Jude, part 2

You can read the book of Jude here. There are no chapters. I will also be checking each verse against the interlinear Greek. You can do that on bible hub also.

The first section of the letter is labelled "The sin and doom of godless men" in my study bible. Sounds ominous. Jude says he is writing to these nonspecific people because he is worried that godless men who have secretly slipped in among them. In the NIV, these bad people were supposedly written about long ago, but Jude doesn't tell us where or when. The study bible does plenty of speculation, however. Also, if you look at other translations it is not translated as being "written beforehand." Instead it speaks of men who were designated (predestined?) for condemnation long ago. If Jude is written by a Jew to Jews, he might be referring to the Jewish sect known as "the way", later called christianity.

In verse 4, some insiders are accused of changing the grace of god (there's the word grace again) into a license for immorality. They also deny Jesus is the only sovereign and Lord. This sounds very similar to what many christians say about atheists today. "You don't believe in god because you just want to sin." In this case, it would seem that some people in the sect that we would call early christianity did not  believe Jesus had any kind of authority over them.

However, if you consider Jude might have been written by a Jew to Jews, not christians, all you have to do is take out the words "Jesus Christ" and verse 4 would still make sense, except it would be talking about god as the sovereign lord. The writer of Jude could very well be telling Jews that just because god has been gracious enough to make them a holy people, doesn't mean they don't have to obey him via the law of Moses.

Verse 5 says "Though you already know all this, (they would know it if they were Jews), I want to remind you that the lord at one time delivered his people (the Hebrews/ancestors of the Jews) out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe." The lord in this verse must be referring to yahweh/god. This would make the previous word lord in verse 4 confusing, if it was referring to Jesus. Are there two lords in this book or one? The ESV fixed the problem by replacing the word lord with Jesus. But even a child in Sunday school could tell you Jesus was not the one who delivered his people out of Egypt.

Verse 6 says, "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling--these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day." This is a unique teaching in the New Testament, found elsewhere only in 2 Peter, another highly disputed text. Scholars have noted similarities in Jude and 2 Peter, and suspect that the 2 Peter author used the Jude text as a reference. 2 Peter is an obviously Christian text. I have come to believe Jude is not. A very interesting tidbit is that this verse appears to draw from a Jewish writing called the book of Enoch. The book of Enoch was written at least 300 years BCE. Part of it tells the story of the supposed fallen angels. It is clear that Jude drew from the book in this verse, but my study bible does not mention that at all. That is an interesting ommission. The author of 2 Peter could also have concievably drawn from the Enoch text. There is no way to know. What is clear from reading the linked articles,  is that the concept of fallen angels was a Jewish cultural myth that made its way into mainstream Christianity. Fascinating stuff.

More to come.