Literary Strategy in the Epistle of Jude

Traditionally, New Testament scholarship has subsumed examination of Jude under the study of 2 Peter, concentrating primarily on the question of literary dependence. The present work, however, with its focus on the unique features of the epistle, endeavors to penetrate the distinct literary and theological world of Jude and thus illuminate what for many has been an obscure part of the New Testament canon.
The relative obscurity of Jude may be attributed in part to readers' puzzlement over the letter's forceful literary style, apocalyptic imagery, and cryptic allusions to Enoch, Michael the archangel, and a slate of Old Testament characters. Even serious students of the New Testament are inclined to spend their time on more familiar books - ones that are less problematic in terms of the questions they raise.
J. Daryl Charles tackles some of these questions in his exploration of the literary impulse behind Jude. Charles suggests that this impulse may be found in the Judean author's exploitation of literary-rhetorical conventions and selection of source material. True to his audience and theological purpose, the author of Jude crafts a remarkably brief and powerful literary work in which a polemic of great passion is contained. Type after type is paraded before the audience, reminding all of crucial lessons of the faith embossed in history. The historical paradigms serve to warn the Christian community in its present context: God is exceedingly able to keep all those who are committed to being kept by his love and mercy.
An underlying theme of Charles's Literary Strategy is that form is indivisible from content. How theological content is expressed cannot be divorced from the message itself. There is, to be sure, an aesthetic delight in discovering literary artifice, but more than the reader's subjective experience is at stake in the interpretive process: appreciating the literary form of Jude enhances the reader's understanding of the too-often disregarded New Testament book. How truth is presented is telling, and Jude demonstrates to what extent the literature of the Old and New Testament is rooted in culture. In Jude, significant theological truth is wrapped in literary arguments of the day. Well-calculated literary and rhetorical devices are aimed at addressing genuine pastoral needs.
Knowledge of the Palestinian Jewish-Christian cultural milieu will enhance the reader's understanding of the thought-world of Jude and thus leave the reader to marvel at the present-day relevance of this short, majestic New Testament work.