David Lincicum

Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) has been described as "the greatest and at the same time the most controversial theologian in German Protestant theology since Schleiermacher." The controversy was epitomized by a nineteenth-century British critic who wrote that his theory "makes of Christianity a thing of purely natural origin, calls in question the authenticity of all but a few of the New Testament books, and makes the whole collection contain not a harmonious system of divine truth, but a confused mass of merely human and contradictory opinions as to the nature of the Christian religion." The contributors to this volume, however, regard Baur as an epoch-making New Testament scholar whose methods and conclusions, though superseded, have been mostly affirmed during the century and a half since his death. This collection focuses on the history of early Christianity, although as a historian of the church and theology Baur covered the entire field up to own time. He combined the most exacting historical research with a theological interpretation of history influenced by Kant, Schelling, and Hegel. The first three chapters discuss Baur's relation to Strauss, Mohler, and Hegel. Then a central core of chapters considers his historical and exegetical perspectives (Judaism and Hellenism, Gnosticism, New Testament introduction and theology, the Pauline epistles, the Synoptic Gospels, John, the critique of miracle, and the combination of absoluteness and relativity). The final chapters view his influence by analyzing the reception of Baur in Britain, Baur and Harnack, and Baur and practical theology. This work offers a multi-faceted picture of his thinking, which will stimulate contemporary discussion.

"This reader of texts from the key 19th century religious scholar Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) brings together, for the first time, a selection of texts in English translation, from across Baur's wide range of exegetical, historical, philosophical and theological expertise. In these excerpts, readers gain a comprehensive overview of Baur's output and his remarkable role in the shaping of modern scholarly discourse in his fields. The carefully chose extracts display a remarkably coherent intellectual vision, developed through detailed scholarly research across a wide range of areas. Readers are introduced to Baur's bold and controversial historical hypotheses and encounter the different intellectual and stylistic registers he used, from the purely scholarly to the sharply polemical. Readers will also see how Baur was instrumental in some of the most fundamental intellectual paradigm shifts of the 19th century, including the radical historicisation of Christian theology and its exposure to major philosophical innovations, in particular in connection with German Idealism. The Reader begins with a full scholarly introduction, written by the editors, and all the selected texts are fully annotated."--

According to a persistent popular stereotype, early Judaism is seen as a "legalistic" religious tradition, in contrast to early Christianity, which seeks to obviate and so to supersede, annul, or abrogate Jewish law. Although scholars have known better since the surge of interest in the question of the law in post-Holocaust academic circles, the complex stances of both early Judaism and early Christianity toward questions of law observance have resisted easy resolution or sweeping generalizations. The essays in this volume aim to bring to the fore the legalistic and antinomian dimensions in both traditions, with a variety of contributions that examine the formative centuries of these two great religions and thier legal traditions. They explore how law and lawlessness are in tension throughout this early, formative period, and not finally resolved in one direction or the other.

"For the first time Ferdinand Christian Baur's ground-breaking essay 'Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeinde, der Gegensatz des paulinischen und petrinischen Christenthums in der a ltesten Kirche, der Apostel Petrus in Rom' (1831) appears in English translation. Here Baur argued for a diversity of views in the earliest strata of the Christian tradition that shaped the modern study of Paul in lasting ways. Baur's work revealed a tension beteen Pauline, gentile Christianity, on the one hand, and Petrine, Judaizing Christianity. In addition to Baur's essay, this edition includes the first English translation of Ernst Ka semann's introduction to Baur's Historisch-kritische Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. Even if some of Baur's concrete historical results have been surpassed by subsequent scholarship, this book offers a compelling glimpse of the critical method and piercing insight into one of the shapers of modern biblical study"--Page 4 of cover.

"This study offers a fresh, thorough engagement with Paul's use of Deuteronomy, paying full attention to the concrete realities of Paul's exposure, in life and literature, to Torah. David Lincicum compares Paul's handling of Deuteronomy to the treatment of Deuteronomy in other contemporary Jewish sources. He shows how this key book of Jewish Scripture was influential in Jewish life and liturgy and how it bears on Paul's relationship to the Law. Originally published by Mohr Siebeck in the Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament series, this work is now available as an affordable North American paperback"--Publisher description.