Part 1: Summary

In the previous post I observed that the biblical writers often used other works as they composed their writings—and that they didn’t confine themselves to other biblical works.

Here are the specifics.

I like to organize these references into 2 categories:

• Consultation, by which I mean that the author says, “This is also recorded in such-and-such a document.”
• Allusion or quotation, where the author quotes, loosely or directly, from another source, whether he specifies it or not.

First the consultations.

Jewish Sources

• Book of Genealogies (Gen 5.1)
• Book of Jasher (Josh 10.13; 2Sam 1.18)
• Book of Nathan the Prophet (1Ch 29.29; 2Ch 9.29)
• Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2Ch 9.29)
• Visions of Iddo the Seer (2Ch 9.29; 12.15; 13.22)
• Book of Shemaiah the Prophet (2Ch 12.15)
• Book of the Acts of Solomon (1K 11.41)
• Book of Gad the Seer (1Ch 29.29)
• Sayings of the Seers (2Ch 33.19)

Note that two passages, 1Ch 29.29 and 2Ch 9.29, are particularly rich in these consultations.

I also note that these sources cannot be divinely inspired, since they have not been preserved, as God promised that his Word would be.

A Persian Source

• The author of Esther (perhaps Mordecai?) consulted “The book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia” (Es 10.2)—perhaps in the same warehouse where the unnamed servant grabbed a clay tablet at random to read to Xerxes so he could sleep (Es 6.1).

And now the allusions and quotations. Where possible I’ve included links to the sources on the internet so you can check ‘em for yourself.

Jewish Sources

• Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21.14; cf Ex 17.14)
• Jannes and Jambres (2Tim 3.8)—text not available online
• Martyrdom of Isaiah 1.9-10, 5.11-12 (Heb 11.37)
• Assumption of Moses (lost fragment) (Jude 9)
• 1 Enoch 1.9 (Jude 14-15)
• 1 Enoch 21.10 (?) (2Pt 2.4)

Pagan Sources

• Aeschylus, Agamemnon l. 1915 / 1624 (Acts 9.5)
  • This is included in Jesus’ words to Paul from heaven. Jesus’ sentence is clearly the same as the line from “Agamemnon,” but we can’t be certain that Jesus is quoting that poem. It’s possible that Aeschylus’s line became common in the ancient culture—similar to, say, “Early to bed and early to rise”—and Jesus is simply referring to the popular expression.
• Epimenides, Cretica (Acts 17.28a; Titus 1.12-13)
• Aratus, Phaenomena l. 5 (Acts 17.28b)
• Menander, Thais 218 (1Cor 15.33)

So What?

What does all this mean?

• The Spirit-driven biblical writers used sources, including pagan sources, with no apparent discomfort.
• They did so using the standard practices of their day; for example, Paul uses a couple of lines about Zeus and applies them to the Lord. The hearers would be expected to understand what he was doing, and there was no intent to deceive.

Here’s what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that the source is inspired. We do not “live, and move, and have our being” in Zeus.

One closing note.

Jude cites 1 Enoch in his epistle. Now, we know that the biblical Enoch is not the author of everything in 1 Enoch—but there’s no reason that the traditions on which 1 Enoch is based couldn’t have included some authentic statements of the ancient saint. If Jude had simply cited 1 Enoch without any comment, it wouldn’t matter whether or not what he quoted was actually spoken by Enoch. But he puts it this way:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying … (Jude 14).

In my opinion, Jude is stating that the historical Enoch, seven generations from Adam (and long before “1 Enoch” was written), said these words. And since Jude is inspired, I believe that the verse he quotes from 1 Enoch is in fact an authentic saying of the ancient prophet.

Have fun with all this.

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash

I ended my previous post by noting that although Moses was not allowed to see God’s face, God’s people will eventually see him. I’d like to meditate further on that.

In mentioning Moses I was referring to the well-known incident at Sinai, where Moses asked to see God’s face and was denied; God instead placed him in a fissure in the rock and, as he put it, covered the fissure with his hand, removing it just so as to allow Moses to see his “back” (Ex 33.17-23).

This occurred after Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the 70 elders of Israel had gone up on Mount Sinai “and saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink” (Ex 24.9-11). Immediately after that, the others returned to the camp while Moses and Joshua went further up the mountain, “and the glory of the Lord abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷ And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. ¹⁸ And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights” (Ex 24.16-18). During those 40 days, God gave Moses instructions about the tabernacle and the priesthood (Ex 25-31).

And because of the apparent delay, the people worshiped a golden bull idol, and Moses, returning, broke the tables of the Law in his rage (Ex 32). In the succeeding days he met with God, “face to face” (Ex 33.11), and it was here that he asked to see God’s “glory” and was denied.

But then God instructed him to return to the mountain, where “the Lord passed by before him” (Ex 34.6) and revealed himself with the classic wording that is repeated throughout Scripture. On his return from the mountain, his face “shone” so much that he covered it when he spoke with the people (Ex 34.29-35).

God revealed himself to Moses in unprecedented and spectacular ways, even as he refused to show him his “face.”

Interestingly, six centuries later the prophet Elijah had a similar experience in the same place.

He was running from Jezebel, running for his life. He hid in a cave—another sort of fissure—and the voice of God commanded him to step out and stand in the open. There “the Lord passed by” to the sound of a mighty wind, “but the Lord was not in the wind” (1K 19.11). Then followed an earthquake, and then a fire, but the Lord was not in them either. And finally, as we all know, “a still small voice” (1K 19.12)—a voice that commissioned him for his next ministry, and a significant one.

And these two men, Moses and Elijah, were summoned to a different mountain centuries later, a “high mountain” in Israel, to see the shining face of God in another way, a better way, at the Transfiguration (Mt 17.1-8). There they communed with Jesus, the Word of God, the perfect expression of the Father (He 1.3), the one who said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (Jn 14.9). They spoke face to face, discussing Jesus’ coming “exodus,” the pivotal event in the history of the world.

They saw, and they knew.

And they were safe.

As my previous post noted, we, too, shall see him, and we shall even be like him (1J 3.2). We will no longer see as now, in a mirror, dimly (1Co 13.12).

May that day soon come.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Part 1: Where? | Part 2: How? | Part 3: Joseph, For Example  | Part 4: And Naomi

No one tells the story of God’s providence better than the author of the Book of Esther. I did a fairly lengthy series of posts on that story a year or so back. You can read that series here.

Part 6: And the Seed of the Woman

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash