Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Henry Thiessen's "Introduction to the New Testament:" Outline & Preliminaries

          Thiessen, Henry Clarence. Introduction to the New Testament.  Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1943.  It is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Henry-Clarence-Thiessen/dp/0802832598/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1376950862&sr=8-3&keywords=henry+c.+thiessen

       PREFACE

       INTRODUCTION

PART ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.      THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

A.    The Origin of the Books of the New Testament

B.    The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament

C.    The History of the Canon of the New Testament

2.      THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: THE MATERIALS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM

A.    The Greek Manuscripts

B.    The Ancient Versions

C.    The Patristic Writings

3.      THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: THE METHODS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM

A.    The External Evidence

B.    The Internal Evidence

4.      THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

A.    The Definition of Inspiration

B.    The Proofs of Inspiration

C.    The Objections to the Doctrine of Inspiration

PART TWO

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

5.      THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

A.    The Problem Stated

B.    Proposed Solutions

C.    A Proposed Solution

6.      THE HISTORICAL BOOKS: THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

A.    The Gospel of Matthew

B.    The Gospel of Mark

C.    The Gospel of Luke

7.      THE HISTORICAL BOOKS: JOHN AND THE BOOK OF ACTS

A.    The Gospel of John

B.    The Book of Acts

8.      THE PAULINE EPISTLES: THE FIRST GROUP

A.    The First Epistle to the Thessalonians

B.    The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

9.      THE PAULINE EPISTLES: THE SECOND GROUP

A.    The First Epistle to the Corinthians

B.    The Second Epistle to the Corinthians

C.    The Epistle to the Galatians

D.   The Epistle to the Romans

10.  THE PAULINE EPISTLES: THE THIRD GROUP

A.    The Epistle to the Colossians

B.    The Epistle to Philemon

C.    The Epistle to the Ephesians

D.   The Epistle to the Philippians

11.  THE PAULINE EPISTLES: THE FOURTH GROUP

A.    The First Epistle to Timothy

B.    The Epistle to Titus

C.    The Second Epistle to Timothy

12.  THE GENERAL EPISTLES: THE FIRST GROUP

A.    The Epistle of James

B.    The First Epistle of Peter

C.    The Second Epistle of Peter

D.   The Epistle of Jude

13.  HEBREWS AND THE GENERAL EPISTLES: THE SECOND GROUP

A.    The Epistle to the Hebrews

B.    The First Epistle of John

C.    The Second Epistle of John

D.   The Third Epistle of John

14. THE APOCALYPSE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Mr. Thiessen notes that NT studies involve four things: critical, historical, exegetical and theological issues.  The critical issues involve text, canon, authorship, occasion, date, design and destination of the individual books. The historical issues involve Christ’s life and the outline of the early church’s growth.  The exegetical issue deal with textual details, lexical and the like. The theological issues are formulations over several or many NT books.

Of note, he did not include essential qualifiers, to wit, the necessity of OT studies, Biblical theology, church history, or systematic theologies.  In an introduction, those cannot be by-passed.

He largely raises 18^th-20^th century names: Richard Simon (1712), J.G. Pitius (1704), J.D. Michalis of Gottingen (1750), J.S. Semler of Halle (d. 1791), our beloved Schleiermacher, Eichhorn, De Wette, J.L Bing of Freiburg, F.C. Baur (whose views were entirely upended), David Strauss, Renan, Thiersch, Lange, Ebrard, Guericke, Salmon, von Hogman, our friend Ritschl, Hilgenfeld, Reuss, Holtzmann, Harnack, Sandy, our very much beloved (no tongue-in-cheek here on this master) Theodore Zahn of Erlangen,  and Dibelius.

Mr. Thiessen offers this (incomplete) taxonomy:

·        Radicals: Pierson, Loman, van Manen, Naber, Steck, Volter.  These fellows, on Mr. Thiessen’s view, were upended by the liberals and conservatives.

·        Liberals: Holtzmann, Harnack, Julicher, Moffatt, Bacon, Souter, Peake, Lake and Lake, Cadbury, McNeile, and Goodspeed

·        Conservatives: Godet, Salmon, Zahn, M’Clymont, J.B. Lightfoot, Ellicott, Alford, Westcott, Knowling, Hayes, Robertson, and most Romanist writers

Mr. Thiessen has clearly missed some of the other big names, e.g. Bultmann and followers or old Princetonians on the other side, but we’ll leave this for later.

Mr. Thiessen, an American dispensationalistic/Baptist, states that there has “never been a time when critical study was entirely wanting.”  We definitely will have issues with this gentleman, for sure.