PROBLEMS OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDY 611 



one of far-reaching significance for our estimate of Jesus. If the 

 trend of scholarly opinion at this hour seems almost wholly in one 

 direction, it is still to be recognized that the discussion is not yet 

 closed, and the final verdict may perhaps be different from that of 

 this hour. 



A third great problem concerns the narratives of the resurrection. 

 That behind these narratives, including the testimony of the apostle 

 Paul, there were veritable experiences of the early Christians; that 

 those experiences had a mighty influence in the production of the 

 early Christian church; and that they kept alive, if they did not create, 

 that faith which is at the very heart of Christianity, it is impossible 

 to deny. But that the narratives present peculiar difficulties to the 

 interpreter and the historian, that the experiences are themselves 

 of a character to call for the most careful discrimination between 

 the interpretation which the witnesses themselves put upon them 

 and the objective facts that gave rise to the experience, and that to 

 a record of veritable experiences there may have been added nar- 

 ratives of inferior historical character these things also it would 

 be rash to deny. The truth that is at the heart of the resurrection 

 narratives and of the faith of the early church in the resurrection, 

 Christianity will never willingly surrender. But neither will it cease 

 its inquiry into these records until it has determined with all possible 

 exactness what actually happened in the experience of the disciples 

 and at the tomb of Joseph. 



Of other problems that pertain to the life of Jesus, partly to his 

 teachings, partly to more external matters, a bare catalogue of some 

 of the most important must suffice. Such are the parentage of Jesus 

 and the historicity of the narratives of the infancy, the question 

 whether he possessed a consciousness of preexistence, the time and 

 length of his ministry, and his relation to the baptism and the Lord's 

 supper which we find as established usages of the apostolic church. 



But all these are of minor consequence, save as they contribute 

 to the solution of that central and most vital problem of the life of 

 Jesus, and indeed of all New Testament study, What is the signifi- 

 cance of Jesus for religion? What is his place in human history? That 

 this cannot be solved by lexicography and grammar, exegesis and 

 documentary criticism, does not exclude it from the province of the 

 New Testament student, but only emphasizes the largeness of his 

 task. It is the goal toward which all study of the gospels must move, 

 the hope of its attainment is the inspiration under which it labors. 



The apostolic age naturally falls into three parts, or is viewed 

 from three points of view: primitive Christianity, the work of Paul, 

 the Christianity of the later apostolic age. That Paul was the most 

 potent single personality in the apostolic age can be doubted only 

 by supposing that the extant records do not exhibit the facts in 



