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The book of Jude contains many quotes and references to the Old Testament. However, there are two quotes which seem to be from elsewhere.

The first is attributed to The Assumption of Moses.

Jude 9 But even when Michael the archangel was arguing with the devil and debating with him concerning Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a slanderous judgment, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” [NET Bible]

However, no surviving copy of Assumption contains this quote. Origen is the first on record to attribute it this way. Some say it is an allusion to Zechariah 3:1,2.

The second is a direct quote from 1 Enoch 1:9.

1:14-15 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, even prophesied of them, saying, “Look! The Lord is coming with thousands and thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict every person of all their thoroughly ungodly deeds that they have committed, and of all the harsh words that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” [NET Bible]

First Enoch is only considered canonical by the Ethiopic Orthodox Church.

Did the author of Jude consider these works to be authentic Scripture in the same vein as the Tanakh? Do these quotations demonstrate the early Christians and their Jewish contemporaries had established a larger canon that was later reduced? In short, why did Jude quote from these materials?

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In what sense is this question hermeneutical rather than doctrinal? –  Eli Rosencruft Oct 8 '12 at 16:18
@Eli Rosencruft: I rephrased the question a touch so that it's (in my opinion) on topic. What do you think? –  Jon Ericson Oct 8 '12 at 16:30
I was thinking over the weekend about this same question to "save" Jude. See also: Why is the Book of Enoch not regarded as canonical? on Christianity. –  Jon Ericson Oct 8 '12 at 16:32
I am not sure that there is a basis to think that the concept of canon was well formed at the time of the writing of Jude. Folks quoted writings that were accepted as authoritative at the time of their writing. The author of Jude either accepted these writings as authoritative or did not but needed to address an audience that did accept them. The question, both in OT and post OT about what to do with references and quotes of material that is no longer extant or is, but no longer accepted as canonical is in some sense not hermeneutical. We can only deal with the texts that we have at this date. –  Eli Rosencruft Oct 8 '12 at 16:48
This is iffy - I was on the edge about whether or not to VTC. –  Dan Sep 7 '13 at 21:11

1 Answer 1

up vote 7 down vote accepted

NT authors quoted works they considered authoritative, and works they did not. For example it would be a big leap from Titus 1:2 to claim that Paul regarded Epimenides as fully reliable:


Therefore we cannot tell by whether something is regarded as authoritative just by whether it is quoted and other reasoning must be applied. As an example of other reasoning, consider the case when sources are explicitly endorsed or even called into question, for example 2 Peter:


and conversely, Galatians 2:


In this case it is up to our own judgement to reason that Paul does not intend us to reject Peter's writings and authority on the basis of his account of their clash, and to reason whether Peter's endorsement of Paul's letters applies to all those we attribute to him.

My reasoning about 1 Enoch would be that there is nothing in Jude's letter to indicate that Jude considers the writing to be scripture, because of the combined weight of the following (none of which is anywhere near conclusive on it's own):

  1. Authority is not implied simply by the presence of a quote
  2. The quote is not attributed
  3. The quote is not part of a pattern of quotes that might indicate general acceptance of the authority of a writing (like the many NT quotes of Isaiah and other OT books for example)
  4. There is no explicit endorsement
  5. The authority of the source is in no way central to the argument Jude is making (cf. Matthew 19:4-6)
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