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Wolfhart Pannenberg's Theology as History and the Role of the Historical-Critical Method
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Ever since its relatively late arrival on the theological scene the historical-critical method has been cast in a wide variety of roles. It is unfortunate that it has seldom made its appearance as one of theology's handmaids. Only recently, with the gradual retreat of the theologies of the Word, has it been enabled to terminate its prolonged contract to play court jester to a series of sovereign directors.
page 129 note 1 See in particular Gerhard Ebeling's essay ‘The Significance of the Historical Critical Method for Church and Theology in Protestantism’ (in Word and Faith, pp. 17–61, London: SCM Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and Ott's, Heinrich ‘The Historical Jesus and the Ontology of History’ (in The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ, pp. 1427–71, edited by Braaten, Carl E. and Harrisville, Roy A., New York, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1964).Google Scholar
page 130 note 1 See may, Pannenberg's ‘The Revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth’ in Theology as History, pp. 126–7Google Scholar (New Frontiers in Theology, vol. III, edited by James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb Jr., New York: Harper and Row, 1967).
page 130 note 2 Basic Questions in Theology, I, 60 (SCM Press, London: 1970).Google Scholar
page 130 note 3 Ibid.
page 131 note 1 Revelation as History, p. 155 (London: Sheed and Ward, 1969).Google Scholar
page 131 note 2 Basic Questions in Theology, 1, 141.
page 131 note 3 Basic Questions in Theology, I, 54.
page 131 note 4 Op. cit. p. 56.
page 131 note 5 Revelation as History, p. 131.
page 132 note 1 Pannenberg writes, however: ‘…the exclusion in principle of this (heilsgeschichtlich) series of events from the rest of history which Cullmann has effected, is questionable, for it creates the appearance that these events were different from others not only in their historical peculiarity, but also qualitatively different in another, metaphysical sense’ (Theology as Histosy, pp. 247 f., n. 46).
page 132 note 2 Basic Questions in Theology, I, 39–50.
page 132 note 3 Op. cit. pp. 66–80.
page 133 note 1 Revelation as History, p. 13.
page 136 note 1 A similar point is made by E. Frank Tupper in his recent book The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (London: SCM Press, 1974), p. 298.Google Scholar
page 136 note 2 Heb. 11: I.
page 136 note 3 Phenomenology of Mind (London, 1910)Google Scholar, translator's introduction, p. v.
page 137 note 1 See Bultmann's, essay ‘Prophecy and Fulfilment’ in Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, ed. Westermann, C. (London: SCM Press, 1963), pp. 50–75.Google Scholar
page 137 note 2 Basic Questions in Theology, I, 27.
page 137 note 3 For a brief discussion of this notion of faith in connection with Pannenberg's position, see Galloway's, Allan D.Wolfhart Pannenberg, Contemporary Religious Thinkers Series, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1973, p. 42.Google Scholar
