Assumption
of Moses 11:5-8
5 What place
will receive you, 6 or what will be the monument on your grave, or who, being
human, will dare to carry your body from one place to another? 8 For
all who die when their time has come have a grave in the earth. But your grave
extends from the East to the West, and from the North to the extreme South. The
entire world is your grave.
After Moses
spoke of his death as “my reception” (receptione mea) in 10:12, Joshua’s
reply, “what place will receive (recipit) you?” in 11:5, raises the
question of whether any specific place on earth can serve as a grave for Moses,
and thus hints at the appropriateness of his character of the death of Moses
further opens the way for the idea of his dwelling nowhere specifically on
earth and therefore in heaven: no suitable earthly monument for his grace
(11:6); no suitable human being (therefore only God and/or angels) to handle
the body of Moses (11:7); all other human beings have a grace “in the earth” (in
terries), but the grave of Moses encompasses “the entire world” (omnis
orbis terrarium), which means that it cannot be localized in any one place,
giving it really an other-worldly or heavenly character (11:8).
There may be
an allusion to the lost ending of the Assumption of Moses in Jude 9:
“But Michael the archangel, when he contended with the devil and disputed over
the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a charge of blasphemy, but said, ‘May
the Lord rebuke you!’” This may indicate that Michael buried the body of
Moses (cf. 11:7), and thus leave open the possibility that his soul or spirit
ascended to heaven. (John
Paul Heil, The Transfiguration of Jesus: Narrative Meaning and Function of
Mark 9:2-8, Matt 17:1-8 and Luke 9:28-36 [Analecta Biblica 144; Rome:
Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2000], 110)