Hans Frei was born in Germany in 1922 and moved to the USA with his family during World War II. After studying under Niebuhr at Yale University he took up a teaching post there. In the 1960's he went to Europe undertaking research in both Gottingen and Cambridge. He died in 1988 at the peak of his career. This book is the first full study of the whole of Hans Frei's work, from his doctoral thesis on Karl Barth in the 1950's to his great unfinished project on the history of modern theology in the 1980's. Higton draws on a wide range of unpublished material in the Frei archives to present a comprehensive, fresh and original interpretation of Frei's theology. He places Frei's well-known work on biblical hemeneutics firmly in the context of his theological wrestling with Barth and of the dominant traditions of Western Protestant theology. Here is an unprecedented portrait of Frei as a theologian fundamentally concerned with the ability of theology to speak about, and to, the public world - and to regard that world as providentially ordered in Jesus Christ, without diminishing its concrete contingency and freedom. Frei emerges not just a powerful historian of theology, but a persuasive,
Hans Frei was born in Germany in 1922 and moved to the USA with his family during World War II. After studying under Niebuhr at Yale University he took up a teaching post there. In the 1960's he went to Europe undertaking research in both Gottingen and Cambridge. He died in 1988 at the peak of his career. This book is the first full study of the whole of Hans Frei's work, from his doctoral thesis on Karl Barth in the 1950's to his great unfinished project on the history of modern theology in the 1980's. Higton draws on a wide range of unpublished material in the Frei archives to present a comprehensive, fresh and original interpretation of Frei's theology. He places Frei's well-known work on biblical hemeneutics firmly in the context of his theological wrestling with Barth and of the dominant traditions of Western Protestant theology. Here is an unprecedented portrait of Frei as a theologian fundamentally concerned with the ability of theology to speak about, and to, the public world - and to regard that world as providentially ordered in Jesus Christ, without diminishing its concrete contingency and freedom. Frei emerges not just a powerful historian of theology, but a persuasive,
Introduction; Chapter One: Laughing at Strauss; Chapter Two: For and Against Barth; Chapter Three: Paying Attention to Jesus; Chapter Four: The Mystery of Christ's Presence; Chapter Five: Paying Attention to History; Chapter Six: The Eclipse of Providence; Chapter Seven: A Secular Sensibility; Chapter Eight: Unsystematic Theology; Conclusion; Appendix One: Frei and Anselm; Appendix Two: Jesus' Identity and the Identity of Others; Appendix Three: Frei and Chalcedon; Appendix Four: Barth and Overbeck; Appendix Five: Frei and Story Theology; Bibliography; Index
Mike Higton is Professor of Theology and Ministry at Durham University, UK.
"...a model of how theological scholarship ought to be done. And
even if we do not like his answers, Frei is raising precisely the
sort of questions evangelicals ought to reflect upon as often as
possible." Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology
"In this well-written critical study, Higton establishes that
Frei's larger project was a Christian theology that takes God's
relation to history and to persons in their concrete historical
circumstances with such seriousness that it creates conceptual
space for a genuinely publish theology....Higton's skilful
reconstruction sketches his bold and fascinating theological
vision. Enjoyably written, exemplary research." -Professor David H.
Kelsey, Yale Divinity School
"...is an unprecedented portrait of Frei as a theologian
fundamentally concerned with the ability of theology to speak
about, and to, the public world- and to regard that world as
providentially ordered in Jesus Christ, while celebrating its
concrete contingency and freedom." -SirReadaLot.org, 12/8/04
"Higton does the scholarly community (and one might hope the
theologically interested general reading public) a great service by
providing the best overall introduction to Frei's early work.
Higton, in very lucid and engaging prose and with great sensitivity
to the written record, convincingly demonstrates the coherence and
enormous significance of Frei's project as both a historian and a
theologian." - Anglican Theological Review
"Higton's book ... is by far the best there is, and it is to be
commended to anyone concerned with the challenges facing Christian
theology in recent centuries and today." - Theologische
Literaturzeitung
"Higton treats his subject with immense care and sympathy, and
perhaps this is how it should be in the first comprehensive study
of Frei's work." - Theology
"An ambitious theological analysis of one of the most significant
and seminal of 20th-century theologians. Through Higton's capacity
to focus on what is most significant at each point, he brings the
reader to grapple with the debate and a constructive possibility
for resolving it. The book is lucidly and accessibly written, and
should appeal to those seriously engaged with theological issues.
Altogether, it constitutes a major contribution." —Rev. Professor
Daniel W. Hardy
*Blurb from reviewer*
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