Jude Introduction-Form and Structure and Text of Jude
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday March 31, 2022
Jude Series: Form and Structure and Text of Jude
Lesson # 4
Following the form of a first century A.D. epistle, the epistle of Jude begins with an opening which identifies the author and the recipients of this letter in verse 1 and a greeting in verse 2.
The body of the letter begins in verses 3-4 with verse 3 identifying the purpose of the letter and verse 4 identifying the problem which prompted this purpose, which we noted briefly in our introduction.
The problem Jude was dealing with was the Zealots or Sicarii who were Jewish revolutionaries who were stridently opposing Roman rule in Judaea and were attempting to persuade all Jews including the Jewish Christian community in Judaea to follow in their rebellion against Rome.
In Jude 3, Jude exhorts the recipients of this letter to contend for the Christian faith or that body of doctrine taught by Jesus and His apostles and considered orthodoxy by the church.
Then, in verse 4, Jude warns the recipients of the letter that these Zealots have infiltrated their meetings and were teaching to rebel against the Roman civil authorities and living ungodly lives.
Verses 5-19 assert that these Zealots will be judged.
In verses 5-7, Jude reminds the recipients of the letter by presenting three examples in Old Testament of God judging those who habitually practice ungodliness.
The first of these examples is the apostate believers of the Exodus generation in verse 5.
The second example appears in verse 6 and speaks of the fallen angels of Genesis 6:1-4 who are identified in this passage as “the sons of God.”
In this passage, they are described as having sex with unregenerate women during the Antediluvian.
They were judged by God with the flood during the days of Noah.
The third example is presented in verse 7 and speaks of God judging the unregenerate citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Then, verses 8-10 describe these Zealots as those who reject angelic authority.
In these verses, Jude asserts that unlike the elect angel Michael who did not slander Satan when arguing over the body of Moses after his death.
In verse 11, Jude pronounces judgment about these Zealots.
In this verse, he describes them as following the example Cain and the greed of Balaam and that they will perish as those in Korah’s rebellion against Moses.
Jude goes on to describe these Zealots in verses 12-13.
In verses 14-16, Jude describes the Second Advent of Jesus Christ when He will at that time judge every unregenerate human being on planet earth.
The implication is that the Zealots or Sicarii will also be judged by Jesus Christ at His Second Advent.
This would also indicate that Jude believed that the Second Advent was imminent because he is teaching in these verses that the Zealots will be judged at the Second Advent.
Of course, the rapture must take place first in order for the seventieth week of Daniel to take place, which ends with the Second Advent (cf. 2 Thess. 2:1-12).
Therefore, Jude 5-16 makes clear that these Zealots are unregenerate since Christ only judges the unregenerate at His Second Advent.
The closing of the body of the epistle of Jude appears in verses 17-19.
In these verses, Jude reminds the recipients of the apostles’ teaching that in the end time, there will be unregenerate people who will be scoffers and driven by their own sinful desires who are divisive and deceived by Satan’s cosmic world system.
Then, in verses 20-23, Jude exhorts the recipients of the letter to build themselves up spiritually by means of their most holy faith and by praying by means of the Holy Spirit so that they maintain themselves in the practice of the love of God while anticipating the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ which brings eternal life.
Also, in these verses, Jude commands the recipients to have mercy with those in the Christian community who are wavering with regards to the Christian faith and also to save the unregenerate in their periphery from eternal condemnation by communicating the gospel to them.
Lastly, verses 24-25 contain the closing of the letter, which contains a doxology.
The epistle of Jude has a chiastic structure, which indicates that verses 8-16 of this epistle are the focal point of this letter.
These verses describe the Zealots, and their rebellion against Rome and ungodly conduct, which Jude wants the recipients of this letter to avoid and reject.
“Chiasmus” is the use of inverted parallelism of form or of content which moves toward and away from a strategic central component and explicitly states what the inverted parallelism only implied.
In other words, “chiasmus” is a literary form in which ideas that have been presented in order (A, B, C…) correspond to ideas that later occur in reverse order (…C, B, A) and revolve around a central component.
The chiastic structure of the epistle of Jude:
A Greeting (verses 1-2)
B Purpose (verses 3-4)
C Reminder of God Judging Ungodly Behavior (verses 5-7)
D Description of the Zealots and Their Judgment (verses 8-16)
C Reminder to the Recipients to Practice Godliness (verses 17-19)
B Exhortation to Practice Godliness (verses 20-23)
A Closing and Doxology (verses 24-25)
The chiastic structure of this letter would indicate that the recipients of this letter must continue to adhere to the apostolic teaching communicated to them by Jude since the Lord Jesus Christ at His Second Advent will judge these unregenerate Zealots or Sicarii who were unjustifiably rebelling against the Roman civil authorities in Judaea.
The text of Jude is short consisting of 464 Greek words according to NA28 text or 459 words according to the SBL text.
The text of Jude is best attested to by the fourth-century manuscripts Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, as well as by the third-century Bodmer Papyrus, which preserves the entire epistle.
Herbert Bateman IV writes “The Greek text of Jude has significant manuscript attestation among papyri, uncials, and minuscules as well as various versions and references within the writings of the church fathers.”
I will employ the NA28, UBS5, SBLGNT texts as well as the Greek text of the NET Bible when examining the textual variants in the Greek text of Jude.
Also, I will employ a reasoned eclectic approach, which was practiced by Bruce Metzger, Gordon Fee and is practiced today by Michael Holmes and Dan Wallace.
Therefore, both the external manuscript evidence and internal evidence will be evaluated when studying the text of Jude.
External evidence deals with the variety of witnesses meaning the manuscripts, versions and Fathers whereas internal evidence emphasizes the variety of variants meaning the wording of the text in these various witnesses and why it has undergone changes.
There are those who contend that the internal evidence is the only real sure method for determining the original autographic text while on other hand, there are those who argue that the external evidence is the only true objective approach.
Between these two extremes there are the majority of textual critics today who believe that both internal and external evidence are indeed subjective to some degree but that both are needed to reach the wording of the original autographs.
Rigorous eclecticism views all manuscripts as corrupt but they also view them as all equally corrupt.
However, most scholars would regard the confluence of the early versions, patristic comments and Greek manuscripts as pointing to the better manuscripts.
This has been substantiated with the discovery of one hundred papyri in the twentieth century since they confirm that the majuscule manuscripts of the fourth century followed a relatively stable line of transmission and then, there is the majority text view which also disregards history.
Ninety percent of all manuscripts belong to the Byzantine text-type but this form did not become the standard text until late in the process of transmission.
The date we have today reveals that the majority of manuscripts through 800 A.D. belonged to in fact the Alexandrian text.
Therefore, we can see that the majority is not a fixed entity but that it changes by the century and also, there are no Byzantine manuscripts, versions or Fathers prior to the fourth century.
Interestingly, some church fathers such as Origen comment on textual variants and they sometimes speak of the majority of manuscripts known to them.
Their comments on these variants reveal that the wording in these witnesses has all but disappeared in the extant manuscripts of today.
Most New Testament textual critics adhered to reasoned eclecticism which takes into equal consideration both external and internal evidence.
They don’t emphasize one to the exclusion of the other, however, they usually favor the Alexandrian witnesses.
They acknowledge that all manuscripts are corrupt but not equally corrupt and attempt to address the cultural and theological backgrounds in which variants arose but this view has its problems but no method has in fact replaced it.