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.

Adolf Schlatter · Biblical Exegesis · Christology · divine agency · Dogmatic Theology · faith and history · global theology · Hermeneutics · historical inquiry · historical theology · interdisciplinary theology · Jesus christ · New Testament Theology · Protestant theology · Reception History · Spirit Christology · Theological Interpretation · theology of the cross · Church History · New Testament