oa [De generatie-Van der Palm, 1760–1840: Nederlandse academische theologen en de productie van religieuze kennis, The Generation Van der Palm, 1760-1840: Dutch Academic Theologians and the Production of Religious Knowledge]

For a proper understanding of theology, an insight into the social and professional context in which it arises is at least as important as an appraisal of its content. This article examines the theological knowledge generated by a group of eighteenth and nineteenth-century academics represented by Johannes Hendrik van der Palm (1763–1840), one of the leading theologians of his generation. Using (among other things) statistical data concerning the knowledge produced by these theologians, a sketch is offered of the social and scholarly environment in which their theology arose. It is demonstrated that the credibility of theological knowledge is to a large extent dependant on the means by, and the circumstances in which, such knowledge is produced.