Volume 74, Issue 1

This essay explores the exegetical possibilities and boundaries of the history of religions approach to the New Testament. In part 1 it offers an overview of the history of historical critical exegesis of the New Testament from the magisterial research of the history of religions school to the newest approaches of historical Jesus research. In part 2, three hermeneutical problems for the exegete are outlined: the relationship between text and tradition, the relationship between early Christian literature and its surroundings and the relationship between the New Testament as an ancient collection and its reception today. »Wenn du die Bücher des Neuen Testaments ganz und gar verstehen willst, versetze dich in die Person derer, denen sie zuerst von den Aposteln zum Lesen gegeben worden sind. Versetze dich im Geiste in jene Zeit und jene Gegend, wo sie zuerst gelesen wurden. Sorge, soweit es möglich ist, dafür, dass du die Sitten, Gebräuche, Gewohnheiten, Meinungen, überkommenen Vorstellungen, Sprichwörter, Bildersprache, tägliche Ausdrucksweisen jener Menschen erkennst und die Art und Weise, wie sie andere zu überzeugen versuchen oder Begründungen Glauben verschaffen. Darauf sei vor allem bedacht, wo du dich einer Stelle zuwendest, wobei du durch kein heutiges System, sei es theologischer, sei es logischer Art, oder durch heute gängige Meinungen vorankommen kannst.«

According to a wide-spread opinion, protestant ethics is based on its Christian understanding of reality. Hence the task of protestant ethics is seen in the deduction and justification of moral judgments about ethically controversial questions from premises of the Christian faith. The present contribution offers an in-depth critique of this predominant view. Its assumption is that this concept is based on a wrong understanding of both moral and religion. Either one is connected to the presence of reality (»Wirklichkeitspräsenz«); thus the relation between the two has to be determined within the horizon of the presence of reality instead of theoretical deductions and constructs.

This contribution analyses the field of loan and interest in the history of Protestantism. It focuses on cooperative solutions and discusses the attitudes of the reformation towards a social monetized economy based on cooperative structures. Finally some models of interaction informed by protestant economic ethics are presented as examples.

The paper deals with potential ethical implications of contemporary Christological studies. In a first section the argument is made that doctrine and ethics belong together. In the central section, this claim is then illustrated with reference to recent approaches to Christology. Under the theme »Christology and Ethics« six popular approaches are discussed with a view to their respective ethical implications. In each case, representative examples are provided. The six approaches are those that underline living in communion with Christ, that emphasize remembering Jesus, that call for discipleship, that employ the threefold office, that depart from the worship of Christ and that emphasize Christ’s promised future. In a brief final section three conclusions are developed regarding Christology and public theology, or Jesus and politics.