The Letters of Jude and Second Peter: An Introduction and Study Guide

Paranoia and the Slaves of Christ

George Aichele

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780567671127
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This Guide surveys the more important historical, socio-cultural, theological, and literary factors we must grapple with in understanding the two letters of Jude and Second Peter, between which there are very strong similarities. It appears that the letter of Jude was almost entirely 'plagiarized' by the letter of Second Peter. George Aichele's main approach is the method of semiotics, examining signifying mechanisms in each of the texts both independently and when they are read together. In both of the letters, Jesus Christ is called the 'master', with a Greek word that means 'slave-owner', and the authors of both books refer to themselves and other Christians as the slaves of Christ. Furthermore, both writings report situations of paranoid fear within Christian communities of their time as they picture heretical infiltrators who threaten to pervert and perhaps even destroy the community.
In addition to this, in an adventurous excursion, the letter of Jude is read intertextually with the classic science fiction/horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel 1956), in order to explore the dynamics of paranoia.

1

CRITICAL ISSUES IN JUDE AND 2 PETER, OR WHAT THE MARTIAN MAY NOT KNOW

[T]he valorization of sameness always already presupposes difference as its source (Castelli 1991: 122).

[G]ood and holy men ... also breed on scraps and remain stuck to the fragments which they carry away (Deleuze 1986: 130).

Codes and Canon

The reading of any written text draws upon a variety of culturally-acquired codes or filters, through which the reader sorts the signifiers to decipher the meaning or signified of that text (see Barthes 1974). Most of these are codes of connotation, and therefore the Martian reader who was described in the Preface is largely unaware of them. As human beings, we begin to learn such codes when we learn to understand and speak our ‘native’ language(s) as infants. At first they are basic codes to decipher verbal signifiers and connect them to signified meanings. Then we learn more codes as we become increasingly immersed in the societies and culture(s) in which we are raised. We learn even more codes as we learn to read – codes required by the technologies of writing – and then still more of them, such as the ones necessary for literary, scientific, or historical understanding, through other processes of formal education.

Because of the need for such codes, no text can speak for or by itself. The meaning of any given text results from the inevitable tensions between that text and other texts which arises in the understanding of the reader. These tensions are sometimes called ‘intertextuality’, and the range of this intertextuality is always much broader than the explicit citing of one text by another. Because many of these codes reflect the reader’s ideology (which is discussed further in the Preface; see also the Glossary), in relation to reading texts, ideology takes the form of intertextuality.

These codes and processes of intertextuality direct the understanding of any written text. In regard to the Bible, the reader often draws upon codes that are grounded in cultural and other forms of knowledge more specific to her experience and understanding of Christianity, and ultimately, through her own private experience with other texts, both biblical and non-biblical. However, the most powerful influence on this reading is usually the intertext that is provided by the Bible itself, as the ‘canon of scriptures’ (see Aichele 2001). For Christian (and even many non-Christian) readers of the biblical scriptures, probably the most powerful context for understanding any of them, including the letters of 2 Peter or Jude, is provided by the Bible, understood as the single ‘Word of God’.

Desire for a Christian canon first appears in the second century CE, when Christians began to make lists of writings that were acceptable for use in worship. Apart from 2 Peter (see 3.15-16) and a few other New Testament texts such as Eph. 2.20, desire for a canon first appears with Marcion, whose own, narrow selection of texts was itself eventually rejected by other Christians, in part because Marcion rejected the Jewish scriptures. Somewhat later in that century, Irenaeus argued in favor of limiting the group of accepted gospels to only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and Origen accepted the letters of Paul, the Revelation, and several other letters (including probably 1 Peter) in addition to the four gospels. The document known as the ‘Muratorian Canon’, which is regarded by many (but not all) scholars as coming from the second century, provides a more complete list, which includes Jude but not 1 or 2 Peter.

However, it is not until the fourth century, with Eusebius and Athanasius (and perhaps also the Muratorian Canon, if it is dated later), that the entire New Testament as it is now known appears in lists of the accepted canon, and this is when the oldest more or less complete Bible manuscripts also first appear, as far as we know. Even then and for some centuries afterward, the contents of Christian Bibles (and canon lists) vary considerably. In other words, just because there is evidence of desire for a canon, it does not follow that a canon is already in place, or that a uniform Bible is widely used.

Although different Christian groups disagree about the exact extent of the canon, there is a great deal of overlap between the different canon lists. In addition, although the canon was never officially ‘closed’ by any church, most churches regard it to be effectively closed. In other words, books cannot be either removed from it or added to it, at least not by individual readers. The canonical books are identified as ‘scripture’ – that is, as more authoritative than other writings. As the list of all those books that Christians are expected to regard as worthy of reading and use in worship, the biblical canon is therefore a very powerful intertextual mechanism. The canon signifies the unity and totality of the Bible, as the ‘Word of God’. It holds the Bible together, and apart from it, there is no Bible as such – even if the books are still bound together in one cover – but merely at best a collection of books which may or may not have anything to do with one another.

The biblical canon assembles a list of specific and otherwise disparate books that should be read together, so that they may illuminate and clarify each other as they are read. Because individual written texts cannot speak by themselves, one purpose of the Christian canon is to form a complete set of texts that will in effect ‘speak for itself’, at least in the hands of faithful readers. The canonical control of meaning does not appear in the individual texts themselves but rather in the ways in which the texts are juxtaposed with one another in the reader’s interpretive practice. In this way the canon reveals the Word of God to the believing reader, directing the reader’s understanding of the books contained within it.

However, this canonical control mechanism does not always work very well, and as a result, confusion and varying interpretations are always possible, and frequently occur. Additional codes for understanding these texts are provided through the worship, teaching, and other activities of the various Christian churches, and these often include codes that come from long traditions of Christian as well as Jewish reading of the texts. Finally, modern scholarly study of the texts in their historical, literary, and cultural contexts offers even further codes for their understanding.

The ideology embedded in the intertextuality of the biblical canon frequently and heavily influences the reading of its books. That influence is often evident in the ways that readers read the letters of Jude or 2 Peter, and each of those books in turn plays an important role in the ideology associated with the Bible and the theologies derived from the Bible (see Chapter 4). The biblical canon in effect provides a field of ‘correct’ reading, authorized by Christianity. It is inherently exclusive:

The texts we call ‘the New Testament’ are collected under the sign of ‘canon’, a term oscillating between self-authorization ... and the concomitant de-authorizing of alternative knowledges which are more or less systematically degraded, debased, and eventually all but completely destroyed in the creation of the authoritative text (Castelli 1991: 49).

In other words, the canon is an exercise of Christian authority, and since ‘authority’ is a matter of great interest in both Jude and 2 Peter, along with the meaning of the ‘scriptures’, this may have influenced the decision to include each of these letters in the Bible.

Tucked away near the very end of the New Testament, the letters known as 2 Peter and Jude are so small that they are easy to miss altogether if you are flipping quickly through a Bible. Jude is divided into 25 verses and not further divided into chapters. Second Peter is divided into 61 verses, which are further divided into three chapters. These books are often ignored by biblical scholars (Martin Luther called Jude ‘a neglected letter’, see Martin 1994: 81-82, especially n.24), partly because they provide very little specific information about the communities to whom they each were addressed or about the opponents whom they each attack. However, I suspect that they are also ignored because many biblical scholars are at least a little bit embarrassed by what J.N.D. Kelly calls their ‘general mediocrity’ and ‘denunciatory tone’ (1969: 223). For although the language of each letter is striking and colorful, the general tone of both of them is one of deep fear and suspicion, not between Christians and ‘the world’ (as, for example, in 1 Peter), but within two early Christian communities.

Although both Jude and 2 Peter are now included in the canon of the scriptures, each one apparently had some difficulty getting into the it. Ancient Christian thinkers such as Tertullian, Clement, and Origen, all in the second century, regarded the letter of Jude as acceptable, but the church historian Eusebius, in the fourth century, listed the book as ‘disputed’. Jude’s problems were apparently mainly tied up with its reliance on the non-canonical book of 1 Enoch, but also with the question of its authenticity – that is, doubts regarding whether the letter had really been written by the brother of Jesus and James. This question of authenticity will be discussed further below. One of the principal criteria for a text to be considered canonical in the New Testament was its ‘apostolicity’ – that is, was the book written by one of the known apostles of Jesus, or someone closely associated with an apostle? Later, during the Protestant Reformation, Jude’s value (along with the books of Hebrews, James, and Revelation) was again questioned from various points of view by men as different as Erasmus, Luther, and Cardinal Cajetan. Luther even put Jude (as well as Hebrews, James, and Revelation) in an appendix at the end of the Bible. The letter of 2 Peter was not so much disputed as generally ignored in the ancient world, at least by commentators, but Origen had doubts about the letter and Eusebius among others rejected it (Leaney 1967: 100, Kelly 1969: 224). Near the end of the fourth century, the Christian theologian Didymus the Blind described 2 Peter as a forgery and non-canonical.

Authors, Dates, Locations

Throughout this book, I will refer to each of the authors of these letters as ‘he’, since that is evidently the gender that each of them wants to project. However, when I use the terms ‘Jude’ or ‘2 Peter’, that will be in reference to the texts of the letters, and not to the persons who wrote them. Each letter begins with a clear statement of its author’s name and his claim to authority (‘brother of’, ‘apostle of’). Nevertheless, both the authorship of Jude and that of 2 Peter have been in doubt ever since at least the second century, and they still are.

The letter of Jude’s author begins by identifying himself as ‘a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James’, and this may not seem like much help, since both ‘Jude’ (Ioudas, Judas or Judah) and ‘James’ (Iakōbos, Jacob) were very common men’s name in Jewish families, as was ‘Jesus’ (Iēsous, Yeshua or Joshua). There may well have been many sets of brothers named Judas and Jacob in the first centuries of the Common Era. Luke 6.16 lists ‘Judas the son of James’ as one of the disciples (see also Acts 1.13), and several other Judases are mentioned in the New Testament, including most famously, Judas Iscariot.

However, there was one very well known Judas–Jacob pairing in the early Christian movement, and that was Jude and James, the brothers of Jesus (Matt. 13.55; Mark 6.3; see also Matt. 27.56; Mark 15.40). The introduction to the non-canonical gospel of Thomas identifies its writer as ‘Didymos Judas Thomas’, implying perhaps that Judas was the twin brother of Jesus (see Cameron 1982: 23-24). It is widely assumed that the opening of the letter of Jude implies that its author is no less than the brother of the messiah, Jesus, as well as of James. According to the Acts of the Apostles, James was a leader of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem, after the death of Jesus (12.17; 15.13; 21.18), and this understanding is supported also in the letters of Paul (1 Cor. 15.7; Gal. 1.19; 2.9, 12) as well as the gospel of Thomas (12). According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Jesus’ brother James was martyred in Jerusalem in the year 62. However, apart from the letter of Jude and a minor tradition about his descendants, Jesus’ brother Jude is not alluded to any further (but see 1 Cor. 9.5).

Biblical scholars are divided between those who believe that the brother of Jesus did really write this letter (see Bauckham 1983: 14-16) and who tend to date the letter to the middle of the first century CE (when that brother might still have been alive), and those who are very doubtful or deny outright that the letter was written by the brother of Jesus, and who tend to date the letter considerably later, at the end of the first century or in the second century. The former group of scholars also tend to be conservative Christians who for theological reasons argue that the Bible is reliable and accurate (or even infallible) in what it says, and perhaps because of this, they tend to read these letters in a more positive light. The latter group tend to be more liberal Christians or non-Christians who are not commited to the inerrancy of the biblical texts, and who are also less likely to be charitable in their treatment of this letter.

If the author of Jude is identifying himself to be the brother of James and Jesus, then the opening of the letter immediately raises questions, for the author does not call himself the brother of Jesus, but rather ‘a servant [doulos, slave] of Jesus Christ’ (1.1; see Leaney 1967: 81-82). The author is not being modest here (although the early theologian Clement of Alexandria suggested as much), for he does not hesitate to claim the derived authority of being the brother of James. The New Testament letter of James, which is traditionally attributed to James the brother of Jesus but also widely thought to be pseudonymous, similarly begins with its author claiming to be ‘James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ’, although in James there is no mention of any brothers.

Perhaps to claim the status of brother to the ‘Master and Lord’, as Jude 4 calls Jesus, would be saying too much. Jude’s self-identification may even reflect some notion that Jesus was miraculously conceived, as in the story in Lk. 1.26-38 (see also 3.23), and therefore that neither its author nor his brother James could be Jesus’ full brothers. The gospel of Luke does not list the names of Jesus’ brothers (see 8.19-20), and the Acts of the Apostles (widely believed to be Luke’s sequel) does not identify James as a relative of Jesus.

However, neither the gospel of Matthew, which hints at the virginal conception of Jesus (1.18, 20), nor Mark, which does not, gives any indication of that belief in their lists of Jesus’ brothers, both of which include James and Jude. Furthermore, that Jude’s author believes in the virginal conception of Jesus seems doubtful for other reasons (see below and Chapter 2). Perhaps Jude and James are just another set of brothers with the same names, in which case the identification may have helped when the letter was first circulated, if the recipients knew them, but it is now of no value or even misleading.

In addition, it is doubtful that the letter was written by Jesus’ brother Jude for other reasons. This letter is written in elegant Greek, ‘closely woven in artistic shape’ (Martin 1994: 67), and therefore suggesting a relatively well-educated author. If Jesus’ brothers were the sons of a Galilean carpenter (so Matt. 13.55), they were probably not literate. Although it was not impossible for a Galilean peasant to become a skilled writer of fluent Greek, it is more probable that if a brother of Jesus knew Greek at all, it would be rather limited, ad hoc Greek, since Galileans were sometimes in contact with Greek-speaking people (as in Mark 7.26). Perhaps more decisively, the letter of Jude refers to ‘the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v. 17) not as the friends or associates of his own brothers but as though they are other people, perhaps in the past (Kelly 1969: 281; see also 354), and both Jude and 2 Peter seem to reflect a time period in which Christian doctrine has become relatively settled – it has become ‘the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3) – even though the particular doctrine(s) in question may not always be clear to the reader. This would suggest a date in the second century, when Jesus’ brothers would very likely be dead.

In addition, Jude shows little or no evident interest in an impending destruction of the world, a theme that often appears (although in various ways) in the earliest Christian writings, and if ‘the last time’ in Jude 18 suggests a time when the imminent return of Christ was no longer expected (see Kelly 1969: 282-83), then it also implies a writing date at or after the end of the first century. Finally, a relatively late date is also suggested by the absence from either Jude or 2 Peter of any hint of tension between Jews and gentiles in relation to the Christian movement, which plays a large role in Paul’s writings and is at least a factor in each of the gospels. There is no evidence to support any specific location for the writing of the letter of Jude, although speculation tends to favor a more or less ‘Jewish Ch...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Editor
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgment
• Note
• Preface: The View from Mars
• Glossary
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Bibliography
• Subject Index
• Author Index
• eCopyright