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Church and Theology in the Modern Era covers the period from the Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century and is based on lectures delivered by Baur in the 1840s and 1850s. It was published after his death as the fourth volume of his church history. The first and last volumes (Christianity and the Christian Church of the First Three Centuries and Church and Theology in the Nineteenth Century) have appeared in English translation from Wipf and Stock. This book contains a wealth of information, not only about the well-known figures of the Reformation and its aftermath, but also about other important persons who are often overlooked. It attends to both Protestant and Catholic history and shows that this is the most turbulent period in church history since the early years of Christianity. Ecclesiastical and political controversies are often intertwined, and momentous decisions are made that affect the modern world.

Baur's Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ was the major study of Paul published in the nineteenth century, and it is one of the greatest works of all time on Paul. It lays the basis for modern Pauline scholarship. The first part,'The Life and Activity of the Apostle Paul,'consists of a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the account of Paul found in the Acts of the Apostles. While the author of Acts passed on historical traditions about Paul, he greatly embellished them with stories about the miraculous feats of the apostles, and constructed the entire account to show fictitious parallels between the apostles Peter and Paul. The second part,'The Epistles of the Apostle Paul,'is divided into three main sections: the authentic epistles of Paul (Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans), the deutero-Pauline epistles (Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Philemon), and the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus). In the first two parts Baur's historical-critical skills are at their finest. The third part,'The Apostle's Theological Framework,'draws the elements of Pauline theology into a magnificent synthesis, where the influence of Hegel and Schleiermacher is evident. The earlier English translation is no longer adequate. Our new translation presents a very readable text with critical annotations and translations of all the scriptural passages quoted in Greek. Baur on Paul truly becomes available in English for the first time.

Baur published Die christliche Gnosis in 1835. It was his first great religio-historical study and the most important book on Gnosticism published in the nineteenth century. It is now recognized as having a pivotal status in Baur studies. In it Baur offers a unique thesis about a link between ancient and modern religious philosophy. Gnosis is a type of religious philosophy that contains ideas about the relationship between God, world, and human beings, as expressed in concrete religious traditions and practices. As such, it makes an important contribution to Christian theology. In the first part, Baur develops a concept of gnosis in dialogue with his predecessors and contemporaries. He classifies the gnostic systems in terms of how they conceive the relationship of Christianity to Judaism and paganism, and then describes them in detail (Valentinus, Ophites, Bardesanes, Saturninus, Basilides, Marcion, Pseudo-Clementines). Following transitional sections on the criticism of and reaction to gnosis in church history, the book ends with modern religious philosophy (Boehme, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Hegel--Baur's first discussion of these major thinkers). This book was written over a hundred years before the manuscript discovery at Nag Hammadi, which awakened a lively interest in Gnosticism that continues to the present day.

Christianity and the Christian Church of the First Three Centuries is the first volume in Baur's five-volume history of the Christian Church. It and the last volume, Church and Theology in the Nineteenth Century, are being published in new translations. This book, based on the second German edition of 1860, is the most influential and best known of Baur's many groundbreaking publications in New Testament, early Christianity, church history, and historical theology. It is divided into six main parts and discusses such matters as the entrance of Christianity into world history, the teaching and person of Jesus, the tension between Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian (Pauline) interpretations and their resolution in the idea of the Catholic Church, the opposition of gnosticism and Montanism to Catholicism, the development of dogma or doctrine in the first three centuries, Christianity's relation to the pagan world and the Roman state, and Christianity as a moral and religious principle.

Christianity and the Christian Church of the First Three Centuries is the first volume in Baur's five-volume history of the Christian Church. It and the last volume, Church and Theology in the Nineteenth Century, are being published in new translations. This book, based on the second German edition of 1860, is the most influential and best known of Baur's many groundbreaking publications in New Testament, early Christianity, church history, and historical theology. It is divided into six main parts and discusses such matters as the entrance of Christianity into world history, the teaching and person of Jesus, the tension between Jewish Christian and gentile Christian (Pauline) interpretations and their resolution in the idea of the Catholic Church, the opposition of Gnosticism and Montanism to Catholicism, the development of dogma or doctrine in the first three centuries, Christianity's relation to the pagan world and the Roman state, and Christianity as a moral and religious principle.

The'summer sermons'have been delivered in the Presbyterian Church of Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, over a period of fifteen years. When someone first arrives in Eagles Mere for the summer, people ask how their'winter'has been--winter meaning the whole time that has elapsed since the previous summer. In the author's case,'winter'means Nashville, Tennessee, where he has lived since 1965 when he joined the faculty of Vanderbilt Divinity School, retiring after thirty-eight years.'Winter Thoughts'consists of autobiographical reflections on three topics: lives, theologies, and politics. The lives are those of Peter and Eva Hodgson. The longest section,'Theologies,'describes the various influences and directions the author's work has taken in systematic and historical theology.'Politics'reflects on the decline of the liberal democratic consensus. The whole is loosely held together by an underlying question: How is God efficaciously present in history without violating the fabric of history?

The last volume of Baur's church history, based on lectures delivered during the 1850s, covers the nineteenth century. They were edited and published by Eduard Zeller after Baur's death. Since the lectures devote equal attention to theological and ecclesiastical matters, the title in English is Church and Theology in the Nineteenth Century. Baur provides critical analyses of the philosophers and theologians of the nineteenth century (Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, Schleiermacher, Marheineke, Neander, Mohler, Hegel, Strauss, Feuerbach, and many others), as well as details about European Catholic and Protestant church history from 1800 to 1860. What he produces is a'participant history,'written by a scholar very much engaged in the issues of his time. Ferdinand Christian Baur was a professor of theology at the University of Tubingen from 1826 to 1860. He is known for his path-breaking studies in New Testament literature and historical theology. Recent translations of his work by Brown and Hodgson include History of Christian Dogma and Lectures on New Testament Theology.

Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), one of the great innovators in the study of the New Testament, argued that each of its books reflects the interests and tendencies of its author in a particular religio-historical milieu. A critique of the writings must precede any judgments about the historical validity of individual stories about Jesus in the Gospels. Thus Baur could move beyond the impasse created by Strauss's Life of Jesus. Baur demonstrated that the Gospel of John is not a historical document comparable to the Synoptic Gospels and cannot be used to reconstruct the teaching of Jesus, and that the Synoptic Gospels must be read critically and selectively. He applied the same principles to the Epistles, arguing that only four are genuinely Pauline (Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans). Baur's Lectures on New Testament Theology, delivered in Tübingen during the 1850s, summarize thirty years of his research. The lectures begin with an Introduction on the concept, history, and organization of New Testament theology. Part One is devoted to the teaching of Jesus, which Baur finds most reliably in Matthew. Part Two contains the teaching of the Apostles in three chronological periods. The first period presents the theological frameworks of the Apostle Paul and the Book of Revelation; the second period, the frameworks of Hebrews, the Deutero-Pauline Epistles, James and Peter, the Synoptic Gospels and Acts; and the third period, those of the Pastoral Epistles and the Gospel of John.

History of Christian Dogma is a translation of Ferdinand Christian Baur's Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, second edition, 1858. The Lehrbuch, which Baur himself prepared, summarizes in 400 pages his lectures on the history of Christian dogma, published post-humously in four volumes. Baur, professor of theology at the University of Tübingen from 1826 to 1860, brilliantly applied Hegelian categories to his historical studies in New Testament, church history, and history of Christian dogma. According to Baur,'Dogma'is the rational articulation of the Christian'idea'or principle-the idea that God and humanity are united through Christ and reconciled in the faith of the spiritual community. Following an introduction on the concept and history of the history of dogma, the Lehrbuch treats three main periods: the dogma of the ancient church or the substantiality of dogma; the dogma of the Middle Ages or the dogma of inwardly reflected consciousness; and dogma in the modern era or dogma and free self-consciousness. The entire history is a progression in the self-articulation of dogma through conflict and resolution, moving gradually from objective to subjective forms and to the mediation of subject and object by the philosophers and theologians of the early nineteenth century. The detailed analyses provide a wealth of information on individual thinkers and doctrines that is still relevant today.

Peter C. Hodgson explores Hegel's bold vision of history as the progress of the consciousness of freedom. Following an introductory chapter on the textual sources, the key categories, and the modes of writing history that Hegel distinguishes, Hodgson presents a new interpretation of Hegel's conception of freedom. Freedom is not simply a human production, but takes shape through the interweaving of the divine idea and human passions, and such freedom defines the purpose of historical events in the midst of apparent chaos. Freedom is also a process that unfolds through stages of historical/cultural development and is oriented to an end that occurs within history (the'kingdom of freedom'). The purpose and the process of history are tragic, however, because history is also a'slaughterhouse'that shatters even the finest human creations and requires a constant rebuilding. Hegel's God is not a supreme being or'large entity'but the'true infinite'that encompasses the finite. History manifests the rule of God ('providence'), and it functions as the justification of God ('theodicy'). But the God who rules in and is justified by history is a crucified God who takes the suffering, anguish, and evil of the world into and upon godself, accomplishing reconciliation in the midst of ongoing estrangement and inescapable death. Shapes of Freedom addresses these themes in the context of present-day questions about what they mean and whether they still have validity.