Epistle of Jude

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The brief Epistle of Jude is a book in the Christian New Testament canon.

1 Author and date
2 Style
3 Content and Comments
4 Popular Culture
5 External links

[edit] Author and date

The epistle is titled as written by "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James" (NIV), although that authorship is doubted by many scholars. As opinions and traditions within the Christian community still differ as to the identity of Jude or Judas, the brother of Jesus and James, the issues of the apostle's identity are discussed at Jude Thaddaeus and Jude Thomas Didymus and Jude, brother of Jesus.

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 Jude , its real authorship was called into question when Origen first spoke of the doubts held by some—albeit not him. Eusebius classified it with the "disputed writings, the antilegomena, and though it was eventually accepted within the canon (as early as the Muratorian canon), later writers largely objected to its citations of apocryphal literature, unusual in New Testament books.

Then, as now, the main thing that renders this short letter so controversial is the fact that it includes a direct quote from the Book of Enoch. This latter book, purporting to be the first book ever written, is known to have been in regular use by Jewish and Christian groups alike, until c. AD 90, when the Pharisee Sanhedrin at Yavneh (which is disputed) declared it to be "no longer scriptural" and began its systematic suppression, practically erasing it from history. Were it not for the Epistle of Jude, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Ethiopian Bible (see Ethiopian Orthodox), never affected by Yavneh, the Book of Enoch would be unknown today.

Doubts regarding Jude's authenticity were revived at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The debate has continued over the author's identity as the apostle, the brother of Jesus, both, or neither.

The date of when the Epistle of Jude was written is also in dispute, with conservative scholars dating its writing between AD 66 to 70 and liberal scholars dating its writing as late as the first quarter of the 2nd century.

[edit] Style

The Epistle of Jude is a brief book of only a single chapter with 25 verses. It was composed as an encyclical letter—that is, one not directed to the members of one church in particular, but intended rather to be circulated and 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 the text was written.

The wording and syntax of this epistle in its original Greek demonstrates that the author was capable and fluent. The epistle is addressed to Christians in general (1:1), and it warns them about the doctrine of certain errant teachers to which they were exposed. Examples of heterodox opinions that were circulating in the early 2nd century include Docetism, Marcionism, and Gnosticism.

The epistle's style is combative, impassioned, and rushed. Many examples of evildoers and warnings about their fates are given in rapid succession. The epithets contained in this writing are considered to be some of the strongest found in the New Testament.

The epistle concludes with a doxology, which is considered to be one of the highest in quality contained in the Bible.

The fact that the Epistle of Jude is notably similar to Second Epistle of Peter indicates the possibility that the writing of one of the epistles was influenced by the content of other. Because this epistle is much shorter than 2 Peter, and due to various stylistic details, the scholarly consensus is that Jude was the source for the similar passages of 2 Peter.

[edit] Content and Comments

The book of Jude contains information from ancient times that is not found elsewhere. The includes the dispute between Michael the Archangel and the devil about the body of Moses (Jude 1:7). It also includes the prophecy of Enoch, who pre-dates Noah (Jude 1:14-15).