The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions

Evaluates the evidence for the early church's interest in Jesus as a believer in God.

Ian G. Wallis (Author)

9780521473521, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 March 1995

304 pages
22.4 x 14.5 x 2.1 cm, 0.512 kg

"Wallis maps out the evidence for the faith of Jesus....The study moves the discussion beyond solutions based only on lexical or grammatical considerations and provides a context in which faith was understood as early Christian traditions developed....A significant addition to the study of early christological developements." James L. Jaquette, Religious Studies Review

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.

1. Setting the scene
2. Jesus's faith in the Synoptic Gospels
3. Jesus's faith in the Pauline Epistles
4. Jesus's faith in the deutero-Pauline and Pastoral Epistles
5. Jesus's faith in Hebrews and Revelation
6. Jesus' faith in extra-biblical sources
7. Concluding remarks.

Subject Areas: Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG]