The Harvard Theological Review (Volume 6) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PRESENT POSITION OF NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY ERNEST F. SCOTT Queen's Unitersitt, Kingston, Canada It is not a little significant that several books have appeared within the last year or two which deal with the subject of New Testament Theology in its whole extent. For a considerable time there has been a shrinking from this large enterprise, and the work of Holtzmann was allowed to maintain its place without serious competition. The attention of younger scholars has been more directed to the literary and historical criticism of the New Testament than to its theology; and while the theology has been by no means neglected, it has been discussed in many separate monographs rather than in works of a comprehensive nature. Now, however, we have the three books of Weinel, Feine, and Schlatter, appearing almost simultaneously, while the monumental work of Holtzmann is being reissued in a fully revised edition. This sudden outburst of activity in a field that seemed almost abandoned may be taken in several ways as a good omen. It points, for one thing, to a revival of interest in the thought of the New Testament, which has often been half-forgotten in the controversy over subsidiary problems. Again, it is an indication that the many-sided researches of modern scholarship have yielded some assured results, so that constructive work may at last be attempted. For a number of years past, scholars have been fully occupied with the collecting of fresh data and the weighing of rival theories; the process was a necessary one, and had to be carried out with sufficient thoroughness before any conclusions could be more than tentative. It would appear that these preliminary labors are approaching completion, and that the work of building is now to be commenced. Once more, the appearance ...