RESURRECTION AND HISTORICAL REASON

A scholarly study of the nature of the conflict which exists between the Resurrection of Jesus and the modern historical criticism which has made it increasingly difficult for theologians and biblical scholars to accept the New Testament primacy of the Resurrection, and has led them to renounce it from its central position and place it on the periphery of Christian teaching. The thesis which Dr. Richard Niebuhr argues with great persuasiveness is that all conceptions of history and of historical reason that do not begin with the resurrection can neither gain from nor contribute to the resurrection faith any significant light; that the interpretation of the New Testament resurrection tradition and the principle of historical method appropriate to theology as a whole must be forged together. The reasoning and argument are closely woven; the student and the scholar are the most likely to read and profit from this latest book by the Professor of Christian Ethics at the Yale Divinity School.