This article is Chapter One of a serialised “book” on Jude’s Epistle, which I’m releasing over the next few months. You can read the introduction here.
Also, if you haven’t already seen, I released a review earlier this week on Bob Allen’s (Tracing the Thread) new book, the Blueprint of Grace, you can check that out here:
or watch the YouTube version here:
The British and Baseball
In 1874 Albert Goodwill Spalding brought the wonder of Baseball to England, well… he tried. His tour was met with confusion and bemusement. There were two main issues that hindered Spalding’s success. Firstly, we already have a children’s game called Rounders which has very similar rules, and the public didn’t like the idea of grown men playing a game for kids. Secondly, though, we already had another game called Baseball which was played primarily by women; which you can read about in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen of all places!
Though Baseball had, in one culture, been all but universally loved, it couldn’t make even the slightest dent in the cultural consciousness of the UK. The incident is relegated to the footnotes of English history books, but does that mean it wasn’t an important event?
Are we, the British, correct that Baseball isn’t worth a mention?
Torah, Talmud, and Midrash, these three collections of texts form the basis for all Jewish law and literature. You’ve likely heard of the first, Torah, and you may have also heard of the Talmud, but Midrash? How is it that Midrash holds so little weight in the context of Christian literature that most have never even heard of it?
In some ways, it makes sense, neither the Talmud, nor the Midrashim (plural of Midrash) found outside the Bible are inspired like Scripture, but on the flip side; It seems odd, given how much time we give in Christian literature to who the Pharisees were, that we wouldn’t give equal weight to understanding what they believed, and how they propagated those beliefs. More importantly though, Midrashim aren’t only found outside the bible, but throughout its pages.
The Old Testament Prophets frequently expound on earlier Scriptures using this narrative form of exegesis, and this continues through the New Testament also (Hebrews 11, 1 Peter 2:4-10, Jude). In 2 Chronicles we also see Midrashic texts cited as sources (2 Chronicles 13:22 & 24:27.)
Given the importance of Midrashim throughout the Bible and in Jewish culture during the time of the New Testament, we ought not to act like the British with Baseball and banish it to long-forgotten footnotes.
Many Crowns
So what are Midrashim and why do they have such an important place in Jewish Literature?
Well, let’s look at a Midrash from the Babylonian Talmud:
When Moses ascended on High, he found the Holy One, Blessed be He, sitting and tying crowns on the letters of the Torah. Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, who is preventing You from giving the Torah without these additions?
God said to him: There is a man who is destined to be born after several generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name; he is destined to derive from each and every thorn of these crowns mounds upon mounds of halakhot. It is for his sake that the crowns must be added to the letters of the Torah.
Babylonian Talmud, Menachot 29b, 4
There’s a lot going on there.
Side-Note: To be clear this doesn’t happen in Scripture.
We witness Moses arriving in heaven, and being told that a man would come who would derive from the texts of the Torah “mounds upon mounds of halakhot.” Halakhot means laws, ordinances, and teachings. This isn’t to say that he or others would add to scripture—according to this view—but that he would expounding upon scripture with the inspiration of God, and would tie “crowns on the letters of the Torah” with further glory.
As you’re likely aware the Hebrew language is incredibly important in Jewish culture and history. While the English-speaking world has spent the past few generations butchering and simplifying our language the Hebrew language has seen an unbelievable resurgence and recovery. Rabbi Ari Lamm explained this a couple of years ago on the Jane and Jesus podcast with Karen Swallow Prior, stating that the reason Hebrew perseveres where Greek and Latin have failed to remain relevant is that while Athens captivated people’s minds, the “holy language” has gripped people’s hearts.
Why then would God allow alterations to the Hebrew in the Torah? Well, according to this view, that’s not what’s happening. In this story God takes the words in the Torah and attaches crowns to them which reveal and make clear the meaning of those words. Recently, we celebrated the coronation of King Charles, and during that ceremony he was given a crown top signify the veracity of his rule. His wasn’t any more of a King when that happened, it simply pointed towards the importance of his office. Something similar is happening here, at least according to this view.
As Christians, we believe that the final and ultimate end and meaning of the words in Scripture are found in Jesus Christ, but that’s not what Jews believe. The Torah stands as the final and authoritative text for life, and the Talmud and Midrash help to open those texts up to help Jews know how to live and how to honour God with their lives.
This is primarily worked out through the aforementioned “Halakhot” or laws.1
There are two categories of Midrash which form the basis of that foundation:
Midrash Halakhah, which deals with the law and expounds and expands upon the laws in Torah, either contextualising them or widening their scope.
Midrash Aggadah, which deals with ethics, narratives, characters, and events, expounding on them in the following ways:
Filling in gaps in the narrative text of the Torah (i.e. Abram’s Life before Gen 11:27)
Clearing up details of dispute
Teaching on a particular text—or multiple texts—drawing on it/them in a way that is relevant to the present day.
In each case this is done in the form of a narrative.
This might seem odd to us, especially in academic circles where bibliographies and rigid arguments are necessary. What we must remember is that this is coming out of a culture deeply invested in the oral tradition; and Midrash, like Scripture, wasn’t meant to be a dead academic endeavour, it was meant to be understandable and relatable from to the youngest to the oldest member of the community.
Midrash is more akin to Preaching in the Reformed Tradition, not to essays in the classroom. This is certainly true of the book of Jude, Richard Bauckham writes:
[Jude] is more like a homily than a letter: it consists of a Midrash on a series of scriptural references and texts (vv 5-19) and a paraenetic section (vv 20-23). The work closes with a doxology (vv 24-25), a conclusion more appropriate to a homily than to a letter.
Richard Bauckham, Word Biblical Commentary, Jude & 1-2 Peter
Midrash Aggadah
“To establish such a piece of writing as a midrash, one has to find three things: the basic scriptural text on which the midrashic interpretation has been placed; the particular notion and meaning of the text contained in and established by that interpretation; and, finally, the special hermeneutical technique by which the interpretation has been achieved.”
Midrashim In The New Testament, M. Gertner
Journal Of Semitic Studies, Volume 7, Issue 2, Autumn 1962, Pages 267–292
It’s probably clear that one of these two forms of Midrash holds more weight for us as Christians than the other. While we would certainly expound on Scripture and apply it to our lives today, often using narratives to help us do so, we shouldn’t seek to create new laws or ordinances as a result.
With that in mind, the form of Midrash found in Jude, as well as in the rest of the New Testament would fit largely under the heading of Midrash Aggadah.
If you’ve ever performed or taken part in a Pessach or Passover meal, you’ve probably held in your hands a Haggadah, or the narrative, story, and teaching which are performed on the day, along with the physical representations of that story, the food.
If not, essentially there are two parts to the Passover meal, teaching and participation. By experiencing the sweetness and bitterness of certain foods and the sharing of that food with one another, alongside teaching, the story comes to life in a way that simply hearing cannot do. This is common in many feasts and festivals throughout Jewish culture. The words Haggadah and Aggadah are closely related and they share the general meaning of “drawing out.”
Gertner mentioned three parts of the Midrashic form we should be looking out for as we study Jude:
The basic scriptural text/s on which the midrashic interpretation has been placed
The particular notion and meaning of the text contained in and established by that interpretation
The special hermeneutical technique by which the interpretation has been achieved.
Midrash Aggadah seeks to viscerally draw out the meaning of Scripture, to give us an understanding of the author’s interpretation, and does so by utilising a special form of narrative interpretation. Keeping this in mind will help us to piece together what’s going on when it seems that Jude is speaking in a way, or quoting sources which don’t seem to align with our exegetical or theological methodologies.
I hope that this short introduction has given you a good understanding of what Midrashim are and the role they play in Jewish culture and the culture of the Jews of Jude’s day.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be diving further into the wider use of Midrash around the time of the New Testament, and then what it looks like to garner a better understanding of Midrash.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill
Recommendations of the Week
This week I reviewed the Blueprint of Grace by Tracing the Thread’s Bob Allen, which you can watch here:
or read here:
If you followed my series on Polycarp with Tim Suffield, you might be interested to read a new theological journal that he’s heading up with Pentecostal Theologian Jonathan Black, called Eucharisma:
Finally, if you’re looking for daily encouragement, look no further, John E. Dobbs has got you covered! Check out his latest piece, Search, on Psalm 70:
Jesus speaks about this in Matthew 23:1-7 if you’d like to read more. In a future article we will look particularly at the Pharisees and their use of Midrashim.
Thanks for the mention! I appreciate it!
Ari Lamm is one of my favorite people on earth. 😊