Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 63:4 (Dec 2020)
Article: Blaspheming Angels: The Presence Of Magicians In Jude 8–10
Author: Rodolfo Gavan Estrada III

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Blaspheming Angels:
The Presence Of Magicians In Jude 8–10

Rodolfo Gavan Estrada III

Rodolfo Estrada is Assistant Adjunct Professor of NT at Fuller Theological Seminary, 135 N. Oakland Ave., Pasadena, CA 91182. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: This essay argues that the description of “dreamers,” “blasphemers,” and the positive counterexample of Michael’s engagement with Satan in Jude 8–10, when understood together, demonstrate that the opponents were magicians. We explore the significance of magicians during the Greco–Roman period and how angels are described within the magical papyri. This reading furthermore provides an alternative interpretation on how the apocryphal tradition of Michael is included in order to portray Michael as an exemplary exorcist. Michael is an example on how to properly engage the demonic, not by invoking angels like the magicians, but by calling upon the Lord. Engaging with spiritual beings and revealing dreams would have provided possible proof that these opponents were marked by the Spirit, as the readers assumed in verse 19. But as the magical papyri reveal, the disciples of Jesus did not have a monopoly on the magical arts.

Key words: magicians, magical papyri, dreams, Michael, blasphemy, exorcism

The letter of Jude concerns itself with individuals who are described to have infiltrated a community. In the history of scholarship, it was once affirmed that they were a mixture of early Gnostics.1 Others identified the opponents as false teachers with antinomian practices2 or teachers whose doctrine of the Spirit justified unethical behaviors.3 There is also a move to understand the opponents rhetorically

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with the writer’s accusations as polemical characterizations.4 Although Lewis Donelson asserts that “all the accusations in Jude can be read in several ways and fit with a variety of theological profiles,”5 there is another description of the opponents’ identity that still needs further elaboration. In Jude 8–10, the opponents are described as dreamers and engaging in blasphemy. In the midst of these descriptions, the angel Michael rebukes Satan over the body of Moses in verse