Epistle of Jude
The brief Epistle of Jude is a book in the Christian New Testament canon.Author and date
As opinions and traditions within the Christian community still cloud the true identity of Jude or Judas, the brother of Jesus and James, the issues of the apostle's identity are discussed at Jude Thomas.The actual identity behind this epistle is irrelevent for some, who agree when Norman Perrin writes (The New Testament: An Introduction, p. 260), "The letter is pseudonymous, as is all the literature of emergent catholicism in the New Testament." Though the text claims to come from "Judas, the brother of James," (Jude 1:1)— who is called also "Lebbaeus" (Matthew 10:3) and "Thaddaeus" (Mark 3:18)— its real authorship was not questioned until Origen speaks of the doubts about held by some, though not he. Eusebius classified it with the "disputed wqritings, the antilegomena, and though it was eventually accepted within the canon (as early as the Muratorian canon, later writers largely objected to the citations of non-canonical rabbinic literature.
Doubts regarding its authenticity were revived at the time of the Reformation. Scholarly consensus afterwards moved back to the belief that this was the writing of Jude, but continued the confusing artificial division of Jude, as if he were either the apostle or the brother of Jesus.
Since at least the beginning of the 20th century the Epistle of Jude has been considered an anonymous work composed as late as the first quarter of the 2nd century. Based on the nature of the allusions to the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, citations of rabbinical works like the Book of Enoch and the Apocalypse of Moses, the earliest apostolic followers seen by this author from some distance in time, and the appropriation of the authority of the historical Jude in itself, current belief places its composition in Palestine, in the first quarter of the 2nd century.
Features of Jude draw upon on the Epistle of James and in turn chapter 2 of Second Epistle of Peter is rewritten largely from Jude; thus a relative chronology is established, though not an absolute one. (instances of borrowing from James are invited here)
The fluent Greek style is idiomatic and cultured. The epistle is addressed to Christians in general (1:1), and it designs to put them on their guard against the misleading efforts of certain teachers of error, to which they were exposed. Examples of heterodox opinions that were circulating in the early 2nd century include Docetism, Marcionism, and Gnosticism. The style of the epistle is that of an "impassioned invective, in the impetuous whirlwind of which the writer is hurried along, collecting example after example of divine vengeance on the ungodly; heaping epithet upon epithet, and piling image upon image, and, as it were, labouring for words and images strong enough to depict the polluted character of the licentious apostates against whom he is warning the Church; returning again and again to the subject, as though all language was insufficient to give an adequate idea of their profligacy, and to express his burning hatred of their perversion of the doctrines of the gospel."
The doxology with which the epistle concludes is regarded as the finest in the New Testament.
The striking resemblance this epistle bears to Second Epistle of Peter suggests that the author of one had seen the epistle of the other. Because this epistle is much shorter than the pseudepigraphy that ascribed to Peter, and for various stylistic details, the scholarly consensus is that this work was the source for the similar passages of the other.
Character of Jude
The Epistle of Jude is an encyclical letter that is not directed to the members of one church, but is meant to circulate and be read in all churches. The form, as opposed to the earlier letters of Paul, suggests that the author knew Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians or even that the Pauline epistles had already been collected and were circulating when this author wrote his passionate exhortation, under the persona of the apostle "Judas, the brother of James." External links