Baur's Understandable Presupposition

F. C. Baur was an interesting man. Incredibly industrious, he was at his desk at four o'clock every morning. During his life he produced ten thousand pages of published work and after his death students and friends published another six thousand pages of his work, roughly equaling a 400 page book being published every year for 40 years.*

While Baur's work ethic was admirable, his theology....not so much. At least from a conservative point of view. He was the leader of the Tubingen school in Germany in the early 1800s, which school was renowned for its skepticism of the reliability of the NT. Baur believed that Jewish Christianity, being the earliest form of the religion, entered a tension with Gentile Christianity and in this battle the Gentile form of Christianity eventually won. He saw Peter (apostle to the Jews) and Paul (apostle to the Gentiles) as arch-enemies, based on Gal. 2:11-14 (and Baur's imagination). One of Baur's key arguments was his idea that "Simon Magus," the man whom Peter confronted in Clement of Rome's epistle, was none other than Paul. This was later disproved by J. B. Lightfoot, but for a while it held the argument.

What made Baur come to this conclusion? We all have presuppositions when we come to the text and Baur was no exception. He was influenced by Hegel's philosophy of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. That is, there is something, then something else comes along causing disorder and tension, but finally one of them wins, producing synthesis. This was the presupposition that led to his strange idea of the early Church.

This was a grave presupposition (though not the most foolish). Though I disagree with his theology greatly, I can kind of see how he might think this.

For example, consider the rise of the "historical-critical method" of biblical interpretation. This is the type of study in which a person comes to the Bible assuming it is not true. It basically takes the Bible to be a book just like any other...the product of men. Two of its leading proponents were Baruch Spinoza and Samuel Reimarus. Oh, and Ferdinand Christian Baur (I love my professor's quote: "The only thing Christian about this man was his name").

But think about it...where did the historical critical method originate? Guys like Baruch Spinoza saw the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition and the hypocrisies of "Christianity" and basically swung to the other side. "If this is what Christianity is, I don't want any part of it."

Can you relate to that? If you've been a Christian for more than a month, you probably can. It is certainly no excuse for apostasy or even bitterness, but it makes you think. If Christians had been acting like Christians, maybe there would not have been historical skepticism....

*Stephen Neill & Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1861-1986, p. 21.