Torah, Discipleship and Suffering: An Historical Study of the Development of Interrelated Themes in the Old Testament, Post-Biblical Judaism and the Synoptic Gospels

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine in what sense it may be possible to understand "following Jesus" in the Synoptic Gospels as "discipleship" to God's “new Torah." The Introduction, really an independent work in itself on Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship", among other things identifies some of the main issues to be taken up subsequently in Chapter One on the Old Testament, Chapter Two on post-Biblical Judaism, and Chapter Three on the Synoptic Gospels. In each of these chapters# moreover, there are three focal points: Torah, discipleship (Torah teaching and learning), and suffering.