Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 177:706 (Apr 2020)
Article: The Minority Report: A Different Assessment For Interpreting Jude, Part 2
Author: Herbert W. Bateman IV

BSac 177:706 (April-June 2020) p. 195

The Minority Report:
A Different Assessment For Interpreting Jude, Part 2

Herbert W. Bateman IV

Herbert W. Bateman IV is president of the Cyber-Center for Biblical Studies, Leesburg, Indiana, and Academic Editor for Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Abstract

Part 1 surfaced problems with the majority report for the epistle of Jude—the common assumption that Jude was concerned with false teaching, whether Gnostic or antinomian, and unrestrained sexuality. Part 2 suggests instead that Jude wrote in response to a Zealot uprising against Rome shortly after the death of James in AD 62. Concerns shared between Jude and Josephus indicate that the “godless” in Jude are Zealot rebels who were seducing the church away from Jesus, while “salvation” refers to physical deliverance or preservation.

Part 1 looked at the majority report for the epistle of Jude, involving the common assumption that Jude was concerned with false teaching, whether Gnostic or antinomian, and unrestrained sexuality. This survey showed that the majority report often contradicts itself and that nothing in the letter unequivocally points to these issues. Part 2 therefore examines the minority report—the possibility that Jude was responding to a Zealot-led rebellion in Judea—and suggests that this historical occasion better accounts for the evidence in the epistle.1

The Minority Report: Zealot-Led Rebellion

The minority report often agrees with the majority report. For instance, evidence presented within the minority report concurs with

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at least six Christian false-teacher commentators who have determined that (1) James’s brother Jude wrote the letter (2) to Judean believers (3) during the mid-60s.2 Yet the minority report suggests that Jude’s distress (vv. 3–4) is over a zealot-led rebellion that was challenging the early church throughout all of Judea.3 This conclusion is based on what was happening in Judea during the mid-60s when Jude was alive and writing his letter.

Although Witherington has a wider range for dating Jude (late 50s and 60s), his resolve is based on “the wave of rising tension and rebellion leading to the Jewish war in the 60s.”4 Furthermore, Weiss hypothesizes that “Jude would not have taken up the pen before the death of his renowned brother” and that the year 62 should be “regarded as th...