An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 242: Jude Gets His Wrath On (Jude 1)

Jude 1
Jude Gets His Wrath On.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Jude 1
“Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:”

Here we are, another short book, written by Jude, brother of James. Perhaps we can assume an actual blood relationship rather than being a “brother” in the metaphorical sense, because why highlight James otherwise?

Jude writes to some unknown recipients on a theme similar to John, namely the presence of “ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God”. Jude really warms to his theme, and seems to have a particular problem with sexuality; he talks of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah “giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh” and “mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts”, warning his listeners to “hate even the garment spotted by the flesh”.

Jude also warns of other various bad types, about whom he waxes wroth – “murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage” and as well as Sodom and Gomorrah he holds up the destruction of “non-believers” in the Exodus as well as Cain and Balaam (using the same OT examples as John).

Jude doesn’t however, really offer anything very concrete in return. He says that “some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire”, in other words the Christians have some kind of duty to try to “save” non-believers. This in some ways is a different view from previously. I think even John was of the mind that some will be saved and tough luck to those who don’t listen, but there’s not been so much on any kind of duty to save people through conversion. Mainly, however, Jude urges “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”.

And that’s it for Jude. With all his talk of “Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” it leads us nicely on to the fire and brimstone I expect from Revelations. Over the past few epistles we’ve gone from a simple message of being kind to one another, to one of wishing eternal damnation on those who don’t listen or openly mock; it’s like the early Christians started out with a good heart and got gradually more and more embittered by the actions of other people. Or perhaps not. Perhaps Jude always was more of a vengeful type compared to Peter and John. It’s been interesting; like the Psalms these are the most personal representations of faith, even when they don’t necessarily give a clear idea of what that faith actually entails. I can’t believe there’s only one book left; it seemed a very long way away at times.

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