Does Jude Attack Pauline Christians?

[00:00:01] Does Jude Attack Pauline Christians? [00:00:05] Written by Bart Ehrman Read by Ken Teutch in my previous two posts, I've tried to show why the short letter of Jude appears to be forged in the name of Jesus own brother Jude. That naturally leads to the question of why someone would do that, not just in general. Why write a forgery? There were lots of early Christian forgeries, just as there were lots of Jewish, Greek and Roman forgeries, all done for a range of reasons which I lay out in my book Forged. [00:00:36] But why was this particular book forged and when and how would we know? [00:00:42] I deal with that problem here based on and sometimes lifting from my discussion in my book Forgery and Counter Forgery, Oxford University Press, 2013 reworked and reworded to avoid some of the crazy jargon and in house talk that scholars often use in order to show that they are scholars. [00:01:03] It would be helpful first, though, to summarize what I'm going to try to demonstrate. [00:01:10] The book of Jude was forged at the end of the first century in order to combat a form of Pauline Christianity that the unknown author found rather hideous. That is, it is opposed to views adopted by Paul's followers, as evidenced already in some of the later deutero Pauline letters already found in the New Testament. [00:01:30] That's not the sort of purpose for this book one would probably expect from just reading it quickly or even slowly. [00:01:37] So what makes me think so? [00:01:40] This will take two posts. [00:01:43] As we have seen, the Epistle of Jude presents an outpouring of invective against a group of persons who have allegedly infiltrated the Christian community, wreaking havoc in their wake. In the influential view of early Christianity scholar Frederick Visser, the heresy promoted by these persons has no real substance, that is, there aren't any details about what they actually say and do. These persons are accused of being wildly licentious and of denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. [00:02:17] The author claims that their behavior shows that the predictions of the apostles have come to pass, that the readers are indeed living in the last time, verse 17. [00:02:28] It appears to be absolutely right that the author of this short piece of polemic must grossly exaggerate the character of his opponents. As Visa says, it is beyond belief that persons of this description could have been accepted and tolerated in a Christian congregation, much less have slipped in unnoticed. But Visse probably goes too far in claiming that the author would have not written pseudonymously to an unspecified group of readers if he had wanted to address a specific problem. It is often the case that forged documents attack specific problems and deal with concrete issues. Moreover, we can indeed say some things more concretely about the views of these enemies to the true faith once delivered to the saints. [00:03:14] For one thing, the opponents are portrayed as having come from the outside and having infiltrated the community. [00:03:22] It is not at all clear that we should accept this claim that they came from the outside. [00:03:27] An author might well claim so in order not to concede that the truth was perverted from the inside. [00:03:34] But that the opponents were eventually inside the community should at least be clear. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain the author's vexation. [00:03:43] Modern interpreters have taken the portrayal of the enemies as licentious reprobates to two equally unlikely extremes. Some have discounted all of the language of moral iniquity and claimed that modern interpreters have read licentiousness into the book instead of out of it. [00:04:01] That is, these scholars argue that if you read the text carefully, there actually aren't any real claims of moral impropriety on the part of the intruders. For my part, I don't think that's true at all. Whatever else the author wanted to say about his opponents, charges of antinomium, that is lawless and immoral behavior, figure prominently. Just see the very words used in verses 4, 8, 12, 13, 16, and 18. [00:04:31] The other insists that the author is concerned with antinomianism and nothing but antinomianism, that there is no substance to his critique, that there actually isn't any substantive issue involved. This view overlooks other charges leveled against the opponents, for example, that they are said to deny Christ, to revile glorious ones, to follow the error of Balaam and the rebellion of Korah, and to be grumblers, boasters, and flatterers, none of which necessarily involves licentious lifestyles. [00:05:10] My view is that something more specific about the enemy's alleged antinomian behavior is Suggested by verse 4. [00:05:18] They alter the grace in the Greek Charis of our God into licentiousness. In other words, they take the teaching of grace too far, thinking that the Christian religion is all about grace, not about how one lives for them in the judgment of their opponent, the author. Antinomian living is a consequence of the teaching of grace. [00:05:42] In an earlier period, Paul, himself an advocate of Charis, was accused of holding a view like this, as seen in the letter to the Romans, where he has to defend himself against it, just as some claim that we say led us to evil so that good might come. [00:06:01] Paul naturally denies the charge, but one can see how it might be taken by others to be the logical conclusion of his teaching of divine grace and the justifying effect of faith apart from works of the law. [00:06:14] But the charge makes even better sense against later forms of Paulinism, such as that represented in the book of Ephesians, a forgery that states quite explicitly that one is saved not by doing good deeds, but solely by the grace of God. For you have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves it is the gift of God, not from works, so that no one may boast. [00:06:40] Ephesians 2, 89 the author of Ephesians takes Paul's teaching on faith and grace a step beyond Paul in indicating that good behavior can have no bearing on being saved. It's a point worth emphasizing here. I don't need to do so in my book written for Scholars, that this idea that a person does not have to do good works is not at all what Paul talks about when he stresses that no one can be justified before God by the way works of the law. [00:07:11] There he is referring specifically to the requirements of the Jewish law, the Torah, such as circumcision and keeping kosher, not about behaving well and doing good works. The later author of Ephesians, claiming to be Paul, takes up a different line and blasts the idea of having to do good works as opposed to fulfilling the requirements of the Jewish law. [00:07:34] It is this latter view, not Paul's argument itself, that the author of Jude appears to be attacking. [00:07:41] But the opponents Jude is attacking allegedly take the matter a step further, still arguing, he asserts, that antinomian activities, actively sinful lives demonstrate the full grace of God, which alone brings salvation. See how gracious God is. He'll save you by faith, even if you are an immoral cretin. [00:08:03] I will continue these reflections in the next post.