Whereas New Testament criticism has tended to focus on historical and literary and dimensions of each evangelist's account of Jesus’ baptism, this evidently important Gospel narrative became a crucial vehicle of specifically Trinitarian thought in the patristic period. The present brief ‘think piece’ explores the potential for a correlation between the baptism story in its historical context of Jewish renewal and its highly theological impact in patristic interpretation. The enormous exegetical import of this episode may be said to derive from its function as the ‘super-sacrament’ of Israel's and Adam's redemption (cf. J. Macquarrie). © 2012, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.
