Jesus And His Sacrifice - A Study Of The Passion Sayings In The Gospels - Paperback

JESUS AND A STUDY OF THE PASSIOlX SA-YINGS IN THE GOSPELS BY VINCENT TAYLOR, PH. D., D. D. LOND. PRINCIPAL AND FKRKNS PROFESSOR OP NEW TESTAMENT LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT WESLKY COLLEGE, HBADIKGLEY, LEEDS MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTINS STREET, LONDON 1937 TO E. T. AND M. M. T. PREFACE AFTER devoting something like twenty-five years to the study of the problems of literary and historical criticism in connexion with the Gospels, and es pecially to the minutiae of source criticism, lam conscious of a strong desire to investigate some more vital issue, arising out of these studies, which bears intimately upon Christian life and practice. For this reason during the last four years, in the intervals of a busy life spent in teaching and administration, I have endeavoured to make a careful in vestigation of the Passion-sayings, with a view to discover ing how Jesus interpreted His suffering and death. The results of this inquiry are published in the present volume. Portions of the work were included in a course of Lectures given at University College, Bangor, in May, 1936, and I gladly take this opportunity of expressing my deep grati tude to Principal D. Emrys Evans and the members of the University Staff for the wonderful kindness I received during my visit to Wales. I also recall with the greatest pleasure the keen interest which is taken by Welsh mini sters and students in theological studies. The plan of the work is simple. In Part I, I have exa mined the outstanding Old Testament ideas which form a necessary background to the sayings of Jesus, and in the light of which alone they can be understood. Part II con tains the critical investigation of the sayings themselves, in Mark, Luke, I Cor. xi, 23-5, and the Fourth Gospel. Here I have thought it well to give special attention to questions of genuineness, as well as of interpretation, in consequence of the most recent phase of Gospel re search represented by Form-Criticism in Germany, Great vii viii PREFACE Britain, and the United States of America. Part 1 1 1 is con structive. It is devoted to an attempt to state the results to which the investigation leads. I am well aware that, in this section, my work reaches its most vulnerable point. Differences of opinion on these matters are inevitable, and I cannot expect that the views I have outlined will com mend themselves to every reader. There is a not un natural inclination on the part of many Gospel critics to avoid discussing ultimate questions. The critic comforts himself with the opinion that these are not his province they are the responsibility of the theologian, whereas his own duty is to observe the wisdom of the proverb which warns us that the shoemaker must stick to his last. There can be no doubt at all that the observance of this principle has made possible a vast amount of learned research to which all students are indebted. It was, however, always a dangerous principle, since, in the limited province within which the expert must work, it is easy to see results out of focus. Many examples of this peril could easily be given, especially the attempts of the Liberal School to understand and explain the beginnings of Christianity. But, how ever hazardous it may have been, this method is doubly dangerous to-day, when the fortunes of the Christian reli gion in the world approach a kind of Armageddon in which its immense claims must finally be tried in thefires of conflict. The critic of to-day must live in two worlds, the academic region of his particular interests and the larger world of contemporary religion. At least once in his life he should be compelled to come out into the open and declare the bearing of his tentative results upon the larger problems of Christian belief and worship. Only in this way can he discover whether his work is worth while, or whether it is nothing more than academic trifling...