1. Harnack, Adolf (1851-1930) German scholar, Son of the Lutheran scholar Theodosius Harnack (1817-89) He taught at Leipzig (1874) before becoming professor at Giessen (1879), Marburg (1886), and Berlin (1889-1921). The last appointment was challenged by the church because of Harack's doubts about the authorship of the fourth gospel and other NT books. His unorthodox interpretations of biblical miracles including the Resurrection and this denial of Christ's institution of baptism. (see his History of Dogma, 7 vols. 1894-99) (New International dictionary of the Christian Church, J.D. Douglas, 1974, p 452)
2. "Harnack started with anti-Christian and anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions . . . Harnack's methods and assumptions forced him to reject major doctrines of Christianity such as the Virgin birth, the deity and pre-existence of Jesus, the Resurrection of the body, the possibility of miracles, the existence of demons, exorcism and Jesus as the promised Messiah." Read more from a critical review of Adolf Harnack.

1. But Hellenism , also had a share in the making of Paul, a fact which does not conflict with his Pharisaic origin, but is partly given with it. In spite of all its exclusiveness the desire for making proselytes especially in the Diaspora, was in the blood of Pharisaism. Paul continued the old movement in a new way, and he was, qualified for his work among the Greeks by an accurate knowledge of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, by considerable dexterity in the use of the Greek language, and by a growing insight into the spiritual life of the Greeks. But the peculiarity of his Gospel as a message from the Spirit of Christ, which was equally near to and equally distant from every religious and moral mode of thought among the nations of the world, signified much more than all this. This Gospel-who can say whether Hellenism had, already a share in its conception- required that the missionary to the Greeks should become a Greek and that believers should come to know, all things are yours, and ye are Christ's." Paul, as no doubt other missionaries besides him, connected the preaching of Christ with the Greek mode of thought; he even employed philosophic doctrines of the Greeks as presuppositions in his apologetic, ' and therewith prepared the way for the introduction of the Gospel to the Greco-Roman world of thought. But, in my opinion, he has nowhere allowed that world of thought to influence his doctrine of salvation. ... The Pauline doctrine of the incarnate heavenly Man was indeed apprehended; it fell in with Greek notions, although it meant something very different from the notions which Greeks had been able to form of it. (Adolf Harnack, Outlines of the History Of Dogma, vol 1, ch 2, p 94-95)
2. "Arianism is a union of adoptionism with the Origenistic-Neo-Platonic doctrine of the subordinate Logos which is the spiritual principle of the world, carried out by means of the resources of the Aristotelian dialectics" ... "only as cosmologians are the Arians monotheists; as theologians and in religion they are polytheists; finally in the background lie deep contradictions: A Son who is no Son, a Logos which is no Logos, a monotheism which does not exclude polytheism, two or three who are to be adored, while really only one differs from the creatures, an indefinable being who only becomes God in becoming man, and who is neither God nor man." (Outlines of the History of Dogma, Adolf Harnack, p251)
3. First and above all, we must mention Philo. This philosopher who interpreted the Old Testament religion in terms of Hellenism had, in accordance with his idea of revelation, already maintained that the Divine Original Essence is suprarational, that only ecstasy leads to Him, and that the materials for religious and moral knowledge are contained in the oracles of the Deity. The religious ethic of Philo, a combination of Stoic, Platonic, Neopythagorean and Old Testament gnomic wisdom, already bears the marks which we recognise in Neo-platonism. The acknowledgment that God was exalted above all thought was a sort of tribute which Greek philosophy was compelled to pay to the national religion of Israel, in return for the supremacy which was here granted to the former. The claim of positive religion to be something more than an intellectual conception of the universal reason was thereby justified. Even religious syncretism is already found in Philo; but it is something essentially different from the later Neo-platonic, since Philo regarded the Jewish cult as the only valuable one, and traced back all elements of truth in the Greeks and Romans to borrowings from the books of Moses. (Adolf Harnack, Outlines of the History Of Dogma, vol 1, p 345)

Jehovah's Witnesses makes use of the German scholar Adolf von Harnack to a large degree to substantiate his case against the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit. But who was Harnack? Was he a reliable and trustworthy authority? Was he prejudiced? Are his methods based on faulty assumptions? Are his conclusions based on anti-Christian presuppositions? Are his conclusions outdated? I will examine these questions below. Adolf von Harnack was born in 1778 and was the son of a famous Lutheran theologian Theodosius Harnack. In 1886-1898 he wrote his History of Dogma for which he became famous or infamous, depending on who you asked. In 1889 he became a professor in Berlin and continued teaching there until his death. (See The Westminster Dictionary of Church History, Westminster Press, 1971, p. 386-387) "His appointment to Berlin was a cause of serious controversy; it was held up for several months, and the matter was finally resolved by the Emperor William II's decision overuling the Church's officials. Opposition to Harnack's appointment was based on his History of Dogma, the first volume of which had appeared in 1885. The publication of the multivolume Dogmengeschichte introduced Harnack to a lifetime of theological controversy and lead to a painful break with his father. The shadow of suspicion was never completely removed from Harnack's career as church historian and, despite his eminent position, he never was given any position of authority or honour by the Church." Livingstone, James C., Modern Christian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Vatican II, Macmillian Pub Co., 1971, p. 257) Harnack was a follower of Albrecht Ritschl, a major thinker in Protestant Liberalism at the time. Harnack himself soon became a model of German Protestant Liberalism. He naturalized theology, that is, he saw Christianity in terms of anthropology. "The Christian faith was reinterpreted through 'general anthropology,' not identified by a revealed Word transcendently addressed to man. Adolf von Harnack (1851-1931), who clung to this illusion to the end of his life, voiced the neo-Protestant credo as follows: the 'proper object of faith is not God in his revelation, but man himself believing in the divine." (Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Word Publishers, Waco, TX, Vol. 2, 1976, p. 120) "Of the many influences that helped to shape Harnack the historian and theologian, none was greater than that of Albrecht Ritschl. It was during his period in Leipzig that Harnack first identified himself with the Ritschlian school. A few years later Harnack acknowledged that his own Dogmengeschichte [History of Dogma] would not have been possible without Ritschl" Livingstone, James C., Modern Christian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Vatican II, Macmillian Pub Co., 1971, p. 258 The first quote reveals Harnack's anti-supernaturalistic presupposition against the truth of Christianity. In essence he was a humanist who interpreted the facts according to his humanistic presuppositions. Thus Harnack was deemed a leading representative of liberal theology. "These two thinkers, Schleiermacher and Hegel, are the points toward which all elements go and from which they then diverge, later bringing about the demand for new syntheses. We will see how these new syntheses have been attempted again and again, and finally what in my opinion has to be done today. So the whole story has a dramatic character. It is the drama of the rise of a humanism in the midst of Christianity which is critical of the Christian tradition, departs from it and produces a vast world of secular existence and thought. Then there is the rise of some of the greatest philosophers and theologians who try to unite these divergent elements again. Their syntheses in turn are destroyed and the divergent elements collide and try to conquer each other, and new attempts to reunite them have to be made. The Ritschlian school is an example of this, with Harnack as its leading representative. And in our century there is the Bultmann school and so on." Braaten, Carl E., Paul Tillich and the Classical Christian Tradition, in Tillich, Paul, Perspectives on the 19th & 20th Century Protestant Theology, 1967, p.5 "Toward the close of the last century human thought was generally under the influence of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Mankind was said to be in an upward march, and the idea of a real fall into sin seemed absurd. Great strides in science and invention were being made; new discoveries were carried out. In the field of theology the ideas of Ritschl were widespread and their practical effect made itself known in the phenomenon which is popularly called 'modernism', a new phenomenon which has wrought unbelievable harm to the well-being of the Church of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament studies the influence of Adolf Harnack with his purely human Jesus was very prominent. The philosophy of Hegel undergirded certain views of the history of Israel. A veritable complex of ideas held sway. It was a climate of opinion which was hostile to the supernatural redemptive Christianity and which proved to be one of the greatest foes of that religion." E.J. Young, Thy Word is Truth, Banner of Truth Trust, 1991, reprint, p. 193 "Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930). He taught at Leipzig (1874), Giessen (1879), Marbug (1886) and Berlin (1888-1921). Though mainly a Church historian, he covered New Testament matters as well, and was the most prominent representative of liberal German criticism until his death. His support for Germany's war aims in 1914 disillusioned the young Karl barth, and helped to set him on a theological journey away from liberalism. His main work was the History of Dogma (Dogmengeschichte), which came out in several volumes between 1886 and 1869, and was soon translated into English (1894-9). (Bray, Gerald, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, IVP, 1996, p. 338) Harnack produced some popular works in which he tried to communicate his views to the masses. "When this century opened. Liberal theology was rapidly moving to the fore in sophisticated circles. Harnak's book, What is Christianity? became a record-setting best seller. In it the ideas that had been maturing through Schleiermacher, Ritschl , and others were presented forcefully in a form that the average man could grasp." William Hordern, New Directions in Theology Today, Westminster Press, 1966, Vol. 1 Introduction, p. 13 "At the turn of the century the great church historian Adolf von Harnack delivered a series of popular lectures at Berlin in answer to the question What is Christianity? His reply stressed the spiritual and moral content and pushed the supernatural into the background. He insisted that 'Jesus himself did not assign that critical importance to his miraculous deeds which even the evangelist Mark and the others all had attributed to them.' Harnack saw the essence of Jesus' teaching grouped under three headings; 'Firstly, the kingdom of God and its coming. Secondly, God the Father and the infinite value of the human soul. Thirdly, the higher righteousness and the commandment to love.' Jesus took over two views of the kingdom of God that were related to each other as a husk is to the kernel. From Judaism he inherited the husk: the kingdom as a future event-the external rule of God. But he also saw the kingdom as an inward reality that elevates people spiritually and transforms them morally. This was the central reality of Jesus' message. The stories of exorcisms belong to the outer husk of contemporary beliefs that the evangelists shared. Harnack treated them as primitive ways of describing mental disorders that are 'rare occurrence nowadays.' 'Where they occur the best means of encountering them is to-day, as it was formerly, the influence of a strong personality.'" (Colin Brown, Miracles and the Modern Mind, Eerdmans/Paternoster Press, 1984, p. 127) "The consequences of this false distinction between judgements of fact and judgements of value have proved a veritable hereditas damnosa in the subsequent theological discussion. From it springs directly the false contacts between the 'simple Gospel' of Jesus and the 'theology' of the apostolic Church. The true Gospel is regarded as consisting in the simple facts about Jesus and teachings of the historical Jesus, who can thus be objectively portrayed by modern historical research, while the interpretations of St. Paul and the other apostles may be discarded as representing values for them which are no longer values for us. Hence the Ritschlians present the history of Christian dogma as pronouncing its own condemnation in the eyes of all unprejudiced Christians people. Harnack worked out this view with massive thoroughness in the learned volumes of his History of Dogma. The Creed of Nicea, the formulary of Chalcedon, the dogmatic writings of the Fathers, even the Epistles of St. Paul, represent 'the work of the spirit of a decadent antiquity on the soil of the Gospel.' The Chief emphasis is placed upon the contrast between the original Gospel of Jesus and the theological interpretations of the Church, between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. ' The one belongs to the world of Syrian peasants, the other to a world of Greek philosophers.' [Comment by Hatch] Thus it was thought necessary to separate the kernal from the husk, to get back behind 'the religion about Jesus' to 'the religion of Jesus'. The apostles ought to have been content to report the words and record the deeds of Jesus, instead of becoming, as they did, interpreters of the significance and value of His person. So we come to the familiar antithesis, beloved Jesus taught simple, ethical monotheism; Paul invented Christology and is the real founder of Christianity. Paul was the first on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus to develop a theology as a means of separation from the religion of the Old Testament. Not dogmas but value judgements were the fruits of revelation, and so Ritschl refuse to discuss such doctrines as the pre-existence of Christ, or the Two Natures in Christ, or the relation of the Persons within the Trinity, as having no real bearing upon our experience and as therefore lying beyond our range; we understand Christ's person and nature by understanding what He has done for men, by His worth for our own souls, by recognizing that He has done for us what only God can do. Thus according to the Ritschlian theology revelation is given in the formation of true judgements of value upon certain historical events or deeds. It is an error to suppose that the Richlians thought that judgements of fact were more important than judgements of value, or that judgements of value were false because they were subjective. They were trying to safeguard the objectivity of the facts themselves, as existing independently of the wishes of the believer. They thus placed great emphasis upon the historical character of the revelation, and they held that historical research, being scientific and independent of all value-judgements, could put an end to subjective speculation and free us from all the 'accretions' of traditional dogmas. Hence the importance of the 'quest of the historical Jesus'." Alan Richardson, Christian Apologetics, Harper & Brothers, 1947, p. 148-149 Harnack thus saw the New Testament as existential truth shrouded within layers of mythology. Basically, Jesus was only a good moral teacher and Paul was the real inventor of Christianity. What this also shows is that Harnack made a claim to being neutral in examining the facts, which is impossible. Everyone examines the facts from a certain perspective. So in essence Harnack read back into history his own biases and prejudices. "The most memorable comment on Harnack's best-selling portrait of Jesus came from the pen of the Catholic Modernist, Father George Tyrell, 'The Christ that what Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well." (Colin Brown, Miracles and the Modern Mind, Eerdmans/Paternoster Press, 1984, p. 128) "Adolf von Harnack, one of Karl Barth's mentors, had correlated the so-called objective historical-scientific criticism of Scripture with philosophical idealism and insisted that a primitive non-supernatural Jesus has priority over the supernatural Pauline Christ. Barth assailed this popular critical view and launched a strikingly different approach to biblical interpretation and New Testament exegesis. While Barth agreed with Harnack's insistence that as a corpus of historical records the Bible should be open to critical investigation, he emphasized that historical criticism had not in fact achieved consensus on a single authentic portrait of Jesus of Nazereth. Barth labeled Harnack's supposedly neutral historical exegesis and non-supernatural Jesus as in actuality a reflection of Harnack's personal theological prejudices; liberal theology, observed Barth, neglected the primary theme of revelation by its one sided historical interest that eclipses revelatory relationships between God and man." (Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Word Publishers, Waco, TX, Vol. 4, 1979, p. 297 See also Brown, Colin, Jesus in European Protestant Thought: 1778-1860, Baker Book House, 1985, pp. 72-73) Harnack's liberalism got him into trouble on occasion and not a few others as well. "In the 1880's and 1890's the issue of subscription to the Apostles' Creed was hotly debated. In 1888 a candidate was denied ordination for refusing to assent to the virgin birth of Christ and the descent into hell. In Wittemberg in 1892 Schrempf, a pastor, was removed from his post for affirming that "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,' 'ascended into heaven,' and 'the resurrection of the body' were not to be taken literally. That same decade Harnack was censured for saying that the virgin birth of Christ need not be accepted as historic fact but could be regarded merely as a symbol of the incarnation. It was also in the 1890's that Prussian ecclesiastical bodies were divided over the question of assent to the Apostles' Creed as a requirement for ordination and that a somewhat ambiguous compromise was effected."Kenneth Scott Latourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age: Vol. 2-The 19th Century in Europe, Zondervan, 1969, p. 37 His works were soon published in other countries and he found opponents there as well on various subjects, not the least of which was the Holy Spirit and the Apostles Creed. In these two areas he was met with an able opponent in the Anglican scholar Henry Barclay Swete. "In Germany recent controversy has been more thoroughgoing, turning upon history of the Creed. There are indications that public attention amongst ourselves will shortly be directed to the latter point. Professor Harnack's pamphlet, which in Germany passed through five-and-twenty editions during the course of a year, has been reproduced in the pages of an English periodical with a commendatory preamble by the pen of the authoress of Robert Elsmere." Swete, H.B., The Apostles' Creed: It's Relation to Primitive Christianity, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1894, p. 12 Harnack not only was liberal in his views on Church history and the Trinity but also in other areas of Christian theology as well, such as the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection and Miracles. Harnack writes, "We are firmly convinced that what happens in space and time is subject to the general laws of motion, and that in this sense, as an interruption of the order of nature, there can be no such things as miracles." (What is Christianity? p. 28f) Regarding the Virgin birth, Harnack claims "...it is one of the best established results of history that the clause does not belong to the earliest gospel preaching." (Cited in Swete, The Apostles' Creed, p. 43) Regarding the Resurrection of the flesh, Harnack claims, "...we can hardly doubt that from the very earliest times the resurrection of the flesh was preached by a few Christians, but it was not a universal doctrine." (Cited in Swete, The Apostles'Creed, p. 90) It should also be noted that Harnack also thought that such doctrines as the Ascension and the pre-existence of Jesus were not part of "the earliest gospel preaching" either. For a deeper discussion, see Swete, The Apostles' Creed and J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ and The Origin of Paul's Religion. But how did Harnack deduce this? What was his basic outlook? Harnack viewed the history of Christianity as a process of Hellenization, that is, a process where Christianity moved away from Jesus' simple ethical teachings and became wedded to philosophical concepts of Greek philosophy. Harnack did not see the Greeks in themselves as Greeks as the problem. He argued that any intellecutualization of the faith was a Hellenization. Thus, he saw St. Paul as the primary culprit with the idea of a divine saviour, resurrection, etc. The Gnostic heretic Marcion was Harnack's chief hero since he hellenized Christianity in a way that was more towards individual ethics. This thesis of a process of hellenzation was derived from Hegel's dialectical process of history. Hegel thought that there was a movement of history in which contradictory statements became synthesized into an agreement. This outlook flavored Harnack's whole approach and hence he read Church history as a process of hellenization. His major work, The History of Dogma was written to support this thesis. Eventually his theory was disproved and hence his starting assumptions left many of his conclusions highly questionable. "Adolf von Harnack, in his classic study of Christian thought, asserted that gnosticism was the result of the 'lasting influence of Greek philosophy and the Greek spirit generally on Judiasm.' He went on to say, in a phrase which for many years would remain the definitive statement on the subject, 'The gnostic systems represent the acute secularizing or hellenizing of Christianity.' Following Harnack's lead, A.D. Nick felt tempted to speak of the Gnostic movement as 'Platonism run wild.' After the Nag Hammadi discovery as well as the unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls at approximately the same time, it became impossible to accept Harnack's simple hellenization theory any longer." Philip J. Lee, Against the Protestant Gnostics, Oxford, 1987, pp. 5-6 "Harnack saw in this development a second wave of Hellenization. The first wave was gnosticism, and the second wave was the formulation of the ancient dogma." in Tillich, Paul, Perspectives on the 19th & 20th Century Protestant Theology, 1967, p. 220 "With the rise of modern historical criticism a great gulf became fixed between the Old and the New Testaments. Again, voices could be heard within the church urging the removal or de-emphasis of the Old Testament. Shades of Marcionism returned in Adolf von Harnack's book on Marcion. 'The rejection of the Old Testament in the second century was an error which the great church rightly opposed; holding on to it in the sixteenth century was a destiny which the Reformation was not able to escape; but for Protestantism to preserve it since the nineteenth century as a canonical document is the result of a religious and ecclesiastical paralysis. To clear the table and to honor the truth in our confession and instruction, that is the great feat required of Protestantism today-almost too late.' The Church is asked by Harnack to admit that the Old Testament forms no essential part of her faith and life." Carl E. Braaten, New Directions in Theology Today, Westminster Press, Vol. 2 History and Hermeneutics, p. 106 "Marcion (d. c. 144) He believed that the God of the Old Testament was a deity inferior to the Father of Jesus Christ, because he was the creator ('Demiurge') of matter, which was intrinsically evil. The Christian revelation therefore had to be purified of its Jewish elements, which were primitive and unworthy of true religion. Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) thought that Marcion was a restorer of Pauline theology in the face of Judaizing tendencies, but this idea has never been widely accepted. Marcions's radical rejection of the creator God had its philosophical basis in Platonism, which thought of matter as evil and of salvation as the separation of the soul from it. His programme of radical 'cleansing' of the New Testament reduced the canonical text to Luke-Acts and the Pauline epistles, but even these could not be understood apart from their Jewish background, and had to be purged. Marcion's hermenutical project virtually destroyed the New Testament along with the Old, and the church has never been tempted to follow his lead, however much it may have allegorized or even ignored the Jewish Scriptures." (Bray, Gerald, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, IVP, 1996, p. 80) "...Harnack produced this massive study [History of Dogma] to demonstrate historically that if the Christian gospel was to remain a living force in the modern world, it must be freed from dogma-the reason being that 'as the adherents of the Christian religion had not these dogmas from the beginning...the business of the history of dogma is to ascertain the origin of Dogmas and then to describe their development.' For by delineating the process by which dogmas originate and develop 'the history of dogma' furnishes the most suitable means for the liberation of the Church from dogmatic Christianity'- or of overcoming history by history." Livingstone, James C., Modern Christian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Vatican II, MacMillian Pub Co., 1971, p. 258 "In the twentieth century however the sharpest questioning has been directed not so much to the doctrine itself as to its origin, with historical exegesis providing the challenge rather than philosophical speculation. A. Harnack had already defined the development of dogma as the progressive hellenization of the gospel, as the transplanting of the gospel of Jesus 'into Greek modes of thought', a process which goes back to Paul himself. The History of Religions school which pioneered the investigation of Christian origins within the context of the religious thought and practice of the wider Hellenistic world, raised the more provocative question of whether the whole idea of God become man had in fact simply been taken over from surrounding religious syncretism, an already well developed myth of a divine figure descending to earth to redeem the elect (the so-called 'Gnostic redeemer myth') borrowed by the early Christians and applied to the risen Jesus. With Harnack's formulation, the dogma of the incarnation could be said to have originated as a translation equivalent as the gospel of Jesus was re-expressed in the wider and different catagories of Greek philosophy. But if the dogma originated as a foreign import into Christianity of an already established Gnostic myth the issue becomes more serious: did the doctrine of the incarnation begin as an alien intrusion into Christianity? In the last thirty years or so the question as thus posed has been answered with an increasingly confident No!" (Dunn, James D.G., Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, Westminster Press, 1980, pp. 2-3) "The idea that the first Christian churches were more like Greek religious associations than like synagogues was developed by E. Hatch, whose views were to have a great influence in Germany as well as in England. The discovery of the Didache in 1883 forced A. von Harnack to modify these ideas considerably, by recognizing that the offices of apostle, prophet and teacher were intended for the use of the whole church, and not just the local congregation, so that the 'club' model was inappropriate. However, Harnack never deserted Hatch's main thesis, in spite of the evidence which appeared to contradict it." (Bray, Gerald, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, IVP, 1996, p.362) "But the church nevertheless used concepts of the hellenistic world. You should not call them Greek pure and simple, for Classical Greek did not last far beyond the second century before Christ. Hellenism followed this, and Hellenism is a mixture of Greek, Persian, Egyptian, Jewish and even Indian elements, and mystical groups of all kinds. It is a mixed religiosity in which the Greek concepts were used, but in a religiously transformed sense." Tillich, Paul, Perspectives on the 19th & 20th Century Protestant Theology, 1967, p. 221 "Harnack's criticism was that in this way Christianity became intellectualized. But Harnack was wrong in this respect. My Main criticism of his has been right on this point. The more our knowledge of the gnostics and the whole Hellenistic culture has increased in the last fifty years, the more we see how wrong he was in this respect. He considered Hellenism as identical with intellectualization. This is not at all true. This is not even true of Plato, or Aristotle and the Stoics. Every great philosophy is rooted in an existential emergency, in a situation of questioning out of which saving answers must come." (Tillich, Paul, Perspectives on the 19th & 20th Century Protestant Theology, 1967, p. 221) "According to Harnack a foreign element entered into Christianity when terms like ousia and hypostasis were used in constructing the official dogma of the church. This process began not only in the fourth and fifth-century councils, but already in the apostolic fathers, and that means in the generation which is contemporaneous with the latest biblical writings. Then this process received a strong impetus from the apologists who elaborated the logos concept in theology. All this can be called Hellenization, but how else could it have happaned? The pagans were not Jews, and so the Jewish concepts could not be used. Besides, the Jewish concepts were not used so much even in the circles in which Jesus and John the Baptist arose. If you read the Dead Sea Scrolls, you will find that the Old Testament concepts are there, but even more you will find elements from the apocalyptic movements from the intertestamental period. Even Judaism had adapted to the new situation. It could not have been done in any other way if Judaism or Christianity were to survive. Harnack's greatness is that he showed this process of Hellenization. His shortcoming is that he did not see the necessity of it. Those of us who studied under the influence of Harnack's History of Dogma sensed a tremendous liberation. It was the liberation from the necessity of identifying Hellenistic concepts with the Christian message itself. On the other hand, I would not accept the idea which one hears so much that all the Greek elements must be thrown out and only the old Testament terms should be used. Christianity, it is suggested, is basically a matter of the Old Testament language and a continuation of Old Testament theology and piety. If this were to be done consistently, at least two-thirds of the new Testament wold have to be ruled out, for both Paul and John used a lot of Hellenistic concepts. Besides, it would rule out the whole history of doctrine. This idea is a new bondage to a particular development, the Old Testament development. Christianity is not nearer to the Jews than to the Greeks. I believe that the one who expressed that was the great missionary to the Greeks and to the Hellenistic pagan world." (Tillich, Paul, Perspectives on the 19th & 20th Century Protestant Theology, 1967, p. 221-222) "My criticism of the whole liberal theology, including Harnack, is that it had no real systematic theology; it believed in the results of historical research in a wrong way. Therefore, its systematic utterances were comparatively poor." (Tillich, Paul, Perspectives on the 19th & 20th Century Protestant Theology, 1967, p. 223-Also of note is the fact that one of The Jehovah's Witnesses own sources, Woflson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers criticizes Harnack for his views on the alleged "Hellenization" of Christianity. See Wolfson, p. 574, foot note 121, p. 358-359) "The approach to study of the Fathers from the viewpoint of patristic writings as literature has opened new views. Their beauty and strength and spontaneity were discovered. On the basis of literary and philological study, it has been claimed the writings were of high literary style, and not a decay of classical culture. Gibbon in his history said Christianity killed culture, but philological study denies this. There are two positions (thesis): 1) Christianity disrupted ancient culture; 2) Christianity absorbed too much ancient culture. Harnack's thesis that man suffered so much throughout the centuries simply because Christianity opposed ancient culture, is unacceptable today." Constantine N. Tsorpanlis, An Introduction to Eastern Patristic Thought and Orthodox Theology, Liturgical Press, 1991 p. 22 "Professor Harnack brings to his study of sub-apostolic writers a preconception which to his own mind has assumed the dimensions of a historical fact." Swete, H.B., The Apostles' Creed: It's Relation to Primitive Christianity, MacMillian Pub Co., 1894, p. 28) It should also be noted that amid all of the controversies that he was embroiled in Harnack is not considered a patrictics scholar. " Bauer was the founder of the Tubigen School and also the first to use the term dogmageshichte (History of Dogma), as well as the dialectical method in interpreting Christian Doctrine. He discovered Paulinism in the New Testament and a synthesis of the Antiochian and Alexandiran school. Bauer believed that the process would go on. Ritshl continued the thought of Bauer. This was in turn picked up by Von Harnack, one of the greatest patrologists and philologists, but not a patristics scholar. He was a great historian, but he believed his history was a history of human accretions. Dogma was a human accretion too, according to Harnack-an intellectual cultivation of Hellenization of Christian Doctrine. The basic idea of Harnack was that dogma is an intellectual exercise and certain nineteenth-century methods. Harnack was inspired by old anti-Hegelianism and, although a great historian, he did not know secular history or world political history. Hence, he was attacked by the political historians as un-historical." Constantine N. Tsorpanlis, An Introduction to Eastern Patristic Thought and Orthodox Theology, Liturgical Press, 1991 p. 20-21 Let me review the pertinent points of the various scholars. 1.. Harnack was not a patristics scholar 2.. Harnack started with anti-Christian and anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions. 3.. Harnack had a preconceived notion of Christian history which colored his whole approach. 4.. Harnack was motivated by his own personal theological and philosophical prejudices. 5.. Harnack was never accepted into any position of authority in the Church. 6.. Harnack's basic theory of history was shaped by Hegelianism. 7.. Harnack's conclusions are outdated and criticised today by both liberal and conservative scholars in multiple fields. 8.. Harnack's methods and assumptions forced him to reject major doctrines of Christianity such as the Virgin birth, the deity and pre-existence of Jesus, the Resurrection of the body, the possiblity of miracles, the existence of demons, exorcism and Jesus as the promised Messiah. I think these 8 points lessen the authority of Harnack as appealed to by Jehovah's Witnesses. These problems with Harnack lessen the probable truth-value of The Jehovah's Witnesses overall claims. It is no surprise to me that Rick would use Harnack and other liberal theologians, especially those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jehovah's Witnesses are in the habit of presenting evidence from liberal/humanistic scholars in order to undermine traditional Christian doctrines, while ignoring these same scholars' conclusions when it applies to doctrines that he holds as true. That is, they hunts for citations from scholars to substantiate their opinions, while neglecting and rejecting the methods and assumptions that those scholars used to come to various conclusions. This is exemplified in the JW booklet, "Should You Believe in the Trinity?" page 11 where they cite Harnack. I find this to an inconsistency both on the part of the WT society and Jehovah's Witnesses. The Society has clearly prescribed a position on this point. "When you make references to the Scriptures or to any other authority, be definite. And use reliable, capable authority. The Bible is the most conclusive and reliable of all. Quoting from official publications of an organization to show what they believe is good. Also one wants to use evidence from an authority that the hearers will accept." (Qualified to Be Ministers¸WTBTS, 1967, p. 166) Now did Rick: 1.. Use a reliable and capable authority? 2.. Quote from official publications of an organization to show what they believe? 3.. Use evidence from an authority that his hearer (me) would accept? The answer to the first question is at best lessened on the count of reliability, if not fully negated. The second count of capable I would generally agree that he did use someone capable. Did he cite official publications from my organization? No. Did he use authorities that I would accept? No. Did he use evidence that I would accept? Did he really expect me to take citations from Harnack without question?

Go To Alphabetical Index Of Deceptive Quotes

Written By Steve Rudd, Used by permission at: www.bible.ca

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