NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 44, Issue 4, 1990

When the edition of the New Testament of Westcott and Hort was published in 1881, together with the Revised Version, people were faced with the problem of the short text of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11:2-4. The great defender of the ‘old text’ was Dean Burgon of Chicester. He claimed that the revisioners followed here the corrupted text of Marcion instead of Jesus’ own words. He did not present his readers with any argument for that contention. A more recent attempt to postulate the Marcionite origin of the shorter text has been made by a Dutch scholar, Prof.Dr. J. van Bruggen of Kampen, who really tried to argue why the omission of certain phrases were due to Marcion. The present contribution evaluates his arguments and demonstrates that there is nothing in the textual form of the Prayer (as preserved in the Textus Receptus) that is in conflict with Marcion’s theological system. Moreover, it makes it very probable that Marcion and his later antagonist Tertullian both read the short text in their copies of Luke.

François E. Daubanton (1953-1920) was Professor of Biblical Theology, Practical Theology and the History of Missions at the University of Utrecht. In his well known book Prolegomena van de protestantsche zendingswetenschap (= Prolegomena to the protestant science of missions), 1911, he contributed profoundly to the history of mission studies. This article does not offer a description and analysis of Daubanton’s contribution to the empirical study of missions, but of his contribution to the theology of missions. His theology of missions is not based on the principle of evolution, but on the principle of revelation. This explains why Daubanton regarded preaching the Gospel, founding churches and christianizing cultures rather than civilization, social work or colonization, as the proper purpose of missions. In contrast to his empirical studies of missions, his universalistic theology of missions exerted no demonstrable influence on Christian theology or on the mission fields.

In a brief introductory section difficulties concerning the name of the discipline are stated and the delimitation of the period of review is accounted for.

The second section develops the contrast between the analytical and the speculative methods as the two main approaches in the field of the philosophy of religion. This section ends by considering the possibility that a rapprochement is taking place between these two opposing orientations.

The section on thematical issues contains the bulk of the article, at least in quantitative respect. Eight fields of interest which are treated in present-day Dutch philosophy of religion are briefly discussed in the light of selected publications and/or discussions, the doctrine of God, cosmology, psychology, theory of religion, philosophy of theology, theory of culture, religious language and historical subjects like the research on Spinoza and Levinas.