Jude and the Ascension / Assumption / Testament of Moses

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!” (Jude 1:9)

Jude the Lord’s brother denounced the tendency of false teachers in his day to insult or rail against the “glorious ones,” likely angelic beings, in Jude 1:8; he then contrasted this attitude in the next verse with that of the archangel Michael. When debating Satan about the body of Moses, Michael would not render judgment on his own; instead, he spoke of how God would rebuke Satan (Jude 1:9). If the Archangel Michael himself would not prove willing to rail against Satan, then who do Jude’s opponents think they are when they insult angelic beings?

Jude’s argument would have proven compelling to those who accepted and recognized the legitimacy of his reference to the story of the Archangel Michael and Satan regarding Moses’ body in Jude 1:9. But where does this story come from?

According to Deuteronomy 34:1-7, Moses died in the land of Moab on Mount Nebo when he was 120 years old. The author would give the impression YHWH Himself buried Moses somewhere in the land of Moab near Beth Peor, but no one knew exactly where he was buried.

We find no other mention of anything regarding the burial of Moses’ body in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament; at no point in any of these books do we find a description of the archangel Michael contending with Satan over the body of Moses. We do find an angel of YHWH standing near Joshua the high priest and declaring “May YHWH rebuke you!” to Satan in Zechariah 3:2; the angel is left unnamed, so the possibility exists it was Michael, but it could equally have been another angel.

Jude’s argument in Jude 1:9 would have been served quite well by appealing to the vision of Zechariah 3:2, since the angel there rebuked Satan in the name of YHWH. But Jude did not cite this example; he appealed to another example, we presume, with which he expected his audience to be familiar, yet remains unattested in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

But how would his audience know about it? According to the early Christians Origen and the author of the Anonymous Church History (misattributed to Gelasius of Cyzicus), Jude was making reference to a narrative preserved in the text they knew as the Ascension, or Assumption, of Moses (De Principiis 3.1.2, Anonymous Church History 2.21.7).

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Antonio Ceriani came upon a sixth century Latin manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, Italy. The text of the manuscript was incomplete, preserving only its first eleven chapters and part of the twelfth. On its own, this text seemed to be the Testament of Moses, the very first words of the text, an apt description of most of its preserved contents, and a text which was known to early Christians. And yet one of the verses in the first chapter of this text matches a quote found in the Anonymous Church History attributed to the Ascension/Assumption of Moses!

An English translation of this text can be found at https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/pseudepigrapha/assumptionofmoses.html. In chapter one of the text, Moses commissioned Joshua and gave him books which should be stored away until the end of days. In chapters two through six of the text, Moses would foretell aspects of what Israel would experience from the conquest of Canaan until the destruction of the Temple in 70, with a heavy emphasis on the Second Temple Period. The seventh chapter has not been well preserved but seems to reflect some eschatological expectations. The eighth chapter described a persecution of Israelites; whether it should be reckoned as historical or eschatological remains disputed. The ninth chapter would commend Taxo the Levite in that day, who retreated to a cave rather than transgress the commands of God (that is, to give into Hellenistic influences). The tenth chapter presents a kind of eschatological poem in which God would redeem the Israelites and condemn the Gentiles, ending with a commendation for Joshua to preserve the message. Chapter eleven featured Joshua’s response, refusing to be comforted, asking how he could lead the Israelites. What remains of chapter twelve began Moses’ response to Joshua, comforting him in terms of God’s foreknowledge of all things and ultimate vindication.

Early Christians bore witness to some of the details in the text they called the Ascension or Assumption of Moses. As indicated, the Anonymous Church History quoted from chapter one and verse fourteen of the text above. Its author, along with Origen and some other early Christians, spoke of how there was a dispute between the archangel Michael and Satan. Joshua (and Seth and some other witnesses) watched certain events take place, after which Michael took Moses’ body away. Seth would give chase, but as he did so, Michael disappeared with the body of Moses.

We can maintain a decent amount of confidence in the witness of these early Christians about what was contained in the Ascension or Assumption of Moses: they tend to be generally reliable witnesses regarding which texts say what. They had far better access to these texts than we do, and we do well to generally trust their testimony. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude Jude did indeed make an allusion to a pseudepigraphal work known as the Ascension or Assumption of Moses.

But is the text Ceriani found in the middle of the nineteenth century an incomplete edition of the Ascension or Assumption of Moses? The text has been associated with this name because of the quote from the Anonymous Church Historian. Others have argued for it to be associated better with another text known as the Testament of Moses, since at least the part which has been preserved does indeed represent the testament genre, very common and popular in the waning days of the Second Temple Period and immediately afterward. It has also been suggested the Testament of Moses and the Ascension / Assumption of Moses started off as two separate texts which were then conflated, and what Ceriani discovered was the beginning of such a conflated text. Such is why the text Ceriani discovered has been associated with the Ascension / Assumption of Moses and the Testament of Moses.

Since the text is incomplete and we have not discovered any other manuscripts of the text, we will not be able to come to any definitive conclusion. It is possible the work is a conflation, although we should note the Anonymous Church Historian associates a quote from the first chapter with the Ascension / Assumption of Moses and not the Testament of Moses. Since the first chapter is very strongly associated with the “testament” genre, it should at least give significant pause before considering this work as the Testament of Moses. Even if it is a conflation, it is apparent it is better known as the Assumption of Moses rather than the Testament of Moses. It of course remains entirely possible the Testament of Moses was a completely different work which has been lost and not yet re-discovered.

Based on all the evidence which has been preserved, we would not be out of line to suggest the Ascension / Assumption of Moses began as preserved in the Latin text discovered by Ceriani, and the stories of Michael’s and Satan’s dispute and the ultimate fate of Moses’ body, as testified to by early Christians, would have come later in the portion now lost to us.

Ceriani’s Latin text dates from the sixth century. It seems to be a translation of a Greek text which itself was a translation of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. But it would be very difficult to associate the text we have with the historical Moses, or, for that matter, with any author in the days of the Hebrew Bible: this text quickly passes over the “Biblical” period to focus on the Second Temple Period. The witness regarding Taxo and his sons might well reflect an actual family from the latter portion of the Second Temple Period, but it seems a bit too convenient for Moses to have spoken of them in detail over a thousand years before, while not speaking of all sorts of other events or experiences of Israel during that period and before. Instead, we do better to understand this text as pseudepigraphal: it is written as if Moses spoke all of it, but it actually represents testimony from a far later period, probably the first century CE, especially since the author seems very familiar with Herod the Great.

This would mean the Ascension / Assumption of Moses, as a whole, would be a first century document, and as pseudepigraphal, certainly not inspired by the Holy Spirit. So how can we make sense of Jude making reference to such a document?

In Jude 1:19, Jude did not say he was explicitly quoting from the Ascension / Assumption of Moses. He simply related details of the story of Michael rebuking Satan over Moses’ body. Jude certainly believed those particular events happened. He probably was using the Ascension / Assumption of Moses as his source; but where did the author of the Ascension / Assumption of Moses get the story he told? Some might presume it was of his own imagination; but what if the story, or something like it, had circulated among Israelites for some time beforehand?

We know far, far less than we would like about Jude’s reference to the story of the archangel Michael contending with Satan over Moses’ body in Jude 1:9 as well as the Ascension / Assumption of Moses, the Testament of Moses, and the Latin text discovered by Ceriani. We certainly do not have a lot of ground on which to make dogmatic assertions with any confidence. We can maintain reasonable confidence in early Christian witness that Jude’s reference in Jude 1:9 had some ground or basis in the Ascension / Assumption of Moses. While associations of Ceriani’s text with the Testament of Moses are understandable, the preponderance of evidence we do have would better suggest it as the beginning of the Ascension / Assumption of Moses. It would prove incredibly challenging indeed to associate much of anything of the Ascension / Assumption of Moses we have with Moses himself or those who came immediately after him; the consensus remains that the text is pseudepigraphal and from the Second Temple Period. Therefore, we would not be wise to suggest Jude’s witness is true because it is attested in the Ascension / Assumption of Moses. We therefore do better to understand Jude and the Ascension / Assumption of Moses are both making reference to a tradition older than both of them regarding what happened to Moses’ body after his death, and the Holy Spirit through Jude is confirming at least part of that tradition in what is written in Jude 1:9.

An unknown Israelite, or a series of unknown Israelites, wrote to give encouragement to their fellow Israelites in the first century to observe the commandments of Moses and to resist Hellenization, and did so as if Moses was speaking to them across the generations. One of these Israelites testified to a tradition about the archangel Michael disputing with Satan over Moses’ body; in telling this story, he related how Michael declared to Satan how the Lord would rebuke him. The story likely had many other details, but they have been mostly lost to us because the full text has not been preserved. Jude, brother of the Lord Jesus, would make appeal to the way Michael would not directly rebuke Satan, but said the Lord would rebuke him, and expected this appeal would be accepted as legitimate by those who would read and hear his letter in Jude 1:9. He did so in contrast to how his opponents would rail against angelic beings as further evidence of their depravity. We are not Jude’s immediate audience, and we may have a lot of questions about Jude’s reference. But we can trust in the integrity of his witness while understanding the challenges which attend to the source to which it is connected. May we learn from what Jude said, be careful about rendering slanderous judgment, seek to follow the Lord Jesus in all things, and share in the resurrection of life in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry