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Loading...In my previous post I explained the major themes and emphases of the letter of Jude, including some of its most intriguing and even unexpected features (e.g., quoting apocryphal tales/texts as seemingly authoritative scripture). In this post and the next I will deal with the thorny questions of who actually wrote it, when, and why.
Since it claims to be written by “Jude, the brother of James” it is traditionally been understood to have been penned by Jesus’s own brother, Jude (Mark 6:3). Is that right?
As I’ve done a few times before, I’ve decided to provide a longer and more nuanced discussion in this case about whether it is in fact a forgery. The following is drawn from my book Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford University Press, 2013). I’ve edited it in places to make it more accessible to broader audiences. This will take two posts.
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Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
My last two questions didn’t get approved. I’m assuming it’s because my subscription ran out however I have renewed again just now so hope all is okay. I’ll repost the twos questions here. Thanks.
When you say Jesus didn’t believe in separation of soul and body.
What are we to make of Matthew 10:28 that appears to show that body and soul are separate things?
Thanks.
Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
It’s not “hell” in our sense but “gehenna.” Those who are cast into gehenna (the valley outside Jersualem) will not be raised to eternal life in the kingdom. Those who are killed only in body will have the “breath” (= soul) breathed back into them and will live forever (in the body, which needs “breath” in order to be alive)
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
You say that after Jesus died that was when the majority of christians Who joined the faith were gentiles and that their views of eternal torment for the lost started because of belief in immortal soul etc.
What year or years do you think this movement took place and/or developed momentum?
Thanks.
I’m not quite clear what you’re asking. There weren’t any gentiles in the movement before Jesus died. My sense, though, is that after the first two or three decades or so, there were more gentiles converting than Jews.
Why am I not getting the text in these posts?
Send a not to “Help” and Jen will figure it out for you.
If “Jude” and “Judas” both go back to the same Greek name, why the difference in English? Is it just squeamishness? Can the difference be viewed as a deliberate falsification?
THe same reason James and Jacob go back to the same name, etc, or, I suppose, Henry and Hank can be what we call the same person. Bible translators (righly, in my view) think that if you called it “The Epistle of Judas” readers who didn’t know any better would be very surprised that Jesus’ betrayer wrote part of the NT.