The Letter of Jude

Author and Date

This last letter of the New Testament claims to be written by Jude (or Judas) “brother of James.” Mark 3.6 lists both Judas and James as brothers of Jesus and some scholars suggest that the epistle may actually have been written by Jesus’ brother in the 50s ce. By the second century, Judas the brother of Jesus was equated with the apostle Thomas, known especially from John’s Gospel (11.6; 20.24–28); the names appear together as “Judas Didymus Thomas” (Didymus and Thomas mean “twin” in Greek and Aramaic, respectively) in the extracanonical document the Gospel of Thomas; the similarly extra-canonical Acts of Thomas sees Judas Thomas as Jesus’ twin brother (e.g., 11,34,45). By referring so obliquely to a Judas who may be Jesus’ brother, the Epistle’s author may have been attempting to reclaim the figure of Jude from other Christian groups who claimed his authority. If so, the letter is later (perhaps early second century) and pseudonymous; the reference (v 18) to “the apostles” as established authorities suggests institutional hierarchies already in place.

Context

The letter warns of immoral “intruders” whose laxity challenges institutional authority. Echoes of Paul’s opponents in Corinth (see 1–2 Cor) and morally lax “gnostic” groups suggest ongoing conflicts over how to understand God’s gift of salvation from sin (“grace,” v 4). Some Christians taught that, thanks to God’s salvation, they were no longer bound to earthly authority and morality. Thus they could not imperil their salvation by any action, since spiritually they were safe. Alternatively, it is possible that vague and stereotypical accusations of “licentiousness” rhetorically echo prophetic literature, which equated sexual license with impiety generally (see esp. Ezek 16).

Cultural Influences

The letter draws heavily on popular, late Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic literature to shape its understanding of the moral order of the universe. The Torah was elaborated in this period by creative narratives filling in the words and deeds of the patriarchs and great leaders of the Israelites (e.g., the Book of Jubilees presents itself as a revelation to Moses from an angel on Mount Sinai at the time of the giving of the Torah). The author of the Epistle of Jude contributes to this development by referring to a story of the angel Michael and the devil battling over Moses’ corpse. The focus on angels as historical and moral agents (vv 6,8–9) further ties this letter to patterns of apocalyptic thought common among first-century Jews, specifically the book of 1 Enoch, cited directly in v 14 (see “Enoch Literature in Second Temple Judaism,” p. 533). The apocalyptic language and angelic outlook attach the epistle closely, almost intimately, to the Jesus movement’s Jewish roots. Likewise, the epistle’s references to multiple personages from the Hebrew Bible (Moses, Cain, Balaam, Korah) embed its arguments in the wider context of authoritative Jewish literature.

Jude shares significant material with 2 Peter, particularly the idea that present-day religious divisions are simply the latest act in a cosmic drama pitting the pious against their devious and immoral opponents. Jude and 2 Peter remain certain that participants in this struggle will receive appropriate rewards and punishments.

Andrew S. Jacobs

Enoch Literature in Second Temple Judaism

The extensive collection of stories known as 1 Enoch, cited directly in Jude 14, records an elaborate angelology as well as apocalyptic expectations. These stories, framed as revelations to the primordial figure Enoch (Gen 5.21–24), who “walked with God” and was “taken” by God (that is, perhaps did not die a normal human death), circulated widely among Jewish communities in the late Second Temple period, and they remained influential among Jews and Christians in the early centuries ce. Instead of placing the origin of evil with Adam and Eve in Eden, 1 Enoch interpreted the “sons of God” in Gen 6.2 as fallen angels whose interactions with humanity initiated a division between godly and godless humans that would last until the end of the world. 1 Enoch survives in ancient Ethiopic texts, although Aramaic fragments were discovered at Qumran. Although a popular strand of thought among various Jews in the Second Temple period, and among several early Christian groups, the interpretation of the angelic “sons of God” fell out of favor in rabbinic interpretation and in later Christian explanations of the origins of evil.

¹Jude,^a a servant^b of Jesus Christ and brother of James,

To those who are called, who are beloved^c in^d God the Father and kept safe for^d Jesus Christ:

²May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

³Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. ⁴For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.^e

⁵Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved^f a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day. ⁷Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust,^a serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

⁸Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.^b ⁹But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander^c against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct. ¹¹Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion. ¹²These are blemishes^d on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves.^e They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; ¹³wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.

¹⁴It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “See, the Lord is coming^f with ten thousands of his holy ones, ¹⁵to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ¹⁶These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.

¹⁷But you, beloved, must remember the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; ¹⁸for they said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts.” ¹⁹It is these worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, who are causing divisions. ²⁰But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; ²¹keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to^a eternal life. ²²And have mercy on some who are wavering; ²³save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies.^b

²⁴Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, ²⁵to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.