The history of the Christ

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Until this day, Adolf Schlatter's incisive theological work has remained something of a well-kept secret among English-speaking theologians and biblical scholars. The Anglo-American scholarly guild has been slow to award Schlatter the respect due him. During his lifetime, none of Schlatter's books were translated into English. His true stature, however, can be appreciated by the fact that the first volume of Gerhard Kittel's massive Theological Dictionary of the New Testament is dedicated to Kittel's teacher, Adolf Schlatter. While Schlatter may best be known for his commentaries on Matthew, John, or Romans, his theological approach is given its most pronounced expression in the two-volume Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments, written during his Tbingen years. Schlatter claimed the primacy of historical research in New Testament theology, rejecting the intrusion of subjective, idealistic notions into the discipline. His insistence on the distinction between the two "horizons" of the biblical text, the ancient and the contemporary, and his affirmation of the preeminence of the first horizon are as timely today as they were then. At the same time, Schlatter did not rest content with historical exegesis. He urged the pursuit of "the doctrinal task ... [as] not only truth for the New Testament community, but also for us personally."