Lectures on New Testament Theology: by Ferdinand Christian Baur
Peter C. Hodgson
Abstract
Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), one of the great innovators in the study of the New Testament, argued that each of the books in the canon reflects the interests and tendencies of its author in a particular religio-historical milieu. A critique of the writings must precede any judgments about the historical validity of individual stories about Jesus in the Gospels. Thus Baur could move beyond the impasse created by Strauss’s Life of Jesus. Baur demonstrated that the Gospel of John is not a historical document comparable to the Synoptic Gospels and cannot be used to reconstruct the teachin ... More
Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), one of the great innovators in the study of the New Testament, argued that each of the books in the canon reflects the interests and tendencies of its author in a particular religio-historical milieu. A critique of the writings must precede any judgments about the historical validity of individual stories about Jesus in the Gospels. Thus Baur could move beyond the impasse created by Strauss’s Life of Jesus. Baur demonstrated that the Gospel of John is not a historical document comparable to the Synoptic Gospels and cannot be used to reconstruct the teaching of Jesus, and that the Synoptic Gospels must be read critically and selectively. He applied the same principles to the Epistles, arguing that only four are genuinely Pauline (Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans). Baur’s Lectures on New Testament Theology, delivered in Tübingen during the 1850s, summarized thirty years of his research. The lectures begin with an Introduction on the concept, history, and organization of New Testament theology. Part One is devoted to the teaching of Jesus, which Baur finds most reliably in Matthew. Part Two presents the New Testament authors arranged chronologically in three periods. This book has been translated by Robert F. Brown, with an editorial introduction by Peter C. Hodgson.
Keywords:
New Testament literature and theology,
tendency criticism,
Tübingen School,
teaching of Jesus,
Synoptic Gospels,
Gospel of John,
Pauline Epistles
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198754176 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198754176.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Peter C. Hodgson, editor
Emeritus Professor of Theology, Divinity School, Vanderbilt University
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