Primitive Christianity and Its Non-Jewish Sources

Professor Clemen is the Baedeker in the field of modern theological controversy. In the October number for 1912 we noticed his Der geschichtliche Jesus, a brochure furnishing an excellent introduction to the contemporary debate about the historicity of Jesus. The present work renders a similar and equally valuable service with regard to the wider and somewhat older issues raised by the religionsgeschichtliche interpretation of Christianity and the New Testament. In its German form the book appeared in 1909 under the title Religionsgeschichtliche Erklärung des Neuen Testaments. The English translation now offered to the public has been revised by the author himself, and the reader is assured in the preface that in every respect it truthfully represents his meaning. It has besides this, as Dr. Clemen generously concedes, the unusual bent of reading better than the original. This judgment is verified by the comparison we have made of the two. The cases where the German may be consulted to advantage in clearing up obscurities of the English are few in number compared with the cases where the opposite procedure will be found helpful.