The Spirit of Barnabas: Pneumatology and the Construction of an Early Christian Identity

This paper seeks to demonstrate the centrality of pneumatology to the construction of Christian identity in the Epistle of Barnabas, considering how the author of Barnabas utilizes the past, present, and future work of the Spirit to delineate a distinct identity in contrast to the epistle’s constructed Jewish identity. First, this paper analyzes three examples in which the epistle claims the great heroes of the Jewish faith for Christianity on account of their looking forward to Christ by means of the Spirit. Second, this paper examines the epistle’s understanding of the Spirit’s role in the present dispensation, focusing on how the Spirit not only foresaw those who would become followers of Christ but also continues to call them to obedience in light of the fact that the Spirit has been poured out upon them. This latter point, third, has implications for solving the puzzle of the epistle’s eschatology through careful attention to its pneumatology. At each step, this argument is concerned to show how a proper understanding of the work of the Spirit, past, present, and future, provides a unified and heretofore neglected means by which the epistle fashions a unique Christian identity.