to that generation of scholars, how little
real knowledge they had of the problem which the Gospels present. To
Baur it was clear that if advance was to be made beyond Strauss'
negative results, the criticism of the gospel history must wait upon an
adequate criticism of the documents which are our sources for that
history. Strauss' failure had brought home to the minds of men the fact
that there were certain preliminary studies which must needs be taken
up. Meantime the other work must wait. As one surveys the literature of
the next thirty years this fact stands out. Many apologetic lives of
Jesus had to be written in reply to Strauss. But they are almost
completely negligible. No constructive work was done in this field until
nearly a generation had passed.

Since all history, said Baur, before it reaches us must pass through the
medium of a narrator, our first question as to the gospel history is
not, what objective reality can be accorded to the narrative itself.
There is a previous question. This concerns the relation of the
narrative to the narrator. It might be very difficult for us to make up
our minds as to what it was that, in a given case, the witness saw. We
have not material for such a judgment. We have probably much evidence,
up and down his writings, as to what sort of man the witness was, in
what manner he would be likely to see anything and with what personal
equation he would relate that which he saw. Baur would seem to have been
the first vigorously and consistently to apply this principle to the
gospel narratives. Before we can penetrate deeply into the meaning of an
author we must know, if we may, his purpose in writing. Every author
belongs to the time in which he lives. The greater the importance of his
subject for the parties and struggles of his day, the safer is the
assumption that both he and his work will bear the impress of these
struggles. He will represent the interests of one or another of the
parties. His work will have a tendency of some kind. This was one of
Baur's oft-used words--the tendency of a writer and of his work. We must
ascertain that tendency. The explanation of many things both in the form
and substance of a writing would be given could we but know that. The
letters of Paul, for example, are written in palpable advocacy of
opinions which were bitterly opposed by other apostles. The biographies
of Jesus suggest that they also represent, the one this tendency, the
other that.