Jude in the Middle

Many believe that Jewish Apocalypticism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism represent three stages in a continual religio-historical development in which Gnosticism became the logical conclusion. Were there any leaders among the early stages of the church that would evidence such a theory? In this volume, Boyd asserts that the author of the epistle of Jude experiences the phenomena. Jude may be the most perceptive of New Testament writers in responding to the crisis. He is the portrait of an early church leader grounded in Jewish Apocalypticism and facing the beginnings of a new "heretical" movement. This work clarifies background issues of Jude and helps to further the theory of connections between Jewish Apocalypticism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. Although much work has been done to validate the connections between Judaism and Gnosticism, less has been done specifically with regard to Jewish Apocalypticism and even less with the theory of the critical middle role of early Christianity. And no one has used Jude in this particular discussion, until now.