The lectures contained in this volume were prepared for the “Training School for Clergy and Sunday School Teachers,” organized by the Oxford Diocesan Sunday School Association, and held at Wangate in September 1919 and 1920; and were also utilized as course of twenty-four lectures given to a Church Tutorial Class at Reading in the winter of 1919-20.

Few questions have received more attention from Christian scholars and theologians during the past two hundred years than the question of history and tradition in th efour gospels. But real advances in understanding that have been made, there is still quite fundamental disagreement among scholars on how far we can regard the gospels as historically reliable, and indeed on what the notion of 'historicity' involves in this context, or whether it really matters. To thinking Christiansthis scholarly disagreement is a source of perplexity. It may be true that the theology of the N.T. is a more important object for study than its historical details; it is certainly the case that much of the past search for the historical Jesus has led into dead ends. But, despite the attempts of some to suggest otherwise, the conviction remains that the Christian faith is closely and essentially tied up with the history of its founder figure, so that the question of the historical value of the gospels cannot be dismissed and should not be left unanswered." The Gospels Research Project of Tyndale House, Cambridge, of which the Gospel Perspectives series is the fruit, was set up to look further into the historicity of Jesus question -- Preface.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.