4 - The History of Religions School

Summary

The History of Religions School is the name adopted by a small group of friends who were students, then untenured instructors in the theological faculty of the University of Göttingen beginning around 1890. The school's preoccupation with theology and their rejection of the way theology was done around them had a quite particular focus. They had come to Göttingen to study with Albrecht Ritschl, the doyen of liberal theology. The identification and description of those religious movements constituted one of the most creative, influential, but ultimately most problematic of the contributions which the History of Religions School made to modern scholarship. Even scholars who reject most of the findings and much of the method of the History of Religions School agree that the understanding of biblical religion can never be the same as it was before their work, which can only be replaced by better history.