In the first installment, I set out the traditional Greco-Roman letter format and looked at the “Judases” and “Jameses” in the New Testament. There seemed to be only one good option for whom the Judas/Jude to whom this letter is attributed could be, the Judas/Jude who is the brother of Jacob/James and Jesus. In the second installment, I weighed the arguments on authorship and decided the best evidence does indeed point in that direction. I then looked at what this means for the date of the letter and the location, or place, in which the letter was written. In this, the third installment, I begin to examine the content of the letter itself, the reasons the letter was sent, and the goals of the letter.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
From Palm Sunday through Holy Week
As we have reached Palm Sunday, I wanted to provide links to
previous writings at The
Good Word blog and at the Bible
Junkies blog. Please also go The Word to find the most recent
columns for Palm Sunday and Easter.
The
Palm Sunday post is a reflection on how quickly our attention can turn from
intense interest and focus on Jesus to distraction in the context of a supposed
evaluation by an athletic scout. When things do not turn out the way we expect,
are we willing to be challenged to follow Jesus in all circumstances?
For a more traditional take on Palm Sunday, in the context of Jesus' mission and Old Testament prophecy, please see Act 5, Scene 1 in the Gospel of Mark Commentary.
For a more traditional take on Palm Sunday, in the context of Jesus' mission and Old Testament prophecy, please see Act 5, Scene 1 in the Gospel of Mark Commentary.
The next four blog posts were posted at the Good Word during
Holy Week 2011. They are written from the point of view of a disciple who was “there,”
reflecting on the events as they are happening.
I pray that these reflections might aid you in your own
spiritual journey from Palm Sunday through Easter.
John W. Martens
I invite you to follow
me on Twitter @Biblejunkies
Sunday, March 17, 2013
The Letter of Jude Online Commentary (2)
Bible Junkies Commentary on Jude 2
In the first installment, I looked at the “Judases” and “Jameses”
in the New Testament. There seems only one good option for whom the Judas/Jude
to whom this letter is attributed could be, the Judas/Jude who is the brother
of Jacob/James and Jesus. Modern
scholarship, however, has questioned many of the ancient attributions of
authorship for texts in the New Testament, so what are the arguments for and
against authorship by Jude, brother of James and Jesus? And how does the
resolution of the question of authorship impact the dating of the letter?
3. Did Jude, brother
of James, write this letter?
a) Arguments for Jude:
The arguments in favor of the authorship of Jude, brother of
James include, foremost, that the tradition, nearer to the time of authorship,
did accept Jude’s authorship of this letter, even though Eusebius noted that
there were disputes about it. Church fathers, such as Tertullian, Clement of
Alexandria , and the Muratorian Canon, considered it scripture (J.N.D. Kelly, A
Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude (London: Adam and Charles
Black, 1969) 223-24).
Another argument in favor of Jude’s authorship would be that
the letter includes a direct allusion to the Assumption of Moses and a direct citation from 1 Enoch, both Jewish texts which were not (and are not) canonical, which
might suggest both a Jewish author and a Palestinian origin for the letter.
(More will be said about the intriguing use of these texts and the texts
themselves later.)
It might also be said that the letter is not just one of the
shortest NT letters, but one of the least significant, in that it is difficult
to find a synthesizing threads in it or a particularly strong theological
argument. Why would this letter be attributed to a relative of James and Jesus
if it were not genuine?
Another point, modern not ancient, is that there is a close
relationship between Jude and 2 Peter and modern commentators are almost
unanimous in believing that the borrowing is done by 2 Peter from Jude and not
the other way around. This would indicate the authority of Jude in the ancient
Church (more will be said about this relationship and other possible solutions
later on in other installments).
Finally, if one wanted to attribute an early Christian text
to someone who had not written it, why would you choose the relatively
anonymous Jude when other more significant options presented themselves?
b) Arguments against Jude:
The arguments against Jude, apart from the doubts expressed
in the early Church, generally have to do with the style and vocabulary of the
letter.
A major argument against Jude’s authorship is that the
letter is written in excellent Greek and includes 22 Greek words not found elsewhere
in the NT (Patrick J. Hartin, James, 1Peter, Jude, 2 Peter (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2006) 48). This
is thought to exclude a Jewish relative of Jesus, who might speak Greek, but
probably is not able to write in such a fluid and literary style.
Another argument against Jude’s authorship is that the
opening greeting of this letter has “May mercy, peace, and love be yours in
abundance.” This is not like Paul’s letters, which are early, and have “grace”
and “peace.” Later letters, though, such as 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and 2 John
have the similar greeting as found in Jude and so the argument is that Jude
must be post-apostolic.
Finally, another popular argument against Jude’s authorship
is found in vv.17-18, which read as follows:
17 But you, beloved, must remember the
predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18 for they said to you, “In
the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts.”
Scholars argue that these verses indicate a time after the
apostles and so would place this letter in a time after the apostles and the first generation Christians.
Why would someone associate a letter with an early Christian
relative of Jesus if it was not written by this person? Arguments generally
take the form of this offered by Patrick J. Hartin: “the writer invokes the
name of Jude because he wishes to endorse his authority in settling problems
that have arisen in a certain area of the Christian church” (Patrick J. Hartin,
James, 1 Peter, Jude, 2 Peter, 49).
c) Weighing the
evidence:
With respect to the arguments offered for the letter being
pseudonymous (written by an unknown person in the name of Jude), I have always
found the sort of argument that “the writer invokes the name of Jude because he
wishes to endorse his authority in settling problems that have arisen in a
certain area of the Christian church” troubling: how would someone’s authority
be invoked if it was known that the supposed author was already dead? That is,
if the authority of Jude was accepted and valued by the communities in
question, would they not have a sense of whether he wrote this or whether he
was even alive to write it? I mean, if
his authority is valued they would know basic information about him, I suspect,
such as, is he alive or dead. Or does one bring the letter to the Church community
(or communities) and claim that a long lost letter of Jude has been found which,
lo and behold, just happens to speak to the present troubles in the Church even
though he is dead? I have never exactly figured out how this “appeal to
authority” was supposed to function in the early Church if a letter was attributed
to a person no longer living.
I am not convinced either by arguments of “excellent Greek”
ruling out the early followers of Jesus as authors, including even his relatives, for three reasons: one, Jesus’
early followers might not have been as uneducated as previously thought (“Do
you know Greek? How Much Greek Could the First Jewish Christians Have Known?”
in J. N. Sevenster, Novum
Testamentum Supplementum 19); two,
Greek was a common language amongst Jews (Saul Lieberman, Greek
in Jewish Palestine/Hellenism in Jewish Palestine; Martin Hengel, Judaism
and Hellenism); and three, we must always allow that many letters were not
written by the “authors” as such, but by scribes (William F. Brosend II, James
and Jude . NCBC (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004) who could have had an excellent education and
superior vocabulary.
As to vv. 17-18, I am not certain if these verses suggest
that the letter is written in the post-apostolic period or simply that the
author does not consider himself an apostle, which by definition Jude is not
and does not claim to be.
The argument that holds the most weight for me against Jude’s
authorship is actually the concerns of the early Church as to whether Jude was responsible for this letter, but I do not
think they outweigh the tradition accepting the letter or the arguments which
suggest that Jude is a fairly anonymous letter to attribute to a fairly
anonymous early Christian figure.
While this might not settle the question for some – scholars
are weighted more heavily to rejecting Jude’s authorship, though many accept it
as well – perhaps only a study of the letter itself can determine the issue of
authorship and it might be best to examine the letter before coming to a final
conclusion. One thing that can be said though is that how one answers this
question determines the date to which one attributes Jude.
4. When was Jude written?
It becomes clear that if one links authorship to Jude,
brother of James and Jesus, the dating will be earlier, probably before 70 A.D.
(Brosend, James and Jude, 6-7). We
have no dates as to when Jude died, as we do with James (62 A.D.) for instance,
so we have no sense of what might be the latest date for this letter based on
his lifespan, but the apocalyptic scenarios reflect the concerns of the
earliest Christians and the letters of Paul. The citation of (or allusion to) the
Jewish documents mentioned earlier – Assumption
of Moses and 1 Enoch – indicate an
early point in Jewish Christianity when these documents were still accepted as
authoritative. In addition, it seems that the Temple is still standing since
such an event is not alluded to in the letter.
If one states that authorship is post-apostolic and after
the time of Jude himself, then we would be dating this letter into the later 1st
century, such as 90-100 A.D. The great Bo Reicke, for instance, in The
Epistles of James, Peter and Jude. Anchor Bible Commentary (Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1964) says that “political and social factors point to the
years around A.D. 90 and the situation under Domitian” (192).
5. To whom and from
where was it written?
It is generally thought, and I think the letter will bear
this out, that the letter is written to Jewish Christians in particular, due to
the texts cited and the concerns of the letter, though this does not mean that
gentile Christians could not have read the letter obviously. Most scholars
would also claim that the letter was written from Palestine, which would
certainly be the case if, as I believe, Jude is the author, or from Syria.
Next time, we start to actually examine the letter of Jude,
its theology and arguments.
John W. Martens
Follow me on Twitter @Biblejunkies
Monday, March 11, 2013
The Letter of Jude Online Commentary
In
January 2012, I began blogging a commentary on the Gospel of Mark, available at
the Bible
Junkies blog and now at America
Magazine, which I completed just last week. My somewhat ambitious goal is
to write an online commentary on every New Testament document, though I have
given myself the equally ambitious time period of 15-20 years to complete the
task. I hope the internet is still with us in 15 years as I do not know if I
will be up to a shift in medium one more time.
The
second online Bible Junkies Commentary, which begins with this post, will be
going in a new direction, which is not difficult to do when it is only the
second text to be commented upon. The text that will be explored is Jude, a
short letter which belongs to that category of letters in the New Testament
known as “catholic” or general epistles.
In
terms of the epistle of Jude, we have a letter that is often ignored, though
not so much in scholarship as in reading by ordinary Christians. My comments on
Jude, which will take many fewer weeks than those on the Gospel of Mark, will
take the form of a more traditional commentary, spending some time on the
introductory questions of authorship, date and the location in which the letter
emerged. Then the letter will be “broken” down into parts, which is not too
difficult given the length of this correspondence, and comments made on the
meaning and the purpose of this letter. Finally, some comments will be made on
how a letter like Jude speaks to the Church today and what its message might be
for us today. Not everyone will be attracted to this sort of study, but if you
are, you might have to consider yourself, here and now, a Bible Junkie. It is
the best sort of addiction.
1.
Introductory Matters:
The
catholic epistles form a group of letters and what binds them together today is
that most of them are not read very often.
Another way to describe them is that they are “non-Pauline Epistles.”
They are the Johannine Epistles (1, 2, 3 John), 1 and 2 Peter, James, and Jude.
They are actually called “catholic” because they seem to be “circular” letters,
that is, not sent to any one community as situational or occasional
correspondence, as Paul’s letters were, but sent to many Christian communities
for general Christian teaching. On the other hand, many scholars see 1 Peter as
an exception to this rule and the Johannine letters also. Yet, when we look
closely at this, 1 Peter does seem to be sent to a number of churches in what
is modern day Turkey, not just one. The Johannine letters do seem to be
addressed, quite clearly, to problems within the Johannine community, but they
too seem to have been sent to a number of churches around Ephesus.
A
short aside: Hebrews is more difficult to place. It does not seem to belong with
the catholic letters, but modern scholarship, noting the absence of Pauline
letter form and the different theology and style, is (almost) unanimous in
thinking this to be a letter by someone other than Paul. It was considered a letter of Paul’s for many
centuries, though there were many questions about this even in the ancient
church. (The letter itself does not contain a claim to be written by Paul.)
Is it catholic, though, in terms of to whom and where it was sent? Was it sent
to a particular community of Jewish Christians? Or was it sent to all Jewish
Christians? Though some scholars believe it could have been sent to Jews who
were not Christians, it seems Hebrews was sent particularly to Jewish
Christians on the basis of numerous passages which indicate that the recipients
have been a part of the faith for some time (2:1, 3:1, 14,4:1-4, 14-15,
5:11-14, 6:1-6). It is, therefore, neither a Pauline letter nor a catholic
letter, but no less important for lacking an epistolary home.
A
word should be said about the language of “epistle” and “letter.” This
distinction goes back to the work of Adolf Deissmann (see New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 769). A letter in this categorization is defined as
a private, non-literary correspondence, while an epistle is a communication
that is more literary in character, not necessarily occasioned by a particular
event or situation and intended for a public audience. I will be using the
terms interchangeably, since I consider that all of the letters in the New
Testament, including the Pastoral epistles, were intended for public, not just
private reading and that there is no definable difference between the literary character
of “letters” and “epistles” in the New Testament.
Letters
(or epistles) in the wider Greco-Roman world basically had four parts, though
these can be sub-divided in numerous ways. The four basic parts are as follows:
1)
Salutation (name(s) of writer(s) and
recipient(s); greeting)
2)
Thanksgiving
3)
Body of the Letter
4)
Closing: greeting.
Scholars of Paul often offer a
number of other subdivisions and I will give a couple of examples to make this
clear:
1)
Salutation (name(s) of writer(s) and
recipient(s); greeting)
2)
Thanksgiving
3)
Opening of the Body of the Letter
4)
Body of the Letter (usually in two
parts, theoretical and practical)
5)
Closing of the Body of the Letter
(often with the promise of a visit)
6)
Ethical Instructions (‘Paraenesis’)
7)
Closing: greetings; doxology;
benediction (John Ziesler, Pauline
Christianity, 7)
And:
1)
Salutation: a) sender; b) recipient;
c) greeting
2)
Thanksgiving: (Prayer)
3)
Body of the Letter (Paraenesis:
Ethical Instruction and Exhortation)
4)
Closing commands
5)
Conclusion: a) peace wish; b)
greetings; c) kiss; d) close (grace; benediction) (Calvin Roetzel, The Letters of Paul: Conversations in
Context, 53-54)
As we look at Jude, I will keep the
basic and more complex categories in mind as we attempt to understand the
letter and its form.
Jude
is an intriguing letter because not much is known about it and it is not
considered today of great importance. Nevertheless, “this little letter was
used heavily but without acknowledgement by the author of 2 Peter (cf. 2 Pet.
2:1-18 and Jude 4-16), writing around 140(?). Otherwise, Jude is attested only
late in the second century by Clement of Alexandria (Eusebius, H.E. 6.14.1), Tertullian (De cultu feminaraum 1.3) and the
Muratorian list (line 68), but the geographical diversity of these witnesses
suggests that Jude must have had some broad currency in the preceding period”
(Harry Y. Gamble, The New Testament Canon,
48). The first question, then, ought to be regarding authorship.
2.
Who is Jude?
Jude
1 in the NRSV says that the letter is written by “Jude, a servant of Jesus
Christ and brother of James,” except even in this translation two changes are
made according to conventional translation techniques into English: Jude in
Greek is actually Judas; and James in Greek is actually Jacob (how we get to
James from Jacob is an interesting study in how names change: Jacobus to
Jacomus to James). Both names, of course, are originally Hebrew names. The
names are so common, in fact, that Judas/Jude appears 36 times in the New
Testament and Jacob/James is found 42 times. In numerous cases these names
belong to the same person, but still there are a number of Judases in the New Testament
and a number of Jameses. Here is a list of both names:
Judas:
a)
Judas Iscariot occurs over 20 times in the NT;
b)
Judas of James, one of the Twelve apostles (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13);
c)
Judas Barsabbas (Acts 15);
d)
Jesus is called the “brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon” (Mk. 6:3;
Mt. 13:55);
e)
Judas (not Iscariot) (Jn. 14:22);
f)
Judas, at whose house Paul stays (Acts 9:11);
g)
Judas “the Galiean” who led a revolt (Acts 5:37).
James:
a)
James, “son of Zebedee,” one of the Twelve apostles, is mentioned over 20 times
and is last mentioned in Acts 12:2 where his death is noted;
b)
James, “son of Alphaeus,” one of the Twelve apostles, is mentioned 4 times (Mk.
3:18);
c)
James, father of Judas, one of the Twelve apostles (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13);
d)
Jesus is called the “brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon” (Mk. 6:3;
Mt. 13:55);
e)
James (the younger), son of Mary and brother of Joseph (Mk. 15:40, 16:1; Mt.
27:56; Lk. 24:10);
f)
James, brother of the Lord (Gal. 1:19; also in 2:9, 2:12 and in 1 Cor. 15:3);
g)
James, slave of Jesus Christ (James 1:1);
h)
James, brother of Judas (Jude 1);
i)
James, identified in no other way (e.g., Acts 12:17, 15:13, 21:18).
We
can be certain that our Judas is not an apostle, or he would have used that
designation, which rules out a), b) and e), though Judas Iscariot could be
ruled out on many other grounds! I think it is simple enough to rule out g) and
f), one of whom is not a Christian and the other who is mentioned in passing,
which leaves only c) and d). Judas
Barsabbas is sent out with Silas by the Jerusalem council, so he is a major
figure in the early Church (Acts 15:22), but the reason for opting for d) is
that only this Judas is said to have a brother named James, which is how the
author of the letter identifies himself.
When
we look at the list of Jameses, there is a James who is a father of Judas,
listed at c), but only one James who is said to have a brother called Judas,
which is d). In fact, this James was a major figure in the Jerusalem church,
named by Paul as a pillar in Galatians 1-2 and widely accepted as the James in
Acts 15 at the Jerusalem council. That Jude identifies himself as “brother of
James,” indicates a James who needs no further introduction. Therefore, I
identify the author of Jude with the brother of Jesus, as named in Mark 6:3 and
Matthew 13:55.
Catholics,
of course, do not identify James and Jude as brothers of Jesus by Mary and
Joseph, but as close relatives. Ancient tradition identifies them, in a
tradition more popular among Orthodox Christians, as sons of Joseph and so
half-brothers of Jesus. Protestants find no issue identifying them as full
blood brothers of Jesus.
There
is some ancient tradition about this Jude in Eusebius, Church History, Book III.19.1-20.8
But when this same Domitian had
commanded that the descendants of David should be slain, an ancient tradition
says that some of the heretics brought accusation against the descendants of
Jude (said to have been a brother of the Saviour according to the flesh), on
the ground that they were of the lineage of David and were related to Christ
himself. Hegesippus relates these facts in the following words.
1. Of the family of the Lord there were
still living the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord's
brother according to the flesh.
2. Information was given that they
belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian
by the Evocatus. For Domitian feared the coming of Christ as Herod also had
feared it. And he asked them if they were descendants of David, and they
confessed that they were. Then he asked them how much property they had, or how
much money they owned. And both of them answered that they had only nine
thousand denarii, half of which belonged to each of them.
4. And this property did not consist of
silver, but of a piece of land which contained only thirty-nine acres, and from
which they raised their taxes and supported themselves by their own labor.
5. Then they showed their hands,
exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callousness produced upon their
hands by continuous toil as evidence of their own labor.
6. And when they were asked concerning
Christ and his kingdom, of what sort it was and where and when it was to
appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a
heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he
should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every
one according to his works.
7. Upon hearing this, Domitian did not
pass judgment against them, but, despising them as of no account, he let them
go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church.
8. But when they were released they
ruled the churches because they were witnesses and were also relatives of the
Lord. And peace being established, they lived until the time of Trajan. These
things are related by Hegesippus.
Did
this Jude author our NT letter? Eusebius passes along that this was disputed
even in the ancient Church, writing in Church History, Book II, 23.24:
These things are recorded in regard to
James, who is said to be the author of the first of the so-called Catholic
Epistles. But it is to be observed that it is disputed; at least, not many of
the ancients have mentioned it, as is the case likewise with the epistle that
bears the name of Jude, which is also one of the seven so-called Catholic
Epistles. Nevertheless we know that these also, with the rest, have been read
publicly in very many churches.
The
ancient tradition nevertheless did affirm that this letter was written by Jude,
brother of James and Jesus, which is why, of course, the letter is known as
Jude! But current scholarship – though not all scholars today – disputes this
finding. Next time, I will discuss the question of the ancient attribution of
this letter with Jude and the dating of the letter, two issues which go
together regardless of when one dates the letter, that is, how one dates the
letter influences who one considers the author to be. As so often in the study
of early Christian documents, the question is, what comes first, the authorship
or the date?
John
W. Martens
Follow me on Twitter
@Biblejunkies