How Should Jude Influence How We Think About the Deuterocanon?

Questions 1 And 2: Are Jesus’ Brothers His Half-brothers Or Cousins?

Hi, Tim and Jon. This is Ashley from Cincinnati, Ohio. In your first episode of the Jude series, you really harped on two views of Jesus’ brothers mentioned in the Gospels. You gave the theories of: one, they were his cousins; and two, they were his stepbrothers that Joseph had before marrying Mary. However, I grew up thinking that they were his half-brothers, siblings Mary and Joseph had after Jesus. You didn't really seem to touch on this viewpoint, so I was wondering if there's evidence for or against this. And in addition to this, why is the perpetual virginity of Mary so important to some denominations of Christianity? Thanks for all you do.”

“Hello, fellas. I'm Jeff and I live in Texas. I've really enjoyed the series on Jude, but was struck by the observation that Jesus’ siblings may have come from a previous marriage of Joseph. It had honestly never occurred to me. It also puts John 7 into better context, when his brothers challenge Jesus to make himself known at the festival of Booths. As I thought it over, it definitely reminded me of the way Joseph’s brothers and family react to him sharing his dreams of them bowing down to them. Or when Aaron and Miriam speak out against baby brother Moses. It seems that not only is there a theme of the older serving the younger, but also of some built-in resentment from the older to the younger as well.”

Tim briefly responds to Jeff’s question by acknowledging that tensions between Jesus and his brothers are mentioned in several places in the Gospels, including in Mark 3:31-35.

In response to Ashley’s question, Tim says that he spent less time on James and Judah being Jesus’ half-brothers, because he was already most familiar with that perspective and fascinated by others he hadn’t encountered. Tim learned a lot from the book, *Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah, *by Brant Pitre.

Pitre points out that in Luke 1:34, Mary responds to the angel’s news with, “How will this be since I am a virgin?” In the original Greek, she actually says, “...since I do not know a man?” Curiously, Mary responds in the present tense with this Hebrew idiom for having sex. One reason for this might be the history presented in the Hebrew Bible of Israelites (even husbands and wives) taking permanent vows of celibacy (Num. 30). Jesus himself embraces this kind of vow and alludes to the fact that everyone will be celibate in the new creation (Matt. 22:30). And Paul addresses a similar practice in 1 Corinthians 7:1-14. It’s possible that Mary also took a perpetual vow of celibacy and that’s why she is perplexed that she will have a child.

Another clue is when Jesus, while on the cross, entrusts Mary to his disciple John (John 19:25-27). This gesture would be a little strange if Mary has other biological sons. One final clue is found in Matthew 1:25 where we learn that Joseph did not “know” Mary until after Jesus was born. In Greek, “until” does not necessarily imply that one will eventually do something.

Tim admits that these Scriptural clues do not definitively prove Mary’s perpetual virginity. But he also finds it significant that all the early Church fathers, from the 2nd century onward, believed as a historical fact (and not for theological reasons) that James and Judah were Jesus’ cousins.

Question 3: What Were Love-meals?

“Hi, Tim and Jon. This is Taylor from Houston, Texas, and I'm wearing my BibleProject T-shirt as I record this question. In episode five, you talked about love-meals or love -easts. Can you explain more about those and recommend any good resources for further study? How should this inform how we think about the Lord's Supper and how we practice observing it in community with God and other humans? May the Lord bless you and keep you. Hugs from Texas!”

Tim reminds us that love-feasts or love-meals are mentioned in Jude 1:14: “These people are hidden-sea-rocks, feasting together at your love-meals without any respect…” “Love-meals” is just the plural form of the Greek work agape, which New Testament authors use as their main word for love.

Tim reads from Richard Bauckham’s commentary on Jude, sharing that this is the earliest New Testament reference to love-meals as a name for the Christian fellowship meal. It is a less frequent term for what Paul called the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:20), and also the meal referred to in Acts with the phrase “breaking bread” (Acts 2:46; 20:7). The love-meal finds its roots in the Jewish Passover and weekly Sabbath meals and, originally, it was not separate from the Eucharist. For most of the church, within the first few centuries, the Eucharist of the bread and cup become a ritual distinct from any other communal meal. And yet, there are many church traditions today that have never separated the bread and the cup from a communal meal.

Tim recommends a few books on this topic, listed below under “Referenced Resources.”

Question 4: How Should Jude Influence How We Think About The Deuterocanon?

“Hi, Tim and Jon. My name is Ian, and I'm from Keizer, Oregon. My question is, when Jude wrote this letter, I doubt that he knew his letter would end up in a collection of scrolls accompanying the Torah. Paradoxically, he's quoting from a scroll that some do not consider should be in a collection with the Torah. What does this mean for how we are to understand the significance of the widely accepted biblical books versus the Deuterocanon? And what does this mean for how we view other recent writings, like letters, essays, and books that are inspired by God and written by faithful followers but are not as old as these scrolls? Thank you for the work you do to spread the good news.”

Tim references our 2025 podcast series, How the Bible Was Formed, where we talked extensively about the history of the deuterocanon/Apocrypha, as well as the Bible’s canonized collections. (We also released a set of overview videos on the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha and a thorough article.) Tim and Jon acknowledge that this is a modern problem largely brought on by the change from scrolls to sealed books. In ancient times, all the writings were in separate scrolls, and it was easier to have a library of special scrolls, some of which were Scripture. That being said, Jewish people had an agreed-upon unified collection of Scriptures they called the TaNaK (i.e. Torah, Prophets, and Writings). And while they considered these other scrolls to be helpful and wise, they were not held as Scripture.

In the New Testament, we generally know that Jesus and the apostles are quoting from texts they view as Scripture when they merge it with the voice of God. But the one exception is in Jude 1:14-15, when he references the Book of Enoch. In the first few centuries of the Church, leaders set apart the writings of Scripture they believed accurately testified about Jesus, according to the apostles’ representations of him. But at the same time, early Christians did read and appreciate a larger collection of writings, though they were not viewed as Scripture.

Question 5: What Did The Early Church Believe About Spiritual Beings Procreating?

“Hi, Tim and Jon. In your recent discussion on the book of Jude, you hyperlinked verse 6 back to the Nephilim in Genesis 6. That got me wondering if there's any evidence that, by the time of the early Church, there was any kind of understanding that divine beings had the capability to procreate. Is there any room for that kind of theology today?”

Tim responds that in the time of the early Church, there were many beliefs present in Roman culture about spiritual beings procreating with humans. (For example, Hercules was said to be the son of Zeus and a human woman.) In the Bible, only two stories reference this phenomenon. In Genesis 6:1-4, the “sons of God” take the “daughters of humanity” as wives and, as a result, many half-divine warrior kings are unleashed on the earth. These warrior kings (including Goliath) are killed off throughout the biblical story. We can view this story as either a recording of real events or as the biblical authors satirizing the way that other ancient warrior kings portrayed themselves as divine.

But in ancient Israel, fear of being attacked and taken in this way by spiritual beings was not common. We also do not find anything about fears of physical attack from spiritual beings in the New Testament and early Church writings. More often, early Christians wrote about spiritual attack in the form of sickness, mental illness, or false teaching.

For more on this topic, Tim recommends multiple books by Michael Heise, listed below in “Referenced Resources.”

Question 6: Why Are Demons Never Mentioned In The Gospel Of John?

“Hey, Dave here, from Indiana. My question is about the spiritual realm and how it's discussed in Jude versus the Gospel according to John. It seems as though in Jude it's a very open topic for discussion, but in the Gospel of John, he doesn't even mention Jesus driving out demons. Why the big shift?”

Tim acknowledges that while spiritual beings or demons are mentioned often in the letter of Jude and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, demons are never mentioned in the Gospel of John. This is not so much a shift, but a difference in John’s emphasis. At the conclusion of his Gospel, John tells us that his goal has been to convince his audience that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. He does this partly by leaving out all references to rival spiritual beings, except for the chief one, whom he calls the ruler of this world (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11), the liar and murderer (John 8:44), and the thief (John 10:10).

Jude frames the spiritual realm in a different way. The moral and cosmic order are upheld by spiritual beings delegated by God, and these spiritual beings should be recognized and honored. The Bible has a unique view of the spiritual realm overlapping with our world, and this view is still very common among many cultures today. In the western world, we don’t often acknowledge this realm, but that doesn’t make it any less real.