In this significant new study, Matthew Elliott asks 'What is an emotion?', and applies recent studies of emotion to the New Testament. While he discusses the vocabulary of emotion - love, joy, hope, jealousy, fear, sorrow, anger - his primary concern is with emotion itself, how it was perceived by the New Testament writers in their cultural context, and what role they thought it should play in the lives of Christian believers. He argues that our feelings play an essential role in Christian faith, theology and ethics.