Faith in Jesus 83 seems to have been coined by early christians to describe what was characteristic of christian faith: the way in which it brings the believer into a relationship with Jesus. to believe “into” means that the believer through faith enters into union with christ 7 . ii. authenticity Did the historical Jesus speak about faith in this way, as the saying in mark 9,42 implies? many scholars answer in the negative. the au- thenticity of this saying is often doubted, and the Jesus seminar voted both the markan and the matthean versions black. Following Rudolf Bultmann, they consider the saying to be a proverb that has been christianized by the church. according to the seminar, vindictiveness was not characteristic of Jesus 8. other scholars reach different conclusions 9. Davies and allison observe that the combination of the millstone around the neck and the throwing in the sea is not attested elsewhere 10. its palestinian origin is demonstrated by elliott c. maloney, who finds that the construction in mark 9,42 shows clear traces of semitic influence. the subject, o]j a'n skandali,sh| e[na tw/n mikrw/n tou,twn tw/n pisteuo,ntwn [eivj evme,] (“whoever puts a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me”), forms a casus pendens that is grammatically isolated from the sentence. in the main clause, this subject is recapitulated by an unemphatic pronoun (auvtw/|). this structure is very unusual 7 laDD, A Theology of the New Testament, 307-308; hahn, Theologie, ii, 459. 8 R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (FRlant 29; Göttingen 21931) 155; R.W. FunK – R.W. hooVeR and the Jesus seminar (eds.), The Five Gospels. What Did Jesus Really say? (san Francisco, ca 1993) 86, 213-214. 9 in favor of authenticity, see J. GnilKa, Das Matthäusevangelium (htKnt i/2; Freiburg 1988) ii, 128; W.D. DaVies – D.c. allison, JR., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (icc; edin- burgh 1991) ii, 761; c.s. KeeneR, The Gospel of Matthew. a socio-Rhetorical commentary (Grand Rapids, mi 22009) 449; J.p. meieR, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the historical Jesus. companions and competitors (aBRl; new York 2001) iii, 503; B.h. GReGG, The Historical Jesus and the Final Judgment Sayings in Q (Wunt ii; tübingen 2006) 247-251. 10 DaVies – allison, Matthew, ii, 763. Will Deming has argued that all of mark 9,42 – 10,12 is based on an earlier tradition, which he dates to the middle of the first century (W. DeminG, “mark 9.42 – 10.12, matthew 5.27-32, and B. Nid. 13b. a First century Discussion of male sexuality”, NTS 36 [1990] 130-141).