Jonathan Edwards as Great Mirror
‘There is no historical task’, wrote Albert Schweitzer in 1906, ‘which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus.’ In his famous study of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century quest for the ‘historical Jesus’, Schweitzer exposed the tendency of each generation of scholars...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1997
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| In: |
Scottish journal of theology
Year: 1997, Volume: 50, Issue: 1, Pages: 39-60 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | ‘There is no historical task’, wrote Albert Schweitzer in 1906, ‘which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus.’ In his famous study of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century quest for the ‘historical Jesus’, Schweitzer exposed the tendency of each generation of scholars to find its own thoughts in the man from Nazareth. Since Schweitzer, scholars have become ever more skeptical about the possibility of ‘objective’ interpretation. Hans-Georg Gadamer, noting the predilection of readers to rewrite texts in their own language, concluded that ‘all understanding is self-understanding’. Quentin Skinner, taking a different tack, complained that history all too often becomes ‘a pack of tricks we play on the dead’. And Peter Novick, carrying the criticisma step further, observed that even if scholars recognize the specks in their opponents' eyes, they usually fail to see the logs in their own. In short, if modern hermeneutical studies since Schweitzer have conveyed one overriding message, it is that subjectivity is inescapable. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-3065 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Scottish journal of theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600036127 |