The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions

Abstract

We are used to the idea of people believing in Christ, but did the early church consider that Jesus also had faith in God? This book evaluates the evidence, starting with a survey of the meaning of faith in Judaism and Graeco-Roman literature and proceeding to a detailed exegesis of the relevant New Testament material from the synoptic Gospels, the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Epistles, Hebrews and Revelation. Two trajectories of interest in Jesus's faith are identified: the paradigmatic, concerned with matters of discipleship, and the theological, relating Christ to God's gift of salvation. The examination is then broadened to trace the progress of these trajectories through the literature of the first four Christian centuries and concludes by identifying the Arian controversy as the christological development which rendered reference to Jesus' faith untenable.

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