The Path of Cain, Balaam, and Korah

- Welcome to Bible Project Podcast.

“We're in a short series on the New Testament letter of Jude,”

or as we've been calling it, The Letter of Judah. Judah planned to write a letter to his Jewish messianic community about their shared salvation in Jesus. But instead, he had to drop everything and write a letter dealing with the crisis

happening in the church. - Jude said, "I've got to put out a fire 'cause there's these people that've come into the house church communities, and they're gonna ruin you, and ruin the integrity of our witness to Jesus

as a community." - Jude doesn't pull any punches as he warns about these men. Yet he writes about them in a very different way than we might. He quotes stories from the Hebrew Bible that illustrate the deep ancient patterns

that these men are participating in. And then he expects us, the reader, to just understand these patterns, because we spent so much time meditating on these very stories. - He does what?

Second Temple of Jewish Hebrew Bible nerds.

The following Jesus would do. They see the world through the patterns and the characters and stories of poems that he prescriptures.

“- Today, we look at how these dangerous men”

are like three characters in the Bible. Cain, that's the first point of Adam, who kills his brother, Abel. Bailum, that's the pagan sorcerer who's hired to curse Israel and Korah.

That's the Levi who leads a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, rejecting God's chosen leaders. - What links them together is subtle in the Hebrew Bible. They just read stories of people who themselves made bad decisions,

but then they bring other people into their deception. - Jude then uses some stark metaphors to describe the impact these men are having. They're like hidden sea rocks. - You guys are on the ship called your church

and they are like a rock that's just about a rip-a-hole in the whole boat and sink your battleship. - They're like shepherds feeding themselves. - He is accusing them of being like rebel leaders of Israel. They're there feasting with you,

but not to honor the Lord Jesus. They're actually there just feeding themselves. - And they're like clouds without rain, carried along by the wind.

“They're trees of late autumn without fruit.”

- Things that you think should bring fruitfulness? - They don't. It's a false advertising. - All of Jude's images assume that you're familiar with how these images work in the Hebrew Bible,

but then just to keep things spicy,

Jude throws in a quote from another second-temple Jewish writing

that isn't in the Bible. He quotes from first enoc, a prophecy about God's coming judgment on a cosmic rebellion. Now if you're unfamiliar with enoc, that's okay, we'll get into it

and we'll see why Judah is quoting from it. Judah is using these cosmic decryation images to describe these people's lifestyle and the kind of effect they'll have on their church community. - Today, Tim Mackey and I continue in the letter of Judah.

A unique look into how these early Christians read their Bible and how they found wisdom from other second-temple literature as well. Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

Hey, Tim. - Hey, John Collins, hello. We're working through the letter of Judah. And we've only got a couple more conversations left to land the plain.

- I know. - And we've got a lot of verses left. - We do. So should we just get right to it? - Let's get right into it.

- Okay, the body of the letter. Jude said, I want to write, do the psychology salvation and gotta put out a fire 'cause there's these people that have come into the house church communities.

Full of people, you all, that I love. - Yes. - That's loved ones. - And they're gonna ruin you. - Yeah.

- The new and the integrity of our witness to Jesus as a community, our way of life, the points to our allegiance to Jesus is gonna get it ruined, compromised if these people and how they live spread. So he does what, he revival nerds would do.

Second-temple Jewish, he revival nerds that follow Jesus.

They see the world through the patterns and the characters and the stories and poems that he prescriptors. So we wove together three biblical stories of the rebellion of the spies against Moses and God.

They're like them, they're like the rebellious spiritual beings that didn't accept the limits God put on them. They also the honor God put on them to rule over these guys. They wanted more and they're also like the men of Sodom who violated slandered and tried to abuse spiritual beings.

- Yeah. - And then we got into a whole thing about how their contempt and slander for spiritual beings represents a whole set of issues that was our last conversation.

- Yeah. - Right. So after giving those three long examples from the Hebrew Bible, he's gonna come

from the Hebrew Bible.

“And then just like he gave those three long examples”

and then applied it to these people,

he's gonna give three short examples and then apply it to these people. - Okay. - And this is how he's gonna do it. We're gonna look at verses 11 through 13.

This is such a fascinating little paragraph. He says, "Whoa to them." He's getting old testament, profit style here. - Whoa means bad news for them.

- Mm-hmm. - There's a curse. - Not a curse. A curse is invoking God to do something to them. - Right.

- Saying, "Whoa to them" is a way of saying, they have a terrible set of consequences in store because of the choices they've been making. Bad news, sad, sad, weep, whale, lament. - Okay.

- Whoa to them. - To what does it mean to whoa? - Well, in Hebrew it's, "Hi!" (laughing) - It's not even a proper word.

- Yeah. - What we call an X-on engine. - Yeah. So what's a word? - What's one of those in English?

- Oy. - Oy. - Ug. - Yeah. - Ug to them.

“- But whoa is also your calling to a group of people”

in saying like, "Oh, man, I guess we don't, do we have an equivalent of this?" - What would you say if you saw a car wreck? - Uh-huh. - Right, on the highway and you're in a car full of people,

what sound would come out if you were trying to express your grief and lament and sadness for the series of events that just unfold. - Yeah, we would just kind of go, "Oh!" - And then whoa also has something

that the car wreck doesn't, which is a level of like guilt or culpability. - Okay. - So if you're watching someone harassing people or stealing stuff or just doing something,

a whole group of people. - That's it. - And you're reacting to it. There's a sense of condemnation in the reaction. - That's it.

- Okay. - A whoa to them. - Right. - I should have stacked up a whole bunch of examples. We could look at some of that.

- That is helpful. - So go to them, because maybe these three examples that it gives. So three short, he revival examples, but each one of them has a long.

(laughing) - Oh, it's so cool. Anyway, here he goes. They've traveled on the path of Cane.

“- The path of Cane, you know, who murdered Abel?”

- Yeah. - They've given themselves over to the deception of Baylom's reward. - You know, Baylom that. - Yeah, the sorcerer.

- Yeah, the sorcerer and your eastern sorcerer. - Yeah. - Hey, how was his reward? Are we gonna go into these? - At least briefly.

They've been destroyed in the hostile Rebellion of Korra. - Okay. And these were the priests? - Yeah, this is the Rebellion that happened right after the Rebellion of the leaders in the spies.

- Okay. - Yeah. - So three types of Rebellions? - Okay, so three Old Testament characters. - Yeah, yeah.

- All who came to the abad end. - Okay. - All came to the abad end? - They did. - All right.

- Track it through. - So, hmm, what Judas doing here is he's citing three characters from Hebrew Scriptures, but what links them together is subtle. Very subtle in the Hebrew Bible.

By the authors, the Hebrew Bible.

Second temple, Jewish Bible, nerds notice those hyperlinks.

- Okay. - And so they begin to read these three stories in light of each other and begin to import details and ideas from one to fill in gaps in the other. - Oh, interesting.

- That's super interesting. So, for example, Cain, Genesis 4, God favors his brother over him, is offering over him. - Cain is the farmer, Abos is shepherd, they both bring offerings.

Cain's the first born. - Okay. - He's older, and God's favoring the younger, the offering of the younger, which is an animal offering. And Cain's bringing his vegetable goods,

which is the sweet offering. - Yeah, it's cool. And that makes him angry. God says, hey, listen, be careful with that anger. It's like an animal crouching.

- Once to rule you, you can rule it. And there's exaltation for you too, if you do the right thing. He doesn't do the right thing. He kills his brother.

- See, opposite of the right thing. - See, opposite of the right thing. Now, then you're just told, he's exiled from Eden, and then he finds a wife and Mary's has kids and build a city.

- Yeah. And I just imagine him living in a ripe old age in the city he built. - Yeah, maybe in remorse or grief over what he had done. - Yeah.

- No, say the later Jewish readers of the Hebrew Bible. - Okay.

- Wisdom of Solomon, second century Jewish text.

When an unrighteous man that is Cain departed from Lady Wisdom in his anger, he perished. Because in rage, he killed his brother. - When the earth was flooded, because of him. - Oh well, he kicked off that whole thing.

I guess in a way.

from Cain's murder of his brother to the Nephilim spilling the blood of the innocent on the land. And the link between the two is Cain's city that he built seven generations down the line.

“You get lemmeck, and I think it's Wisdom of Solomon,”

drawing a link between Lemmeck and the Nephilim. By idea that Lemmeck is one of these Nephilim. - Hmm. - One of these warriors as a result of-- - Wait, 'cause one would the flood have happened.

- Ah, the flood would have happened in the lifetime of Noah. - Which was that how many generations down from-- - Oh yeah, gosh, I mapped this all out once. I have a little chart that shows overlapping of all of the ages of the--

- I can't want to see that one. - We don't have to keep moving, but I know. - That's right. (laughing) - Here we go, all right. - Wow.

- Okay, I'm page 97, I know it's from Adam to Noah class, but this is about the lineage not through Cain, but through Seth, but Cain was Seth's older brother. - Yep. - So it looks like Seth is dying when Noah's born.

So Seth lived almost right up to the time of Noah. So Cain's son Lemmeck would have been born like down here, so he's definitely overlapping with the days of Noah. - Okay.

“- The point is that Lemmeck came to descendant”

in the narrative chronology of the story world would have been alive and we don't know when the angels came, like a what point? - Just that in those days. - In those days.

(laughing) - Yeah. - Yeah, so what's fascinating is Lemmeck is associated with the violence. - I see.

- That Genesis 6 is referring to it. - You would have been around during that time. - Lemmeck is a narrative example. The poem that he sings about, you know, slaughtering a guy who slapped him or wounded his honor,

is an example of the violence that is corrupting the land that God sees in Genesis 6. - Okay. - All right.

So what happens then is you get second temple Jewish text

that then make Cain essentially the Godfather of all the violence. - Yeah. - What Cain did to Abel is the archetypal. It's opening the floodgates of human violence,

the leads to the land being soaked with innocent blood. So I've got quotes here from Josephus and they insert all kinds of details. Josephus in his retelling of the Old Testament story is super fascinating.

It's a Jewish author who's writing in Greek. He was trained in Greek rhetoric and literature and he was a general in the war against Rome. And he seceded. He went over to the side of Rome.

- When his troop got captured. - Okay. - And then he started being a historian for him. - He started being historian trying to explain Jewish culture to elite Romans.

- Okay. - So he retells all these Hebrew Bible stories but he was raised on Jewish literature. - Yeah. - So he retells the story of Cain.

He says that Cain was not only wicked in other respects but was wholly intent upon getting. So he talks about how he invented farm tools to get more out of the ground. He traveled through many countries.

He built the name of a city called Nod. Then he became a great leader of men into their wicked courses. And he changed the world into cunning and craftiness. Just language from the snake.

- Yeah. - So Cain in Jewish memory becomes sort of like the archetype. - Where would Josephus have gotten all those details

in some other second-tepal literature maybe?

“- Yeah, but also I think using the inferences”

from the narrative itself. - Okay. - So Cain built the city. - Yeah. - And in the city you get the tools of farming and metallurgy?

- Yes, exactly. - Animal husbandry. - Yeah. - Then they produce lemek and then lemeks in the generations of no leading up to the flood.

So those textual links he then imagines the story world behind it. So the whole point is that Cain was not only a murderer in second-temple Jewish imagination. - He kicked off this whole way.

- He was both misguided and he was a misguider of others. Why would Judah pick Cain? Because he killed his brother, maybe. Because he led others down the path of destruction

that he first went down himself.

- Mm-hmm. - Okay. - That starts to become more valuable. - Yeah, he created the path. - It's interesting to think about the path and path of Cain.

- Yeah. It's not just for him, it's like everyone knows on this path. - Got it, okay. Bailum. Bailum is the pagan sorcerer.

The king of Moab sees his relites being led by Moses, trumped into his land. - Yep. - He's like, I got a curse these people. I actually curse them.

Not just pronounce them but a woe. I actually get the powers of the gods

So we hires the pagan sorcerer named Bailum. Who, Bailum is a compound word in Cimitic, Balaam, which means to swallow up or devour the people. It'll be relevant in a moment.

So Bailum at first refuses to accept any of the money

and he's like, I'm not gonna come with you. And then the angel of the Lord appears to them and says, "Go with those guys." And so Bailum does and famously he announces blessing, blessing instead of curse.

So Bailum goes back and he doesn't take the money. However, there's the story a couple chapters later where a whole bunch of leaders from the Midianite clans start to camp next to Israel and the Israelites see the daughters of the Midianites

and start dating them, according to them, getting married, worshiping their gods and so on. This is called the debacle of all power. And at least so idolatry.

And the story that's a focus is about a daughter called Cosby, which means deception. And she is the daughter of one of the chiefs of Midian. And the Midianites were in on the hiring of Bailum. So later in Numbers, the Israelites end up in a battle

with the kings of Midian. And what you're told in Numbers 31 is,

“"Oh hey, dear reader, you should know that in that battle,”

"Bailum was killed by the sword." And you're like, what? - Bailum was there. - Bailum was there at the battle? Like, what's that about?

- Okay. - Yeah, because we left them like in good standing. - Yeah. - Like he didn't curse them, he blessed them. - We left Bailum in good standing.

- Yeah. And now I've said, and he's back with the Midianites who he's fighting. - And he got killed. - Okay.

- And then you read in Numbers 31 that actually, the whole thing that happened with the Midianite daughters, intermarrying, led to idolatry, that was all part of the council, the plan.

- Oh. - It was a scheme? - Okay. - All cooked up by Bailum. - Okay.

- And you're like, what? - Yeah, we didn't get that story. - This is classic Hebrew Bible, where it tells you a bunch of stories and you're just like, okay? - Yeah.

- And then it leaves this tiny little comment that the very end of this whole sequence in the book of Numbers that gives you this clue and you have to go, what?

“- The council of Bailum. - You have to go back.”

- So you can just already see here, this was just an open wide door, later readers, go back and fill in the gaps. - Okay. - So the conclusion that Jewish readers drew

was that Bailum actually went back to go get the money. - Bailum was like, I didn't mean to do the blessing thing. Like I was trying to actually cash in. Something came over me.

- Yeah. - Can we try this again? - Yeah, yep. - He went back and he was like, you know that? Offer I turned down.

- I'm still on your team. - We'll get them. - Now let's go get the Israel. I couldn't curse them. - Yeah.

- God wouldn't let me do that, but what if we have that idea? - Okay. - And then he started scheme in about corrupting them through the intermarriage and getting them to worship

other gods. - Okay. - So when Josephus, when he retold the story for his Greek and Roman friends,

“he full on inserted a speech into the mouth of Bailum.”

And basically says, all right, here's my plan.

We need to take care of these Israelites. So go get the handsomest of your daughters who are in imminent with beauty and send them near the Israelite camp. - Okay.

- This is the scheme. - This is the scheme. The council of Bailum. - So Joseph, he knows this tale of the scheme. - You got it.

- Yep. - Yeah, okay. - Josephus. - I said Joseph. - You did.

So Joseph. - Yeah. - Yeah, Josephus has Greekified name, but. So the path of Cane, he was himself deceived, made a decision and then led others along his path.

- Okay. - Bailum is now somebody who himself, right? Was deceived by the reward that he went back to go get. And then--

- But you only know through other second temple literature.

You only know that detail. - That's exactly right. - It's an inference from the Hebrew Bible. - Yeah. - Did you just take it for granted that you know

the later interpretive traditions? - Yeah. - Okay, let's look at the last example here. - Okay. - They are like those destroyed in the hostile rebellion

of Korra. In book of Numbers in the Torah, the rebellion of the spies, the 12 spies, and the leaders that you already linked about, example of above, is matched by the next rebellion story,

which is a story about the tribe of the firstborn, Ruben, and then Korra, who is among the group of the older brothers of Moses' dad. But the whole story of Ruben,

and of Korra, is about a sibling rivalry. - Okay. - Just like the cane story. - Oh really? - Yeah, and it's about the elder ones

who are looking at Moses and Aaron saying,

- Why are you guys in charge?

“- To say you're the mediators between us”

and the old one. - We're older than you are tribes or older. Do the whole story of Korra, this is Numbers chapter 16, it's just hyperlinked like crazy with words and phrases

to the cane story and of the flood story. It's super interesting. But famously, the ground opens up. - Yeah. - The ground splits open, which is the...

- That happens in the flood. - What happens in the flood? - It happens in the flood. - Swallows up the people, which is Bailum's name. - Which is the name of Bailum.

- Oh, no. - In the story of the rebellion of Korra, and then when the ground opens up and swallows up the people, that phrase, it's in the story.

- What? - Swallows up the people. Actually, it's the same Hebrew words as Bailum's name. And then this is in Numbers 16, when you go forward from Numbers,

a few more chapters, and then you meet a guy, names, he swallows up the people, and then you read the story of Bailum. - Oh. - So what's so fascinating is,

these are three stories of people who themselves made bad decisions. But then they bring other people into their deception, into their destructive choices. - Yes.

- So they make bad choices, and they lead other people into other people's suffer. - Yes. - Because of them. - That's right.

And he's picked three characters, who themselves are already hyperlinked. - Yeah. - And their stories are all linked together in the Hebrew Bible.

- Oh. - And he's saying that's what these people, who's about to say, the people in our church communities, they're just like, - That's what they're doing.

- He's three. - Yeah. - Super interesting. So let me just put my thumb on the observation you just made though.

He's reading it from the Hebrew Scriptures, following hyperlinks and design patterns. And then Judah is aware of later,

second temple, Jewish interpretive ideas and traditions.

And he just takes that for granted. - Yes.

“- And I think that's what we're seeing right here too,”

in the mentioning of Cain, Baylor and the Korah. - So they read the Hebrew Bible in light of a wider library of Jewish literature. And it was all aimed at helping you understand the Hebrew Bible.

But the view of the Hebrew Bible, the point of the Hebrew Bible is to encounter God's living voice and wisdom to help us understand our lives and our situation, like what we're facing in our community. - Yeah.

- It wasn't sort of like, here's the ancient meaning of scripture. Let's think of a principle that applies to our lives. - Yeah. - And they didn't see it that way.

- Yeah. - They were like, we are living in these stories. - Yeah. - And we read them all as one hyperlink unity, Judah reads his community life and the stuff happening within it,

as being totally within the same world. - So that he can say, these guys who are gonna ruin our church communities, they are like the descendants of Cain. - Yeah.

- They are following in Baylom's reward, that kind of thing. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Okay, so then this paragraph, verse 12, 13. He says, "These people are like hidden C rocks

"who are feasting together at your love meals "without any respect."

“Literally the word fear, I think fear of God.”

- Okay. They are shepherds who are feeding themselves. - He could have called them wolves. - Oh, but he didn't because of the Hebrew Bible text he's quoting. - Oh, is he quoting on the Hebrew Bible text?

- Yeah. Okay, so he's gonna give them six descriptions. - Okay. - All of them come from either the Hebrew Bible or the book Finock. - Okay.

- But they're all descriptions of these people. - Okay.

- We just did the first two.

- Oh, first two. - They're hidden C rocks. - Okay. - We were feasting together your love meals. So the love meal is called the rapi feast.

It's so he's referring to their weekly meal together to celebrate the Lord supper. - Okay. - Which was an actual meal. And most likely, because of the John 13 traditions

where Jesus washed their feet, his disciples, and then said, "You know what I'm doing for you, "you don't understand now, but you will later." I am loving you and will lay down my life for you. And now you do the same for each other.

Love each other, like I've loved you. So that gave that meal its name. - Okay. - The love meal. - The point is that at our weekly gatherings

to celebrate the risen Lord Jesus and our, like family, life together, they're right there. And they're like hidden C rocks. So you guys are on the ship called your church. And you think you're doing fine, but they are like a rock

but sink your battleship.

“- If you're not a sailor, if you don't sail,”

you don't realize how gnarly hidden rock is in the ocean. - Right. - It's just deep enough, you can't fully see it, but it will take you down. - It will rip-a-hole in your ship.

- Yeah, sink you all the way. - You will die. - Yeah. - That's it, that's the image. And speaking of feasting together,

they are like shepherds who feed themselves. So this is a quotation right from Exodus chapter 34. It's a perfect translation in the Greek of a Zekil 34 verse two, which accuses the leaders of Israel

of being shepherds who feed themselves instead of feeding the sheep and so on. So he's accusing them of being like rebel leaders of Israel, which is already done by comparing them to Korra and to the rebellion of the spies.

They're feasting with you, but not to honor the Lord Jesus. They're actually they're just feeding themselves. - Should I have a picture of at these love feasts like someone is in need in that community? That's an opportunity for them to call it rally around

that person. - Oh yeah, great, right. We actually have an example of this in the Paul's Corinthian letters, 'cause he lays into them in chapter 10 and 11

because the wealthier among that church community could show up early 'cause they didn't have to work. - Okay. - That wasn't a work day. And they would drink most of the wine

and eat all the food before the day laborers, people had to work that day, come to the feast and they would come up and like it's all gone. And Paul's just like, "Oh God, this is so dishonoring to the one body of Christ where every member is a king

and queen and an image of God." - So these meals were super important part of the symbolism and participation and the resurrection of Jesus. Yeah, the meal was huge, it was really huge, yeah.

So that's one, the first two images, okay.

Second two images, this is so great. They are like clouds without rain, carried along by the wind. They're like late autumn trees without fruit. Two times dead and uprooted.

All right.

“So things that you think should bring fruitfulness?”

- Oh, they don't. - So, yeah, if you're farmer, especially, like you need the rains to come. - Yes. - And so if clouds are the symbol?

- Dark cloud. - Yeah, a dark cloud is a symbol of the rains come. Oh man, where was I just? Dark clouds on the horizon. - But did it roll and hoi?

- Oh yeah. - And did it rain? - Oh yeah, you see it coming. - Oh, you see the, yeah, they're rolling in and you're like, there it is.

- You're like, here comes the rain. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And how weird would it be for those clouds to come rolling in and, oh, no rain? - No rain.

- Yep. - What disappoints? - Super disappointing. - It's a false representation, false advertising. - Yeah.

- It shows itself to be the real thing. - It's not the real thing. - Okay.

“- And so a tree in late autumn is meant to be blossoming.”

- Yeah, late autumn is a whole harvest of all kinds of fruits. - Yeah. - Throughout the world. - Yeah. - In autumn.

- Yeah. - So it's like you've been cultivating your fruit orchard all spring and summer and then it's late autumn. - There's no fruit? - Why is that twice dead?

- I know, the twice dead is so fascinating. If you're looking commentaries, it's like a zillion different explanations, twice dead. Well, I wonder if it's a sign of, you know, autumn is also when they lose

many trees lose these. - Oh, so they kind of die for the winter. - Yeah, so I wonder if it's twice dead in that not only did it not produce fruit. - Yeah.

- A sign of being dead in that sense. It's about to then go through the seasonal death of losing its leaves. - Yeah. - You may as well just uproot that thing.

- Yeah. - It has no roots. - Got it. - But even though it's standing there. So these are two things that look like

and are something that should bring benefit. For certain, they're like wild waves of the sea, splashing up the froth of their own shamefulness, and shame, well, wandering stars who are being kept for the gloom of darkness

that's the age to come. Okay. - The waves of the sea, this is the chaotic ocean.

This is the Genesis I first two.

- Yeah, I see. - Speaking, look again at verse 13, what do you see leaping out at you from Genesis one verse two? Not just the sea, but the darkness.

- Now, the land was wild and waste. And darkness was over the surface of the sea. - So deep chaos waters. - Yeah. - Yeah.

- Okay. - They are like, they're the high creation. - Ooh. - They're anti-grashing up the froth of their own shame, guys.

- Intense image. - Yeah, okay. So you go to the coast.

We live near the Oregon coast.

You go on, ooh, in like a winter day,

“where there's like these king tides, huge waves,”

up to like where the waves hit cliffs. And you get this foam that flies up. It's just turning frothy foam. - Yeah. - And the wave, the wind, the power drives these huge,

like, I don't know, blobs of, it's like gooey, who knows what it is. - Yeah, the sea foam. - Fish poop and dead, sweet animals. - Yeah.

- All disintegrated into this goo. - Yeah. - That turns into a froth and then the bubbles float up onto the highway and it's wild. - Yeah.

Wild waves, there you go. So that's like shame, and I don't think shame in terms of like the internal experience. It's like shameful acts. It's, you're bringing dishonor on you and your family

by acting in this way. - Okay. - But you're proud of it. You're splashing it up. - Oh.

“- So you're living in a way that's just producing”

all this overflow of like dishonor, a little publicly visible behavior. - Yeah. - And you're like wandering stars. - Yeah, these are the Genesis six angels.

- Yes, we're connecting back to the lights in the sky that are delegated by God to follow his orders to, right, preserve the order of day and night. But then you get these wandering lights that do their own program and they wander in a way

that's not like the rest. And so the stars, we call them planets, but they were a symbol of wayward spiritual beings. The wandering lights, the wanderers. - Yeah, so it's cool, these last four images,

like clouds without rain, like trees without fruit, like waves of the sea, like the stars of the sky. And those four give you all the realms of a little bit of the cosmos, the sky, the land, the sea, and then back to the sky.

Really interesting.

“Oh, okay, the clouds without rain, that line”

is Judas translation into Greek, exactly of the Hebrew of a biblical proverb, like clouds and wind, but there's no rain. So a man who boasts of a deceptive gift, a gift that's no gift.

- Yeah, a gift that's an illusion. - Yeah, the sugar, the sugar, yeah. So it's so rad, that phrase is coming into Judas' mind, but it's just, it's the line from the prophet. - Okay.

- So cool. Also, the frothing waves, right, is Judas translation into Greek of the Hebrew of Isaiah 5720. The wicked are like the waves that churn up, grime, and mud.

- The wicked are like the churned up seas or your translation there? - Yeah, the wicked are like the churned up sea that is not able to be combed. It's water's churn up, grime, and mud.

But I have a spatite. - And that's the froth of the shame. - Frothing up the shame, yeah, yeah. And then you get the images of the trees without fruit and the wandering stars, and actually also put the clouds

and the waves. All, he's brought together phrases from the Hebrew Bible, but he's been meditating on the opening literary unit of Enoch. So the first literary unit of Enoch goes from chapters one to five, okay.

And here it's God and angel putting in front of Enoch. Here's the way the cosmos is supposed to work.

Look at how the works of heaven never alter in their paths.

In the luminaries of heaven, the lights, they never transgress their order. So you get the earth filled with water and clouds and do and rain, the trees come, all the trees have fruit, the sea and the rivers never.

So it's like the world of Genesis one, this seven days, how it's supposed to work. That's supposed to work. But then, once the sons of God do their thing and the rebel angels, rebel angels,

sleep with women, nepheline, the spilling blood on the land, then you get the nightmare version of it. So Enoch chapter 80, that picture of the world falling apart, is the nightmare inversion of this beautiful, ordered picture from the opening chapters of Enoch,

which is all about how, in the days leading up to the flood, after the sons of God had their rebellion. The stars in the sky because they rebel, stop doing what God told them to do. And the whole cosmos begin to fall apart.

And so you get this really interesting chapter

in, first Enoch chapter 80, that said, man,

when evil multiplied on the land before the days of the flood, the rainy seasons grew shorter, the rain was withheld, the fruit of the earth is late and won't grow,

the heads of the stars begin string from their commands.

They change their ways and don't appear at the time God ordered for them to appear. - This is the shaking of the cosmos. - De-creation, yeah, yeah. And this was happening before the flood.

- Yeah, this is a way in this chapter of Enoch, describing when humans are spilling innocent blood on the land, which is at the lead up to the flood. - Yeah. - That's a mirror of rebellion in the stars.

And it's the lights of heaven and not working. And then day and night is not working properly. And so you get crazy storms on the ocean.

“I think we would call these like title storms.”

- Okay. - And then right, and then all the seasons are going to be off and the rains won't work right. So it's an nature way of saying the order of Genesis 1. It's all coming undone.

And Judah is using those images.

These cosmic de-creation images to describe

what these people's lifestyle and the kind of effect they'll have on their church community. It's really intense, right? - It's like the worst name you could call someone. - Yeah.

- And the reason why this is relevant is those little phrases in that paragraph. We just read together. Show that Judah is again meditating on the early chapters of Genesis,

but that he's also read and studied the book of Enoch. - Yeah. - And how it has carried forward those ideas. And so these phrases about the frothing waves and wandering stars.

- Audrey without fruit. - They are coming from Enoch. - Yeah. - And Enoch's meditation.

“That scrolls meditation on early chapters of Genesis.”

It's the same principle we've been seeing.

- Yeah. - All throughout. - So it should not surprise us then, that the next thing he does is go on to quote from the scroll if he not. - So let's take this in.

- Okay. - And then our final meditation's here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Verse 14, he says, "Now, the seventh from Adam." - The seventh from Adam is, and that's Lemic.

- The seventh from Adam through Cane? - Oh. - He's Lemic. - The seventh from Adam through Seth. - Yeah. - He is the opposite of.

- Well here you go. - Lemic is Enoch. - Yeah. - That's right. - So let's pause. Enoch.

- Let's talk about Enoch. - Let's talk about Enoch. - Okay, well here is Enoch. Enoch comes in the seventh position

“in this genealogy of Genesis chapter five.”

And what you're told is that Enoch walked with heart Elohim, the Elohim. - The Elohim. In that phrase walked with. - Comes from the garden.

- Is the phrase used of what Enoch came to do for his daily walk about without him and even the garden. And he comes and he says, "Hey, guys, where are you?" Where are you?

Come on, it's our daily walk. So to walk with God in the garden is an image of Enoch experience. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, it's an Eden image.

And that's what Enoch experienced. You're just like, "What?" - Yeah, what was that like? - What was that all about? - Yeah, and this would have been the time of Lemic.

So this is a guy who's walking around in such corruption, but he has this connection to God. That's pure and intimate. - That's it? - Yeah.

- What it did? - It helps that his name means dedicated. - No. - Like, good choice. Yeah.

- Ah, Khanuk means the one who was dedicated to. - Look at dedicated to the Elohim. - Okay. - So it says at twice. Enoch walked with the Elohim and he was no more.

- He was not. - Because Elohim took him. - No. - And what does that mean? - Yeah.

- Well, what we do know was that seven generations up the line when Elohim and Genesis 2 makes the human from the dust of the ground, breathe life into the human, then took Lakakh, the human, and rested him. It's no his name as a verb, rested him in the garden.

- Okay. - Where, then you would walk about the human. And that's the same word to take. And now here is a human walking with God outside the garden. - But doing the garden thing.

- But doing the garden thing outside the garden. And eventually, Elohim just says, "I'm gonna Lakakh him." And guess what? Nobody ever saw him again.

- Okay. And then so you're supposed to go

- He got to experience the union of heaven and earth.

“He was translated into Eden, the heaven-honors dimension,”

but without having to die. - Yeah. - Yep. - So that's the Enoch story. - Yeah.

- What there is to his story. - Yeah. - Secondly, someone would write a more thorough story. - Totally. - So what's so interesting is why I have this spelled out here.

Enoch walked with the Elohim. Elohim, you may recall, is technically a plural noun. So it can mean the spiritual being that is the one God of Israel. - Okay.

- You could also say, "Hi Elohim," and mean the spiritual beings. - Oh yeah. - Mm-hmm. - Where does there a singular version of Elohim?

- Because, yeah, it's L, or L-O-A. - Okay, L-O-A? - Yeah.

“- So when God's referred to the Creator God's referred”

to as Elohim, why keep it plural? - You can refer to singular things with plural nouns in Hebrew. - And it's a thing. - That's a thing.

- It's often a way of intensifying it. I'm talking about it as the most intense version of that item. - Okay. - Okay. - But it can also, the same, "Hi Elohim,"

the Elohim, be a way of referring to the spiritual beings. - Yeah, okay. - So in other words, this phrase, Enoch walked with the Elohim, is capable of two meanings. - Talking with God, or walking with angels.

- And the phrase is repeated identically twice. So it seems as if Jewish readers took that as the invitation to see both, to see both. He walked both among the spiritual beings, and he was walking with the chief spiritual being.

The reason I say that is because in second-temple Jewish literature,

Enoch was imagined and talked about as somebody who had regular conversations with angels and with God. And if he had regular conversations with angels, that meant that he was shown the secrets of heaven and earth. And so, lo and behold, there is a scroll that comes to us

from second-temple Jewish literature that is known as the Enoch scroll, and it's all about how Enoch in the days before the flood received a vision, saw all these angels who told him the flood's coming. The world that God made for order is falling apart,

and he's taken up into the heavens, he's given a cosmic tour of all of world history, all of world history to come, of how all the heavens work, and it's a beautiful, hyperlinked, whoever wrote this scroll was total to Enoch nerd.

- This is known as first Enoch, right? - It's known as first Enoch, yeah. And it's big complex literary work. It's fragments of it were found among the Dead Sea scrolls. They loved lots of animals.

- Many copies of it. It was also really popular in many branches of the early Jesus movement. All the complete manuscripts that we have of it are translations preserved by Christian scribes that come from centuries later.

So the reason why we have it today, if we hadn't found the Dead Sea scrolls, is because Christian's valued in reddit. - Specifically the Ethiopian Christians? - Yes, and then there's one corner

“of the Ethiopian, I think it's Tahweido,”

the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that recognizes it as part of their scriptural collection, isn't it? - Yeah. - But it was disputed in early Christianity, and we have records of--

- The disputed of its status among scriptural.

- Yeah, it was never considered part of the Hebrew Bible.

But it was considered a valuable, even like God given work. But that doesn't mean it was part of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh. I think what we're seeing in Judah here is that he had room for the Hebrew Bible.

And we've got the teachings of the Apostles, and we have other literature around it that helps us hear God's wisdom from scripture, and we have it in our library and we value it. And it seems like he had that approach,

the testament of Moses, and now he has it towards Enoch. So here's the quotation from Enoch, it's literally from the opening paragraph of the Enoch scroll. He says, look, the Lord is coming with myriads of his holy ones. - Oh, that's from Deuteronomy.

- Yes. - And Enoch quotes that. - Enoch quotes the opening of Deuteronomy 33. - Okay. - So again, he's quoting Enoch's quotation of Deuteronomy 33.

- Okay. - Now, Deuteronomy 33 was about God coming down on Sinai to give the Torah to his covenant, people. - This is about Yahweh coming verse 15, to bring justice upon everybody,

to convict every life being. - It's referred to the flood. - Oh, in the Enoch scroll, it is referring to the flood.

- Yeah.

- But in the Enoch scroll, the flood,

“which is then the past of the author of the scroll,”

oh, it's referring to like a future, referring to the day of the Lord. - Okay. - Yeah, and when God takes out all the other empires. - Okay.

- Yep, yep. The past is an image of the future. - Okay. - And about the future, by learning about the past, this is described in the scriptures.

So, it is going to bring justice and convict everyone for all of their irreverent acts committed irreverently for all of the harsh things that irreverent moral failure speak against him. So, God's going to convict and bring justice

for everything that people have done. - Okay. - And everything that people say. - Hmm. - And irreverents, that's our word

from a few episodes ago, God lists her ungodly. - Oh, yeah. - Anti-divina-sorty. They live as if there is no God that has authority over them. So, that's the quotation from Enoch.

“It is itself, it's just a little collage”

of phrases from the Hebrew Bible. Not just Deuteronomy 33, but also Isaiah 66.

Yeah, always coming with fire and chariots and anger

and rebuked the enter into judgment with all flesh. - Okay. - Jeremiah 25. Yeah, always coming with a lawsuit against the nations entering into judgment with flesh.

Micah chapter one, Zachariah chapter 14. So whoever wrote Enoch, it's Enoch nerd. And once again, Judah was quoting Enoch scrolls remix of these hyperlinked judgment passages in the Hebrew Bible.

- How are these hyperlinked? - So we got, oh, flesh and lawsuits. - Yeah, yeah, the line Enoch is behold. He comes with the myriad of his holy ones to execute judgment on everyone to destroy all the wicked

to convict all flesh. - There's the flesh, okay. - For the wicked deeds they've done and the proud and harsh words that wicked sinners speak against him.

- Okay. - So every one of those lines has unique vocabulary that comes from one of these passages. And every one of these passages are what are called theophony texts, poetically describing God

showing up in power and fire and angels to bring final judgment. - Okay. - Yeah. - The flood to come.

- Yeah. So exactly, the flood to come. So these people are what Enoch was talking about, but they are also came and they are in court and they're also still happening.

- It's all still happening. - Yeah. - So maybe let's pause and take stock. We'll finish out the letter in the next episode, but what we're seeing here is a window

into early, Messanic Jewish Christian communities that they viewed their lives in terms of the Hebrew Scriptures, but they read their Hebrew Scriptures

with the aid of centuries more interpretive traditions and thought that helped them hear God's wisdom. - That's scripture. - So this use of Enoch in a quote or borrowing from its ideas was not a problem for him.

- Yeah. - But that doesn't mean he thought it was a part of the Hebrew Bible, necessarily. But he does seem to assign it a pretty high place in their library.

- He's an instrument. - Yeah. - And he says this is God wisdom for us now. - Yeah, it helps us understand

“or present moment why you should stay away from these people”

that are trying to come on the Sunday gatherings in Enoch with you, but they're gonna rip holes in our ship here if we are not aware of them. So we follow that Enoch quote with just a little line here,

just applying it to them. So he's saying what he talks about is their words. He says these people are grumbling critics. That's best I can try and do an English. Grumbling comes from the wilderness narrative

of all the grumbling these guys do. - Okay, so the life is that word. - Okay. - And critics is just another word for being like a grumpy.

- Like a cynic? - Yeah, like it.

But it's referring to basically,

you can't see the good and anything. - The mocker? - The mocker? - Yes. - This is the mocker?

- This is the mocker. - Okay. - Yes. - The song one mocker? - Thank you.

- Yeah, yep. So they're grumbling critics because they're walking according to their desire. - This is the animal instinct desire. They actually don't have any principle of justice

or goodness that guides them. It's just their appetites. And when their appetites are not being met, then they just criticize everything. Their mouth speak arrogance.

And they, oh, this is interesting will window. They show astounding favoritism to gain favor from people. So they, yeah.

You can't get the picture here.

- Yeah, they're gonna be at your feasts, but they're gonna like shoulder up with people who can get them what they want. - Yep. - And they're trying to create a culture

where they can just live by their own desires. - Yeah. - And there's an arrogance to it. - Yeah, interesting. Yeah, maybe we're back to that theme

from the previous conversation where they have taken this idea that's true. That if you are associated with Jesus, the rhythm of sia, you are elevated with Him over heaven and earth to rule and steward the new creations.

- It's pretty cosmic. - Yeah. - And man, if that goes to your head, and then you like distort that new cosmic authority through your own physical appetites,

it's pretty deadly combination. - Yeah, like Genesis flood. - Cosmos unraveling kind of morally. - Yeah. - But then also the portrait of even just of Adam and Eve,

“it looks good and I believe it takes me out.”

- Yeah, it looks good to me. I want it. God said not, I don't understand why exactly. - Yeah. - But it's fine.

- And then I got this voice and my ear telling me it's all gonna work out great. - Right. - So why don't I go ahead? - Or you got these guys in your community

they're like, look, this is fine. - This is fine. - Yeah, we're down for Jesus. We're gonna rule heaven and earth. So why not drink up, drink a little more.

Let's celebrate. - Yeah. - And it's sort of like any moral convictions you have just become jello when it meets up with a desire. - Oh, sure.

- And you put a Jesus stamp on that and say, all right, live that as an example of something. - Put some spiritual authority on that. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, and you can end up with a pretty

- Shipwreck of community. - Yeah, pretty toxic community. - Yeah. - Yeah, man. Religion can be dangerous.

- Oh yeah.

“- Religion can be one of the most dangerous things”

that can happen because you can put some sort of divine authority or legitimacy and truly just you're projecting your desires into this guy. And it seems like that's the kind of thing that Judas like.

The risen Jesus who died for his friends and his enemies is the Lord of heaven and earth. He's called us to love and serve friends and enemies. And that will conflict with your desires and appetite sometimes. (laughs)

Like that one's the Lord of heaven and earth, not your stomach or your sexual appetite.

And if we miss that, you've basically missed the whole thing.

You're just on a different team. But that point. There's a lot of wisdom here. - Okay. - And we're gonna keep going and finish off the letter

in the next conversation, shall we? - Let's do that. (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening to Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we finished the letter of Judah

by looking at his docksology. It's beautiful and it's perfectly tailored for what his audience is going through.

“- These churches are in danger falling down”

because of these people in their midst. But God can protect you and give you strength and ability to withstand this as a community and come out the other side and so you can stand before God blameless

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