[B]y adding to the Holy Scriptures their additional
sacred books, the Mormons have undermined and overthrown "the faith which
was once for all delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3) (Anthony A. Hoekema, The
Four Major Cults [Exeter, UK: Paternoster Press, 1963], 33)
Jude 3 is a common “proof-text” used to support (1) the cessation of public revelation; (2) sola scriptura, and (3) against Latter-day Saint claims of a Great Apostasy. In this blog post, we will show that all these claims are bogus. While one can accept nos. 1-3 en toto, Jude 3 is not a meaningful proof-text for any, let alone all, of these propositions.
The KJV renders the verse
as:
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of
the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you
that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the Saints.
Some other translations
render απαξ hapax not as “once” but “once for all” (e.g., NRSV; NJB;
NASB). We will discuss this term later.
Some appeal to the use of the verb παραδιδωμι (“to
hand over”) and its form in this verse ( (παραδοθείσῃ = aorist passive
participle) as evidence that public revelation has ceased. For example, Ron
Rhodes and Marian Bodine:
It is also important to note that the word “delivered” in
Jude 3 is an aorist passive participle. This indicates an act that was completed
in the past with no continuing element. There would be no new
“faith” or body of truth (such as the Book of Mormon or Pearl of Great Price!
(Ron Rhodes and Marian Bodine, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the
Mormons [Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest House Publishers, 1995], 76)
Apologists who reason thusly
are shooting themselves in the foot, for it would mean that Jude and any other
New Testament volume written afterwards is not part of the deposit of faith,
ergo, they are not inspired scriptures; at best, they are important historical
documents, like the Didache and 1 Clement!
For example, it is generally
agreed upon by scholars that 2 Peter was written after Jude:
The view that 2 Peter is dependent on Jude has, since the
late nineteenth century, become by far the most widely accepted solution.
(Richard Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church
[Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990], 145)
A case can be made that Jude is very early, and predates much of the New Testament corpus. Basing his arguments on vv.17-18, Armitage, countering those who claim the passage is evidence of a late date, wrote:
If Jude’s author knew that his addresses were in a position to remember first-hand the prophecies of the apostles, there would be no need to identify the person(s) who made them. Even if, as Frey and Paulsen argue, the words ρηματων, προειρημενων and ελεγον in vv. 17-18 indicate that the knowledge (of the apostles’ prediction) was transmitted orally, one cannot say when. Importantly, as Bauckham points out, v. 17 does not present the apostles themselves as belonging to the past, only their prediction. (Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 114) In favour of Bauckham’s argument is that αποσστολος need not necessarily connote one of the Twelve: it could just as well be another missionary or person sent by them. Indeed, behind it is the Jewish institution of the שליח, an authoritative messenger acting on another’s authority. Bauckham’s argument, particularly his Pauline parallel, seems stronger here, although the matter is not without doubt.
Witherington is probably right in thinking that Jude did not consider himself an apostle, but rather as a servant of the Lord, noting that he had not seen his brother raised from the dead, although 1 Cor. 15.7 says that Jesus appeared to James and then to ‘all the apostles’, and 1 Cor. 9.5 distinguishes between the brothers of the Lord and the ‘other apostles’, i.e. other than Paul and Peter. (Witherington, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians, 628) Bauckham considers that the ‘apostles’ in v. 17 are not all of the apostles, but those apostles who founded the church(es) to whom Jude writes. (Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter 105) We cannot be sure.
It is important when considering this verse to recall that the early Church saw itself as living in the end times, the eschatological age, wen the predictions and promises of God and God’s messengers would be fulfilled. (Witherington, Letters, 629)
In similar manner to Jude, 1 Enoch, referred to in Jude 14, proclaims God’s judgment against humanity, but leaves room for the salvation of his ‘holy ones’. (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108, 149) And similarly to Jude, 1 Enoch evidences religious conflict between those of the author’s persuasion and others whose false and deceitful teaching leads others astray. (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 427) Even so, the prophecy of the apostles stands as an antithesis to the prophecy of Enoch, in that eschatological destruction for the scornful teachers is not inevitable. There would seem to be rhetorical parallels in the use of pesher language in each case to enforce internal solidarity against heretical interlopers. (Chris Armitage, From Qumran to Jude: A History of Social Crisis at Qumran and in Early Jewish Christianity [Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2023], 107-8)
What is more problematic for
Rhodes, Bodine, and others who appeal to this verse and use it in the same they
do is the fact that, for Jude, the deposit of faith was not isolated to
inscripturated revelation; instead, it also was dependent upon oral
revelation/tradition and other sources. As William Renay Wilson II commented:
Though often identified as later Catholic traditionalism,
Jude’s ἅπαξ παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστει (“faith once for all delivered to
the saints,” v. 3) and his appeal to the words of the apostles (v. 17) mirror
emphases on “delivered” (παραδιδοσθαι) tradition (2 Thess 2:15; 3:6; 1 Cor
15:3), η πιστις (“the faith”) as a body of teaching (Gal 1:23), and appeals
to apostolic authority (1 Cor 9:1; 2 Cor 11:13) found in the early Pauline
material (ca. A.D. 50-56). (William Renay Wilson II, Jude’s Apocalyptical
Eschatology as Theological Exclusivism [Studies in Jewish and Christian
Literature; Dallas: Fontes Press, 2021], 20-21, emphasis added)
Jonathan Bernier (in his excellent
book on the dating of the New Testament texts) echoed this:
This passage could suggest a middle or higher date if we
suppose that “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” is a
fixed deposit of inalterable doctrine and that such a fixed deposit was
impossible before 70 but later became possible. Richard Bauckham sums up the
difficulties with this line of argumentation succinctly, rightly observing that
“the contrast set up between Jude and the Christianity of the first generation
generally results from 91) underestimating the role of tradition in Christianity
from the first, and (2) exaggerating the extent to which Jude’s language
implies a fixed body of formal doctrine” (Bauckham, Jude and 2 Peter,
32). Already we have Paul in the 50s speaking about doctrines that were
passed on to him (1 Cor. 15:2-3). Jude seems to suppose nothing more
fixed or formal than does Paul. (Jonathan Bernier, Rethinking
the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2022], 231-32, emphasis added)
Jude elsewhere in v. 17 appeals to authoritative, inspired, non-written revelation:
But, beloved, remember (μνήσθητε) ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus. (Jude 17)
Commenting on this verse, Armitage notes that:
The aorist passive imperative μνήσθητε in v. 17 serves two rhetorical purposes—it assumes that Jude’s addresses already know this, and it appeals to tradition, which unlike Enoch’s is spoken, not written. (Chris Armitage, From Qumran to Jude: A History of Social Crisis at Qumran and in Early Jewish Christianity [Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2023], 106)
Even if one were to
postulate that (1) Jude was the final book of the New Testament and (2) it
includes its God-breathed and canonical status within the deposit of faith, it
still would not prove public revelation would cease at the death of the last
apostle. As Trent Horn wrote in response to John MacArthur:
Protestant apologist John MacArthur says that the Greek
word translated “delivered” in this verse refers to an act completed in the
past with no continuing element”. He also says that the phrase “once for all”
(Greek, hapax) means “nothing needs to be added to the faith that has been
delivered ‘once for all’.” This would mean that the “faith” had been delivered
before Jude was written, which means Jude and its teaching about the cessation
of public revelation would not have been a part of the original Deposit of
Faith. MacArthur even says this verse, “penned by Jude before the NT was
complete, nevertheless looked forward to the completion of the entire canon.”
This shows that using Jude 3 to prove public revelation
has ceased doesn’t work because it confuses “giving the faith” to the saints
with public revelation. Jesus gave “the faith” once and for all to the
apostles, but the public revelation of the faith continued for decades after
his interactions with them during the writing of the New Testament. There isn’t
any explicit biblical evidence that this revelation ceased after the death of
the last apostle (or that it didn’t continue for centuries rather than decades).
There is also no evidence that there were no more living apostles who would
give such revelations. (Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism: Answers to
Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections [San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2017], 51-52)
It should also be noted that, even allowing for special revelation to cease at the inscripturation of the final book of the New Testament does not “prove” sola scriptura. While it would disprove Latter-day Saint claims to authority (e.g., Joseph Smith being a prophet of God; the Book of Mormon, etc), it goes nowhere to show the formal sufficiency of the Protestant canon of the Bible. Indeed, many groups who agree with Protestants that special revelation ceased at the death of the final apostle (e.g., Roman Catholicism; Eastern Orthodoxy) accept, at best, the material sufficiency of the Bible (ignoring the Old Testament canon debate at the moment). To understand the difference between material and formal sufficiency here is one helpful analogy:
Formal Sufficiency: One has a complete house
Material Sufficiency: One has all the material to build a house
Defenders of Sola Scriptura are forced to engage in question-begging and special pleading to make their case.
What about the meaning of απαξ?
Does it mean “once for all” in the sense of finality and something that will
never be repeated again, or does it mean simply “once,” and is neutral towards
whether something is to be repeated?
ἅπαξ M 7-31-2-7-7=54
Gn 18,32; Ex 30,10 (bis); Lv 16,34; Nm 16,21
once,
once only, once for all Dt 9,13; once in (a year) [τινος] Ex
30,10; τὸ ἅπαξ for
once
Jgs 15,3
τὸ ἅπαξ τοῦτο at this moment 2 Sm 17,7; ἅπαξ καὶ ἅπαξ for MT בפעם כפעם formerly, at former times JgsB 16,20; ἔτι ἅπαξ yet once Gn 18,32 (Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint [rev ed.; Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: Stuttgart, 2003], S.V. "απαξ")
While there are New
Testament instances where it clearly denotes something that was done once and
will never be repeated again (e.g., 9:28; 1 Pet 3:18), other instances of its
usage elsewhere in the New Testament shows it can simply mean "once"
and "once-for-all" does not make exegetical sense:
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once (απαξ) was I stoned,
thrice I suffered shipwreck a night and day I have been in the deep. (2 Cor
11:25)
For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again (απαξ και δις)
unto my necessity. (Phil 4:16)
Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once
and again (απαξ και δις); but Satan hindered us. (1 Thess 2:18)
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath
promised, saying, Yet once more (απαξ) I shake not the earth only, but also the
heaven. (Heb 12:26)
Note the use of “once and
again.” As Spicq noted in his lexicon,
The literature often uses the formula hapax kai dis, “a first and a second
time,” which can be translated “various times.” (Ceslas Spicq, Theological
Lexicon of the New Testament, 3 vols. [trans. James D. Ernest; Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994], 1:139)
In a note, Spicq provided
the following examples of such a meaning:
David, burdened with armor, “tried to walk once and
twice, because he had never tried it” (1 Sam 17:39); Neh 13:20; 1 Macc 3:30;
Philo, Prelim. Stud. 4: “animals and
plants bear fruit only once or twice a year, ἅπαξ ἢ δὶς”
(cf. P.Oxy. XI, 37: ἅπαξποτʼ ἢ δίς,
republished by C. Austin, Comicorum
Graecorum Fragmenta, n. 254; inscription of Silko: ἅπαξ δύο = δίς,
in Dittenberger, Or. 201, 2 = SB 8536); Diogenes Laertius 7.13: “Zeno
rarely used boys, once or twice a girl”; P.Oxy.
2731, 9: ἅπαξ
καὶ δὶς καὶ τρὶς ἐδήλωσά σου; 2596, 12. The papyri nevertheless prefer
the expression ἅπαξ
καὶ δεύτερον, cf. P.Panop.Beatty 1, 54, 112: to order or to give instructions a first
and a second time; P.Lund II, 4, 6:
“I wrote you a first time, a second time, and often” (republished SB 8091); P.Cair.Isid. 63, 17 (republished SB 9185); P.Mil. 83, 4
(republished ibid. 9013); P.Oslo 64,
4; P.Oxy. 2996, 7.
Interestingly, the only
other instance of απαξ in Jude seemingly does not support the “once-for-all”
interpretation:
I will therefore put
you in remembrance, though ye once (απαξ) knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people
out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. (Jude 5)
It should also be noted that, had Jude wished to convey such, he would
have used εφαπαξ ephapax, which is used exclusively in the Greek NT for
something that is never repeated again (i.e., the once-for-all sacrifice and
death of Christ [Rom 6:10; 1 Cor 15:6; Heb 7:27; 9:12; 10:10]). BDAG defines
this term as “pert. To being simultaneous, at once, at one time,” and referencing
the aforementioned New Testament texts, “taking place once and to the exclusion
of any further occurrence, once for all, once and never again.”
Now it is one thing to show what a text does not mean; what is
the meaning of Jude 3? I agree with the following from Armitage that,
In typically Jewish fashion, resembling ‘the tradition of
the elders’ (cf. Mk. 7.3, 5, 13), Jude puts boundaries around his community, to
protect them from impurity and pollution. In v. 3 Jude claims for his teaching
that it is τη απαξ παροδοθειση τοις αγιος πιστει. The implication is that the
false teaching of the interlopes has no such legitimacy. In his narration in v.
3, Jude pre-emptively calls on his community to side with him against the
opponents introduced in v. 4. They are thus marked off by social boundaries
against Jude’s addresses, the ‘pious’ ones in his community.
Put another way, in Jude 3, the author appeals to the
faith entrusted to the αγιοι as something the audience must preserve and share,
thus inoculating themselves against division caused by false teaching and evil
conduct. (Chris Armitage, From Qumran to Jude: A History of Social Crisis at
Qumran and in Early Jewish Christianity [Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix
Press, 2023], 37-38; see this post where I reproduce Armitage’s
comments on vv. 4, 5, and 21, and how they refute eternal security/perseverance
of the saints)
As this post demonstrates, Jude 3 does not teach (1) that public
revelation has ceased; (2) sola scriptura, and (3) necessarily preclude a Great
Apostasy in the then-future. Critics who appeal to this text, as we have also
seen, inevitably shoot themselves in the foot as if it proves something, it
would prove too much, and would result in a diminished New Testament canon, one
that would not include Jude itself as well as texts written after Jude!
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