Jude's Apocalyptic Eschatology as Theological Exclusivism

By William R. Wilson

In early Judaism and Christianity, the apocalypse genre and related apocalyptic materials shared a common ideology that can be identified as apocalyptic eschatology. Religious communities employed apocalyptic eschatology in order to resist theological pluralism as it encroached upon them. Writers were capable of utilizing apocalyptic eschatology

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fontes Press
• Release date: Aug 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781948048590

William R. Wilson

William Renay Wilson II (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek at Luther Rice College and Seminary.

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Studies in Jewish and Christian Literature

Messiah and the Throne, Timo Eskola

Defilement and Purgation in the Book of Hebrews, William G. Johnsson

Father, Son, and Spirit in Romans 8, Ron C. Fay

Within the Veil, Félix H. Cortez

Jude’s Apocalyptic Eschatology as Theological Exclusivism, William Renay Wilson II

Jude’s Apocalyptic Eschatology as Theological Exclusivism

Jude’s Apocalyptic Eschatology

as Theological Exclusivism

William Renay Wilson II

Fontes

Jude’s Apocalyptic Eschatology as Theological Exclusivism

Copyright © 2021 by William Renay Wilson II

ISBN-13: 978-1-948048-49-1 (hardback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-948048-50-7 (paperback)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

FONTES PRESS

DALLAS, TX

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Contents

Abbreviations ix

Preface xv

Introduction 1

1. Jude: Survey of Research 5

Textual Criticism 5

Tradition/Source/Literary Criticism 9

Old Testament 9

1 Enoch 9

Testament of Moses 12

Christian Tradition 12

2 Peter 13

Rhetorical Criticism 14

Form 14

Structure 15

Style 17

Author, Date, Destination 19

Opponents 24

Conclusion 27

2. Apocalyptic Eschatology in Judaism and Early Christianity 29

Apocalypse 30

Apocalyptic Eschatology 33

Pluralistic Context 35

Pre-exilic Period 36

Exilic Period 37

Hellenistic Period 39

Hasmonean Period 40

Roman Period 41

Ideological Function 43

Community Identification 43

Explanation of Opposition 44

Encouragement for the Faithful 44

Community Preservation and Control 44

Elements of Exclusivism 45

Dualism 45

Determinism 48

Pessimism 49

Judgment 50

Paraenesis 52

Redeemer/Judge 54

Conclusion 55

3. Apocalyptic Eschatology in Jude 57

Pluralistic Context 57

Community Infiltration 58

Ethical and Theological Antinomianism 59

Ideological Function 63

Community Identification 64

Explanation of Opposition 65

Encouragement for the Faithful 65

Community Preservation and Control 66

Elements of Exclusivism 66

Authority 66

Dualism 69

Determinism 72

Pessimism 77

Judgment 79

Paraenesis 86

Redeemer/Judge 89

Conclusion 93

4. Jude’s Apocalyptic Eschatology as Theological Exclusivism 95

Jude’s Pluralistic Opponents 98

Jude’s Theological Exclusivism 103

Authority 103

Dualism 104

Determinism 105

Pessimism 105

Judgment 106

Paraenesis 107

Redeemer/Judge 107

Conclusion 108

Conclusion 109

Bibliography 115

Index 149

Abbreviations

Preface

My interest in Jude began with a personal burden for the contemporary church’s theological integrity. It seemed to me that many professing Christians uncritically adopt a postmodern passion for tolerance and autonomy that refuses to tolerate specific New Testament teaching. Concepts such as doctrine, sin, heresy, and even truth have become new profanities, divisive and brutish ideas best abandoned in the race toward enlightenment. What I found in Jude was a self-contained and neglected textual unit that addresses my concerns with stunning, though controversial, clarity. It is my hope that this study of God’s Word will encourage those who love the truth and embolden them to lovingly guard and proclaim it regardless of the consequences.

My thanks are due to Todd Scacewater at Fontes Press for agreeing to publish such a narrowly focused study and to Craig V. Mitchell for introducing us. I am deeply grateful for my parents, Charles and Jackie Shore, who took a risk in the Winter of 1987 by welcoming home a troubled prodigal. Their faith, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice led me to the Savior, sheltered me from the storm, and continue to model love. I could not have completed this study without the faithful friendship of the late Dr. Raymond Bernard Spencer, my true brother. To my excellent wife, Lori, I dedicate this monograph. The teaching of kindness is always on her lips, and her husband trusts in her.

Above all, I wish to thank the Lord Jesus Christ, my Hope. To him belong all glory, majesty, dominion, and authority forever. Amen.

William Renay Wilson II

Introduction

The epistle of Jude has suffered a general neglect since the formative stages of New Testament canon related debate.¹ Influential voices belittled Jude’s significance, propagating during the Reformation² and into the modern period what would become a near consensus of scholarly disdain.³ According to its critics, Jude’s epistle, the least creative in the New Testament,⁴ demonstrates more zeal than ability⁵ and provides only post-apostolic inflammatory rhetoric⁶ penned by an ecclesiastical⁷ zealot.

At the heart of historical critical contempt for Jude lies the charge of its early Catholicism.⁸ Jude’s unflagging commitment to an objective faith once for all delivered to the saints (v. 3) and to the words spoken in advance by the apostles (v. 17) supposedly presents clear evidence of a post-apostolic concern for formulaic doctrinal precision.⁹ Once European, primarily German, exegetes concluded the Catholic epistles had corrupted pristine Pauline theology,¹⁰ Jude and the others were effectively excluded from the canon within the canon.¹¹ As academic interest gradually increases however,¹² more accurate and comprehensive exegetical understandings of Jude’s provenance and theology reveal its profound relevance for the twenty-first-century church.¹³

The contemporary church faces a cultural climate that aggressively prescribes pluralism as the only legitimate worldview.¹⁴ Such pluralism contends that all theological perspectives are in contact with the same ultimate religious reality, and all of them offer paths to salvation or liberation that are, as far as anyone can tell, equally effective in producing transformations from self-centeredness to reality-centeredness.¹⁵ Notions of truth, error, authority, and the distinctiveness of Christian doctrine are therefore automatically suspect¹⁶—abrasive specters of defunct modern theologizing and incompatible with the emergent postmodern spirit of freedom and tolerance.¹⁷ Elements within the church itself have embraced a pluralistic bias, demanding that the fictive elements of Scripture be responded to with an immediacy and freedom often denied to ‘sacred texts,’ weighed down by theological preconception or prejudice.¹⁸ An interpretive syncretism now lauds every point of view as equally acceptable: None privileged and all equally valid … [The future of biblical interpretation] will be a veritable paradise of (non)aggressive differing-but-equal biblical readings in which every man and every woman will sit under their own vine and fig tree undisturbed by any point of view alien to themselves.¹⁹ Such radical hospitality or radical inclusiveness is quickly disintegrating into an ideal gospel that openly accommodates immorality.²⁰

Jude and his audience faced comparable invasive pluralism from professing Christians willing to declare their Christian identity (vv. 4, 12–13) while simultaneously fusing it with theological and ethical antinomianism.²¹ Rather than capitulate to dissidents who from their positions of leadership²² undoubtedly campaigned for tolerance, Jude condemned those who violated the received worldview,²³ the faith once for all delivered to the saints (v. 3). This theologically exclusive reaction is multi-dimensional, operating on the macro and micro levels to affirm the legitimacy of only one religion and its specific doctrinal formulations.²⁴ In order to advance his polemic Jude employed the key presuppositions of a Judeo-Christian apocalyptic eschatology²⁵ that is itself an exclusionary correction of aggressive theological pluralism. The following study will attempt, therefore, to examine Jude in terms of its worldview, endeavoring to identify within the epistle any major themes that accurately reflect both Jewish and Christian historical and theological contexts. This process of contextual comparison and thematic distillation will reveal a cluster of worldview non-negotiables that directly addresses parallel challenges faced by Jude’s ancient readers and the contemporary church.

Chapter 1 will attempt to summarize and evaluate recent progress in research relevant to Jude. Chapter 2 serves as a foundational effort at exploring and clarifying a categorical framework for interpreting the apocalyptic eschatology in Jude. Chapter 3 will endeavor to interpret Jude in terms of its pronounced apocalyptic eschatological worldview. Chapter 4 will investigate the implications of Jude’s worldview for the church confronted by a similar influx of theological pluralism. Finally, the conclusion will synthesize insights from the study and assess their contribution to the understanding of Jude.

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1 Eusebius (ca. A.D. 260–339), in a statement relating to the canonical status of James reports some difficulties with Jude: It should be noted that [the Epistle according to James] is in fact rejected, since not many of the ancient ones mention it. The same is true for that which is called Jude, itself one among the seven so called catholic epistles (The Ecclesiastical History 2.23.25 [Lake, LCL]). Jerome (ca. A.D. 346–420), in Lives of Illustrious Men 4, discloses the specific issue that prompted doubt and discussion surrounding Jude’s canonicity: Jude the brother of James, left a short epistle … and because in it he quotes from the apocryphal book Enoch it is rejected by many (NPNF2 3:362).

2 Martin Luther concluded that the letter does not contain anything special beyond pointing to 2 Peter (The Catholic Epistles, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen, vol. 30 [Concordia Publishing House, 1967], 203). See the synopsis of Luther’s position in the German summary of C. A. Albin’s Swedish work Judasbrevet: Traditionen Texten Tolkningen (Natur och Kultur, 1962), 713–4.

3 Richard Bauckham, The Letter of Jude: A Survey of Research, in Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (T&T Clark, 1990), 134–5; Douglas J. Rowston, The Most Neglected Book in the New Testament, NTS 21, no. 4 (1975): 554–63; Birger A. Pearson, James, 1–2 Peter, Jude, in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. Eldon Jay Epp and George W. MacRae (Fortress Press, 1989), 385–8. With regard to content, [Jude and 2 Peter] are not very important … and are valuable only as exercises for literary-critical observations (Hans Conzelmann, Interpreting the New Testament: An Introduction to the Principles and Methods of N. T. Exegesis, trans. Siegfried S. Schatzmann [Hendrickson, 1988], 274).

4 R. H. Fuller, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament (Duckworth, 1966), 161.

5 Adolf Jülicher, An Introduction to the New Testament, trans. Janet Penrose Ward (Smith, Elder, 1904), 230.

6 Frederick Wisse, The Epistle of Jude in the History of Heresiology, in Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts in Honour of Alexander Böhlig, NHS 3 (E. J. Brill, 1972), 134; Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, rev. ed., trans. Howard Clark Kee (Abingdon Press, 1973), 426–7.

7 Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling, for example, assign Jude to an emergent institutional Christianity (The New Testament - An Introduction: Proclamation and Paraenesis, Myth and History, 2nd ed. [Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982], 379).

8 For general definitions of early Catholicism emphasizing the de-eschatologizing of apostolic Christianity see Martin Werner, The Formation of Christian Dogma: An Historical Study of Its Problem, trans. S. G. F. Brandon (Adam and Charles Black, 1957), 297.

9 K. H. Schelkle, Spätapostolische Briefe als frühkatholisches Zeugnis, in Neutestamentliche Aufsätze: Festschrift für Professor Josef Schmid, ed. J. Blinzler, O. Kuss, and F. Mußner (Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1963), 225–6; W. Schrage, Der Judasbrief, NTD 10, Die Katholischen Briefe: Die Briefe des Jakobus, Petrus, Johannes und Judas (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1980), 228; Daniel J. Harrington, The ‘Early Catholic’ Writings of the New Testament: The Church Adjusting to World-History, in The Word in the World: Essays in Honor of Frederick L. Moriarty, ed. Richard J. Clifford and George W. MacRae (Weston College Press, 1973), 107; James Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, 2nd ed. (Trinity Press International, 1990), 341, 345, 361–2.

10 Ernst Käsemann, The New Testament Canon and the Unity of the Church, in Essays on New Testament Themes, trans. W. J. Montague (SCM Press, 1964), 102–3; Günther Bornkamm, The New Testament: A Guide to Its Writings, trans. Reginald H. Fuller and Ilse Fuller (Fortress Press, 1973), 127. According to Vincent Taylor, Jude’s mere denunciation of opponents can be contrasted negatively with Paul’s noteworthy methodology (The Message of the Epistles: Second Peter and Jude, ExpTim 45 no. 10 (1934): 439.

11 Because, in Kurt Aland’s opinion, the NT canon is "in practice undergoing a narrowing and a shortening, the Church and the academy should endeavor to discover the correct principles of selection from the formal Canon and of its interpretation with the purpose of achieving a common, actual Canon" (The Problem of the New Testament Canon [A. R. Mowbray, 1962], 28, 30). The title of Werner Georg Kümmel’s work is particularly suggestive: The Theology of the New Testament according to Its Major Witnesses: Jesus – Paul – John, trans. John E. Steely (Abingdon Press, 1973). Cf. the rebuttals in Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Clarendon Press, 1987), 275–82, and F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 1988), 270–83.

12 See Peter Müller, Der Judasbrief, TRu 63, no. 3 (1998): 267: In den letzten Jahren … die Forschung ist intensiv weitergeführt worden (In recent years … the research has continued with intensity, my translation).

13 See especially Herbert W. Bateman IV’s Application and Devotional Implications sections in Jude, EEC (Lexham Press, 2015).

14 Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (Simon and Schuster, 1987), 25–6; D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Zondervan, 1996), 19.

15 Kevin Meeker and Philip L. Quinn, Introduction: The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, in The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2000), 3.

16 Alister McGrath, A Passion for Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism (InterVarsity Press, 1996), 228.

17 Brian Ingraffia, Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 6.

18 David Jasper, Literary Readings of the Bible, in The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, ed. John Barton (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 26.

19 Robert Carroll, Poststructuralist Approaches: New Historicism and Postmodernism, in The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, ed. John Barton (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 62. Cf. Grant R. Osborne’s critique of reader-oriented hermeneutics (The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation [InterVarsity Press, 1991], 366–415).

20 Carolyn Riehl, Pulpit Fiction: Lives and Perspectives of Gay and Lesbian Persons Serving in the ELCA’s Ordained Ministry, CurTM 27, no. 1 (2000): 28.

21 Cf. their licentiousness, anti-authoritarian biases, and general self-indulgence (vv. 4, 8, 10, 12).

22 Cf. v. 12 and the pastoral shepherding motif.

23 Cf. vv. 4, 8, 10, 16, 19.

24 Kevin Meeker and Philip L. Quinn, Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, 3.

25 Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Word Books, 1983), 8–11.

Chapter 1

Jude: Survey of Research

Textual Criticism

Despite Jude’s brevity and its notorious textual difficulties,¹ the volume of text-critical research dedicated to Jude is steadily increasing. Charles Landon’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Stellenbosch, A Text-Critical Study of the Epistle of Jude, provides the first available systematic study of every variant issue in Jude.² Methodologically, Landon’s thoroughgoing eclecticism concentrates almost exclusively on internal evidence and generally disregards any particular reading’s antiquity or text-familial relationships.³ After a detailed analysis of 95 variation units, Landon selected 21 readings against the printed UBS⁴ text. His unique and detailed work includes in appendices a summary of variants accepted, an internal evaluation of manuscripts cited consistently, and his eclectic Greek text