Jesus and Abraham - The Role and Place of Abraham in Jesus’ Teaching

Sa？etak This short study outlines and illustrates the importance of the person of Abraham as fundamental to Jesus’ teaching, esp. in view of his own Jewishness in addressing his fellow citizens. In the four gospels, the name of Abraham, and particularly the phrase “son of Abraham”, served as a technical term for genuine Jewishness and religious identification. Frequently, in the context of disputes between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders of the time, Jesus persistently returned to the person of Abraham as a paradigm of faith rather than primarily a reference to the father of the nation. In the Old Testament, Abraham is constantly referred to as the friend of God, a believer par excellence. This attribute seemed to have been lost in the days of Jesus and the New Testament times. Jesus thus wishes to re-establish this role of Abraham, especially for the Jews