The Gospels and the Professor
Sir: For weeks I have read the SPECTATOR with great interest be- cause of Professor Trevor-Roper's review, which has given rise to so much controversy, if controversy is the right word, as all the corre- spondence published unanimously rejected Professor Trevor-Roper's approach to the Gospel narratives. Quite a few of your correspondents found fault with the professor's scholarship.
I would like to refer the Rev John H. Bishop to the book by G. A. Wells, which Professor Trevor-Roper himself mentioned, The Jesus of the Early Christians, if he wants to study the evidence for the lateness of the biographical details in the Gospel. It is of course most unlikely that this book will appeal to any of your correspon- dents. and I should think that Mr Bowden's hour of triumph will conic, when Professor G. A. Wells's book will be reviewed in your journal—it would not surprise me —by probably the most orthodox of theologians. Could we, please, nevertheless have a fair account of the content of the book and some real and well conducted ar- guments rather than the—it seems —fashionable view, that the naughty historians and germanists had better not trespass upon the sacred reserve of the theologians, that their studies are bound to be wrong-headed as they do not obey the rules laid down by the pro- fession.
The historicity of Jesus does matter, let us investigate the prob- lem using the method of the his- torian and then make up our minds on faith.
S. J. Barrett Westfield College, Hampstead, London Nw3
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