Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 01:2 (May 1939)
Article: Reviews of Books
Author: Anonymous

WTJ 1:2 (May 1939) p. 111

Reviews of Books

Rudolph Otto: The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man. A Study in the History of Religion. Translated from the revised German edition by Floyd V. Filson and Bertram Lee Woolf. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. [1938]. 406. $3.50.

This book is far from typical of recent trends in the study of the gospels, so far, indeed, that if it succeeds in influencing modern opinion in any decisive way it will come to be regarded as marking a turning point in the history of New Testament criticism. But even if it does not win a wide following for its author’s approach to the gospels, it is likely to be remembered as a rather distinguished effort to turn the stream of criticism into other channels, in part back to old ones that had seemed to have had their day and in part into others that have emerged as the result of new research and new hypotheses. On the whole, the latter, more moderate, judgment of its significance appears to have the preference. At any rate the book clearly merits examination and review.

On the subject of the origin and relations of the gospels, Otto has boldly deserted the beaten track. This holds true not only in his rejection of the current form-critical conception of the background of the gospels but also, and more startlingly, of the Marcan Hypothesis which has come widely to be regarded as “an assured result” of modern critical investigation. In opposing form-criticism Otto insists that the earliest narratives owe their origin to missionaries who “did not carry abroad single unconnected fragments” but rather preached “the kingdom of God and a saving eschatological redeemer, through whose name, i.e. in the name of whom, one obtained the kingdom and its salvation” (p. 83). The records of the earliest missionary preaching show that “at the very beginning there was not a loose heap of sayings and other single stories that had been remembered, but actually a gospel, or rather a gospel-embryo. Perhaps it did not as yet contain a single saying of Christ. Such an embryonic gospel is offered by Acts x. 37–43. It recites none of the groups of sayings, but gives a characterization” (p. 84). Furthermore, Otto maintains that the earliest preaching “was not interested in, nor related to, chronology, but since happenings, actions, events, and cruxes of life belonged to the

WTJ 1:2 (May 1939) p. 112

person who was to be presented, temporal succession and arrangement must result; and since the first missionaries had shared in the experiences, their memory of the actual sequence of events must naturally have cooperated in settling the arrangement” (p. 85).

Inasmuch as Otto definitely rejects the view which seeks to account for the simil...