History of NT Research

I've just finished reading William Baird, History of NT Research: Volume One: From Deism to Tubingen, and it's been a great read. Here's a few highlights.

Philip Jakob Spener: "a young man who fervently loves God, although adorned with limited gifts, will be more useful to the church of God with his meager talent and academic achievement than a vain and worldly fool with double doctor's degrees who is very clever but has not been taught by God".

J.A. Bengel: "The expositor who nullifies the historical ground-work of Scripture for the sake of finding only spiritual truths everywhere, brings death on all correct interpretation".

Jean-Alphonse Turretin advocated the unity of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglicans. On Rom. 1.17, Turrentin thought that "righteousness" referred to God's justification of his people, although in 3.26 he thinks it refers to both God's act of justifying and to God's fidelity.

G.E. Lessing coined the term "bibliolatry" (Bibliolatrie). Though Samuel Coleridge may have first found the term in the writings of John Byrom who died in 1763.

J.P. Gabler: "The true exegete combines both: exegesis is his point of departure; exposition is his goal".

Baird's comment on Schleiermacher: "one is tempted to say he would have been a great biblical scholar if he had not been preoccupied with theology".

August Neander: the writer of a life of Jesus must begin with the basic premise "that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in a sense which cannot be predicted of any human beings, - the perfect image of the person of God in the form of that humanity that was estranged from him".

Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer: "So long as God will maintain for me in my old age the necessary measure of strength, I shall continue my quiet participation, as unimportant as it is, in the service of biblical exegesis".

Facts and Theories in New Testament Studies

Johannes Munck has wise words to those who study the New Testament as well as encouragement for those looking for a thesis topic when everything seems to have already been done.

As a young man, feeling my way towards the study of the New Testament, I wrote a book about Clement of Alexandria. There were many surprises in the change from patristics to the New Testament. In patristics--a map with many blank spaces--there was always a feeling of gratitude for the work already done by others, and pleasure when they had reached entirely different interpretation of the texts. In the New Testament there seemed to be less elbow-room. Everything appeared to have been settled already, in our grandfather's generation, or earlier still . . . Having criticized the traditions of the primitive Church concerning the New Testament writings and primitive Christianity, the professors had themselves come to represent tradition and authority, and there was no room for young scholars, for it was not permissible to doubt what all believed. Brilliant impartiality and ended in stolid conservatism . . .

Let us give the younger generation opportunity and encouragement to question the important, but perhaps not always [the] true or permanently valid views put forward by the generations before us. Let us go further, and urge them to question what we ourselves tell them.

With a subject like the New Testament, consisting of a certain number of facts, and a large number of theories, and assumed rather than substantiated suppositions, it is necessary to go through it from time to time, in order not to forget what is fact and what is theory.

Excerpted from "Jewish Christianity in Post-Apostolic Times" NTS 6 (1959-60), pp. 115-16

The History of NT Scholarship 1987 - 2007

If one had to update Stephen Neil and Tom Wright's book on the history of NT scholarship and include the period 1987-2007, what movements and developments would you include? I would go for the following:

1. Synoptic Gospels and the Historical Jesus

The demise of form criticism due to further studies on memory and orality

The rise of social-scientific and narrative approaches

The popularizing of the Goulder-Goodacre hypothesis on the Synoptic Problem

Continued volumes from Third Questers (e.g. Wright, Dunn, Theissen & Merz, Allison)

The questioning of the "Gospel Community" hypothesis

2. Gospel of John

The questioning of the Martyn-Brown community hypothesis

Greater consideration to the historical tradition in John's Gospel

Continued interest in the depiction of "the Jews"

3. Pauline studies

The continuing rise of rhetorical criticism

The huge storm created by the New Perspective on Paul

The development of anti-imperial readings of Paul

4. Revelation

The questioning of the dominant view that Domitian initiated a persecution of Christians

5. Methodological Developments

The rise of socio-rhetorical and post-colonial criticism

Theological Exegesis coming back into vogue

The rise of studies in reception history

NT scholars giving more attention to archaeology

6. Important Discoveries

DSS: publication of 4QMMT and 4Q521

Talpiot Tomb

James Ossuary

Gospel of Judas

Anything else (esp. developments in the general epistles)?

Ad Fontes not Fads

If you read only one thing this week, I would hope that it is this piece from Martin Hengel now available on the IBR webpage.

Martin Hengel, "Tasks of New Testament Scholarship," BBR 6 (1996): 67-86.

"New Testament scholarship must move beyond its current preoccupation with faddish methods (as evidenced by several variations of the so-called new literary criticism) and return to a solid grounding in history, primary source materials, archaeology, and competence in the pertinent languages. This also entails familiarity with early Judaism, the Greco-Roman world, and early patristics. The exemplary contributions of major biblical scholars of the last century are viewed."

Do you need to know background in order to understand the Bible?

Do you need to know background in order to understand the Bible? That is the question I'd like to ask here. Do you need to have a familarity with second-temple literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the rabbinic writings, apocryphal and pseudepigraphal Christian writings in order to properly understand the New Testament? If you say "yes" does it mean that no-one since E.P. Sanders and G.W. Nickelsburg has interpreted the New Testament properly and that biblical interpretation is now the domain of an elite few who have the time, skill, and opportunity to read such a vast array of writings? If we say "no" are we saying that historical context does not matter that much? If we say "yes" are we reducing biblical study to the practice of an elite few and taking the Bible out of the hands of Christians?

Factors to take into account: (1) In the early church there were those who doubted the necessity of knowing the OT in order to understand the NT, and the orthodox Christians affirmed that you need the OT in order to make sense of the NT, so the idea of studying background, specifically inner-biblical background, is completely warranted. (2) Several NT authors quote pagan literature, echo thoughts from found in Jewish apocryphal documents, and even cite pseudepigraphal literature. (3) Many Christian authors such as Justin Martyr and critics like Celsus were already engaged in the process of comparing and contrasting the NT to other religious writings. Thus, history-of-religions questions were present at the genesis of Christianity. (4) While understanding and applying the NT may be a function of the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, by doing some historical study we give the Holy Spirit more to work with in terms enabling us to understand the context, content, and concerns of the New Testament authors.

On background to the NT see the website New Testament Background, the volume on background edited by Stanley Porter and Craig A. Evans, and the book also by Craig S. Keener.

The 12 Worst Ideas to Gain Currency in NT Studies

What are the twelve worst ideas to have gained currency in NT studies in the twentieth century? I don't mean weird and esoteric stuff like "Jesus learned Buddhism in India", but more mainstream stuff that was (or still is) widely regarded and yet has been discredited? Here's my list:

1. The Gnostic Redeemer Myth
2. Form Criticism
3. The Cynic Jesus
4. The Fourth Gospel as Hellenistic Dogma in a Christian garb
5. Judaism as uniformly legalistic
6. "Early Catholicism"
7. Pre-Christian Gnosticism
8. Palestinian Christianity vs. Hellenistic Christianity
9. The swoon theory on the Resurrection.
10. Radical reader-response criticism.
11. The postulation of a "Q" or "Johannine" community
12. The view that there was no Jesus questing between Schweitzer and Kasemann.

Note: A large number of these views can be associated with Bultmann and his progeny!