Engaging with Schlatter

Swiss theologian Adolf Schlatter (1852-1938) remains underappreciated in much English-language scholarship, despite his extraordinary productivity and enduring influence on Protestant theology in the German-speaking world. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to recover Schlatter's distinctive theological vision at the intersection of New Testament exegesis and dogmatics. The contributors argue that Schlatter offers a convincing alternative to both reductionist historicism and abstract doctrinal speculation by insisting that theology answers to the concrete reality of God's action in history, centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ. The contributors situate Schlatter in his life, work, and theological legacy, attending to his academic settings and the continuing significance of his intellectual project. They engage Schlatter as a New Testament theologian by examining his approach to parables, his interpretive practices, and the way his work negotiates the relationship between historical inquiry and theological judgment. In doing so, they highlight Schlatter's enduring contribution to hermeneutics, especially his resistance to disciplinary fragmentation and his insistence that theological interpretation remains accountable to the text's historical and theological claims. Furthermore, the contributors acknowledge Schlatter as a dogmatic theologian through his sustained focus on Christology and the theology of the cross, accompanied by a long-overdue English translation of Schlatter's treatise Jesus' Divinity and the Cross. Finally, they engage Schlatter as a »complete theologian« by probing the nature of faith within his dogmatic thought, testing the task of »historical« investigation for theological studies, and placing Schlatter in fresh dialogue with major theological interlocutors.

Michael Bräutigam and Jason Lam: Preface - Michael Bräutigam and Jason Lam: Biblical Exegesis, Christology, and Biography: Adolf Schlatter's Unique Perspective

Part 1: Schlatter - Life, Work, and Theological Legacy
Werner Neuer: Adolf Schlatter: Leben, Werk, Wirkung: Eine vorläufige Bilanz zum 21. Jahrhundert - Riyako C. Hikota: Schlatter's "Free-Style" Ecumenism - Michael F. Bird: Adolf Schlatter as New Testament Theologian: On the Intersection of History and Theology in New Testament Theology

Part 2: Schlatter as a New Testament Theologian
Daniel A. Gleich: Adolf Schlatter als Gleichnisausleger zur Zeit Adolf Jülichers - Mark W. Elliott: Schlatter's Exegesis and Hermeneutics: Belonging to an "Alternative Tradition"? - Peter C. Orr: Schlatter and Contemporary New Testament Debates on the Nature of Faith

Part 3: Schlatter as a Dogmatic Theologian
Adolf Schlatter: Jesus' Divinity and the Cross - Michael Bräutigam: Between Greifswald and Erlangen: Adolf Schlatter and Konrad Grass on the Divinity of Jesus Christ - Andreas Loos: Gottheit in der Gottverlassenheit: Eine trinitarische und theo-dramatische Relektüre der Kreuzeslehre Adolf Schlatters - Eric Oldenburg: Jesus' Will to Die: A Theology of Volition Informed by Schlatter's Account of Gethsemane and Golgotha in Jesus' Divinity and the Cross - Myk Habets: Schlatter and the Early Adoption of Spirit Christology - Hong Liang: Gottverlassenheit und die Kritik des „abstrakten Monotheismus": Zu Jürgen Moltmanns Rezeption und Erweiterung der Kreuzestheologie von Adolf Schlatter

Part 4: Schlatter as a Complete Theologian
Michael Bräutigam: "Faith" in Adolf Schlatter's Dogma - Jason Lam: What is the Task of "Historical" Investigation for Theological Studies? Examining Adolf Schlatter's Theological Enterprise through a Hermeneutical Lens - Hans-Martin Rieger: Der Gottesdienst Christi am Kreuz und die Heilung der Welt: Anselm von Canterbury und Adolf Schlatter neu gelesen - Robert W. Yarbrough: Afterword