Pillars in the History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume 1: Prevailing Methods before 1980 (McMaster Biblical Studies Series) by Stanley E. Porter & Sean A. Adams

Author:Stanley E. Porter & Sean A. Adams
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781498202374
Published: 2016-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

792. John 14:6 receives only one passing reference in Schlatter’s two-volume New Testament Theology. His John commentary includes a brief exposition (Der Evangelist Johannes, 293–94), and his popular commentary (Erläuterungen, 236) includes a short pious treatment. See also his devotional treatment of John 14:5–6 in Andachten, 85.

6

William Wrede and Julius Wellhausen

Dieter T. Roth

Introduction

In his important work, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems, Werner Georg Kümmel discusses Julius Wellhausen and William Wrede in a chapter titled “The Radical Historical Criticism.”793 There certainly are compelling reasons for presenting the contributions of Wellhausen and Wrede to New Testament interpretation together, though in doing so it is important to recognize both the points of contact and the significant differences in their approaches. In this chapter, after providing biographical sketches and individual discussions of Wellhausen’s and Wrede’s interpretive approaches, the hermeneutical methods of these two scholars are highlighted in a brief discussion of their approaches to interpreting Revelation 12. A final section on the influence of Wellhausen and Wrede concludes the discussion. The bibliography includes works cited as well as a few additional selected works on the New Testament by these men. Though Wellhausen was fifteen years Wrede’s senior, Wellhausen’s contributions to New Testament studies came at the conclusion of his scholarly career, and largely post-dated the work of Wrede.794 For this reason, attention will first be given to Wrede.

William Wrede

Biography

The son of a Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Georg Eduard William Wrede was born on May 10, 1859, at Bücken in Hannover, Germany. After his early training in humanities at the Gymnasium Ernestinum in Celle, Wrede, despite “the competing proclivity for classical philology,” decided to pursue theological studies.795 He first studied in Leipzig (1877–79) under K. F. A. Kahnis, C. E. Luthardt, and F. Delitzsch, with whom he quickly became disappointed and even disillusioned to the point of considering changing his course of study.796 He ultimately continued his theological education, and it was only because of the young Adolf Harnack and his circle of students that Wrede felt himself to have left Leipzig more firmly established in his studies.797 From 1879 to 1880 Wrede studied in Göttingen, where Albrecht Ritschl and Hermann Schultz received specific mention of gratitude for the four semesters that Wrede considered “the most profitable and memorable of [his] studies.”798 After teaching in a private school in Lewe-Liebenburg in 1881, Wrede became a seminarian in the elite Lutheran theological institution at Locum (1882–84).799

In 1884 Wrede gained a tutor’s post back in Göttingen where he spent the next two years.800 It was during this time that he formed a close friendship with Albert Eichhorn, whose strict historical-critical method as opposed to Ritschl’s more church-focused liberal theology would strongly influence Wrede’s later academic writing.801 After spending 1887–89 in a pastorate in Langenholzen and Hörsum, he prepared for his Habilitation in 1891, which he received with the thesis “Untersuchungen zum ersten Klemensbrief.” During this period in Göttingen, Wrede was part of a group of young scholars who, along with the

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