In Response to Dr. Faruqi

Let me say at outset that I share concern which I detect behind statements in Dr. Faruqi's paper. One senses here a crying out for truth and integrity in religious faith, for instruments of scholarship that will enable discerning men of faith to attain such integrity, and hope that all religions, but particularly those of Semitic strand, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, might be brought into a closer bond on basis of such scholarly inquiry. At times it seems that all Dr. Faruqi means to plead for is an overarching fund of tested historical facts about history of each of several religions which will stand over against every biased, dogmatic tradition that would color, distort or ignore these facts in order to concur with its vested interests. This was precisely aim of religionsgeschichtliche Schule of Christian historians in which early Chicago School participated, or emulated, and to which they made significant contributions. Many of facts which Dr. Faruqi mentions in his two illustrations toward end of his paper are explicitly noted in these writings, e.g., genesis and development of that against which revolution (of Jesus) came, as well as genesis and development of stream of ideas of which revolution came as an apex, as a consummation and crystallization; the sifting of two streams, distinguishing between nationalistic particularistic und universal stream; the relation of Jesus' personal outlook and faith to Jewish antecedents, particularly that of Hebrew prophets. The citing and tracing of these origins and developments, antecedents and relationships was burden of some of those early handbooks such as J. M. P. Smith's The Prophet and His Problem, The Prophets and Their Times, and S. J. Case's several works, especially his A New Biography, Social Origins of Christianity and The Evolution of Early Christianity, to mention some early studies of this school. Cf. also Cadbury, H. J., Jesus and Prophets. Journal of Religion, Nov., 1925

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