The Making of the New TestamentBacon, Benjamin Wisner
Religion
The Making of the New Testament
Bacon, Benjamin Wisner
Bible. New Testament -- Introductions
Modern criticism acknowledges, then, its indebtedness to the Tübingen
school for a clearer definition of both its task and method, by
concentrating attention upon the contrast between the Petrine and the
Pauline conception of 'the gospel.' Still it must be admitted that most
of the inferences first drawn have since been overthrown. In their
chronological scheme of the New Testament writings the Tübingen critics
under-estimated the force of the external evidences (including early
tradition) and misinterpreted the internal. New discovery and more
careful study of literary relations have inverted Baur's views as to
dates of the Johannine writings. Four of these (the Gospel and three
Epistles) are anonymous. Baur's date for these has been forced back by
no less than half a century. The fifth (Revelation) bears the name of
John, but was hotly disputed as pseudonymous in the second century, and
even by its supporters was dated so late as "the end of the reign of
Domitian" (95). The Tübingen school placed Revelation thirty years
earlier, and attributed it to the Apostle. Modern criticism emphatically
reverts to the ancient date, and regards the book as pseudonymous, or as
written by "some other John."
Again the relative dates of the Synoptic writings (Matthew, Mark,
Luke-Acts) were inverted by the Tübingen critics, primarily through
wrong application of their theory of doctrinal development; secondarily,
and as a consequence, through misinterpretation of the intricate
literary relationships. Present-day criticism considers it established
that Mark is the oldest of the three, taken up by each of the other two.
There is almost equal unanimity in regarding the discourse material
common to Matthew and Luke and variously combined by each with Mark, as
independently drawn by them from the book of the "Precepts of the Lord,"
reported by Papias to have been compiled by Matthew "in the Hebrew (_i.
e._ Aramaic) tongue." Tübingen gospel criticism is thus almost entirely
set aside, in favour of the so-called 'Two-document' theory.
So with the Pauline Epistles of the second period. Doubt still clings to
Ephesians. It had been treated by some as pseudo-Pauline even before the
time of Baur; but Baur's own followers soon receded from his extreme
application of his theory to the internal evidence of Philippians,
Colossians and Philemon. It became evident that Paul's "gospel"
included something more than the mere antithesis of Law and Grace. He
had other opponents than the Judaizers, and had to defend his doctrine
against perversion by Grecizing mystics as well as against opposition by
Pharisaic legalists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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