History and the Gospel by C. H. Dodd
Essentials in Biblical Theology Series
History and the Gospel by C. H. Dodd[1]
In the modern era, scholars have often disagreed regarding how to best approach the texts of the New Testament (NT). Should they be understood as mere historical sources for the study of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? Or should they be interpreted as theological documents that proclaim the Christ of faith? In his book History and the Gospel,[2] the famous Welsh NT scholar, Charles H. Dodd, provides something of a via media between these two extremes.
Dodd opens the book by contrasting the “current” state of Gospel scholarship with the approach that dominated the 1800s. In contrast to the purely historical approaches that dominated the preceding century,[3] Gospel scholarship in Dodd’s day emphasized the religious and theological nature of the New Testament. While he believed that this shift in emphasis was understandable and commendable, Dodd nevertheless maintained that the historical investigation of the Christ event was both appropriate and necessary (14). Though the NT is a religious document, Christianity was and is a historical religion.[4] Moreover, Dodd rejected the binary between history and interpretation that some NT scholars had erected. According to Dodd, history always involves the combination of an event and its interpretation (26–28). As such, the historical investigation of the Christ event includes the study of the meaning that the NT authors ascribed to the events that they reported. And, in Dodd’s view, the NT authors clearly present their understanding of the meaning of Christ’s coming: they claim that the kingdom of God had been revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus which brought about the final and conclusive fulfillment of God’s OT promises (35–36).
After defining the concept of history and establishing its importance for the study of the Christian gospel, Dodd goes on to examine the primitive tradition that he claims is embedded within the NT. Dodd observes that, for all its diversity, the NT bears witness to “a common tradition of the centre” (50). This central tradition consists of two aspects: the first has to do with the preaching (κήρυγμα) of God’s saving acts in history, while the second refers to the teaching (διδαχή) of an “ethical ideal for corporate and individual life” (51). Dodd contends that both aspects of the central tradition depend upon and are intimately connected with a historical person, namely, Jesus of Nazareth (52–53). In addition, this central tradition has a historical-eschatological character; that is to say, “the events to which it refers are not simply historical events, but events in which history reaches its divinely ordained conclusion” (59). And while he believes that certain stories about Jesus may have been fabricated (60), Dodd posits that the central tradition about Jesus was based on the church’s historical memory of Christ (61, 66–67), and that it played an authoritative role in governing the perspectives of the earliest Christians (71).
Having discussed the nature of the NT documents in general, Dodd then narrows his focus to the Gospels in particular. Dodd begins with an analysis of the Passion narratives, finding that “a common form or pattern” subsists between the three Synoptic witnesses. This pattern consists of nine particular episodes that include events such as the Last Supper, the prediction of Peter’s denial, the arrest at the Mount of Olives, and so on and so forth (80–81). The consistency of these accounts along with the absence of features associated with martyr-legends leads Dodd to conclude that “in the Passion-narrative we are in close touch with the primitive tradition” (84). Meanwhile, with respect to the stories of Jesus’ ministry, Dodd proposes that the form-critical method may have something to offer the historical study of Jesus. In particular, Dodd notices that different kinds of materials in the Gospels assume a very similar depiction of Jesus of Nazareth. For instance, Dodd cites a number of different “forms” that each describe Jesus as adopting a welcoming attitude towards sinners and religious outsiders (92–94). He makes a similar observation regarding Jesus’ exorcisms and his miracles (96–98). Moreover, Dodd notices that the Evangelists preserve a variety of traditions that view Jesus’s miracles as evidence that the age of fulfillment has arrived (98–99). Thus, through a study of the forms present within the Gospels, Dodd concludes that the church’s primitive tradition consisted of a coherent picture of the historical-eschatological person of Jesus Christ.
Dodd’s fourth chapter is devoted to establishing the historical givens regarding the life, death, and message of Jesus. Dodd begins by discussing three contextual factors that illumine Jesus’s situation. First, he describes the civilization within which Jesus lived by noting that the Roman empire was both cosmopolitan and generally beneficent (114–15). Next, Dodd focuses on the nationalistic streams within Judaism that were present during the first century (115–16). Finally, Dodd discusses the Jewish religious atmosphere during the early first century (117). Dodd associates each of these factors with particular Jewish groups, namely, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the Pharisees. Despite the similarities that Jesus shared with each group, all three streams of Judaism rejected his proclamation of the kingdom and conspired to put him to death (134). As a result, Israel came under the judgment of the kingdom, “a judgment which lies within history as well as beyond it” (136). At the same time, through the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus demonstrated that his disciples would be reconstituted as the true Israel through his saving death. (137). Thus, the death of Jesus did not signify the derailment of Israel’s history; on the contrary, the life and death of Jesus fulfill the law and the prophets as “all the episodes of Israel’s history receive fresh meaning from the final event” (144).
Lastly, Dodd explores the NT’s description of the church as a historical-eschatological reality. Dodd notes that the church has a paradoxical character in that it is described as a “supernatural society,” and yet “it is a body of very fallible men striving to attain an unrealizable ideal” (152–53). This paradox cannot be resolved through appealing to Platonic philosophy(159); instead, the church’s distinct nature is explained by its simultaneous participation in sacred history (Heilsgeschichte) and in secular history (172, 174–75).
Though History and the Gospel was published almost ninety years ago, it remains a valuable resource for evangelical biblical theologians. One reason for this is because Dodd articulates an approach to the NT that seeks to do justice to the demands of both history and theology. Rather than presenting Christians with a false dichotomy between the two, Dodd demonstrates that true history is always perspectival, and as such, the historical character of the NT cannot be gainsaid on the basis of the faith commitments of its authors. At the same time, Dodd rightly maintains that the God of the Bible is a God who acts in history. Thus, interpreters of the Bible cannot divorce theology from history since “the Gospel sets forth the glory of God by declaring what He has done” (36).
In addition, evangelical biblical theologians should still engage with History and the Gospel because of the attention Dodd pays to eschatology and salvation history. For starters, Dodd rightly emphasizes the importance of eschatology in the study of the NT. As he notes, the writers of the NT viewed Christ’s life, death, and resurrection as “the eschaton, the final and absolute event, in which the Kingdom of God was revealed, and His purpose fulfilled” (108). Moreover, according to Dodd, this perspective can be traced back to Jesus himself. In fact, Dodd argues that the entirety of Jesus’ ministry, including his miracles and his ethical teaching, was undertaken in light of the conviction that the promised kingdom of God had arrived in his own person. In addition, Dodd demonstrates an appreciation for the role that Heilsgeschichte plays in the biblical authors’ presentation of the gospel (166). He rightly acknowledges that the biblical authors portray the glory of God primarily (though, in my view, not exclusively) through their descriptions of his acts in history.[5] And he also provides an insightful overview of OT history, depicting the story of Israel as a “series of crises” that is ultimately resolved in the coming of Christ (140–45).
While evangelicals can learn much from Dodd, they should nevertheless approach his work critically. Though Dodd provides helpful apologetic arguments for the historicity of the central NT tradition, he wrongly assumes that certain stories about Jesus in the Gospels were fabricated for theological reasons (60). And while he does affirm that the resurrection “remains an event within history,” Dodd is unhelpfully agnostic regarding “precisely what happened” after Jesus died and was buried (107–8).[6] Moreover, while Dodd correctly maintains that the NT authors affirmed the presence of the kingdom in and through Christ, he fails to recognize their expectation that the kingdom was also still to come.[7] In addition, Dodd unhelpfully suggests that the Bible’s witness to creation and to final judgment are merely “mythological” (168–71), and he sometimes comes close to articulating an existentialist hermeneutic, by which the biblical stories are reinterpreted to be the Christian’s own story of his or her individual experience of God’s judgment and forgiveness (172).[8]
Though Dodd falls short of being a consistently reliable guide for evangelical biblical theology, his book History and the Gospel remains worthy of careful study. In it, evangelicals will find much instruction on how to read the books of the NT as historical-theological texts. Moreover, they will be encouraged by his defense of the historicity of the gospel, and they will be edified by his reflections on the eschatological significance of Christ.
Richard M. Blaylock
Center for Evangelical Biblical Theology (November 2025)
TL;DR
In History and the Gospel, Dodd calls for an approach to the Christian Gospel that respects the nature of the NT as a historical-theological document.
Dodd rejects the bifurcation of history and interpretation, arguing instead that history always involves the selective description of events whose significance is interpreted by the historian in question.
Dodd contends that an analysis of the NT documents reveals a central tradition that is primitive (i.e., early) and that governed the faith of the early church.
Dodd argues that the application of form-criticism to the Gospels results in a coherent picture of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus; moreover, this picture represents an early tradition that viewed Jesus as a historical-eschatological person.
Dodd posits that the NT authors proclaimed that the history of Israel and the promises of God were all fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; as such, the perspective of the NT is firmly eschatological as it depicts Jesus as the final event in history that gives meaning to all history.
Evangelicals should appreciate Dodd’s historical-theological approach to the NT, even as they reject some of his assumptions about Scripture and some of his conclusions about the nature of NT eschatology.
[1] C. H. Dodd, History and the Gospel, (Pomona Press, 2008). The book was originally published in 1938 by Charles Scribner’s Sons.
[2] History and the Gospel is the published version of the Hewett lectures that Dodd delivered in 1938 at three different universities and seminaries in the United States.
[3] Dodd states that nineteenth-century Gospel scholarship was focused primarily on the quest for the historical Jesus. He then describes this method of biblical scholarship as a method that attempted to “eliminat[e] from the records a mass of intrusive material due to the faith and thought of the early Church (Gemeindetheologie). When this was done, the residue would lie before us of a solid nucleus of bare fact, upon which we might put our own interpretation” (11). Dodd criticizes this approach as one that failed to do justice to the intentions of the biblical authors since “it deliberately neglected in them [i.e., the Gospels] just those elements which in the eyes of their authors made them worth writing” (14). For an overview of the first quest for the historical Jesus, see Helen K. Bond, The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 8–13.
[4] As Dodd states, “[Christianity] rests upon the affirmation that a series of events happened, in which God revealed Himself in action, for the salvation of men” (15).
[5] Dodd states, “The prime theme indeed of the Gospel is the glory of God. But the glory of God resides not in the static perfection of His being, but in His mighty works. Upon this point the New Testament is as clear as the Old. The Gospel sets forth the glory of God by declaring what He has done” (36). While I would quibble with his statement that the glory of God does not reside in the perfection of His being, I believe Dodd is correct to emphasize the importance of God’s acts in history to the biblical authors.
[6] Dodd claims that various theories regarding what actually took place in the Resurrection can be put forward, and that there is not enough evidence to prove one theory over another (107). Because of this, Dodd believes that “the meaning of the fact [of the resurrection]” is much clearer than “the fact itself” (108). However, Dodd seems to overcomplicate matters at this point. While it is true that the NT authors do not provide us with a detailed account of what happened in the tomb on the third day, they do uniformly proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth was raised bodily from the dead. Thus, any theory regarding the resurrection that denies the NT’s testimony to this fact should be rejected.
[7] Dodd’s perspective has often been labeled “realized eschatology,” and it has been widely rejected in favor of “inaugurated eschatology” which is the view that the NT presents the kingdom as both already and not yet. For a discussion on the various scholarly approaches to the study of Jesus’s expectations regarding the kingdom, see David L. Petersen, George W. E. Nickelsburg, and D. E. Aune, “Eschatology,” in the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, (Doubleday: Yale University Press, 1992), 599–601.
[8] Though he makes no mention of Bultmann, Dodd’s method seems to resemble the latter’s at these points. And just as evangelicals have been right to reject Bultmann’s demythologizing and his existentialist interpretation because both run afoul of the authorial intent of the biblical authors, so too should they be skeptical of Dodd’s more “Bultmannian” suggestions. For an exploration of Bultmann’s approach to biblical theology, see Richard M. Blaylock, “Encountering Bultmann as a Biblical Theologian,” HBT 44 (2022): 195–227.
