The Relationship of Jewish and Gentile Believers to the Law Between A.D. 30 and 70 in the Scripture

182 questioned" 107 and Cranfield calls suggestions to the contrary to be "altogether unconvincing . " 108 In reality, however, the basic syntactical options of this phrase are two: the objective genitive (human faith placed in Christ) and the subjective genitive (the faith or faithfulness of Christ himself). More recently the choice of the subjective genitive has gained a number of adherents who likewise boldly defend it. 109 Gaston asserts that the correctness of this phrase as "' the faith or faithfulness of Jesus Christ' has by now been too well established to need any further support. " 11 0 Unfortunately the issue is not as easily decided as either side would make it out to be. Excluding the phrases under discussion which refer to Christ , Howard has analyzed twenty-four instances of the genitive with twenty-one referring to the faith of Christians , two to the faith of Abraham (Rom 4: 12, 16), and one to the faithfulness of God (Rom 3:3). 111 He concludes that in every instance where n(an c; is followed by a proper noun _, or pronoun in the genitive that it is always subjective. 112 While not conclusive this argument does suggest the subjective genitive option. A more telling piece of evidence from a grammatical standpoint is the similarity 107 Burton, Galatians, 121. 108 C. E. B. Cranfield , The Epistle to the Romans in The International Critical ommentary, ed. J . A. Emerton (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), 1:203, n. 2. 109 Cf. George Howard, "Note and Ob ervations on the 'Faith of hri t, "' Harvard Theological Review 60 (1967) : 459-65; Hay , The Faith of Jesus Christ, 139-77; Ri hard Longenecker, "The Obedience of Chri t," Reconciliation and Hope (Grand Rapid : erdmans, 1974), 142-52; Morna D. Hooker, "mane; Xp1aTou," ew Te tament tudie (1 8 ): 321-42; a ton, "Paul and the Law in alatian 2-3," 40 . 110 Lloyd a ton, Paul and Torah ( ancou r : ni r it of Briti h lumbi Pr 1 87), 12. Ill How rd , " and ti n n th ' · ith hri t "' ' i 121 id.