Based on a multi-year consultation in the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology brings new insights to the relationship between patristic exegesis and current strategies of biblical interpretation, specifically with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity.

This book presents a cogent account of monarchianism, a core context for the development of trinitarian theology at the beginning of the third century, before situating Origen’s early trinitarian theology as formulated in response to monarchianism.

More exegetical literature survives from the hand of Cyril of Alexandria than nearly any other Greek patristic author, yet this sizable body of work has scarcely received the degree of attention it deserves. In this work, Matthew R. Crawford reconstructs the intellectual context that gave rise to this literary output and highlights Cyril's Trinitarian theology, received as an inheritance from the fourth century, as the most important defining factor. Cyril's appropriation of pro-Nicene Trinitarianism is evident in both of his theology of revelation and his theology of exegesis, the two foci that comprise his doctrine of Scripture. Revelation, in his understanding, proceeds from the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit, following the order of Trinitarian relations. Moreover, this pattern applies to the inspiration of Scripture as well, insofar as inspiration occurs when the Son indwells human authors by the Spirit and speaks the words of the Father. Although Cyril's interpretation of revelation may consequently be called Trinitarian, it is also resolutely Christological, since the divine and incarnate Son functions as the central content and mediator of all divine unveiling. Corresponding to this divine movement towards humanity in revelation is humanity's appropriation of divine life according to the reverse pattern--in the Spirit, through the Son, unto the Father. Applied to exegesis, this Trinitarian pattern implies that the Spirit directs the reader of Scripture to a Christological interpretation of the text, through which the believer beholds the incarnate Son, the exemplar of virtue and the perfect image of the Father, and accordingly advances in both virtue and knowledge. This process continues until the final eschatological vision when the types and riddles of Scripture will be done away with in light of the overwhelming clarity of the Christologically-mediated Trinitarian vision.

What can the early church contribute to theology today? Donald Fairbairn takes us back to the biblical roots and central convictions of the early church, showing us what we have tended to overlook, especially in our understanding of God as Trinity, the person of Christ and the nature of our salvation as sharing in the Son's relationship to the Father.

A close study of aspects of Irenaeus' pneumatology that demonstrates how Irenaeus combined Second Temple Jewish traditions of the spirit with New Testament theology to produce the most complex Jewish-Christian pneumatology of the early church.

A theology of biblical interpretation, treating both topics in light of their relationship to the triune God and the economy of redemption.

Bates explores how early Christians read the Old Testament in order to differentiate the one God as multiple persons. The earliest Christians felt they could metaphorically 'overhear' divine conversations between the Father, Son, and Spirit when reading the Old Testament. The connection of these snatches of dialogue forms a narrative about the unfolding interior divine life as understood by the nascent church. What emerges is not a static portrait of the triune God, but a developing story of divine persons enacting mutual esteem, voiced praise, collaborative strategy, and self-sacrificial love.