Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The death of Jesus Christ ought not to be construed merely in terms analogous to the deaths of other Jewish martyrs, who sacrificed their lives for their convictions and for the Jewish nation. Rather, the death of Jesus possesses substitutionar characteristics par excellence. This concept of redemption is explicitly present in the Old Testament and is elaborated upon extensively in Paul’s Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the First Epistle of John. Nonetheless, it is contended that this concept appears to be markedly absent in the Gospels. This paper asserts that messianic substitutionary redemption is, in fact, implicitly articulated by the Gospel writers through their accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings. To argue that the concept of redemption is not vital in the theology of the Gospels based on the insignificant usage of cognate words is to use an argumentum ad dictionarium fallacy in which the use of a certain terminology is the ultimate evidence for the existence or non-existence of that concept. This formal fallacy is similar to missing the forest for the trees, in which one can infer that the lack of use of the term becomes an argument that overlooks how pervasively the concept appears. Because of this, it must be said that in the Epistles we can find the explanation of this redemptive theme, not the formation of it.
Source: Semănătorul (The Sower)
DOI: 10.58892/ts.swr6140
Author: Ovidiu Hanc
Institution: Emanuel University
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7116655368