Jun 17, 2014

Henry Cadbury and "The Still Small Voice of Upretentious, Meticulous Research"


I have been making my way through William Baird’s third volume on the History of New Testament Research. So far it has been an interesting read. I did not realize that it was Henry J. Cadbury who coined the hyphenated designation Luke-Acts that is so commonly used today. I also appreciated the following evaluative comment by Baird regarding Cadbury: “In sum, Cadbury’s Making of Luke-Acts is a classic—one of the great books of twentieth-century NT research. It is an original work that joins penetrating analysis with synthesizing wisdom. Cadbury shows that scholarship is not always in the wind and earthquake and fire, but in the still small voice of unpretentious, meticulous research.”[1]
 

Baird’s analysis is spot on. If you are working in Acts you need to become familiar with Cadbury. And whether you are a budding or seasoned scholar, one would do well to emulate “the still small voice of unpretentious, meticulous research.”

[1] William Baird, History of New Testament Research: Volume 3: From C. H. Dodd to Hans Dieter Betz (MInneapolis, Fortress, 2013), 23.

No comments: