Toward a Reassessment of the Shepherd of Hermas. Its Date and Its Pneumatology

This study contends that the Shepherd of Hermas, a non-canonical early Christian document generally classified among the writings called the Apostolic Fathers, has been wrongly understood by most scholars as typifying the traits of "early Catholicism." The document is more accurately understood as being Jewish Christian. The study deals first with the authorship and date of the Shepherd of Hermas, concluding that it was written by a single author in the last two decades of the first century. The greater part of the book deals with Hermas's pneumatology, that is, his understanding of the Holy Spirit. It shows that it is derived from Judaism, specifically from the type of Judaism evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Leaves much to be debated.