Pneuma: From the Spiritual Condition of Christ to the Holy Spirit-Agent: A Dialectic of Flesh-Spirit at the Root of New Testament Pneumatology

Was the identity of the Holy Spirit as a personal agent already obvious

in the expressions of faith at the pre-literary stage of Christianity?

This book traces the evolution of the expression of the early Christian

faith in relation to the notion of pneuma (spirit). It shows

that, first of all pneuma, as long as it can be traced from three

passages in antithesis with sarks (1 Tim 3:16; 1 Pet 3:18,22 and

Rom 1:3-4) reflecting the Christian theology prior to the early New

Testament writings, referred to the spiritual condition to which Christ

had access as a result of his resurrection, in contrast to his previous

earthly condition. Then in a more in-depth examination of Rom 1:4 from

the angle of identifiable redactions, it continues to show how the

passage/transition from this representation of the

pneuma-condition to that of the pneuma (Spirit)

designating the Holy Spirit took place.