05 March 2009

The Most Meaningful Tribute

Fascinating comment by Gerhard Kittel, the famous twentieth century philologist and NT scholar, on his former teacher Adolf Schlatter (to whom Kittel dedicated his Woerterbuch):

It is no accident that there has never been a Schlatter School, even though few theologians have more decisively influenced so large a number of their fellow men. None of us would have thought, or dared to think, of designating ourselves as Schlatterians. Never could anyone detect in him any other design than to manifest the reality of God in Christ.

--quoted by F. N. Davey in intro to Schlatter's The Church in the New Testament Period (trans. P. P. Levertoff; London: SPCK, 1961), viii

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