PROBLEMS OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDY 589 



Harnack's What is Christianity ? in both of which the historian 

 is evidently chiefly interested in the question : What is of permanent 

 validity? What is, not simply historically true, but normative for 

 human life? If it be maintained that these are not questions for 

 the historian, then it will be necessary to answer that the New Testa- 

 ment historian must always be something more than an historian. 



My second suggestion is that, if the New Testament historian 

 may legitimately claim the right to enter this field, it is equally evi- 

 dent that he cannot as New Testament historian claim exclusive 

 right to it. Events can be interpreted only when seen in relation. 

 For the crudity that can discover profound meanings in events apart 

 from their place in history the historian can have no tolerance. And 

 the broader the view which one is able to take, the wider the horizon 

 in which he can set the events of New Testament history, the truer 

 are his interpretations likely to be. To extend that horizon to include 

 all the history of early Christianity is well, not to say indispensable 

 to any just interpretation of events. To take in all biblical history 

 is better shall we not here also say indispensable? To sweep in 

 the whole history of Christianity, this is undoubtedly better still. 

 To include the knowledge of religion at large, and, not least, a know- 

 ledge of religious experience as it can be studied in living men, this 

 is best of all. The New Testament student who best apprehends 

 the nature of his task will most gladly welcome every coadjutor 

 who brings to the study a large historical knowledge and a large 

 horizon in which to set the knowledge which the New Testament 

 student himself possesses in his own special field. 



With such a definition and conception of the field of New Testa- 

 ment study, we may divide it into four great divisions. 



I. Preparatory studies: those which are prerequisite to literary 

 interpetation, including 



(1) Textual criticism. 



(2) The language of the New Testament. 



(3) The history of New Testament times, both in the Jewish and 

 the Grseco-Roman world. 



(4) Introduction to the New Testament books. 



II. Literary Interpretation of the New Testament books : the dis- 

 covery in respect to each New Testament book of the course of 

 thought of which it was the expression. 



III. New Testament History, including both the history of events 

 and the history of thought and, as a necessary element of the process, 

 criticism of the results of interpretation as respects matters of historic 

 fact. 



IV. Indirectly contributory sciences: such as the history of the 

 canon, the history of the text, the history of interpretation, and the 

 historv of criticism. 



