually for early Christians, but also in these different movements, really important literature. And so you would have respect for it. But you're saying there was a delineation in their mind of this is scripture. And this is kind of literature that accompanies scripture. Yeah, but it's porous. Yeah, there wasn't a council. There wasn't like someone came down and said, this is exactly what it is. It kind of emerged through it being a unified collection. Yes. And so you might have some debates and arguments and people disagreeing. Definitely. And what we saw often in the letter of Jude is when he'd reference stories from the Old Testament, he's not just referencing the story version found in the Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible, but also in light of all these other hyperlinked inferences and connections. Yeah. And he expects that you appreciate that. Yeah. And those happen to be versions of the story that are told in a lot of other Second Temple Jewish literature that also are capturing that same thing, which means that he wasn't educated only on the Hebrew scriptures, but he was raised in a community that was reading them as a unified story that leads to the Messiah. Yeah. And so as it comes to the Deutero canon, which I think Ian brought up, is that, and coming back to our series on this, was a lot of those books in the Deutero canon are that second temple piece of literature. Yes, all of them are. Yeah. They are. Stuff that Jude's quoting from. Enoch's not in it, except for in the Ethiopian tradition. Yeah, good memory. And so there are Christians, followers of Jesus, who say, actually those for us are now in our canon, in our scripture collection. And then there are others that say, no, they're not. But if you're going to say, no, they're not, that doesn't mean they're not significant. That's right. Or, you know, they don't have something for us. That's right. And you even showed us back during that series of conversations that some of the earliest Protestant Bibles had them printed in the same codex. Yeah, that's an appendix. Yeah, that's right. You'd carry them along with you. Okay. Yeah. Crystal clear. Thank you. Well, no. Let's go get a double-double. Ian, look for us at the Ian and Out Burger down in your neck of the woods sometime, and we'll probably still be talking about that. Same stuff. Okay, Josh, you had a question about Judah's reference to the rebel sons of God and the Nephilim in Genesis 6. Perfect. That'll be easy. Yeah, of course. All right. Hi, Tim and John. In your recent discussion on the book of Jude, you hyperlinked verse 6 back to the Nephilim in Genesis 6. That got me wondering if there's any evidence that by the time of the early church, there was any kind of understanding that divine beings had the capability to procreate. Is there any room for that kind of theology today? Whoa. Yeah. Okay. It's a great question. It is a great question. I'm really curious, too. I want to know. How we should approach this. So, my first thought, you're asking, Josh, is there any evidence in early Christianity about spiritual beings procreating? So I would widen the scope and say, one, there is ample evidence that in the ancient world of the ancient Near East and in the Greek and Roman world that divine beings could and did procreate with humans. If you know of the character Hercules he a half god half human He the son of Zeus who forced a woman to sleep with him kind of thing zeus did so all that in the air like that that stuff can happen and does happen so the only two stories in the hebrew bible that ever even nudge in this direction one of them is the sons of god in genesis 6 and then then that's viewed but the thing is is that's viewed negatively Right. Like extremely negatively. Yeah, this is a problem. It's a problem because it's a sign if the Garden of Eden was humans trying to grab at divine wisdom on their own terms through the counsel of a spiritual being, right, seeing and taking what is good. And Genesis 6 is hyperlinked to that as like a mirror inversion where the sons of God, spiritual beings, see and desire what is good, that is human women, and take them. And it seems like based on what God says in response to that, it was like an effort at restoring divine life to humans outside of the garden. It was like an illicit merging of heaven and earth to restore eternal life to the humans. So God's like, shut down on that project. But in the story, the unfortunate result of that is now the world is full of these violent warrior kings, Nephilim. And then they slowly get like killed off through the biblical story. And the last one of them to get killed off is Goliath. So we've talked about that at length in the past. none of this by the way and saying all that matter of factly none of this is easy for me to really get my heart and mind around and like it's all so weird to me yeah but you know yeah that's because a whole bunch of things about where i was born and when and so on well what can i say i think there's two approaches to it one is just to lean into it and be like well you know lean into that discomfort maybe there was some other type of human running around that were these giant hybrids. The other way is to allegorize it, I guess, and to kind of say, like, this was Israel's way to kind of throw shade at the kings who were saying that this is who they were. Yeah, a kind of ancient satire. Yeah. Yeah. So not to say that there's one way that we're suggesting, but, like, I think that there's room. Yes, I completely agree. So what is fascinating is you might think, and maybe, Josh, this is where your question's going, is, man, were ancient Israelite communities just living in constant fear? Were ancient Israelite women constantly afraid that a spiritual being might appear and sexually assault them? And based on the reading I've done and work on this so far, I have never found one hint that this was like a fear that people lived under. People did and do still live under the fear of oppression or attack by spiritual beings. But when you look in the New Testament period, the way that spiritual beings oppress human beings are more connected to what we imagine in forms of physical or mental illness in our modern sense. And so there's nothing in the Bible that is presenting what the sons of God did in Genesis 6 as an ongoing threat. It is presented as an event on par with Adam and Eam's folly in the Garden of Eden, the sons of God and the rebels in Genesis 6 that led to the violence. Which led to the flood. Which led to the flood, which God says, I'll never do that again. And then also the scattering of the Tower of Babylon. Like those stories are all presented in a row as these catastrophic moments that has led to the world now that we experience. But the threat of happening again, it just isn't a thing going forward. Like you don't have Jesus or the apostles talking about how to protect yourself from spiritual beings in that way. They definitely talk about protecting yourself from the evil one. But the way that they always talk about that is that it's a battle in our mind about deception and believing lies about ourselves and other people. So I think it's just significant to say that threat of sexual assault by a spiritual being definitely shouldn't be on the list of anybody's things to worry about. There's enough crazy stuff to worry about in the world. And nothing in the teaching of Jesus or the apostles gives indication that that's something that we should ever be afraid of. It's good to hear. Yeah. So if you want to take a deeper dive on all things spiritual beings, I definitely recommend the work of Michael Heiser. May he rest in peace. but either his book the unseen realm or he has a book on angels and then a book on demons and it's just a really accessible but deep dive into the biblical material on all of that and onto some of the cultural background in the ancient world about all these topics great thank you for that question that's a heavy one to end on yeah although i'm just glancing at this last one and it kind of just follows suit a little bit. It's also about spiritual beings. Yeah. Yeah, but I thought it was interesting. Okay. Let's take it on board. Let's do it. This is a question from Dave in Terre Haute, Indiana. Hey, Dave here from Indiana. My question is about the spiritual realm and how it's discussed in Jude versus the gospel according to John. It seems as though in Jude it's a very open topic for discussion, but in the gospel of John, he doesn't even mention Jesus driving out demons. Why the big shift? Oh, it's Dave. So, hey, Dave. This is Dave, computer science teacher, who's been doing work for us on our staff with a bunch of stuff. So Dave snuck one in. Hey, Dave. Well done, Dave. Okay. So great question. Is there some kind of shift in how Jude or John are talking about spiritual beings, and then how you see in the Gospels where he's doing lots of exorcisms, Jesus is healing and exercising. But then the Gospel of John, demons are brought up all of zero times. Hmm. Really? Yeah. Wow, I never realized that. Yeah. Super interesting. Hmm. It's like such a huge thing. Yeah. It's a big deal in the other Gospels. Yeah. It's not mentioned at all. Hmm. So Dave, your question is, is there a shift in how spiritual beings are thought about? Yeah, because in Jude, I remember thinking, man, the spiritual realm really saturates Jude's imagination. It's a big part of how he sees the world. And the way that he's thinking about these guys is so affected by the way he sees kind of this cosmic spiritual thing going on around him. Yeah. Yes, 100%. So maybe I wouldn't describe the differences in the New Testament books with how they depict or portray spiritual beings as a shift. I think what you're just seeing is different authors with different communication goals emphasizing different things. So in the Gospel of John, the focus so much, and he even says right at the end, I have selected, Jesus did more things than you could write down in all the books of the world, he says. But I've selected these things to persuade you that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, full stop. So part of how he's building the focus on Jesus' divine identity is not to highlight any other rival spiritual beings except one. And that is essentially like the arch evil spiritual being that Jesus mentions a lot in the Gospel of John. He calls him the ruler of this world. He's the liar, the murderer, the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So that one is very much a theme in the Gospel of John. But maybe it's sort of like in John, it's the big knockdown drag out between the two. Right? The son of God and the current illegitimate ruler of this world. So I think he just doesn't want to distract with any other spiritual beings. He just wants you to see the showdown. But the other gospels have a different communication goal. And they want to show Jesus as the Lord of every realm of heaven and earth and the inhabitants of them. And so the exorcisms play a really big role. In the letter of Jude, the spiritual realm plays even yet another kind of role, doesn't it? Yeah. How would you describe it? Well, I mean, he's got a view that the moral order and the cosmic order are upheld by spiritual beings delegated by God. Yeah. And that they're real and we need to honor them, but also not make them like our sole focus. But don't dishonor them. Yeah. Because he has the whole thing about slandering. Yeah. Slandering the glorious ones. Don't diss the angels. Don't diss the angels. so maybe what we're seeing is the new testament is truly the cross-cultural experience and all of them offer different windows into a world very unlike what modern urban westerners in america and europe and westernized cities you know think of but actually this kind of worldview is still held by millions of people around the world still today and many of them are followers of Jesus and for them there's no disconnect when they read the New Testament they're just like yep that's my world got the witch stalker down the street who's just put a curse on my uncle now he's really sick and like this is real for a lot of people right now and it's never been otherwise yeah it's heavy and strange but I guess That is a perfect way to wrap up the letter of Jude. Yeah, in a way. Which is a strange and actually kind of heavy letter, you know. He's really after a couple of guys, a handful of men, I don't even know how many, who are just creating so much chaos that he's just like, he throws down. And that feels uncomfortable to me. The way he talks about spiritual realm feels uncomfortable. but it's also very instructive for me to take some things seriously. Like make sure I have a real cosmic view of what sometimes might feel like just everyday kind of decisions. Yeah, that's right. That our lives are taking place on a stage that has so much more going on than we observe with our five senses. which we kind of already know even if you're especially if you're a science nerd you know that I mean there's so much happening in the universe that's intertwined with you and I waking up every morning so it's just extending that out to say what if that universe isn't just like impersonal quantum forces but it's actually like an enchanted inhabited world surrounding me that if I don't have eyes to see it maybe that's my problem, you know? Yeah. I really loved that the positive encouragement that he offers at the end of the letter is short, but so cool. Do you remember this bit of, but you beloved ones, build yourselves up on your most holy faith. And the architectural terminology is like temple language, because you're the temple. Praying in the spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God. And that's so cool. God's constantly sending love your way, but we actually do have to participate in maintaining our posture of receiving it because it's very easy to all of a sudden not be living as if you are infinitely loved. And then as you wait, anticipating the mercy of our Lord Jesus to the life of the age to come. That's rad. That's verses 20 and 21. That's good. Yeah, it's good stuff. saying it that way is not the language that would first come to my mind for how to say goodbye to another christian that i care about a lot but i like his way of saying it maybe i want to think about the world more like jude does yeah cool thank you for letting me force you to go down yeah the jude rabbit hole with me and all of you listening thanks for bringing us down the jude uh rabbit hole yeah okay next we're gonna do another little special out of the pocket kind of thing Yeah. Yeah. At some point in the recent past, I said to you, John, what if we just started reading the Psalms together and just making our way through the Psalm scroll? Yeah. And you were like, that's cool. So I was like, great. Let's start with Psalm 1 and 2. Let's start at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we'll do next week is we'll read Psalm 1 together. And then the week after that, we'll read Psalm 2 together. Yeah. And then we'll actually do a little bit more with those two Psalms. Yeah, we'll let you discover that along the way. So next to the book of Psalms. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit, and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we make is free because it's been paid for already by thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Everybody, this podcast is really cool. And I'm so honored to get to be a part of it. And it is created and brought to you all by a fantastic, creative group of human beings. If you want to learn more about them, check out the show notes. We've got all their names and what they do in there. And again, thank you for listening along with us. We will see you in the next episode. Thank you.