Faith in Hebrews and Its Relationship to Soteriology: An Interpretation in the Context of the Concept of Fides in Roman Culture

Gabriella Gelardini

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Chapter 11 Faith in Hebrews and Its Relationship to Soteriology: An Interpretation in the Context of the Concept of Fides in Roman Culture

In: Deciphering the Worlds of Hebrews

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Gabriella Gelardini

Gabriella Gelardini
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 261–272

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004460171_013

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Abstract

Since Martin Buber's influential publication Two Types of Faith, Hebrews scholarship has been aware of a diversity with regard to the concept of “faith” in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Although the differences were described in various ways—Buber, for example, distinguished the Hebrew emunah from the Greek πίστις and others “rationality” from ”paradoxicality of faith”—in each case there was and is agreement that in Hebrews there is both, basic trust as known from Scripture and the rationality as found in philosophical rhetoric. With this observation, cultural diversity has been clearly identified in Hebrews. But instead of speaking of “Hellenization” or “hybridization,” the article refers to recent findings in cultural anthropology, where, with regard to the Mediterranean Roman world, it is appropriate to speak of bilingualism, that is, the ability to use the vernacular in addition to the mastery of literary language such as Greek or Latin. According to Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the decisive factor here is that bilingualism was accompanied by cultural “code-switching,” so that ethnic and thus religious and cultic identities were formed by biculturalism, that is, by “borrowing” and “exchanging” cultural content. Like Philo and Paul, then, the author of Hebrews can be trusted as one articulating his own identity in perfect interaction with the Greco-Roman culture and philosophy surrounding him. Against this background, the concept of faith in Hebrews and its relation to salvation is examined in the context of this Greco-Roman culture and its corresponding concept of fides in connection with salus. With particular reference to Heb 11, the article concludes that the author may have deliberately, and perhaps even ironically, used the concept of pistis/fides, which was central to Rome, to strengthen—by reference to biblical tradition—allegiance to the celestial empire, rather than to the supposedly infinite and eternal Roman one.

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Deciphering the Worlds of Hebrews

Collected Essays

Series: Novum Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 184

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004460171

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 12 Apr 2021

Subjects
- Biblical Studies
  - New Testament & Early Christian Writings
  - Ancient Judaism

Front Matter

Part 1 The World of Hebrews’s Text

Part 2 The World behind Hebrews’s Text

Part 3 The World in Front of Hebrews’s Text

Back Matter

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Chapter 11 Faith in Hebrews and Its Relationship to Soteriology: An Interpretation in the Context of the Concept of Fides in Roman Culture

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Deciphering the Worlds of Hebrews

Collected Essays

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