Raymond E. Brown: An Introduction to the New Testament,
Part IV: The Other New Testament Writings

(detailed summary)


Chapter 35: Letter (Epistle) of Jude


Origen found that Jude "abounded in sound words of heavenly grace." Yet today, except for the memorable phrase in Jude 3 "to contend for the faith which has been handed down to the saints permanently," most people find this very brief work too negative, too dated and too apocalyptic to be of much use. Moreover, Jude presents a remarkable number of textual difficulties, reflecting the liberties taken in its transmission, perhaps because the work was not considered authoritative. There is no point in denying these difficulties; in fact, it may be helpful to read the introductory section on the literary genre of apocalypse in chapter 37 before studying Jude. Nevertheless, Jude gives us a glimpse of how an ecclesiastical authority responded to dangers, real or anticipated, as Christians began to divide from within.

Summary of Basic Information

  1. Date: Virtually impossible to tell. A few scholars place it in the 50s; many in 90-100.

  2. From/To: Probably from the Palestine area where the brothers of Jesus were major figures to Christians influenced by the Jerusalem/Palestinian church(es). Some scholars think Jude was written in Alexandria.

  3. Authenticity: Very difficult to decide. If pseudepigraphical, by one for whom the brothers of Jesus were authoritative teachers

  4. Unity and Integrity: Not seriously disputed

  5. Formal Division
    1. Opening Formula: 1-2
    2. Body: 3-23
      1. 3-4: Occasion: Contend for the faith because of certain ungodly intruders
      2. 5-10: Three examples of the punishment of disobedience and their application
      3. 11-13: Three more examples and a polemic description of the ungodly intruders
      4. 14-19: Prophecies of Enoch and of the apostles about the coming of these ungodly people
      5. 20-23: Reiterated appeal for faith; different kinds of judgment to be exercised
    3. Concluding Doxology

  1. The Background

    What figure was intended when the author describes himself as "Jude, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James"? The same Greek name Ioudas is rendered in the NT as both Judas and Jude - the latter to avoid confusion with Iscariot, the one who betrayed Jesus. Leaving aside Iscariot, there is a Jude (son?) of James near the end of the list of the Twelve "whom Jesus named apostles" in Lk 6:16. We know nothing about him, and there is no reason to think that he was our author for whom the "apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ" constituted a distinct group (Jude 17). In Acts 15:22, 27-33, we find a Judas/Jude prophet (called Barsabbas) sent with Silas to Antioch, bearing the decision of James and the others of the Jerusalem meeting in the year 49. Some scholars argue that, metaphorically, he was the "brother" (= friend and fellow worker of the Christians) of James, as the author of Jude calls himself.

    However, the most common and plausible suggestion for why the author identified himself by a relationship with James is that the Jude referred to here was one of Jesus' four named brothers (the third in Mark 6:3: "James and Joses and Jude and Simon," and the fourth in Matt. 13:55) and thus literally the brother of James. With such family status, this Jude would have had the kind of authority implied by the author's stated intention to write a more general work "about our common salvation" (Jude 3) - a project conceived before the problem arose that led him to send this short missive to correct the presence of interlopers. He remembers what the apostles predicted (v. 17); thus, though not an apostle, he presents himself as a teacher with some position in the tradition. It may be that the writer knew Hebrew, if we rely on some biblical scholars claiming that Jude's use of Scripture implies the form of the Hebrew text rather than the Septuagint. In the self-description of v. 1, Jude modestly identifies himself as a servant in relation to Jesus (see James 1:1), but more specifically as the brother of James, the famous leader of the Jerusalem church, probably because the letter was sent from Jerusalem/Palestine. In this region, Jude would have had authority, judging from the tradition about his career. It seems that the Lord's brothers became missionary apostles (in the Pauline sense: 1 Cor 9:5); but their main mission may have been in Palestine, where Julius Africanus (mentioned in the Ecclesiastical History 1:7, 14) reports that Jesus' family was meeting. Hegesippus (mentioned in the Ecclesiastical History 3.19-20) tells us that the grandsons of Jude, the "brother of Jesus according to the flesh," were the leaders of churches in the region of Palestine until the time of Trajan (98-117). A detailed study of the tradition shows that family members were dominant forces among the Christians, both in Galilee and in Jerusalem. Let us assume, therefore, in what follows that this is a letter sent in the name of Jude, the brother of Jesus and James.

  2. General Analysis of the Message

    1. Opening Formula: 1-2

      Let us note here that for Jude (as for Paul: Rom 1:6; 1 Cor 1:24) Christians are the "called ones"; moreover, they have taken up a traditional designation of Israel as "beloved" of God (Deut 32:15; 33:5.26).

    2. Body: 3-23

      The body is framed by the references to faith in v. 3 and 20.

      1. The occasion is expounded: 3-4

        The writer addresses the recipients "my friends" about "the salvation that concerns us all". - apparently already shared as in Eph 2:8, whereas in earlier Pauline writings salvation was still to be granted in the eschatological future (1 Thess 5:8-9; 1 Cor 3:15; Rom 5:9-10). Jude sees the faith as a traditional set of teachings (probably both doctrinal and moral) "handed down to the saints definitively" in past times, and he sees himself as entitled to expound it. His plan to do so on a general level was interrupted by the appearance of "individuals [anthrōpoi]" who turn God's grace into license and deny the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 4). The polemical description of foreigners who "slip in" to cause havoc already appears in Galatians 2:4, and becomes common in the last third of the first century (Acts 20:29; 2 Tim 3:6; 2 John 10). Yet we must remember that these characters are described in a hostile way and that they could see themselves as evangelizing missionaries. Some would see the intruders as teachers because of the reference to "shepherding themselves" in v. 12, but from the condemnation of v. 4, we can hardly understand their teaching.

      2. Three examples of the punishment of disobedience and their application: 5-10

        As we shall see, some exegetes doubt that Jude is addressing a real situation; for them it is a general epistle intended to be applied wherever the occasion demands. If one thinks of a real situation, the author seems to assume that the recipients know what is wrong with the teaching he is attacking, so he focuses on how God will refute it. He offers in vv. 5-7 three examples from Israelite tradition in which God punished disobedience.

        • Although one generation was brought out of Egypt by the Lord in the wilderness, many showed their lack of faith and were destroyed by death before Israel entered the Promised Land (Num 14).
        • Angels of God left their privileged place in heaven to lust after women (Gen 6:1-4), and God locked them up under the earth in darkness until the day of judgment (1 Enoch 10:4-6; chapters 12-13).
        • Sodom and Gomorrah practiced immorality and were punished by fire (Gen 19:1-28).

        These three examples are followed in vv. 8-10 by an applicable commentary (v. 8: "In the same way, these...") - an interpretive pattern that may be a key to Jude's structure. Although the application picks up on the overall condemnation of v. 4 by making three accusations against the ungodly intruders, it is not clear how these accusations correspond exactly to the three examples in vv. 5, 6, 7 (perhaps in reverse order?). These people defile their flesh (like the Sodomites), reject lordship (God or Christ?), and revile the glorious (angels?) - it is probably not necessary to look for the specific erroneous doctrines that gave rise to such widespread controversy. In vv. 9-10, the paltry presumption of the opponents is contrasted with the modesty of the supreme archangel Michael who did not blaspheme when the devil tried to claim the dead body of Moses, but only rebuked him - a story derived from the Moses legend that developed beyond the account of Moses' death in Deut. 34. Clement of Alexandria is one of many ancient witnesses who tell us that Jude derived this story from The Assumption of Moses, a lost apocrypha.

      3. Three more examples and a polemic description of the ungodly intruders: 11-13

        In a "woe" cast against opponents, the author gathers three examples of those who, in the rabbinic tradition (Aboth R. Nathan 41, 14), "have no part in the world to come": Cain (whose evil has been extended in later tradition beyond murder, e.g., 1 John 3:12), Balaam (who, for a bribe, taught the Midianites how to lead Israel into idolatry - Numbers 31:8; Deut. 23:5; Josh. 24:9-10, according to the expansion he received in later tradition), and Korah (who mutinied against Moses and Aaron: Num. 16). The author then unleashes (vv. 12-13) a torrent of colorful invective against the ungodly "those" of whom he spoke earlier, indicating their wickedness, the lack of substance in their claims and their ultimate punishment. Once again, this polemic does not tell us anything very precise about the opponents. The most interesting image is that of the corruption of the love feasts (v. 12), for it recalls the meals agapē of the first Christians, linked to the Eucharist and often unfortunately the object of disputes (1 Cor 11:17-34). One has the impression that intruders have crept into the very heart of the group or groups being addressed.

      4. Prophecies of Enoch and of the apostles about the coming of these ungodly people: 14-19

        It is in the style of warnings like Jude's to recall that the coming of the ungodly has been foretold for the last times (1 Tim 4:1; 2 Tim 3:1ff.); and in fact, one recalls that Jesus himself gave such apocalyptic warning about false messiahs and false prophets in the last times (Mark 13:22). Jude 14-15 begins with a prophecy against the ungodly spoken by Enoch, the mysterious figure who walked with God and was taken up to heaven without dying; but once again the author goes beyond the reference to Genesis (5:23-24) and refers to Jewish tradition, this time as it is preserved for us in 1 Enoch 1, 9. Some would find an antecedent to Jude 16's polemical description of the ungodly in the Testament (Assumption) of Moses 7:7,9; 5:5, but the parallelism is far from clear. The author then turns to a prophecy of the apostles, "In the last times there will be scoffers, walking according to their own ungodly desires." No such passage is preserved in the NT, so the author seems to draw on a broader Christian tradition, just as he drew on a broader Israelite tradition than the OT.

      5. Reiterated appeal for faith; different kinds of judgment to be exercised: 20-23

        Despite the proportionately greater emphasis on polemics, it could be argued that these verses represent both the purpose and the true climax of the letter. In verse 3, the author wanted to "write to you, beloved, to encourage you to contend for the faith." By way of inclusion, he explains how to contend in verse 20: "Beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith." This is to be done by praying in the Holy Spirit and keeping in God's love - good advice at all times, but it becomes more urgent as the recipients await the mercy that will be granted to them at the judgment by the Lord Jesus Christ, and must face the mockers who do not have the Spirit (v. 19). Given the amount of controversy so far, one is surprised to find nuance in the treatment to be meted out: those who doubt or hesitate are to be treated with mercy; others are to be saved and snatched from the fire; still others are to be treated with mercy, but with extreme caution, hating their corruption. Clearly, Jesus' warnings about communal judgments were not without effect (Mt 18:15-22).

    3. Concluding Doxology: 24-25

      No personal message to the recipients concludes Jude. Instead, the letter ends with a solemn doxology, probably taken from the liturgy but adapted to the endangered state of its recipients. Jude blesses the one and only (monos = monotheism) God who can keep them safe without failing and bring them with exultation to judgment without stumbling (cf. 1 Thess 5:23; 1 Cor 1:8). The Christian modification of this Jewish monotheistic praise is that it is through Jesus Christ our Lord - not far from the one Lord and one God of Eph 4:5-6 (see Jas 1:1).

  3. Jude's use of noncanonical literature

    This usage has been problematic: throughout the centuries, theologians have argued that if the author was inspired, he should have been able to recognize what was inspired and what was not. Today, most consider this to be a pseudo-problem that presupposes a simplistic understanding of inspiration and canonicity. Divine inspiration was recognized when a book was declared canonical by Israel or the Christian Church. Although the Jews of the first century CE agreed that "the Law and the Prophets" were inspired and canonical, they were not unanimous about "other writings."

    Yet the lack of a fixed canon, the answer given by many scholars to the problem of Jude's quotations, may not be the main point. Apparently, Jews and early Christians used books as sacred and authoritative (and thus virtually treated them as inspired) without questioning whether they were on the same level as the Law and the Prophets. We cannot limit Jude's reliance on the non-canonical to the citation of 1 Enoch in vv. 14-15 and the citation of The Assumption of Moses in v. 9. Moreover, the chastisement of the angels in v. 6 is derived from 1 Enoch; and the polemic in v. 16 may be inspired by The Assumption of Moses. In the examples of Cain and Balaam in v. 11, Jude depends on the tradition concerning biblical characters that has been developed far beyond the biblical narrative. Similarly, in vv. 17-18, he quotes words of the apostles that are not found in books that Christians would ultimately judge to be biblical. In other words, the author accepts and feels free to quote from a wide collection of Israelite and Christian traditions, and is not confined to a collection of written books never considered canonical by any group we know of. It is therefore possible that canonicity never crossed the author's mind.

  4. Literary Genre

    Recently, the study of Jude has been revived by new approaches to the letter. For example, there has been a focus on using social science models and perspectives to complement other methods. Group welfare, not individual welfare, was paramount in antiquity. The patron-client model was proposed in which God and Jesus were seen as heavenly benefactors and writers as their agents. Attacks on what the writers deemed beneficial to the group would be treated with indignation as attacks on God.

    Considerable attention has also been given to literary issues and rhetorical structure according to Greco-Roman standards. Among the forms of rhetoric, deliberative rhetoric can be detected in Jude's exhortations, dissuasions and warnings. But we also find elements of epidictic rhetoric in the pungent emotions expressed and evoked, and of judicial rhetoric in the accusations and misfortunes. At the same time, the use of parallelism and triple illustrations in Jude's argument echoes the OT.

    If one seeks to apply the epistle/letter distinction, where does one place Jude? He has a slightly more Christian letter format than James. Rather than the flat "greetings" of James 1:1, the "mercy, peace and love" of Jude 2 is not far from the "grace, mercy, peace" of 1 and 2 Tim and 2 John. James ends without any sign of a final greeting; Jude 24-25 has a majestic doxology that can be compared to the praise that ends Romans 16:25-27.

    The address "to the twelve tribes of the dispersion" in James 1:1 is perhaps more specific than that of Jude "to those who are called, loved by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ" (v. 1), which could apply to any Christian. Yet internally, the content of Jude seems to be more specific to the situation of the people to whom it is addressed. This leads us to a very difficult question: how much of the polemic in Jude is to be taken literally, and how much is traditional language? The fact that some of the description of the opponents in Jude 16 can be taken from The Assumption of Moses indicates that we must be careful; and in turn, much of the polemic in 2 Pet is simply taken from Jude, as we shall see in the next chapter. The three authors were hardly faced with the same situation, and so there was a convention of reusing polemical descriptions. Does this mean that Jude is addressing all churches, not describing any particular heresy but alerting everyone to a general problem, as a number of scholars claim today? Perhaps it is not necessary to go that far. Jude does not claim to address a single community, as is the case in many Pauline letters. Nevertheless, the situation described in Jude 3-4 may be factual: namely, an initial intention to address a general exhortation to those Christians for whom Jude would have authority (presumably those connected with the mother church(es) in Jerusalem/Palestine with which Jude's name was associated), interrupted by the urgent recognition that false teaching had been introduced into some of these communities. Certainly the polemical description of the unworthiness of the leaders could be traditional (e.g., "some ungodly" in vv. 4, and also 10-13, 16-19) without rejecting the historicity of their presence. What about dangerous teaching? One could construct from this description a situation in which Jewish/Gentile churches that were learning to respect the Jewish heritage and its moral requirements (as one would expect in areas where the names of Jude and James of Jerusalem were the primary authorities) were undermined by Christians heavily influenced by the pagan world who claimed that the gospel had freed believers from their moral obligations. To condemn such libertine ideas, Jude would have recourse to bad examples from Israelite tradition concerning attempts to seduce Israel or its personalities. If we accept this minimal reconstruction, given the presence of epistolary elements, there is reason to judge that Jude's text can be described as a letter, rather than an epistle.

  5. By and to Whom, From Where, and When?

    1. By Whom?

      Did the brother of Jesus and James actually write this short letter (even through a scribe), or did a disciple, or even a more distant one, use the name Jude? Some would defend authenticity by arguing that Jude was not important enough for someone to have invoked his name in a pseudonymous composition, but this claim overlooks the importance of Jesus' parents and Jude's descendants in the Jerusalem/Palestine churches. No one is able to establish with certainty that Jude wrote the letter; but we can ask whether any aspect of the letter rules out its authenticity. For example, was it written from a place other than Palestine where Jude lived, or in a style that he probably did not possess, or at a time after his life?

    2. From Where?

      Authenticity would suggest that the place of origin was Palestine, since James was the head of the Jerusalem church and Jude's descendants remained prominent in Palestine. Jude does not quote the OT verbatim, but the allusions seem to depend on a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures rather than the use of the Septuagint (unlike in most of the NT, including the epistle of James); and this gives Palestine an advantage over the Greek-speaking Christian centers. Numerous Aramaic copies of 1 Enoch, an apocrypha quoted by Jude, were found at Qumran; and although in the end 1 Enoch circulated more widely and in other languages, evidence suggests that the author of Jude knew the Aramaic form.

      What does the argumentative style tell us about the place of origin? The author has a good command of Greek vocabulary and is more than adequate in the use of conjunctions, participles and alliterations. Therefore, some claim that Greek was his native language. Other scholars argue that a native speaker of Hebrew or Aramaic could have learned this Greek style by being taught rhetoric and immersing himself in Hellenistic Jewish literature. Some biblical scholars find in the arrangement of the examples of Jewish tradition in Jude exegetical techniques reminiscent of the way the texts are joined in certain commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls. If it is doubtful that a Galilean villager, like Jesus' "brother" Jude, could have written the letter himself, it is still possible that he employed a scribe with more Greek education. Thus, the argument of style does not exclude authenticity and origin in Palestine, even if it does favor pseudonymity somewhat.

    3. When?

      The range of feasible proposals is from 50 to 120. The argument for a second-century dating, because Jude would address gnostics, is of little value, as we shall see in the next paragraph. The argument that because he presents the faith as a body of teaching in vv. 3 and 20, Jude would represent "primitive Catholicism" is also irrelevant. Not only is it undatable, but Jude does not exhibit the characteristics that scholars classify as early Catholicism, such as the neglect of the parousia (in contrast to vv. 14, 21, 24) and the insistence on an authoritative ecclesial structure. In fact, Jude cannot be dated too late, for it was used extensively by the author of 2 Peter, himself probably to be dated around 125-150 at the latest. At the other end of the spectrum, some have tried to date Jude after James, assuming that they were both written for the same audience and that, since James does not mention false doctrine, Jude must have been written later, when the "ungodly" suddenly arrived. This is too much to rely on the fact that Jude identifies himself as the brother of James. The reference to the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 17) seems to indicate that the apostles (the Twelve?) belong to a past generation, but this would be true at any time in the last third of the first century. This is also the time when we find examples of the use of the word "faith" to describe a set of beliefs and practices, as in Jude 3. If Jude himself wrote the book, the fact that he is listed as third or fourth among Jesus' brothers suggests that he was one of the youngest; he could therefore have lived until about 90 or 100. The dating may thus slightly favor pseudonymity, but certainly does not prove it.

    4. To Whom?

      Once again, this is a more or less intelligent guessing exercise. Some have sought to identify Jude's intended audience from the error attacked. If it is libertarianism, could it come from a misunderstanding of Paul's proclamation of freedom from the obligations of the Mosaic law? This could indicate an audience within Paul's sphere of influence. Yet there is no implicit quotation from Paul as in Jas 2:24; and the polemic against possible libertine traits in Jude 4:7, 8, 16, 18, 19 is too general and stereotypical to allow us to specify the source. The charge in v. 8 that ungodly intruders outrage the glorious has fueled much speculation about their identity, but this is certainly a case of explaining the obscure with the more obscure. The assurance to the recipients that "you have once for all received the knowledge of all things" (v. 5) and the statement that the ungodly intruders blaspheme "what they do not know" (v. 10) would have fueled speculation that the "ungodly" were Gnostics. The accusation that the opponents deny God in v. 4 and the emphasis on the one God in v. 25 are interpreted by some as attacks on the Gnostic rejection of the creator God; unfortunately, both the interpretation and the reading of v. 4 are questionable. The reference to Cain in v. 11 has been associated with a group of second century Gnostics, the Cainites, who considered the OT God responsible for evil. It should be obvious how speculative these claims are, even if Jude's polemic were to be taken literally. They derive from dubious assumptions about the Gnosticism prevalent in first-century Christianity, so that almost every reference to knowledge of things would mask a Gnostic claim. Realistically, the attack on the ungodly in Jude does not help us to identify or locate the recipients.

      The fact that the author identifies himself as the brother of James has led to the assumption that Jude was intended for the audience to which James was addressing himself. Yet Jude lacks the "To the twelve tribes of the diaspora" of James 1:1, as well as any reference, explicit or implicit, to a letter from James. It is not implausible that James and Jude were written for areas where the "brethren of Jesus" were highly respected, but it could be a large area with different churches. In keeping with this picture, one can assume that the recipients were familiar with a wide range of Jewish tradition, so they would have found the examples cited in Jude convincing. We cannot say more.

  6. Canonicity of Jude

    By the beginning of the second century, Jude was important enough to be copied by the author of 2 Peter. By the year 200 in the West (Fragment of Muratori, Tertullian), Jude was recognized as Scripture. In the East, at about the same time, according to Ecclesiastical History 6.14.1, Clement of Alexandria commented on it; and Origen certainly respected it, though he was aware that others rejected it. Two papyri, P72 and P78, attest to the use of Jude in the 3rd-4th centuries. However, Jude's use of an apocryphal book such as 1 Enoch was problematic, and in the early fourth century Eusebius still classified it as a disputed book. Finally, in the year 400, with the contributions of Athanasius and Jerome to the formation of the canon, Jude was accepted in the Greek-speaking East and West. The Syriac-speaking churches accepted it in the 6th century.

    In his NT of 1522, Luther placed Jude at the end, along with Jas, Heb, Rev, as being of lesser quality; Cardinal Cajetan and the Protestant John Oecolampas saw problems with it. However, there was no ongoing debate about it in the following centuries comparable to that on Jas, because it was not so important theologically. Although a considerable bibliography has been devoted to him, Jude has not had a great role in the formation of church thought.

One last remark
Usually we conclude our discussion of a NT book with "Questions and Issues for Reflection." Jude, however, is a very short book; and today, most people would not appreciate or find relevant his argument from the Israelite tradition about angels who sinned with women, Michael's battle over Moses' body, Sodom, Balaam and Korah. We owe Jude reverence as a book of Scripture, but its applicability to ordinary life remains a formidable challenge. It is interesting to note that in the triennial liturgical lectionary in use in the Roman Catholic Church and other major churches, a lectionary that covers a very large portion of Scripture, Jude is never read on any of the 156 Sundays, and only on one weekday (where vv. 17,20-25, which hardly constitute the heart of the letter, form the pericope).

 

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