JUDE 1-4

The first series of collages I ever prepared was on the Book of Jude. Each collage contains at least 6 different images juxtaposed together. The problem was that in most cases, it is impossible to see that any work at all had been done other than copy an already existing image. That is why I eventually began to mix color images with black-and-white ones in my collages. I was fortunate in this particular series to find the basis for most of the images I needed in illustrations to a nineteenth century book by Jules Verne titled Hector Servadac: Off on a Comet.

                                                                                       

Jude 1-4 (paper collage, 1984, 3” x 5”)

The inspiration for this form of art work came from the early paper collages of the surrealist artist Max Ernst. One such collage is pictured below. Note that you can more readily detect the individual pieces in his collage because (1) some of the paper sources differ in color and (2) the resulting picture is bizarre enough that it could not have possible come from a single source.

Untitled collage by Max Ernst

Concerning the subject of my collage, it illustrates the opening words of Jude's short letter. It is obvious from these verses that the author is one of Jesus' earthly brothers who is mentioned in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. As to the date of the epistle, several commentators have pointed to Jude 17, which appears to talk about the apostles as if they are no longer around. Therefore, the book has been assigned a date sometime after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Doubts regarding the authentic canonical status of the book are not limited to modern critical scholars. They surfaced during the time of the early Church Fathers. Jerome reports that some church leaders in his time “were disposed to exclude Jude from the New Testament because of its quoting a work [I Enoch] of doubtful authenticity.”

And even Martin Luther expressed doubts in his German translation as to its value. In fact, F.F. Bruce says, “Luther did not exclude the last four books from the canon, but he did not recognize in them the high quality of 'the right certain capital books.” It was Luther's judgment that “Jude is a superfluous document: it is an abstract of 2 Peter.” Bruce says that today it is more likely to consider Jude as the original source of II Peter instead. He adds to Luther's objections that it “is suspect because it contains history and teaching nowhere found in scripture.”

This short letter is usually classed among the General Epistles addressed to no identified church. However, Teller states that “the emergency identified as its occasion (vv. 3-4) and the concrete descriptions of the opponents indicate that it was addressed to particular recipients. The purpose of the letter is to encourage the addressees 'to contend for the faith' against those who 'pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness.'”