¹ Skinner, Quentin, ‘The Limits of Historical Explanation’, Philosophy 07 1966, p. 199.Google Scholar

² See Gardiner, Patrick (ed.) Theories of History, Free Press, N.Y., 1959Google Scholar; Dray, W. H., Philosophy of History, Prentice Hall, N.J., 1964Google Scholar; Richardson, A., History Sacred and Profane, SCM Press, London 1964Google Scholar; articles in History and Theory. Even where ‘philosophy of history’ is read as the discerning of ‘the Meaning of History’—Arnold Toynbee, etc.,—the above still holds.

³ For accounts of research, Fuller, R. H., The New Testament in Current Study, Charles Scribner's Sons, N.Y., 1962Google Scholar; revised ed., SCM Press, London, 1963; same author, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament, Duckworth, 1967Google Scholar; discussion with full bibliography, Kummel, W. G., Introduction to the New Testament, Abingdon Press, 1966 (SCM Press London, 1966).Google Scholar A classical critique of research up to the end of the nineteenth century, Schweitzer, A., The Quest of the Historical Jesus, A. & C. Black, London, 1910.Google Scholar See also Neill, S., The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1961, O.U.P., 1964.Google Scholar

Theoretical analysis appears in A. Richardson, op. cit., following C. Becker's ‘subjectivist’ line; compare W. H. Dray, op. cit., in his discussion of R. H. Niebuhr's ‘Religious Approach’; the more objective styles in Roberts, T. A., History and Christian Apologetic, S.P.C.K., London, 1960Google Scholar (opposing Richardson, among others, and defending R. G. Collingwood from misuse) and most recently, Harvey, Van A., The Historian and the Believer, U.S.A., 1966, SCM Press, London, 1967.Google Scholar

My own The Church and Jesus (a critical essay in History Theology and Philosophy), SCM Press, appears in the autum of 1968.

⁴ Lange, , in History and Theory V 3, p. 288.Google Scholar

Skinner, Q., ‘The Limits of Historical Explanations’, op. cit.Google Scholar

‘Four types of Inference from Documents to Events', by Dibble, Vernon K., History and Theory III p. 203Google Scholar makes some useful distinctions. On method, I have found Bloch, M., The Historians’ Craft, Manchester University Press, 1954Google Scholar; Carr, E. H., What is History?, Macmillan, 1961Google Scholar; Gottschalk, L. and others, The Use of Personal Documents in History, Anthropology and Sociology, Social Science Research Council, N.Y., 1964.Google Scholar Lange cites Garraghan, G. J., A Guide to Historical Method, N.Y., 1946.Google Scholar There is a useful account in Hort, F. J. A., Introduction to the New Testament, London, 1882 (with B. F. Wescott).Google Scholar See also G. K. Clark, and J. Barzum and H. F. Geraff.

⁵ Op. cit., p. 199.

⁶ Ibid., p. 200 and following.

⁷ Analytical Philosophy of History, C.U.P. 1965, especially ch. 10.Google Scholar See the review by Donogan, Alan, History and Theory VI 3, p. 430Google Scholar; and also the article by Mandelbaum, M. ‘A Note on History as Narrative’, in the same issue.Google Scholar

⁸ The terms ‘backing’ and ‘warrant’ are employed in this context by Van A. Harvey, op. cit., using Toulmin, S., The Uses of Argument, C.U.P. 1958.Google Scholar

⁹ Nagel, E., in Gardiner, (ed.) op. cit., pp. 375–385Google Scholar; Bloch, M., op. cit., ch. III.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Murphy, G. G. S. and Mueller, M. G., History and Theory VII.Google Scholar

¹¹ I say this as a lay reader of newspaper articles on the law, of which I have tried to take some note. I quote from one to hand ‘As part of updating the law to meet modern needs, the Lord Chancellor's department is examining how the law of evidence should be amended to allow computer findings to be given in evidence … The rules were conceived to ensure the most reliable and factual evidence possible from witnesses … There would be a sanction in costs to discourage unreasonable objections to accepting a computer's findings’ (Daily Telegraph, Manchester, Wednesday, August 30th, 1967; ‘our legal correspondent’). The main example cited is computerised statements of accounts; but only because it creates an interesting legal difficulty about indirect evidence form documents. The writer just accepts in passing that in general ‘the work done by a computer can be more reliable than human work’, and that this is relevant. Note: in the above ‘law-type’ is only by coincidence of usage linked with the forensic, statute ‘law’.

¹² Skinner, , art. cit., p. 214Google Scholar; Danto, , op. cit., eg, p. 226Google Scholar; Dray, , op. cit., ch. III.Google Scholar

¹³ Donagan, , ‘The Popper-Hempel Theory’, History and Theory IV 1, pp. 3 ff.Google Scholar insists on Hempel's and Popper's characterisation of their ‘laws’ as universal. Beer, S. H., ‘Causal Explanation and Imaginative Re-enactment’, History and TheoryGoogle Scholar III 1 had shortly before questioned ‘the dogma of universality’, and cited authorities for allowing some limiting context for any ‘law’. Donagan's example of the law about swallowing arsenic is limited to humans in his own statement. There is no good reason for supposing that all useful and genuine probability laws must be simply universal. Donagan's example cannot be extended beyond ‘all animal organisms on this planet’, even if it is as general as that. His law about the effect of sugar on diabetics is just somewhat more restrictedly contexted. So, in my own discussion, L may be a valid probability law ‘for all human beings in a situation (e.g., culture) that may be described in these terms.’ It is only the case that we cannot know whether the relevant situation obtained, or not, for our illevidenced period; and so whether this or some other ‘universal’ law applies.

¹⁴ Argued, e.g., by Richardson, A., op. cit., ch. VI.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Compare the discussion in Richardson, op. cit., chapters V–VII; Van A. Harvey, op. cit., chapter VII, ‘The Perspective Theory of History’, for ‘perspectivists’ who accept ‘natural laws’ as relevant.

¹⁶ Op. cit. e.g., pp. 225 ff.

¹⁷ John Lange, art. cit.

¹⁸ Montefiore, H., in Pittenger, N. (ed.) Christ for Us Today, SCM Press, 1968, pp. 108ffGoogle Scholar; contrast D. Nineham, Ibid., p. 52 and n. 6.

¹⁹ Introduction to the New Testament, op. cit.

²⁰ Art. cit.

²¹ See Neill, S., op. cit.Google Scholar

²² Wilson, , The Scrolls from the Dead Sea, N.Y., 1956Google Scholar; Dupont-Sommer, A., The Essene Writings from Qumran, Oxford, 1961Google Scholar; Allegro, , The Dead Sea Scrolls², Penguin, London, 1964.Google Scholar For a list of parallels, Caster, T. H., The Scriptures of the Dead Sea Sect, London, 1957.Google Scholar A cautious account in Vermes, G., The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin, London 1962.Google Scholar

²³ Perrin, N., Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, SCM Press, London, 1967Google Scholar, for whom this is ‘the fundamental criterion’.

²⁴ Fuller, R. H., op. cit., pp. 40 f.Google Scholar; Käseman, E., Essays on New Testament Themes, SCM Press, London, 1960, pp. 34 ff.Google Scholar; Carmichael, J., The Death of Jesus, London, Gollancz 1963, Penguin Books 1966, pp. 16 and 178, the sole announced criterion.Google Scholar

²⁵ Williams, C. S. C., (ed.) M'Neile, A. H., Introduction to the Study on the New Testament2, Oxford 1953, pp. 43 ff.Google Scholar; Turner, H. E. W., op. cit., pp. 73 ff.Google Scholar

²⁶ Hooker, M. D., The Son of Man in Mark, S.P.C.K., 1967, pp. 6 f., 79, 174Google Scholar; Teeple, H. M., ‘The Origins of the Son of Man Christology’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 09 1965, pp. 216 ff.Google Scholar

, A. T. & Hanson, R. P. C., (eds.) Vindications, SCM Press, 1966.Google Scholar

²⁷ G. C. Coulton, on St. Francis, in Beginnings of Christianity, Macmillan, London, 1920, vol. 1, pp. 450 ffGoogle Scholar; see further on ‘The Story of Margaret Catchpole’, Ibid., also , R. P. C. & Hanson, A. T., Vindications, op. cit.Google Scholar

²⁸ G. H. Nadel in correspondence assures me that this is so: they have.

²⁹ , A. T. & Hanson, R. P. C., Vindications, op. cit.Google Scholar

³⁰ To use them this way is I think justified in normal practice: documents are always primarily evidence for the thoughts etc., of the writers. Bloch, M., op. cit., pp. 60 ff, 91 ff.Google Scholar It just happens to be particularly circular here.

³¹ Fuller, Ibid.

³² Hooker, M. D.Google Scholar, op. cit., Ibid.

³³ In my forthcoming The Church and Jesus (SCM Press 1968). There are questions of the use of statistical evidence to decide authorship; the whole question of the relevance of ‘coherence’; the relevance of a-historical literary critical methods (Northrop Frye etc.); the method of ‘Form-Criticism’ (Style Analysis) of oral traditions; the value if any of an over-all impression presented by evidence that is in detail suspect; and many more detailed ones that may be peculiar to New Testament research. Palmer, H., The Logic of Gospel Criticism, Macmillan, 1968Google Scholar, deals usefully with the logic of textual and documentary criticism; but less successfully with these other methods.

³⁴ P. 39.

³⁵ For anyone interested, this has considerable importance for large areas of Christian theology. But that is another story.