Faith in Jesus 87 that leaves us with a single source for the reference to faith, mark 9,42, on which matthew would have been dependent. if the two words “in me” (eivj evme,) are deemed inauthentic on text-critical grounds in mark 9,42, they are likely to be attributed to matthean redaction. By the criterion of dissimilarity, this phrase may also be challenged, as it is characteristic of christian terminology (cf. acts 19,18; eph 1,19; 2 thess 1,10) 18. t. W. manson thought that he could account for the development of the tradition: “the little ones” is the original form, and it referred to children. the early church was more interested in disciples than in children and therefore gradually changed the saying so that it unam- biguously referred to believers 19. this reconstruction of the develop- ment in the early church does not find univocal support in the synop- tic evidence. positive references to children abound (mark 9,33-37 par.; 10,13-16 par.; matt 11,25 par.; 21,15-16). this last claim is worth examining a little further. in the early writ- ings of the new testament, before the Johannine literature, explicit references to faith in Jesus are surprisingly rare. they do occur, but the more common practice is to refer to “faith” without qualification. in the evidence that has the best claim to antedate mark and the double tradition, the undisputed letters of paul, the verb pisteu,w occurs 42 times. in 20 cases, it is used without specifying the object of faith 20. By comparison, there are only two instances in which paul specifies christ as the object of pisteu,w (Gal 2,16; phil 1,29). in both examples, 18 e. lohmeYeR, Das Evangelium des Markus (KeK; Göttingen 1959) 196; e. schWeiZeR, The Good News According to Matthew (trans. D.e. GReen; at- lanta, Ga 1975) 365; GnilKa, Matthäusevangelium, ii, 128; DaVies – allison, Matthew, ii, 761; J.p. meieR, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the historical Jesus. mentor, message, and miracles (aBRl; new York 1994) ii, 542; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 501; GReGG, Final Judgment, 247. craig a. evans judges the two words eivj evme, to be the result of christian redaction. he maintains that Jesus pro- claimed faith in the gospel (mark 1,15), not in the resurrected christ (Mark 8:27 – 16:20, 69; similarly JeRemias, New Testament Theology, 162; Goppelt, Theo- logy, i, 150). eduard schweizer postulates a similar development, but maintains that “the little ones” originally referred to disciples. mark added “who believe” to clarify the meaning, when this term was no longer correctly understood (The Good News According to Mark [trans. D.h. maDViG; atlanta, Ga 1970] 198). several scholars understand the saying to refer to believing children in the Gospel of mark (GunDRY, Mark, 524; YaRBRo collins, Mark, 450). 19 t.W. manson, The Sayings of Jesus (london, 1957) 138. 20 Rom 1,16; 3,22; 4,11; 10,4.10; 13,11; 14,2; 15,13; 1 cor 1,21; 3,5; 14,22(2x); 15,2.11; 2 cor 4,13(2x); Gal 3,22; 1 thess 1,7; 2,10.13.