NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 45, Issue 4, 1991

Studies in the History of Religions have had some impact on the development of religious phenomena. This was never questioned, but also hardly mentioned as a legitimate aim. Does there implicitly exist a ‘practical’ or ‘adapted’ Religionswissenschaft? Or do scholars still favour the traditional ‘epochè’? Many studies of new religious movements in our society often do not show such a scholarly distance, even when they themselves suppose to do so. Is an author in the field of religious studies a ‘defensor religionis’ or should he continue in the footsteps of the Enlightenment? The question concerns such different issues as a scholarly relation with the Unification Church and the study of the search for identity of hinduism in the Netherlands.

This article about Abraham Kuenen is written on the occasion of the centenary of his death, 10 december 1991. After a short biography, his theories concerning the origin and the composition of the Pentateuch, and concerning the history of the religion of Israel are described and discussed. Kuenen’s research on these two areas is considered to be his most important contribution to the international debate of the time. The publications involved are: Historisch-kritisch onderzoek naar het ontstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds. Deel I, 1861; Historisch-critisch onderzoek ... Deel I,1, 1885 (completely revised edition); De Godsdienst van Israël tot den Ondergang van den Joodschen Staat, Two Volumes, 1869 and 1870. In the last part of the article attention is paid to the ‘critical method’ of Kuenen.

The question dealt with in this article is whether the thought of Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) can be considered a good example of ‘Jewish philosophy’, that is, of a seamless combination of Judaism and (in Cohen’s case: Kantian) philosophy. Three reasons for nuancing the affirmation of this combination are discussed. These are related to the genesis, the outcome and the systematic content of Cohen’s thought. Although each of these three respects requires some qualification of the affirmation under discussion, the general conclusion of the article is that they are not momentous enough to subvert it.

In a short introduction the delimitation of this article is justified. Then the status of this discipline in the Dutch universities is discussed. This discussion leads to the conclusion that the outcome of this debate depends on our concept of the knowledge of God. Therefore the next paragraphs discuss inquiries concerning the doctrine of God and the connected themes of christology, hermeneutics and ecclesiology. In conclusion, the author proposes three desiderata for future studies in dogmatics: to take account of the complexity and plurality of the biblical witnesses; to recognize the importance of a continuous confrontation with patristic, medieval and protestant thoughtmodels and to accept the real novelty of many urgent questions in anthropology, biology, medicine, etc.