Chi-Kin Lei, 1 Peter and Christ's Descent to the Dead in Its Early Christian Reception (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Chi-Kin Lei

1 Peter and Christ's Descent to the Dead in Its Early Christian Reception

2025. 260 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 636

€79.00
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sewn paper
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978-3-16-164041-4

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Summary

In the Christian Bible, there is a mysterious text in the First Epistle of Peter (1 Peter 3:19) which speaks about »Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison«. Traditionally, this text has served as the major scriptural support for the doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades (the so-called descensus) in Christian theology. Present scholarship, however, has rejected this traditional understanding and tends to detach 1 Peter 3:19 from the descensus. Such a critical judgment, unfortunately, remains insufficiently examined. Indeed, no previous study has specifically focused on how and why 1 Peter 3:19 came to be associated with the descensus in history, nor what bearing the descensus could have on the text of 1 Peter 3:19 itself. Thus, Chi-Kin Lei fills this lacuna by studying 1 Peter's early reception in relation to the descensus, ultimately challenging the current scholarly consensus on this issue.

For more on the history of the Descensus ad Infernos tradition, see here, with a couple of comments on the arguable relationship of the 1 Peter passage to the Enochic literature.

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