ISBN: 9780217892339

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustra… More...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902. Excerpt: ... CONCLUSION At the close of our work we revert to the question with which we set out, What is the truth with respect to the historic credibility of the Gospel? Our investigation of the Source employed in the Gospel, and of the genesis of the Gospel itself, shows that this question cannot be answered in any terse, rounded formula. The Gospel includes precious material of apostolic tradition. But it was not composed, any more than our other three Gospels, by an apostolic eye-witness of the Gospel history. There are in it, as in the synoptic Gospels, elements of a secondary tradition lying side by side with those of the apostolic tradition. As it is the latest of our Gospels we come face to face with its secondary character much more clearly than with that of the Synoptics. But it is possible--not indeed in every detail, but in the main--to discriminate the apostolic tradition in the Gospel from the elements of a secondary, subapostolic interpretation and tradition. And just because such discrimination is possible, the Gospel possesses for us--in spite of its subapostolic origin and the incredibility of many of its component parts--an eminent historical value. It is a real source for history, but one which must be critically used. Are we to deplore the fact that the fourth evangelist subjected the memoirs of the Apostle John to a redaction and setting which cannot compare with them in character and value? We ought to reflect that without this redaction and setting the apostolic memoirs would perhaps have spread no further, and would have been lost altogether to later ages. Before they could be looked upon by subapostolic Christianity as fit for use, alongside the evangelical writings it already possessed, in the instruction of the communities in the life of t... Hans Hinrich Wendt, Books, Religion and Spirituality, The Gospel According To St. John; An Inquiry Into Its Genesis And Historical Value Books>Religion and Spirituality, General Books LLC<