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Gospel Historicity: Some Philosophical Observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

T. A. Roberts
T. A. Roberts
Affiliation:
Senior lecturer in Philosophy, University College, Aberystwyth
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Extract

In this article I propose to discuss some recent theological contributions to the problem of the historicity of the Gospels, and I wish to suggest that philosophical issues may ultimately be relevant to its solution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1966 , pp. 185 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

Page 186 note 1 There is a very fine review of A New Quest of the Historical Jesus by Whiteley, D. E. H., in JTS, Vol. XIII, Part 2 (10 1962), p. 392,Google Scholar in which he compresses several acute observations into a short space. In some respects my criticism, formulated independently of, and before I had read, this review, is an elaboration of Whiteley's comment, ‘the author seems to have become in part the victim of a twentieth century legend about nineteenth century historians, who in fact conformed to the standard pattern far less closely than one could gather from Robinson’. In praise of the author, Whiteley maintains that ‘Robinson's important individual contributions arise from his background of existentialist thinking’. I doubt whether this claim can be substantiated since Robinson's contributions are neither new nor drawn from existentialist thinkers but, as I show later in the article, mainly from R. G. Collingwood, who cannot be described as an ‘existentialist’ philosopher.

Page 189 note 1 Cf. ‘He [Auguste Comte] believed in the application of scientific, i.e. naturalistic, canons of explanation in all fields; and saw no reason why they should not apply to relations of human beings as well as things.’ Berlin, Isaiah, Historical Inevitability (1954), p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 189 note 2 Cf. ‘Ranke and Michelet altered both the art and the science of history’, Berlin, Isaiah, Historical Inevitability (1954), p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 190 note 1 Ayer, A. J., Language Truth and Logic (1936),Google Scholar ‘Propositions about the past are rules for the prediction of those “historical” experiences which are commonly said to verify them’, (p. 102, 2nd ed.)

Page 191 note 1 Collingwood, R. G., The Idea of History (1946), p. 202,Google Scholar where Collingwood uses the expression in elaborating Croce's views with which he is in substantial agreement.

Page note 1 Collingwood, R. G., The Idea of History (1946), p. 309,Google Scholar ‘Reflective acts may be roughly described as the acts which we do on purpose, and these are the only acts which can become the subject-matter of history’.

Page 193 note 1 Cf. Paton, , The Modern Predicament (1955), Chapter XI.Google Scholar

Page 194 note 1 Sykes, Norman, Man as Churchman, 1960, Chapter I.Google Scholar

Page 194 note 2 Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft (English translation by P. Putnam, Manchester, 1954), p. 36, Apologie pour l'Histoire, ou Metier d'historien (Paris, 1949).Google Scholar

Page 194 note 3 Cited by Sykes, ibid.,

Page 194 note 4 For this discussion of early nineteenth century historiography, I am mainly indebted to Gooch's, G. B.History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (1913).Google Scholar

Page 196 note 1 Gooch's, G. P.History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (1913), p. 86.Google Scholar

Page 197 note 1 Hancock, W. Kieth, Country and Calling (1954), p. 209Google Scholar ff.; Berlin, Isaiah, Historical Inevitability (1954);Google ScholarGeyl, Pietr, Debates with Historians (1952)Google Scholar; Namier, Lewis, Avenues of History (1952), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

Page 198 note 1 E.g., Davies, W. D., Christian Origins and Judaism (1961).Google Scholar

Page 198 note 2 Stauffer, Ethelbert, Jesus: Gestalt Und Geschichte (1957).Google Scholar

Page 199 note 1 The Church's Use of the Bible (1963).

Page 199 note 2 op. cit. p. 154 f.

Page 201 note 1 Turner, H. W., Historicity and the Gospels (1963).Google Scholar

Page 201 note 2 Ibid. p. 69.

Page 202 note 1 Turner, H. W., Historicity and the Gospels (1963), p. 70.Google Scholar

Page 202 note 2 Thus, independently, and approaching the matter from a quite different standpoint, I agree with Mr. Root's thesis that the most difficult problems in contemporary Christian apologetic lie in the field of natural or philosophical theology. Cf. Root, H. E., ‘What is a Gospel’, Theology, 01 1963.Google Scholar