(+) Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical History = Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung (1912 Schweitzer / Montgomery), book (English ed.)

Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical History (1912) is the English edition of Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung (1911 Schweitzer), book. Translated from the German by William Montgomery.

Abstract

Schweitzer’s critique of a century of German scholarship on the Apostle Paul. Schweitzer attacks the Tübingen school, founded by F. C. Baur, for its insistence that Paul’s theology was Hellenistic in orientation, usually leaning heavily upon the Greco-Roman mystery cults. Schweitzer insisted that Paul must be interpreted independently of the Synoptics, John, and the rest of the New Testament writings. Similar to a key idea in The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), Schweitzer accuses the interpreters of Paul for finding the man that they wanted to find. The tone of this first volume on Paul is critical and historical; Schweitzer’s own ideas remain in the background and often remain unwritten except perhaps in the concluding chapter (“Summing-Up and Formulation of the Problem”). Schweitzer presented his own theology of Paul in his 1931 text The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. The earlier text remains a valuable resource for nineteenth century German historiography on Paul.

Editions

Published in London [England]: Black, 1912. Reprinted in 1956.

Table of contents

The beginnings of the scientific method -- Baur and his critics -- From Baur to Holtzmann -- Critical questions and hypotheses -- The position at the beginning of the twentieth century -- Paulinism and comparative religion -- Summing-up and formulation of the problem