C. H. Dodd

Charles Harold Dodd (7 April 1884 – 21 September 1973) was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian.^[1] He is known for promoting "realized eschatology", the belief that Jesus' references to the kingdom of God meant a present reality rather than a future apocalypse.

Life

Dodd was born in Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales, the brother of the historian A. H. Dodd. He studied classics at University College, Oxford, from 1902. After graduating in 1906 he spent a year in Berlin, where he was influenced by Adolf Harnack.

He was a Congregationalist minister for three years in Warwick, after being ordained in 1912, before going into academia. From 1915 he was Yates Lecturer in New Testament at Oxford. He became Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the Victoria University of Manchester in 1930. He was Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1935, becoming emeritus in 1949. His students from Cambridge include David Daube and W. D. Davies. The three together, each through his own work, ushered in changes in New Testament studies that led to the New Perspective on Paul and the scholarship of Davies's student, E. P. Sanders.

He directed the work of the New English Bible translators, from 1950.

Dodd died in Goring-on-Thames. Dodd's daughter Rachel married the Old Testament scholar Rev. E. W. Heaton in 1951.

Works

• The Meaning of Paul for Today (1920),
• The Gospel in the New Testament undated
• The Authority of the Bible (1928).
• The Leader (1930) booklet
• Epistle of Paul to the Romans (1932) Moffatt Commentary
• The Framework of the Gospel Narrative (1932).
• There and Back Again (1932).
• The Mind of Paul: A Psychological Approach (1933).
• The Bible and its Background (1935).
• The Bible and the Greeks (1935).
• The Parables of the Kingdom (1935).
• The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments: Three Lectures with an Eschatology and History (1936).
• The First Epistle of John and the Fourth Gospel (1937).
• History and the Gospel (1938).
• The Bible Today (1946).
• The Johannine Epistles (1946) Moffatt Commentary.
• About the Gospels (1950).
• The Coming of Christ: Four Broadcast Addresses for the Season of Advent (1951).
• Gospel and Law: The Relation of Faith and Ethics in Early Christianity (1951) Bampton Lectures at Columbia University.
• According to the Scriptures: The Substructure of New Testament Theology (1952).
• Christianity and the Reconciliation of the Nations (1952).
• Man In God's Design According to the New Testament (1953) with Panagiotis Bratsiotis, R. Bultmann, and Henri Clavier.
• The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953). Contents, pp. 2-46, back-cover description.
• New Testament Studies (1953).
• The Dialogue Form in the Gospels (1954/55).
• Benefits of His Passion (1956).
• How to Read the Gospels (1956).
• Triptych (1958).
• Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (1963). Preface, Contents, pp. 1-44, back-cover descr.
• More New Testament Studies (1968).
• The Founder of Christianity (1970).

References

1. Frederick William Dillistone, C. H. Dodd, Interpreter of the New Testament, 1977.

Bibliography

• Iwan Rhys Jones, "C. H. Dodd and the Welsh Bible: A Fading Influence," The Expository Times, 119,8 (2008), 380-384.

External links

• Memoir of C. H. Dodd in The Proceedings of the British Academy by G. B. Caird
• Kurt Erlemann (2005). "C. H. Dodd". In Bautz, Traugott. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German) 24. Nordhausen: Bautz. cols. 516–518. ISBN 3-88309-247-9.
• Biography (National Library of Wales)
• Radical Faith
• Preaching and Teaching in the Early Church Chapter 1 of Gospel and Law: The Relation of Faith and Ethics in Early Christianity (1951)