Jude Series

Jude

Jude

The author of the biblical book of Jude was probably the brother of James (not one of Jesus' twelve disciples). Alternatively, it could be that Jude was just an assumed name.

The Epistle of Jude is the penultimate [next to last] book of the New Testament and the Christian Bible. It is traditionally attributed to Jude the Apostle, brother of James the Just, and thus possibly the brother of Jesus. Jude is a short epistle written in Koine Greek. It fiercely condemns certain people the author sees as a threat to the early Christian community but describes these opponents ambiguously. According to Jude, these opponents are within the Christian community but are not true Christians: they are scoffers, false teachers, mischief-makers, and dedicated to their lusts. The Epistle reassures its readers that God will soon judge these people. It is possible that the group referred to would have been evident to the letter's recipients. However, knowledge of the details has been lost if a specific group was meant. The one small part of their potential ideology discussed in the letter is that these opponents demean angels and their role. If this was a part of the ideology of this group, then the Epistle is possibly a counterpoint to the Colossians Epistle and to those who give angels undue prominence and worship them. This Epistle implies that the two letters might be part of an early Christian debate on angels.

Contents

Authorship

The Epistle introduces itself with a simple claim of authorship: "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James" (NRSV). "James" is generally taken to mean James, brother of Jesus, a prominent leader in the early church. Introductions would typically refer to a father in the era, so the use of a brother suggests that this would only be done if the brother was famous within the community. Little is known about Jude himself. As the brother of James, it has traditionally meant Jude was also a brother of Jesus since James is described as being the brother of Jesus. This is why Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 AD) wrote in his work "Comments on the Epistle of Jude" that Jude, the author, was a son of Joseph and a brother of Jesus. However, there is a dispute about whether "brother" means someone who has the same father and mother, or a half-brother, cousin, or more distant family relationship. This dispute over the true meaning of "brother" grew as the doctrine of the Virgin Birth evolved. For example, Saint Jerome believed that not only Mary but also Joseph were virgins their entire lives, and thus James and, by extension, Jude were cousins.

Outside the book of Jude, a "Jude" is mentioned five times in the New Testament: three times as Jude the Apostle and twice as Jude the brother of Jesus (aside from references to Judas Iscariot and Judah (son of Jacob). Debate continues as to whether the Epistle's author is the apostle, the brother of Jesus, both, or neither. Scholars have argued that since the author of the letter has not identified himself as an apostle and refers to the apostles as a third party, and thus cannot be identified with Jude the Apostle. Other scholars have drawn the opposite conclusion: as an apostle, he would not have made a claim of apostleship on his behalf.

A reason to doubt that a relative of Jesus wrote the book is that they are unlikely to have been literate. Jesus's family were common laborers from Aramaic-speaking Galilee, and literary composition skills were overwhelmingly concentrated in the elite in antiquity. Few knew how to read, fewer wrote, and fewer still how to write complicated literary treatises. Jesus himself may have been able to read, presumably in Hebrew, but he was also exceptional and the family star. Even if somehow Jude had learned a little of how to read Hebrew, the Epistle is written in excellent, complicated Koine Greek, with knowledge of standard forms of rhetoric and argument of the era and seeming knowledge of the scriptures in Hebrew. All this would be exceptional for a country Galilean. Scholars who support the authorship of Jude generally assume that he must have embarked upon extensive travel and missionary work among Hellenized Jews to master Greek as the author did. Ultimately, it is impossible to know more details of Jude's life. One early Christian tradition states that Jude's grandchildren were brought before Emperor Domitian and interrogated; in the story, they defended themselves as not rebels and mere poor laborers eking out what they could from a single patch of land. While the story is apocryphal - Roman Emperors did not generally interrogate Galilean peasants - it does suggest that early Christians remembered Jude's family as lower-class laborers, not literate elites.

If the Jude writing the letter was not Jude the Apostle mentioned in the gospels, he was possibly an unknown Christian who happened to share the name and coincidentally also had a brother named James. A final possibility is that the Epistle is pseudepigrapha - that the author intentionally hinted to readers that it was from the more famous Jude, but only as a false attribution to give the letter more authority.