We are continuing with our theme of examining the assertions of academics working in Biblical Studies, and asking the basic question: how do we discern what is reliable in their conclusions, and their methods? Then, having considered their methods, how can we read Scripture?
These are important questions for Christians. The way that Scripture is taught in universities by what I might call the “Bible studies establishment” has had a flow-on effect, gradually influencing not only the translations and editorial notes in our bibles, but also the understanding of Scripture and hence all of Christianity, in our schools and homes, in public and in private life.
One assertion which is often encountered is that the very earliest Books of the New Testament are the letters of Saint Paul, and in particular either his first Epistle to the Thessalonians or his Epistle to Galatians. This inclines towards a purported reconstruction of an evolving Christianity, which resembles a Protestant Christianity, whereas a hierarchical Church preaching Jesus, fully divine and fully human, and the system of sacraments, is seen as a late development.
I suggest that there is no reason whatsoever to assert the chronological primacy of St Paul’s epistles as confidently as is done, and to take one concrete example, I shall suggest that there is no reason to date the first letter to the Thessalonians or that to the Galatians before the Epistle of Saint Jude.
Raymond Brown, the late Catholic priest and professor, in the chapter on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in his Introduction to the New Testament, wrote: “As the oldest preserved Christian writing, this document has a special significance even outside the Pauline corpus.” (456) I do not query his dating of this Epistle to the year 51, but I do quite specifically challenge the assertion that it is the “oldest preserved Christian writing.”
In his chapter on the Epistle of St Jude, Fr Brown does state that the range of “feasible” dates extends from the year 50 to 120. He then concisely dismisses arguments that it might be either an early document, or later than 120. To his credit, Brown is aware that the evidence is too slim to be certain, but in the end he opts for the years 90-100, and as so often happens, what initially was expressly only a conjecture, is soon as established. He never considers what it would mean if that Epistle had been written in 50 AD; neither does he give reasons for saying it could be as early as 50, let alone why he chose the year 50 and not 49 or some earlier point. Brown wrote:
“The reference to the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 17) sounds as if the apostles (the Twelve?) belong to a past generation, but that would be true any time in the last third of the 1st century. In that period also one can find instances of the use of “faith” to describe a body of beliefs and practices, as in Jude 3. If Jude himself wrote the work, his being listed as third or fourth among the brothers of Jesus suggests that he was one of the youngest; and so he could have been alive as late as AD 90–100, which may be the most plausible date for the letter.”
In other words, a confluence of three matters leads him to date the Epistle of St Jude the last decade of the first century: the reference to apostolic teaching in verse 17; the use of the word “faith” in verse 3; and the inclusion in verse 3 of the phrase “once for all delivered to the saints” which does not, in Brown’s words, “give the impression of a recent event.”
Let us take the first three verses of the Epistle, and then consider these arguments. The ESV, the most literal widely available translation, reads:
“Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Note first, that the author names himself as both the servant or slave of Jesus Christ and the brother of James. The natural meaning of this is that he is not a brother of Jesus Christ. If he is the Jude mentioned as an adelphos (often translated “brother”) of the Lord in Matthew and Mark with James, Joseph, and Simon, then we have a reasonable indication that, as many Catholic scholars have said, Matthew must have been using the word adelphos in its extended meaning of “cousin.” This itself would be of some significance, as confirming the Catholic teaching of the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God. However, today we are concerned with dating, so we shall move on.
Now, the most puzzling of Brown’s three arguments is the one that the Epistle must be late since it uses the noun “the faith (pistis).” In his footnote, he observes that a reference to the faith as a body of beliefs and practices is also found in the early letter to the Galatians, which he dates to between 54 and 57. He also fails to mention that the dictionary states that the word pistis was used with that sense by the year 30BC by Diodorus Siculus. Besides, since pistis means “faith” or “belief” anyhow, to use it as meaning faith or belief and attached teachings is hardly a big leap: in fact, it strikes me as natural. So, his second argument for the later date for the Epistle of Jude is baseless. Why then make it, unless, as I said in the previous podcast, there is a self-conscious attempt to promote the picture of a scholar meticulously considering all relevant matters before coming to his judicious conclusion?
Further, there is a circular argument in saying “this word is not known before this year, so this document must be later.” We only know when the word is first used from the dated documents which use it. If the Epistle of St Jude can be dated to the year 50, then the usage of the term the faith for beliefs and practices is likewise early. In other words, the dating of the Epistle determines the dating of the phrase, and not vice versa. Besides, relatively few Christian documents from the first century survive, and therefore a lack of examples may be due to a lack of texts. Otherwise, what is effectively being said is that if the phrase “the faith” was ever used in the year 51, it would necessarily have appeared in the one letter we have from that year, which is not rational. But that is what Brown’s argument comes down to, while he undercuts this futile claim in the footnote referring to Galatians 1:23.
However, in that footnote, Brown attempts to rescue his position, saying that the sentence “once for all delivered to the saints” does not give the impression of something recent. Why, might I ask, should we accept his impression? His impression has been conditioned by his being schooled in the Bible studies establishment. Someone without that training might receive quite a different “impression.” Further, “recent” is a relative term. When is something not recent? If it was one day, one week, one month, one year, one decade, or a century ago? This verse states that the faith was delivered to the saints once for all by Christ Himself, who is referred to in the next verse. In other words, Jude is referring to the teaching by Christ, not to the lives of the saints; and there is no objective reason to effectively insert the unquantifiable phrase “not recently.”
The final argument to consider is that verse 17 refers to a past generation. It reads: “But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”
Once more, Brown relies on an impression of the passage of time, but does not specify how much time must have passed. We do not know who these apostles are, but that is not critical: the point is that St Jude does not present them as having died, rather he presents them as having made predictions. If Brown allows that one can look back on the predictions by the year 90, then why not by the year 89? Or 88? Why not by the year 70? Or 60 or 50? Or 49, 48 or 47? Why not all the way back to the year 40, or even earlier? Why could the apostles not have prophesied just the day before?
As is often the case with the vague arguments of the Bible studies establishment, one could reverse the argument: one could just as well contend that St Jude does not remind them of the names of the apostles because they already know them, and so Epistle is close in time to the predictions.
Further, Jude is addressing people who have heard from many apostles, and the epistle is directed to all the faithful: that suggests an audience in Jerusalem and Palestine, and not in a region where few apostles had ventured. This would fit with a very early period, when most missionary work was conducted in or near Jerusalem. In fact, there is no objective evidence that would make a date as early as the year 34 impossible for the Epistle of St Jude. It might be most unlikely, it might be next to impossible to conceive: but there is no evidence which rules it out. As I have said above, if Brown can contemplate 50 as the earliest feasible date, why not 49, why not 48?, and so on.
If the Epistle of St Jude is earlier than any of the Epistles of St Paul, and for the reasons given above, there is good reason to say that it may well be, this would substantially upset the modern academic approach to the New Testament. But I shall not pursue that right now. My point is that Brown’s argument is arbitrary and tendentious: it is entirely bent towards the conclusion Brown wishes to arrive at, like an advertisement for a slimming supplement. The carefully constructed image of impartial scholarship is, I suggest, as the late Dr Weeks said, a “house of cards.”
It is necessary to clear away certain errors, so that we may better appreciate that the simplest and most straightforward way of reading Scripture is the best and truest.