Jude New Testament

Jude was the half-brother of Jesus and the full brother of James. During his earthly ministry, Jude didn’t believe in Jesus (Jn. 7:5; Mk. 3:21, 31), but he came to faith in him after seeing him risen from the dead (Acts 1:14). Jude is most likely writing to the Jerusalem church sometime after AD 70, and he is specifically refuting licentious false teachers who have entered this church. He implores his readers to battle for true spirituality and to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3).

Authorship

Jude was the half-brother of Jesus and the full-brother of James. These two brothers are listed together in the Gospels: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas [Jude] and Simon?” (Mk. 6:3; cf. Mt. 13:55) Jewish men would typically identify themselves through their identification of their father—not their brother.[] Yet, Jude opens his letter by writing, “Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James” (Jude 1).

Jude came to faith in Christ after the resurrection. During Jesus’ ministry, we read, “Not even His brothers were believing in Him” (Jn. 7:5). Yet, later, Jesus’ brothers were gathered together with the early believers in the upper room: “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers” (Acts 1:14).

Jude became a leader in the early church. Paul argues that the “brothers of the Lord [Jesus]” were allowed to take their wives with them on missionary journeys (1 Cor. 9:5). This implies that Jude became a travelling missionary.

Jude was a Jewish believer. There is good internal evidence that Jude came from Palestine, because he doesn’t cite the LXX, even though he cites the OT frequently.[] Of course, this would fit with the idea that Jude stayed in Israel, alongside his brother James. Bauckham observes many different Palestinian features of the letter. He writes of the “the general character of the letter, its Jewishness, its debt to Palestinian Jewish literature and haggadic traditions, its apocalyptic perspective and exegetical methods, its concern for ethical practice more than for doctrinal belief, are all entirely consistent with authorship by Jude the brother of Jesus.”[]

Moreover, Jude’s name (Ioudas) is the same word that is translated “Judah,” and therefore, the author was most likely “Jewish since in ancient literature and inscriptions ‘Jude’ never appears as the name of a gentile.”[] Indeed, early church history states that a “Jude” was the final pastor of the church in Jerusalem (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4.5.3; Epiphanius, Panarion, 66.20.1-2; The Apostolic Constitutions, 7.46). However, Green states that this simply shows that Jesus’ family was known to the early church, and perhaps not much more.[]

Some critics argue that Jude was pseudepigraphic (i.e. a later forgery). But Bauckham argues, “Against the pseudepigraphal hypothesis, it has often been asked why anyone should adopt as a pseudonym the name of so obscure a figure as Jude.”[] That is to say, if a fake author was trying to impersonate an apostle, why would he adopt the name Jude? Moreover, it would’ve been far more likely that he would’ve called himself “the brother of Jesus” or “the brother of the Lord,” rather than identifying himself as “a bond-servant of Jesus Christ” and the “brother of James.”

Audience

Did Jude write to Alexandria? Some have argued that Jude wrote to Christians in Alexandria, Egypt. For one, the language fits with Alexandria, mentioning wild waves (v.13), an arid climate (v.12), and the Exodus from Egypt (v.5). Second, the letter was widely recognized as authentic in Alexandria, both by Clement and Origen, who served in this region. Third, Clement of Alexandria used the letter to refute the Carpocratian heresy, which was a second-century gnostic sect (Stromata 3.2.11; Letter to Theodorus 1.3, 7).

However, this seems strained. After all, Jude wasn’t confronting the same heresy as Clement (who lived over a century later). Indeed, Clement stated that Jude lived far earlier, and he wrote, “Of these and other similar sects Jude, I think, spoke prophetically in his letter… [loosely citing Jude 8]” (Letter to Theodorus).

Jude wrote to Palestinian Jews

We agree with Bauckham[] and Green[] that Jude’s audience consisted of primarily Jewish Christians in Israel—and perhaps Christians in the Jerusalem church. Jude refers to “James,” who was the leader of the Jerusalem church (Jude 1), and he feels no need to elaborate. This is most likely because his audience knew the person to whom he was referring. Eusebius states that Jesus’ family continued to live in Israel (Ecclesiastical History 1.7.14), so this would fit with Jude writing to Christians in Israel.

OBJECTION #1. Jude wouldn’t have written this with such excellent Greek if his Jewish audience knew Greek as a second language.

Green[] retorts that this letter could have been written to the highly educated. Indeed, many of the Jews in Palestine were Hellenistic Jews, whose native tongue was Greek (Acts 2:5-11; 6:1, 9).

OBJECTION #2. Jude’s letter responds to wild licentious lifestyles. A Jewish audience wouldn’t have been so licentious, as the letter describes.

This is an unwarranted assumption for a number of reasons:

First, Jewish men had a sin nature—just like every other person on the Planet Earth! Tacitus wrote, “[Jewish men] are singularly prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful” (Histories 5.5). Furthermore, the non-biblical, Jewish book of Sirach gives warnings against all sorts of sexual immorality, including lust, fornication, adultery, and prostitution (Sir. 9:2-9). Thus, Jude’s indictments against sexual sin shouldn’t surprise us.

Second, Jude’s mention of the “love feasts” would have been scandalous in this Jewish culture. After all, Jewish women “did not ordinarily attend either public or formal domestic dinners with men.” At Passover, a Jewish woman would join, but only “at her husband’s side.”[] Modern people might find this odd to consider. Yet, it could’ve created sexual temptation to go from little to no interaction with women to spending regular time with them in Christian fellowship. This could’ve created unique difficulties in such a highly conservative culture.

Third, Israel had a sizable Gentile population. These would include “Caesarea Maritima, Dor, Ptolemais, Caesarea Philippi, Sepphoris, and Sebaste, not to mention the Greek cities of the Decapolis.”[] Perhaps some of the false teachers entering the church were Gentiles, who came from these territories.

Which was written first: Second Peter or Jude?

Even a cursory reading of 2 Peter and Jude reveals that these two books have similarities with one another. One is surely copying from the other:

These letters show that one of the authors was dependent on the other, but who copied from whom? Michael Green[] holds that both authors quoted from a common source. However, this doesn’t pass Ockham’s Razor: We shouldn’t multiply sources beyond necessity.

Bauckham,[] Green,[] and Schreiner[] hold that 2 Peter copied from Jude. Indeed, it is the “judgment of most modern scholars, that 2 Peter is dependent on Jude.”[] Bauckham argues that Jude must have been first, because (1) he uses carefully crafted language and (2) he uses rapid fire allusions to the OT. These evidences imply that Jude was the original and refined letter, while 2 Peter was a rougher version that copied from it. Yet this doesn’t seem convincing in our estimation.

First, the longer and more elaborate version is typically secondary. Usually, an author will elaborate on a shorter manuscript, but it is unusual for him to shorten an earlier account. Bauckham himself admits this when he writes, “There are cases where a more complex literary work is based on a simpler one, and a priori that might even seem a more likely procedure, but consideration of this particular case seems to indicate that it must be one in which the more complex work is prior.”[]

Second, the Greek is far more polished in Jude than in 2 Peter. Why would a later author make the Greek less polished if he was quoting from an earlier letter? Incidentally, this evidence is a staple for Markan priority.

Third, Jude seems to cite directly from 2 Peter 3:3, which he considers an apostolic letter. Compare Jude and 2 Peter:

(Jude 17-18) “You, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’”

(2 Pet. 3:3) “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts.”

Regarding this interplay, R. Laird Harris writes, “In Jude vs. 17 and 18 there is a passage where there is a quotation of another book. The relation between other verses in Jude and 2 Peter 2 has been much discussed as to which depended on the other, but Jude 17 and 18 give the words of 2 Peter 3:3 almost verbatim and claim that it was foretold by apostles. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Jude was quoting 2 Peter as the authoritative word of an apostle.”[]

We agree with the assessment of scholars like Daniel Wallace[] and R. Laird Harris[] who argue that 2 Peter precedes Jude. Many critical scholars seem to prefer Jude’s priority because otherwise he would be referring to 2 Peter as a genuine, apostolic letter (Jude 17). Since most modern scholars (Bauckham included) deny Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, it seems that they resist this conclusion. Indeed, Daniel Wallace[] thinks that there is a “presupposition of inauthenticity for 2 Peter” that drives the view that Jude preceded 2 Peter. Of course, this presupposition cannot be pressed uniformly; after all, conservative scholars like Green or Schreiner don’t hold this view. But Wallace’s assessment would apply to the majority of Petrine scholars who reject 2 Peter as a forgery. In this case, the consensus is only as good as the presuppositions that undergird it. We affirm that Peter wrote 2 Peter, and understand this as the letter to which Jude refers in verses 17-18 (see “Introduction to 1 & 2 Peter”).

Date

We can give some general boundaries to this letter, but overall, Jude is very difficult to date.

Jude’s citation of 2 Peter would imply a date after AD 68. Jude expects his readers to recall the words of 2 Peter 3:3, because he cites Peter’s work (Jude 17-18). This would mean that he was writing after the other apostles wrote their works—specifically, 2 Peter (as we argued above). Since Peter wrote at the end of his life (2 Pet. 1:14), this would date Jude sometime after AD 67-68.

What about the Jewish War? (AD 66-70) The difficulty is that this would mean that Jude was writing to the church after the horror of the Jewish War (AD 66-70). Yet, Jude doesn’t mention anything about this, nor does he mention anything about suffering. At the same time, this evidence isn’t definitive. After all, early church history tells us that the Jewish Christians fled the destruction of Jerusalem. For instance, Epiphanius (4th c.) wrote, “The Nazoraean sect exists in Beroea… Pella, and in Bashan… That is where the sect began, when all the disciples were living in Pella after they moved from Jerusalem, since Christ told them to leave Jerusalem and withdraw because it was about to be besieged” (Panarion 29:7:7-8). Likewise, Eusebius (4th c.) stated, “The people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella” (Church History, 3.5.3).

Why does Jude refer to his brother James would’ve been already dead? (AD 62) Jude mentions his brother James (Jude 1), but he doesn’t mention his death (which occurred in ~AD 62). If James had already died at the writing of this letter, then Jude probably would have referred to him as “blessed,” “good,” or “the just,” which was the typical title given to James after his death (Hegesippus, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.23.4; Gospel of Thomas 21). Thus, Bauckham writes, “Jude must be dated before James’s martyrdom in a.d. 62. But this cannot be regarded as a very conclusive argument.”[]

Perhaps Bauckham is right. However, it’s also possible that Jude was writing to this orphaned church who knew James very well. And if they knew him well, then Jude wouldn’t need to explicitly tell them that James was martyred—for indeed, they would’ve already known this. Moreover, we don’t know how much time passed before these titles ascribed to James became standardized. And even if they did become standardized, how do we know that James’ brother would’ve used them?

Conclusion. The data are admittedly confusing and conflicting. However, if we had to guess, we would date this letter sometime after AD 70.

Canonicity

The universal church was slow to accept Jude as Scripture. Jude’s letter was “accepted widely in the West and in Alexandria,” but the “Syrian churches were slow to acknowledge its canonicity.”[] Yet this was quite common. The churches in Syria were far more conservative than those in Alexandria, and they only added books after intense scrutiny. In fact, the Syrian church didn’t fully accept Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation until the 6th century! At the same time, many Christians accepted this letter as Scripture:

• Many Christians cited Jude in the second century. We see many “references or echoes of Jude in the writings of the fathers, including the second-century Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras, Polycarp, and Clement, as well as the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas.”[]

• The Muratorian Canon (AD 180) affirms the canonicity of Jude.

• Tertullian (AD 200) cites Jude (On the Apparel of Women3).

• Clement of Alexandra (AD 200) wrote a commentary on Jude (Church History14.1), and he may have considered it inspired Scripture.[]

• Origen (AD 250) recognized that Jude was disputed (Commentary on John6), but he still called Jude 6 “Holy Scripture” (Commentary on Romans 3.6). He stated that Jude “wrote a letter of few lines, it is true, but filled with the powerful words of heavenly grace” (Commentary on Matthew 10.17). Origen was sure of its canonicity (Hom. Jos. 7.1; Hom. Gen. 6.115-116).

• Eusebius (4th century) writes, “It is to be observed that its authenticity is denied since few of the ancients quote it, as is also the case with the epistle called Jude’s which is itself one of the seven called Catholic; nevertheless we know that these letters have been used publicly with the rest in most churches.”[] Eusebius stated that the letter “disputed,” but it was widely read in the churches (Ecclesiastical History, 2.23.25; 3.25.3; 6.13.6; 6.14.1).

• Jerome (AD 400’s) affirmed the inspiration of Jude, but he stated that the letter was disputed because it cited 1 Enoch (Lives of Illustrious Men, 4). Indeed, Green writes, “Whatever doubts were entertained about the authenticity of Jude did not appear to have any other root cause apart from its use of apocryphal sources.”[] Incidentally, Tertullian solved this problem by claiming that 1 Enoch was inspired Scripture! (On the Apparel of Women3)

In short, the canonicity of Jude rests upon his citation of apocryphal sources. Since we have good answers to this difficulty, we see no reason to question Jude’s inspiration. Indeed, many early Christians accepted Jude as Scripture.