I have just started reading Peter Watson's impressive looking The German Genius and then today came up against an early assessment of F. C. Baur, who along with Schweitzer and Bultmann is the pre WW2 German Neutestamentler that everyone working in NT should have read.
"Ferdinand Christian Baur is indeed one of the most eminent representatives of the intellectual nobility of Germany. What he lacks when compared with his rivals, is abandonment, fire, personal sympathy. He resembled Schleiermacher in nothing."
F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century (trans. and ed. by W. Hastie; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1889), 379–380.
As with Bultmann, Baur is as important for the questions he asks of the New Testament as for the answers he provides. Not sure he was up for a beer after the weekly Tübingen NT Seminar though.
Hi David
Thanks for news about the WUNT volume. A translation of the Christuspartei essay is also to be welcomed. His discussion of Philippians (utterly wrong, but fascinating nonetheless) is the starting point for some work on the letter I am doing at the moment. Hope all is well in Oxford and belated congratulations on your appointment.
Posted by: Sean Winter | Thursday, March 08, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Baur is indeed a giant whose ghost still haunts much of NT study. You may be interested in a WUNT volume being assembled at the moment, with German and English essays offering assessments of Baur and his legacy in NT study - maybe out in 2013? There is also a translation of his Christ-party essay under contract with SBL for its History of Biblical Studies series at the moment. Baur is hard to agree with, but an interesting and provocative read. Thanks for the great quote!
Posted by: David Lincicum | Tuesday, March 06, 2012 at 10:34 PM