Understanding the First Hundred Years of Christian Identity

In English After stating that there did exist an early Christ-believing movement in the first century CE, distinct enough to be investigated, the chapter gives a review of recent scholarly approaches to what "Christian identity" is. Answers range from a textual reality only, to an ideological construct, or rhetorical construction with social effectiveness, or an autonomous inner structure of the semiotic system of the movement, or, finally, the self-understanding of the movement evolving in a feedback process.