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Adolf Schlatter's Interpretation of Scripture*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Peter Stuhlmacher
Peter Stuhlmacher
Affiliation:
Tubingen, German.
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Extract

Four years ago Paul Ricoeur gave a lecture here in Tübingen on ‘Philosophische und theologische Hermeneutik’,and advised us theologians in particular to give thought to our current practice and teaching in regard to the understanding of the biblical text. A real understanding of texts means, according to Ricoeur ‘to understand oneself in the light of the text. It does not mean imposing upon the text one's own limited capacity for comprehension, but exposing oneself to the text…It is not the (understanding) subject who forms…understanding, but … the self is formed by the “subject matter” of the text’ If we follow Ricoeur and attempt to practise such a form of understanding of the biblical text, then in the present-day situation of theology and church we fall all too quickly into a dilemma. The splendid tradition of modern biblical criticism, founded in Tübingen above all by F. C. Baur, seems to conflict with Ricoeur's proposal. How are we, trained and dedicated as we are to the historical and critical investigation and analysis of the biblical texts, to return again to that readiness and capacity for exposing ourselves to the texts and understanding ourselves anew in the light of them, i.e. before the tribunal of the Bible? Would that not mean precisely to abandon the scientific ethos to which we have so long considered ourselves bound? It is a searching question and, as we well know, a source of distress to many. This distress is intensified when today we hear not a few Christians pronounce a decisive ‘No!’ to all scientific biblical criticism. For them ‘understanding oneself in the light of the text’ of the Bible is only possible when all the historical insights we possess in regard to the Bible have first been rejected. A study document of the Lutheran Missouri Synod affirms: ‘We reject the doctrine, which under the name of science has gained wide popularity in the church of our day, that Holy Scripture is not in all its parts the Word of God, but in part the word of man and hence does, or at least might, contain error. We reject this erroneous doctrine as horrible and blasphemous, since it flatly contradicts Christ and His holy apostles, sets up men as judges over the Word of God, and thus overthrows the foundation of the Christian church and its faith.’

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , July 1978 , pp. 433 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Cf. Ricoeur, Paul, ‘Philosophical hermeneutics and theological hermeneutics’, Studies in Religion 5 (1975–6), 14–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Ricoeur, P.Jüngel, E., Metapher. Zur Hermeneutik religiöser Sprache (München, 1974), p. 33.Google Scholar

3 A Statement of Scripture and Confessional Principles (St Louis, Missouri, 1972), p. 19.Google Scholar

4 Velbert/Essen, 2nd edition 1928.

5 Op. cit. p. 9.

6 Trillhaas, W., Aufgehobene Vergangenheit (Göttingen, 1976), p. 150.Google Scholar

7 G. Kittel, Memorial address at the academic (funeral) ceremony in the afternoon of 23 May 1938, in the Festsaal of the University of Tübingen, in Ein Lehrer der Kirche. Worte des Gedenkens an D. Adolf Schlatter (Stuttgart, 1938), p. 19.Google Scholar Kittel set at the head of his address a quotation from II Kings 2: 12.

8 Schlatter, A., Rückblick auf meine Lebensarbeit mit einem Nachwort von K. H. Rengstorf (Stuttgart, 1977 2), p. 37.Google Scholar

9 Rückblick, p. 79.

10 Rückblick, p. 194.

11 In the revised edition of his Theologie in 1922/23 Schlatter called the first volume Die Geschichte des Christus and the second (as previously) Die Theologie der Apostel. A reprint of the two volumes appeared as a third edition in Stuttgart in 1977. H. Stroh and I have written a foreword for it.

12 Rückblick, p. 201.

13 Das christliche Dogma (3rd ed.Stuttgart, 1977, with foreword by Joest, W.), pp. 373f.Google Scholar

14 Barth, K., Der Römerbrief (ninth impression of the new edition), Zollikon-Zürich (1954), p. xii.Google Scholar

15 Das Christliche Dogma 2, p. 360.

16 Op. cit. p. 282.

17 Op. cit. p. 122.

18 Rückblick, p. 233.

19 When Schlatter's Einleitung in die Bibel, published in 1889, aroused opposition among his earlier friends in Bern with its critical historical perspectives, Schlatter met with them for a talk. He writes: ‘That yielded one of the moments in which verses of the Bible shone so brightly into my soul that I never forgot them again. Since there were opponents of my view of the Bible present in the company, I was anxious as to the course it would take. Then the word of Paul came to me, “simplicity directed towards Christ”. It drew my attention away from those present, and left me seeing only my objective. What my hearers derived from that discussion I do not know; for me it was richly rewarding.’

20 Hülfe in Bibelnot 2, pp. 258 f.

21 Schlatter, A., Der Glaube im Neuen Testament. Eine Untersuchung zur neutestamentlichen Theologie. – Eine von der Haager Gesellschaft zur Vertheidigung der christlichen Religion gekrönte Preisschrift (Leiden, 1885), p. 9.Google Scholar