Open AccessGERHARD VON RAD (1901–1971): A RELUCTANT MODERNIST’S APPROACH TO WISDOM LITERATURE
Author(s) -
Charles K. Telfer
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
unio cum christo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2473-8476
pISSN - 2380-5412
DOI - 10.35285/ucc5.1.2019.art12
Subject(s) - faith , philosophy , new testament , face (sociological concept) , order (exchange) , poetry , bridge (graph theory) , nazism , theology , old testament , literature , historical jesus , art , medicine , linguistics , finance , german , economics
Gerhard von Rad defended the importance of the Old Testament for Christians in the face of Nazi pressure. Reacting to the sterility of a Religionsgeschichte approach, he was a part of the Biblical Theology Movement and sought to set forth the theological material of the Old Testament in roughly historical order as a summary of Israelite faith. Attempting to set forth the “saving acts of God,” his equivocal use of the category “history” failed to bridge his modernist assumptions that reality is unbreachably divided into the phenomenal and the noumenal. Though a number of his assumptions about wisdom literature have since been discredited, von Rad strove to approach Old Testament wisdom on its own terms, with poetic sensitivity, respect, and deep appreciation.