The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament

The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament
ISBN-10
155635231X
ISBN-13
9781556352317
Series
The Atonement
Category
Religion
Pages
132
Language
English
Published
2007-02-01
Publisher
Wipf and Stock Publishers
Author
Martin Hengel

Description

In the wake of suggestions that the doctrine of the atoning death of Christ did not come into being in the earliest stages of Christianity, Martin Hengel forcefully argues with impeccable scholarship that the doctrine can be traced back to the earliest church, indeed to the sayings of Jesus himself. In the first part of this examination, Hengel explores a wide area of classical antiquity. Would it have made sense to Greeks and Romans of the first century to say that Jesus had died for them? Were there points of contact in their traditions? Surveying Greek and Latin literature, Hengel shows just how widespread the theme Òdying for actually was, from Homer, through the Greek tragedians and orators, to Plutarch, Livy, and Caesar. The second part of the book is devoted to tracing the doctrine of atonement, moving back from the letters of Paul, through the pre-Pauline tradition, to Jesus.

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