G. B. Caird
Encyclopedia
George Bradford Caird D.Phil., D.D., FBA, was a British churchman, theologian, humanitarian, and biblical scholar. At the time of his death he was Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture
at the University of Oxford
.
Born in London
, England
to parents from Dundee
, Scotland
, George Caird's early years were spent in Birmingham
, England
, where his father was a construction engineer, and where he attended King Edward's School
. His university education began at Peterhouse, Cambridge
, where he received the B.A. in 1939, First-Class Honours in both parts of the Classical Tripos
, with distinction in Greek and Latin verse. A lifelong Congregationalist, he then left Cambridge to study theology at Mansfield College, Oxford
, and acquired the Oxford M.A., First-Class Honours, in 1943. In 1944 he was granted the Oxford D.Phil. for his thesis "The New Testament Conception of Doxa (Glory)".
After serving three years as a pastor in Highgate
, London
, in 1946 Caird and his young bride, Viola Mary Newport, known to all as "Mollie," pulled up stakes and left for Canada. Virtually fluent in ancient Hebrew, there he was quickly made Professor of Old Testament
at St. Stephen's College, Edmonton
, Alberta
, and later (simultaneously) Professor of New Testament
at McGill University
and Principal of the United Theological College of Montreal
.
In 1959 Caird returned to Oxford and the Congregationalist stronghold of Mansfield College, where he was first Senior Tutor (under John Marsh) and later Principal (1970–1977). Because he was non-Church of England, and because Mansfield was still a Permanent Private Hall
and had not yet achieved status as a constituent College of the University (see Colleges of the University of Oxford
) during this period (1969–1977), Caird was barred from holding an official university lectureship. However, as a compensation he was granted the honorary position of Reader (academic rank)
in Biblical Studies, a status somewhere between Senior Lecturer and Professor. And whenever he lectured on the New Testament at Mansfield, students from all over the university came and filled the large lecture hall to capacity. According to Henry Chadwick, "He lectured as he preached, almost always without a note . . . with nothing before him but a Greek New Testament, usually upside down, for he knew the text by heart". In 1975-1976 Caird took on almost full-time administration, serving as Moderator of the United Reformed Church
, and during his tenure he visited South Africa. His work in the fields of Old and New Testament (he remains one of the few modern biblical interpreters to have held chairs in both) led to four honorary doctorates (including the Oxford D.D.), election to the British Academy
(and the granting of its Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies), and appointment to be the Dean Ireland's Professor
and Professorial Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford
. But acceptance of the Dean Ireland's post was not automatic for Caird, according to Mansfield College historian Elaine Kaye. "Although he had been allowed to hold his honorary University post as Reader along with the Principalship of Mansfield, the University was not prepared to allow him to hold this more senior post jointly with Mansfield. It was at once a blow and an honour for the College. For Caird it may have been a difficult decision; but his final choice indicates that the opportunity to spend the remaining years of his career as a scholar and a teacher, rather than an administrator-cum-teacher, was to him, welcome".
In 1980 he won the Collins Religious Book Award for his work The Language and Imagery of the Bible. His final years involved biblical translation as a member of the translation panel of The Revised English Bible
, as previously he had been a translator of The New English Bible
's Apocrypha
. He also co-edited (with Henry Chadwick
) Oxford's The Journal of Theological Studies
from 1977-1984. In his lifetime he wrote nearly sixty articles, over a hundred book reviews, and six books. Following his resignation as Principal of Mansfield and his taking up of the Dean Ireland's chair, the Cairds left Oxford and moved into the sixteenth century thatched-roof "Brook Cottage" at Letcombe Regis, next to Wantage
, Oxfordshire
, seventeen miles southwest of Oxford. There they converted the cottage's back storeroom into "the Dusty" - a study for Caird to write in during his imminent retirement; it was there that he was working on his seventh major work, New Testament Theology, when he was felled by a heart attack on Easter Eve, 1984. His funeral was held in Mansfield College Chapel on 28 April, with Principal Donald Sykes delivering the eulogy; a memorial celebration was later conducted (13 October) in Great St. Mary's Church, Oxford, with his close friend Henry Chadwick
delivering the address. A Festschrift
was at the time in the works, which was subsequently converted into a memorial volume, The Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology in Memory of George Bradford Caird, edited by two of his students, Lincoln Hurst
(L. D. Hurst) and Tom Wright (N. T. Wright), and published by Oxford University Press
in late 1987. Shortly after his death, some quick decisions needed to be made, particularly that involving his half-completed New Testament
Theology
; accordingly, Hurst was appointed Caird's Literary Executor. In addition, his children (see below) set up a foundation, The G. B. Caird Memorial Trust, the proceeds from which might enable (successfully, as it turned out) a new senior position to be set up in his name at Mansfield College: the G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology. It is currently occupied by Dr. John Muddiman
. Caird's academic legacy is also seen in that during the course of his career he taught numerous people who went on to garner serious scholarly attention. These include Marcus Borg
, Colin Gunton
, Lincoln Hurst
, David P. Moessner, John Muddiman
, Allison Trites, Francis Watson, and N. T. Wright. According to British Old Testament scholar James Barr
, Caird was sometimes "practically adored" by students.
While to some Caird could appear austere, even intimidating, "he was in fact full of fun and humour". In his leisure time he enjoyed (most famously) bird-watching, croquet, snooker, music, theatre, reading mysteries, ping pong, chess, and all forms of puzzles — especially the crossword and jigsaw variety. Music in particular occupied his time: it "was important to him, and he wrote several hymns, some of which were included within standard hymnals such as Congregational Praise and Hymns Ancient and Modern". He and Mollie had four children: James, Margaret (Meg) Laing, John
, and George (Geordie). To Caird the home was never just a house: it was a bastion of the family - a center of games, poetry, music, and other cultural activity, where he was, according to Henry Chadwick, "sublimely happy . . . it was a microcosm of vigorous debate and breathtaking wit, sparkling with his wife and his three sons and his daughter, whose gifts were a source of deep joy for him. From Mollie he caught his love for bird-watching, and from his children he loved to learn about architecture [James], drama [John], music [Geordie], and medieval philology [Meg]". Also, "no picture of George would be right which omitted his intense affection for his grandchildren."
Caird's earliest published book, The Truth of the Gospel (1950), is a brief but intense defense of the Christian faith. Some feel that, in terms of its stated purpose, it is more successful than C.S. Lewis's much more vaunted apologetic work Mere Christianity
. In 1954 he produced his first sustained work of exegetical scholarship, the treatment of 1 and 2 Samuel
in The Interpreter's Bible. His second book, The Apostolic Age (1955), is a succinct historical study of the early church to the end of the first century. Principalities and Powers (1956), while presumably a discussion of one theme of Paul's theology, is actually a summary of that theology on a variety of topics. Caird's first sustained independent commentary, The Gospel of St. Luke, was, as with his previous treatment of 1 and 2 Samuel, full of historical confidence: some reservations notwithstanding, the Old and New Testament writers left behind them sound history. His second commentary, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, resulted in his being awarded the Oxford D.D. Paul's Letters from Prison is a discussion of Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon
. As usual, Caird's maverick tendencies bubbled to the surface, and produced relatively conservative results in the face of the prevailing mainstream skepticism about the nature and extent of the Pauline writings: Paul, the writer of Colossians and Ephesians, provided wise and far-reaching insights into the universal human experience that will be ignored today at society's peril. The Language and Imagery of the Bible (1980) examined the literary techniques and meanings of the biblical authors. In addition to these major works Caird provided a number of shorter studies on numerous topics: Septuagintal lexicography
(e.g. "Towards a Lexicon of the Septuagint," 1969); the Christian's attitude to war (War and the Christian, 1979; Caird was a lifelong but undemonstrating pacifist) and Apartheid (South Africa
: Reflections on a Visit, 1976). Toward the end of his career he was commissioned to write a number of books, including the New International Critical Commentary on The Epistle to the Hebrews
and the volume on Paul in OUP's Past Masters series. But these were to take a back seat to his New Testament Theology, intended to be the ultimate statement of his thinking on the New Testament, and on which he had been working for some years. While he did not live to see it finished, it was edited and completed by Lincoln Hurst
and published posthumously by the OUP in 1994 (hardback) and 1995 (paperback).
Caird had what seemed to be a bewildering array of interests. Ultimately, however, it was all of a piece: the unifying thread was the variety of ways in which language works. According to N.T. Wright, he loved words, and how human beings enjoy using and abusing them. This is demonstrated, e.g., by his early attraction to Septuagintal lexicography, or his analysis of The Language and Imagery of the Bible. In the latter Caird explored, among many other concerns, the rich variety of metaphor and imagery used by the biblical writers to convey their meanings. Going against much of the modern grain, he insisted that the Old and New Testament writers must be permitted to speak with their own voices and that modern vogues, presuppositions and dogmatic biases must not be permitted to get in the way. He particularly detested recent linguistic theories such as Structuralism
, which he saw as sheer lunacy; it was among the "Gaderene precipitations into the Dark Ages". He "believed in the perspicuity of the substance of Holy Scripture, a principle which the medieval schoolmen and the Reformation inherited from St. Augustine
, but which the disciples of Rudolf Bultmann
have found it notoriously hard to share". Those who read or heard him were well aware that Caird thought British biblical scholarship (that of Dodd in particular) was the last word on the subject, and he found nothing more satisfying than a good joust with German theology. In this regard for over thirty years Bultmann remained his favorite target.
Caird's focus on linguistics also inevitably led him into the area of Biblical translation. According to James Barr, since Caird was out of the country at the time, he was unable to contribute to the translation of the New English Bible
(begun by his mentor C. H. Dodd in 1946, the year Caird moved to Canada); but he returned to England in time to serve (along with his close friend and colleague C. F. D. Moule
) on the translation panel of the New English Bible
's Apocrypha
in 1961.
Caird's views on translation were stated strongly and precisely in almost all of his works, including his articles dealing with the Septuagint and in The Language and Imagery of the Bible. He railed against the "word substitution" method, which he maintained tried to be faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek syntax and vocabulary, but sacrificed intelligibility in English. A frequent target of his wrath in this regard was the Revised Standard Version
, which he saw as too wooden literal at crucial points. Caird advocated the "Dynamic equivalence" approach, promoted by, among others, Eugene Nida
, wherein "one has to reproduce, not the words of the form of the original, but the meaning of the original as a whole. The New English Bible, according to Caird, was not only the first officially sponsored translation of this kind, but also 'incomparably the best'". To his delight Caird was able to contribute to the translation panel of the Revised English Bible
in the last decade of his life, although he died before his work on that project was able to be brought to completion.
Theology
, which for him involved presiding over "an apostolic conference on faith and order" (cf. Acts, Gal 2). Here he attempted to allow the New Testament writers "to speak for themselves" on a wide variety of topics (predestination, sin, salvation, the life of the church, eschatology, christology). He avoided using any form of artificial force to press their viewpoints into the arbitrary strictures of a system. The consequent unison of Caird's New Testament conference was therefore similar to that of a choir, sung not in complete harmony but with proper counter-melodies. Yet another integral feature of New Testament Theology was his inclusion as the final chapter of a discussion of the theology of Jesus. For him this was "the starting point and goal of New Testament theology". Although New Testament Theology was published posthumously (it was completed and edited by Lincoln Hurst
in 1994), Caird's effort had a visible and immediate impact on both sides of the Atlantic. According to Bruce Metzger
of Princeton Theological Seminary
, it was "vintage Caird" - "a weighty volume whose pages instruct as well as stimulate". John Muddiman
, G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford
, saw it as "a tangible monument to the scholarly achievement of George Caird". And, according to C. F. D. Moule
of Cambridge
, Caird's final work is "a very important book," "brilliant and provocative"; it causes the New Testament "to speak for itself by exact scrutiny and deft interrogation and with a sensitive awareness of the hazards of bridging the time-gap; and the results are fresh and radical".
, known from his commentary on The Gospel of St. Luke and showcased at the end of New Testament Theology, is also reflected in his shorter works Jesus and the Jewish Nation and "Eschatology and Politics: Some Misconceptions," among others. Jesus and the Jewish Nation was one of the groundbreaking works that facilitated a new phase in the study of the subject, according to N. T. Wright, whose book Jesus and the Victory of God is built much on foundations laid by Caird. As with other New Testament specialists who had a strong classical training, Caird was baffled by the skepticism with which gospel commentators and others who write on the Jesus of history have traditionally looked upon their historical sources.
Consequently his work has a refreshing lack of negative presuppositions. As with his teacher C. H. Dodd
, he was adamant that the gospels were reliable witnesses not only to the theology of the early church but to the theology of Jesus himself. His claim in particular that Jesus's friction with the Pharisees reflected a legitimate, contemporary, first-century Palestinian debate about "what it means for the nation of Israel to be the holy people of God in a world overrun by gentiles," and that this is profoundly "political," is fundamental to his work on Jesus.
Another of Caird's lifelong preoccupations was Paul the Apostle, seen particularly in his works Principalities and Powers, Paul's Letters from Prison, and comments scattered throughout The Language and Imagery of the Bible and New Testament Theology. For Caird Paul has not been given his proper due by modern scholarly opinion in terms of the uniqueness and importance of his contribution to Christianity. As a dyed-in-the-wool Cambridge-trained classicist, Caird saw Paul not so much as a conveyor of supernatural information but as a brilliantly innovative thinker, a skillful interpreter of the scriptures and of the mind of Jesus, or "humanity at its very best". Paul was also a revolutionary, as Caird saw him: one who was fervently committed to the socially convulsive implications of the gospel, especially in such concerns as class divisions within society (including the equality of women), the constant corruption of political and religious authority, and the unity of the Christian church as a rebuke to a warring and fractured world. In all his works Caird never shrank from making clear his unqualified admiration for what he saw as the frequently misunderstood apostle; yet this could hardly be mistaken for hero worship. He could disagree with Paul at times, and "if he had ever seen [him] approaching in the High Street, he wouldn't have treated him with exaggerated deference, nor would he have crossed the street to avoid him. He would probably have invited him to read a paper to his Postgraduate Seminar, and would have felt no embarrassment at taking him into the Senior Common Room for tea beforehand". In certain ways Caird contributed to the debate concerning the New Perspective on Paul
, seen perhaps most visibly in an extended review of E. P. Sanders
's work Paul and Palestinian Judaism.
. It is still largely believed in scholarly circles that Jewish apocalyptic had relinquished all hope for this world and expected an imminent divine intervention as the final thunder-clap of history. Caird saw this as a major distortion. Those who wrote the apocalypses resembled the prophets in that they never let go of their hope in divine interference within the midst of history. Instead, by something called "prophetic camera technique," they used metaphorical imagery that "telescoped" events within history and the ultimate victory of God at the end of time. By such a means this-worldly events were used to elucidate the End, and the End allowed the biblical writers to see historical events in a new and refreshing way. In identical fashion Jesus looked forward to a coming intense testing, for both himself and for his disciples, during his own generation (the near lens), but which pointed to a final ultimate resolution (the far lens). According to Caird, this was just as true for Paul and the author of the book of Revelation
. Hence Caird's The Revelation of St. John the Divine stands as a pristine example of the "Preterist" interpretation of the Apocalypse
.
For Caird "that which must swiftly come to pass" does not signify the End in the literal sense; it is the end that was imminently confronting the first-century church, encompassing its persecution and potential extinction. Thus, according to Caird, the author of the Apocalypse "no more expects the end of the world than any of the other prophets before him". Such concepts again reveal Caird as clearly standing in the tradition of his teacher, C. H. Dodd
, and Dodd's "Realized eschatology
." But, through the use of more recent linguistic theory than Dodd had access to, Caird went beyond Dodd's thinking on the subject. At the popular level, Caird's views on eschatology place him at the polar opposite of some best-selling dispensationalist authors such as those who wrote the escapist Left Behind
novels; while on a scholarly level, his views have been heavily built upon by some (e.g. N. T. Wright 1996) and emphatically disputed by others (e.g. Dale Allison
1985).
Caird's writings often stress the integration of theology and politics. Long before it was in vogue, he felt the urgency of including politics in any responsible theological dialogue. This is identifiable early on in Principalities and Powers; there, he repeatedly urged, the unusual phrase meant for Paul his unique take on the political, social, economic and religious power structures of this world. And, as in his work on the historical Jesus, the importance of political concerns in Christianity remains central in his taking on of such varied topics as the modern Christian attitude to war ("War and the Christian"), the status of women in society ("Paul and Women's Liberty"), and Apartheid. With regard to the last, his addresses to the South African Dutch Reformed Church
(during his tenure in 1975-1976 as Moderator of the United Reformed Church
) were later distilled and published as South Africa: Reflections on a Visit. A clarion call for the modern Christian Church's renunciation of racism, it demonstrated that for Caird the gospel, while profoundly religious, is not uniquely religious; it penetrates to all areas of personal and collective human activity. His work as a humanitarian and churchman is perhaps best reflected in Our Dialogue with Rome: The Second Vatican Council
and After, which his close friend Henry Chadwick
called "a memorable little book" that attempts to bring some order out of the morass of Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue, "with its unexpected moments of sudden joy and usually more numerous tears".
Caird was a complex figure, which makes any attempt to reduce his life and work into a short survey hazardous. However, taking into account the concerns expressed here, certain things may confidently be said of him - most principally that he was a scholar's scholar, and yet one who was (paradoxically) never a pure academic who enjoyed the sequestered safety of his study. His pastoral temperament was frequently at the fore, and for him it required that he do the double duty of preacher-scholar. "To know George you had to hear him preach, for here became apparent one of the great strengths of his life. It was clearly the same man who conducted advanced seminars and helped graduate students to see through the complexities of their work. Many of those who went to his lectures remarked not only on the vigorous academic discipline they were invited to share, but on the direct relationship they were encouraged to see between honest probing and the preaching of the Gospel" (Donald Sykes).
"He understood the task of the exegete to be not only the discernment of the author's original intention but also the elucidation and proclamation of the Gospel of God. Just as he could hardly endure sermons without intellectual content, so his lectures were truly evangelical".
Caird would probably have appreciated the Latin inscription (chosen by his wife Mollie) in Mansfield College Chapel: "Fons sapientiae verbum Dei" ("The word of God is the fountain of wisdom") (Jesus ben Sirach 1:5; so Caird's translation for the New English Bible
].
On a scholarly level it may be said of Caird that, "despite his independence, [he] belonged to and typified a marked tradition within British scholarship. Points of similarity with C. H. Dodd
, less often with T. W. Manson, are frequent. What Caird displayed in a highly illuminating way is the manner in which theological conviction, literary values, and historical reasoning worked together in that current of learning . . . in this respect the rethinking of Caird's thoughts can be, and is, a contribution to the whole intellectual history of an era". And finally, on a personal level, "those who knew him will never forget that tall figure who seemed to walk faster than anyone else, black Oxford gown trailing him in the breeze, who always spoke in public without notes, and who—perhaps as a fitting symbol of his life—always seemed to be out of the lecture hall before his listeners had written down his last word or had had the opportunity to consider the meaning of what they had just heard".
Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture
The position of Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture was established at the University of Oxford in 1847. The professorship was instituted by John Ireland, Dean of Westminster from 1816 until his death in 1842, who acquired considerable riches during his ecclesiastical career...
at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
.
Life and career
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to parents from Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, George Caird's early years were spent in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where his father was a construction engineer, and where he attended King Edward's School
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to...
. His university education began at Peterhouse, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, where he received the B.A. in 1939, First-Class Honours in both parts of the Classical Tripos
Classical Tripos
The Classical Tripos is the taught course in classics at the University of Cambridge, equivalent to Literae Humaniores at Oxford. It is traditionally a three year degree, but for those who have not studied Latin and Greek at school a four year course has been introduced...
, with distinction in Greek and Latin verse. A lifelong Congregationalist, he then left Cambridge to study theology at Mansfield College, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, and acquired the Oxford M.A., First-Class Honours, in 1943. In 1944 he was granted the Oxford D.Phil. for his thesis "The New Testament Conception of Doxa (Glory)".
After serving three years as a pastor in Highgate
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in 1946 Caird and his young bride, Viola Mary Newport, known to all as "Mollie," pulled up stakes and left for Canada. Virtually fluent in ancient Hebrew, there he was quickly made Professor of Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
at St. Stephen's College, Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, and later (simultaneously) Professor of New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
and Principal of the United Theological College of Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
.
In 1959 Caird returned to Oxford and the Congregationalist stronghold of Mansfield College, where he was first Senior Tutor (under John Marsh) and later Principal (1970–1977). Because he was non-Church of England, and because Mansfield was still a Permanent Private Hall
Permanent Private Hall
A Permanent Private Hall at the University of Oxford is an educational institution within the university. There are six Permanent Private Halls at Oxford, five of which admit undergraduates. They were founded by different Christian denominations....
and had not yet achieved status as a constituent College of the University (see Colleges of the University of Oxford
Colleges of the University of Oxford
The University of Oxford comprises 38 Colleges and 6 Permanent Private Halls of religious foundation. Colleges and PPHs are autonomous self-governing corporations within the university, and all teaching staff and students studying for a degree of the university must belong to one of the colleges...
) during this period (1969–1977), Caird was barred from holding an official university lectureship. However, as a compensation he was granted the honorary position of Reader (academic rank)
Reader (academic rank)
The title of Reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship...
in Biblical Studies, a status somewhere between Senior Lecturer and Professor. And whenever he lectured on the New Testament at Mansfield, students from all over the university came and filled the large lecture hall to capacity. According to Henry Chadwick, "He lectured as he preached, almost always without a note . . . with nothing before him but a Greek New Testament, usually upside down, for he knew the text by heart". In 1975-1976 Caird took on almost full-time administration, serving as Moderator of the United Reformed Church
United Reformed Church
The United Reformed Church is a Christian church in the United Kingdom. It has approximately 68,000 members in 1,500 congregations with some 700 ministers.-Origins and history:...
, and during his tenure he visited South Africa. His work in the fields of Old and New Testament (he remains one of the few modern biblical interpreters to have held chairs in both) led to four honorary doctorates (including the Oxford D.D.), election to the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
(and the granting of its Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies), and appointment to be the Dean Ireland's Professor
Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture
The position of Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture was established at the University of Oxford in 1847. The professorship was instituted by John Ireland, Dean of Westminster from 1816 until his death in 1842, who acquired considerable riches during his ecclesiastical career...
and Professorial Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...
. But acceptance of the Dean Ireland's post was not automatic for Caird, according to Mansfield College historian Elaine Kaye. "Although he had been allowed to hold his honorary University post as Reader along with the Principalship of Mansfield, the University was not prepared to allow him to hold this more senior post jointly with Mansfield. It was at once a blow and an honour for the College. For Caird it may have been a difficult decision; but his final choice indicates that the opportunity to spend the remaining years of his career as a scholar and a teacher, rather than an administrator-cum-teacher, was to him, welcome".
In 1980 he won the Collins Religious Book Award for his work The Language and Imagery of the Bible. His final years involved biblical translation as a member of the translation panel of The Revised English Bible
Revised English Bible
The Revised English Bible is a 1989 English language translation of the Bible and updates the New English Bible, of 1970. As with its predecessor, it is published by the publishing houses of both Oxford University and Cambridge University....
, as previously he had been a translator of The New English Bible
New English Bible
The New English Bible is a translation of the Bible into modern English directly from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts . The New Testament was published in 1961...
's Apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
. He also co-edited (with Henry Chadwick
Henry Chadwick (theologian)
Henry Chadwick KBE was a British academic and Church of England clergyman. A former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford — and as such also head of Christ Church, Oxford — he also served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, becoming the first person in four centuries to have headed a college at...
) Oxford's The Journal of Theological Studies
The Journal of Theological Studies
The Journal of Theological Studies is an academic journal established in 1899 and now published by Oxford University Press in April and October each year. It publishes theological research, scholarship, and interpretation, and hitherto unpublished ancient and modern texts, inscriptions, and documents...
from 1977-1984. In his lifetime he wrote nearly sixty articles, over a hundred book reviews, and six books. Following his resignation as Principal of Mansfield and his taking up of the Dean Ireland's chair, the Cairds left Oxford and moved into the sixteenth century thatched-roof "Brook Cottage" at Letcombe Regis, next to Wantage
Wantage
Wantage is a market town and civil parish in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. The town is on Letcombe Brook, about south-west of Abingdon and a similar distance west of Didcot....
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, seventeen miles southwest of Oxford. There they converted the cottage's back storeroom into "the Dusty" - a study for Caird to write in during his imminent retirement; it was there that he was working on his seventh major work, New Testament Theology, when he was felled by a heart attack on Easter Eve, 1984. His funeral was held in Mansfield College Chapel on 28 April, with Principal Donald Sykes delivering the eulogy; a memorial celebration was later conducted (13 October) in Great St. Mary's Church, Oxford, with his close friend Henry Chadwick
Henry Chadwick (theologian)
Henry Chadwick KBE was a British academic and Church of England clergyman. A former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford — and as such also head of Christ Church, Oxford — he also served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, becoming the first person in four centuries to have headed a college at...
delivering the address. A Festschrift
Festschrift
In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
was at the time in the works, which was subsequently converted into a memorial volume, The Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology in Memory of George Bradford Caird, edited by two of his students, Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Douglas Hurst , B.A., M.Div., Th.M., D.Phil., was an American scholar of the Bible, religious history, and film...
(L. D. Hurst) and Tom Wright (N. T. Wright), and published by Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
in late 1987. Shortly after his death, some quick decisions needed to be made, particularly that involving his half-completed New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
Theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
; accordingly, Hurst was appointed Caird's Literary Executor. In addition, his children (see below) set up a foundation, The G. B. Caird Memorial Trust, the proceeds from which might enable (successfully, as it turned out) a new senior position to be set up in his name at Mansfield College: the G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology. It is currently occupied by Dr. John Muddiman
John Muddiman
The Reverend Dr John Muddiman is the G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford. Amongst his academic works he has produced a critically acclaimed examination of authorship in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Moreover, along with John Barton, he has co-edited the Oxford...
. Caird's academic legacy is also seen in that during the course of his career he taught numerous people who went on to garner serious scholarly attention. These include Marcus Borg
Marcus Borg
Marcus J. Borg is an American Biblical scholar and author. He is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, holds a DPhil degree from Oxford University and is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture, an endowed chair, at Oregon State University, from which he retired in 2007...
, Colin Gunton
Colin Gunton
Colin Ewart Gunton was a British systematic theologian. As a theologian he made contributions to the doctrine of Creation and the doctrine of the trinity. He was Professor of Christian Doctrine at King's College London from 1984 and co-founder with Christoph Schwoebel of the Research Institute for...
, Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Douglas Hurst , B.A., M.Div., Th.M., D.Phil., was an American scholar of the Bible, religious history, and film...
, David P. Moessner, John Muddiman
John Muddiman
The Reverend Dr John Muddiman is the G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford. Amongst his academic works he has produced a critically acclaimed examination of authorship in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Moreover, along with John Barton, he has co-edited the Oxford...
, Allison Trites, Francis Watson, and N. T. Wright. According to British Old Testament scholar James Barr
James Barr (biblical scholar)
James Barr FBA was a Scottish Old Testament scholar.Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Barr was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1951. He held professorships in New College, Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh, Manchester, and at Vanderbilt University in the United States of...
, Caird was sometimes "practically adored" by students.
John Caird (director)
John Newport Caird is a British stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an Honorary Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and the Principal Guest Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre,...
, and George (Geordie). To Caird the home was never just a house: it was a bastion of the family - a center of games, poetry, music, and other cultural activity, where he was, according to Henry Chadwick, "sublimely happy . . . it was a microcosm of vigorous debate and breathtaking wit, sparkling with his wife and his three sons and his daughter, whose gifts were a source of deep joy for him. From Mollie he caught his love for bird-watching, and from his children he loved to learn about architecture [James], drama [John], music [Geordie], and medieval philology [Meg]". Also, "no picture of George would be right which omitted his intense affection for his grandchildren."
Major works
Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II...
. In 1954 he produced his first sustained work of exegetical scholarship, the treatment of 1 and 2 Samuel
Samuel
Samuel is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the Qur'an....
in The Interpreter's Bible. His second book, The Apostolic Age (1955), is a succinct historical study of the early church to the end of the first century. Principalities and Powers (1956), while presumably a discussion of one theme of Paul's theology, is actually a summary of that theology on a variety of topics. Caird's first sustained independent commentary, The Gospel of St. Luke, was, as with his previous treatment of 1 and 2 Samuel, full of historical confidence: some reservations notwithstanding, the Old and New Testament writers left behind them sound history. His second commentary, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, resulted in his being awarded the Oxford D.D. Paul's Letters from Prison is a discussion of Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon
Epistle to Philemon
Paul's Epistle to Philemon, usually referred to simply as Philemon, is a prison letter to Philemon from Paul of Tarsus. Philemon was a leader in the Colossian church. This letter, which is one of the books of the New Testament, deals with forgiveness.Philemon was a wealthy Christian of the house...
. As usual, Caird's maverick tendencies bubbled to the surface, and produced relatively conservative results in the face of the prevailing mainstream skepticism about the nature and extent of the Pauline writings: Paul, the writer of Colossians and Ephesians, provided wise and far-reaching insights into the universal human experience that will be ignored today at society's peril. The Language and Imagery of the Bible (1980) examined the literary techniques and meanings of the biblical authors. In addition to these major works Caird provided a number of shorter studies on numerous topics: Septuagintal lexicography
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
(e.g. "Towards a Lexicon of the Septuagint," 1969); the Christian's attitude to war (War and the Christian, 1979; Caird was a lifelong but undemonstrating pacifist) and Apartheid (South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
: Reflections on a Visit, 1976). Toward the end of his career he was commissioned to write a number of books, including the New International Critical Commentary on The Epistle to the Hebrews
Epistle to the Hebrews
The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the books in the New Testament. Its author is not known.The primary purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews is to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The central thought of the entire Epistle is the doctrine of the Person of Christ and his...
and the volume on Paul in OUP's Past Masters series. But these were to take a back seat to his New Testament Theology, intended to be the ultimate statement of his thinking on the New Testament, and on which he had been working for some years. While he did not live to see it finished, it was edited and completed by Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Douglas Hurst , B.A., M.Div., Th.M., D.Phil., was an American scholar of the Bible, religious history, and film...
and published posthumously by the OUP in 1994 (hardback) and 1995 (paperback).
Literary values
According to two of his students, what marked out all of Caird's work was an erudite, crisp writing style, a wry humour, and an ability to turn old questions on their heads by posing them in new and memorable ways. "Combining a penetrative knowledge of both Testaments with a rare fastidiousness with words, Caird analysed his texts in a way which for many set a new standard for the field. These traits, coupled with a fertility of imagination and an almost poetic approach to complex theological issues, produced a potent brew which any who took even a small draught were not likely to forget"." His literary ability was outstanding . . . his clear, crisp sentences say more in a few words than some scholars manage in several pages. A slim volume from Caird, easily mistaken for a slight or negligible work, is likely to be an explosive charge, packed with pithy wisdom".Workings of language
Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
, which he saw as sheer lunacy; it was among the "Gaderene precipitations into the Dark Ages". He "believed in the perspicuity of the substance of Holy Scripture, a principle which the medieval schoolmen and the Reformation inherited from St. Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
, but which the disciples of Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German theologian of Lutheran background, who was for three decades professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg...
have found it notoriously hard to share". Those who read or heard him were well aware that Caird thought British biblical scholarship (that of Dodd in particular) was the last word on the subject, and he found nothing more satisfying than a good joust with German theology. In this regard for over thirty years Bultmann remained his favorite target.
Caird's focus on linguistics also inevitably led him into the area of Biblical translation. According to James Barr, since Caird was out of the country at the time, he was unable to contribute to the translation of the New English Bible
New English Bible
The New English Bible is a translation of the Bible into modern English directly from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts . The New Testament was published in 1961...
(begun by his mentor C. H. Dodd in 1946, the year Caird moved to Canada); but he returned to England in time to serve (along with his close friend and colleague C. F. D. Moule
C. F. D. Moule
Charles Francis Digby Moule CBE FBA , known to his friends as Charlie but professionally by his initials C. F. D. Moule, was an Anglican priest and theologian...
) on the translation panel of the New English Bible
New English Bible
The New English Bible is a translation of the Bible into modern English directly from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts . The New Testament was published in 1961...
's Apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
in 1961.
Caird's views on translation were stated strongly and precisely in almost all of his works, including his articles dealing with the Septuagint and in The Language and Imagery of the Bible. He railed against the "word substitution" method, which he maintained tried to be faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek syntax and vocabulary, but sacrificed intelligibility in English. A frequent target of his wrath in this regard was the Revised Standard Version
Revised Standard Version
The Revised Standard Version is an English translation of the Bible published in the mid-20th century. It traces its history to William Tyndale's New Testament translation of 1525. The RSV is an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901...
, which he saw as too wooden literal at crucial points. Caird advocated the "Dynamic equivalence" approach, promoted by, among others, Eugene Nida
Eugene Nida
Eugene A. Nida was the developer of the dynamic-equivalence Bible-translation theory.- Life :Nida was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on November 11, 1914...
, wherein "one has to reproduce, not the words of the form of the original, but the meaning of the original as a whole. The New English Bible, according to Caird, was not only the first officially sponsored translation of this kind, but also 'incomparably the best'". To his delight Caird was able to contribute to the translation panel of the Revised English Bible
Revised English Bible
The Revised English Bible is a 1989 English language translation of the Bible and updates the New English Bible, of 1970. As with its predecessor, it is published by the publishing houses of both Oxford University and Cambridge University....
in the last decade of his life, although he died before his work on that project was able to be brought to completion.
New Testament theology
Caird's overall conception of New Testament thought is seen in his synthetic New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
Theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, which for him involved presiding over "an apostolic conference on faith and order" (cf. Acts, Gal 2). Here he attempted to allow the New Testament writers "to speak for themselves" on a wide variety of topics (predestination, sin, salvation, the life of the church, eschatology, christology). He avoided using any form of artificial force to press their viewpoints into the arbitrary strictures of a system. The consequent unison of Caird's New Testament conference was therefore similar to that of a choir, sung not in complete harmony but with proper counter-melodies. Yet another integral feature of New Testament Theology was his inclusion as the final chapter of a discussion of the theology of Jesus. For him this was "the starting point and goal of New Testament theology". Although New Testament Theology was published posthumously (it was completed and edited by Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Hurst
Lincoln Douglas Hurst , B.A., M.Div., Th.M., D.Phil., was an American scholar of the Bible, religious history, and film...
in 1994), Caird's effort had a visible and immediate impact on both sides of the Atlantic. According to Bruce Metzger
Bruce Metzger
Bruce Manning Metzger was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the American Bible Society. He was a scholar of Greek, New Testament and Old Testament, and wrote prolifically on these subjects.- Biography :Metzger was born in Middletown,...
of Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...
, it was "vintage Caird" - "a weighty volume whose pages instruct as well as stimulate". John Muddiman
John Muddiman
The Reverend Dr John Muddiman is the G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford. Amongst his academic works he has produced a critically acclaimed examination of authorship in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Moreover, along with John Barton, he has co-edited the Oxford...
, G. B. Caird Fellow in New Testament Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, saw it as "a tangible monument to the scholarly achievement of George Caird". And, according to C. F. D. Moule
C. F. D. Moule
Charles Francis Digby Moule CBE FBA , known to his friends as Charlie but professionally by his initials C. F. D. Moule, was an Anglican priest and theologian...
of Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, Caird's final work is "a very important book," "brilliant and provocative"; it causes the New Testament "to speak for itself by exact scrutiny and deft interrogation and with a sensitive awareness of the hazards of bridging the time-gap; and the results are fresh and radical".
Historical Jesus
Caird's career-long preoccupation with the Historical JesusHistorical Jesus
The term historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 1st-century figure Jesus of Nazareth. These reconstructions are based upon historical methods including critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the historical and...
, known from his commentary on The Gospel of St. Luke and showcased at the end of New Testament Theology, is also reflected in his shorter works Jesus and the Jewish Nation and "Eschatology and Politics: Some Misconceptions," among others. Jesus and the Jewish Nation was one of the groundbreaking works that facilitated a new phase in the study of the subject, according to N. T. Wright, whose book Jesus and the Victory of God is built much on foundations laid by Caird. As with other New Testament specialists who had a strong classical training, Caird was baffled by the skepticism with which gospel commentators and others who write on the Jesus of history have traditionally looked upon their historical sources.
Consequently his work has a refreshing lack of negative presuppositions. As with his teacher C. H. Dodd
C. H. Dodd
Charles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian.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,...
, he was adamant that the gospels were reliable witnesses not only to the theology of the early church but to the theology of Jesus himself. His claim in particular that Jesus's friction with the Pharisees reflected a legitimate, contemporary, first-century Palestinian debate about "what it means for the nation of Israel to be the holy people of God in a world overrun by gentiles," and that this is profoundly "political," is fundamental to his work on Jesus.
Paul the Apostle
New Perspective on Paul
The "New Perspective on Paul" is a significant shift in the way some scholars, especially Protestant scholars, interpret the writings of the Apostle Paul.-Description:Since the Protestant Reformation The "New Perspective on Paul" is a significant shift in the way some scholars, especially...
, seen perhaps most visibly in an extended review of E. P. Sanders
E. P. Sanders
Ed Parish Sanders is a New Testament scholar, and is one of the principal proponents of the New Perspective on Paul. He has been Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University, North Carolina, since 1990. He retired in 2005....
's work Paul and Palestinian Judaism.
Eschatology
Yet one more of Caird's concerns involved the understanding of Old and New Testament eschatologyEschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
. It is still largely believed in scholarly circles that Jewish apocalyptic had relinquished all hope for this world and expected an imminent divine intervention as the final thunder-clap of history. Caird saw this as a major distortion. Those who wrote the apocalypses resembled the prophets in that they never let go of their hope in divine interference within the midst of history. Instead, by something called "prophetic camera technique," they used metaphorical imagery that "telescoped" events within history and the ultimate victory of God at the end of time. By such a means this-worldly events were used to elucidate the End, and the End allowed the biblical writers to see historical events in a new and refreshing way. In identical fashion Jesus looked forward to a coming intense testing, for both himself and for his disciples, during his own generation (the near lens), but which pointed to a final ultimate resolution (the far lens). According to Caird, this was just as true for Paul and the author of the book of Revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
. Hence Caird's The Revelation of St. John the Divine stands as a pristine example of the "Preterist" interpretation of the Apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
.
For Caird "that which must swiftly come to pass" does not signify the End in the literal sense; it is the end that was imminently confronting the first-century church, encompassing its persecution and potential extinction. Thus, according to Caird, the author of the Apocalypse "no more expects the end of the world than any of the other prophets before him". Such concepts again reveal Caird as clearly standing in the tradition of his teacher, C. H. Dodd
C. H. Dodd
Charles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian.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,...
, and Dodd's "Realized eschatology
Realized eschatology
Realized eschatology is a Christian eschatological theory popularized by C. H. Dodd that holds that the eschatological passages in the New Testament do not refer to the future, but instead refer to the ministry of Jesus and his lasting legacy...
." But, through the use of more recent linguistic theory than Dodd had access to, Caird went beyond Dodd's thinking on the subject. At the popular level, Caird's views on eschatology place him at the polar opposite of some best-selling dispensationalist authors such as those who wrote the escapist Left Behind
Left Behind
Left Behind is a series of 16 best-selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, dealing with Christian dispensationalist End Times: pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world. The primary conflict of the series is the members of the Tribulation...
novels; while on a scholarly level, his views have been heavily built upon by some (e.g. N. T. Wright 1996) and emphatically disputed by others (e.g. Dale Allison
Dale Allison
Dale C. Allison is a Christian theologian who currently serves as Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Prior to joining Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1997, Allison served on the faculties of Texas Christian University...
1985).
Politics: war, women, apartheid, church unity
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...
(during his tenure in 1975-1976 as Moderator of the United Reformed Church
United Reformed Church
The United Reformed Church is a Christian church in the United Kingdom. It has approximately 68,000 members in 1,500 congregations with some 700 ministers.-Origins and history:...
) were later distilled and published as South Africa: Reflections on a Visit. A clarion call for the modern Christian Church's renunciation of racism, it demonstrated that for Caird the gospel, while profoundly religious, is not uniquely religious; it penetrates to all areas of personal and collective human activity. His work as a humanitarian and churchman is perhaps best reflected in Our Dialogue with Rome: The Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
and After, which his close friend Henry Chadwick
Henry Chadwick (theologian)
Henry Chadwick KBE was a British academic and Church of England clergyman. A former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford — and as such also head of Christ Church, Oxford — he also served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, becoming the first person in four centuries to have headed a college at...
called "a memorable little book" that attempts to bring some order out of the morass of Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue, "with its unexpected moments of sudden joy and usually more numerous tears".
Ultimate assessment
"He understood the task of the exegete to be not only the discernment of the author's original intention but also the elucidation and proclamation of the Gospel of God. Just as he could hardly endure sermons without intellectual content, so his lectures were truly evangelical".
New English Bible
The New English Bible is a translation of the Bible into modern English directly from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts . The New Testament was published in 1961...
].
On a scholarly level it may be said of Caird that, "despite his independence, [he] belonged to and typified a marked tradition within British scholarship. Points of similarity with C. H. Dodd
C. H. Dodd
Charles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian.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,...
, less often with T. W. Manson, are frequent. What Caird displayed in a highly illuminating way is the manner in which theological conviction, literary values, and historical reasoning worked together in that current of learning . . . in this respect the rethinking of Caird's thoughts can be, and is, a contribution to the whole intellectual history of an era". And finally, on a personal level, "those who knew him will never forget that tall figure who seemed to walk faster than anyone else, black Oxford gown trailing him in the breeze, who always spoke in public without notes, and who—perhaps as a fitting symbol of his life—always seemed to be out of the lecture hall before his listeners had written down his last word or had had the opportunity to consider the meaning of what they had just heard".
Books and commentaries
- The Apostolic Age (Essex and London: Duckworth, 1955).
- The Christian Hope, Theological Collections, 13 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1970), 19 ff.
- The Gospel of St. Luke (Pelican Gospel Commentaries; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963).
- with D. E. Jenkins, Jesus and God (London: The Faith Press, 1965).
- Jesus and the Jewish Nation (London: University of London, Athlone Press, 1965).
- The Language and Imagery of the Bible. Foreword by N. T. Wright (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997 [1980]).
- New Testament Theology, Completed and Edited by L. D. Hurst (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).
- Paul's Letters from Prison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).
- Principalities and Powers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956; reprinted Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock, 2003, with a new Foreword by L. D. Hurst)
- by W. H. Cadman, ed. G. B. Caird, The Open Heaven (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969).
- Our Dialogue With Rome: The Second Vatican Council and After (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967).
- The Revelation of St John the Divine (2d ed.; London: A & C Black, 1985 [1966]).
- with G. W. Briggs and N. Micklem, The Shorter Oxford Bible (London: Oxford University Press, 1951).
- The Truth of the Gospel (London: Oxford University Press, 1950).
Articles and essays
- "Alexander Nairne's 'The Epistle of Priesthood'," Expository Times 72 (1960-1), 204 ff.
- "Ben Sira and the Dating of the Septuagint," Studia Evangelica, 4, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Berlin, 1982), 95 ff.
- "The Bible and the Word of God," Christian Confidence, Theological Collections, 14 (London, 1970), 105 ff.
- "Biblical Classics: VIII. James Denney: The Death of Christ," Expository Times 90 (1978-9), 196 ff.
- "Biblical Exegesis and the Ecumenical Movement," in John E. Booty (ed.), The Divine Drama in History and Liturgy: Essays Presented to Horton Davies on His Retirement from Princeton University (Allison Park, Pa. 1984), 203 ff.
- "C. H. Dodd," A Handbook of Christian Theologians, ed. Martin E. Marty and Dean G. Peerman (Cleveland, 1965), 320 ff.
- "Charles Harold Dodd, 1884-1973," The Proceedings of the British Academy, 60 (1974), 497-510; offprint (1975), 3-16.
- "Christ's Attitude to Institutions," Expository Times 62 (1950-1), 259 ff.
- "Christian Ethics and Nuclear Warfare," Christus Victor 102 (1958), 4 ff.
- "The Christological Basis of Christian Hope," in G. B. Caird (ed.), The Christian Hope, Theological Collections, 13 (London, 1970), 19 ff.
- "The Chronology of the New Testament," The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, 1962), i. 599 ff.
- "The Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4: 7-11," Studia Evangelica, 2, ed. F. L. Cross (Berlin, 1964), 535 ff.
- "The Development of the Doctrine of Christ in the New Testament," in N. Pittinger (ed.), Christ for Us Today (London, 1968), 66 ff.
- "Eschatology and Politics: Some Misconceptions," in Johnston R. McKay and James F. Miller (eds.), Biblical Studies: Essays in Honour of William Barclay (London, 1976), 72 ff., 202 ff.
- "Everything to Everyone: The Theology of the Corinthian Epistles," Interpretation 13 (1959), 387 ff.
- "The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews," Canadian Journal of Theology 5 (1959), 44 ff.
- "Expounding the Parables: I. The Defendant (Matthew 5: 25 f.; Luke 12: 58 f.)," Expository Times 77 (1965-6), 36 ff.
- "The Glory of God in the Fourth Gospel: An Exercise in Biblical Semantics," New Testament Studies 15 (1969), 265 ff.
- "He Who for Men their Surety Stood," Expository Times 73 (1961-2), 24 ff.
- "Health," in The Quality of Life, Report of the British Association Study Group on Science and the Quality of Life, ed. Harford Thomas (London, 1979), 21 ff.
- "Homoeophony in the Septuagint," in R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs (eds.), Jesus, Greeks and Christians: Essays in Honor of William David Davies (Leiden, 1976), 74 ff.
- "Introduction and Exegesis to I and II Samuel," in G. A. Buttrick, et al. (eds.), The Interpreter's Bible (Nashville, 1953), ii. 855 ff.
- Introduction to Paul S. Minear's Matthew, the Teacher's Gospel, British ed. (London, 1984).
- "Jesus and Israel: The Starting Point for New Testament Christology," Christological Perspectives: Essays in Honor of Harvey K. McArthur, ed. Robert F. Berkey and Sarah Edwards (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1982), 58 ff.
- "Jesus Men Made Perfect," in Charles S. Duthie (ed.), Resurrection and Immortality: Aspects of Twentieth Century Christian Belief (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., 1979), 89 ff. reprinted from The London Quarterly and Holborn Review.
- "John, Letters of," The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, 1962), ii. 946 ff.
- "Judgement and Salvation: An Exposition of John 12: 31-2," Canadian Journal of Theology 2 (1956), 231 ff.
- "The Kingship of Christ," Expository Times 73 (1961-2), 248 ff.
- "The One and the Many in Mark and John," in Horton Davies (ed.), Studies of the Church in History: Essays Honoring Robert S. Paul on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Allison Park, Pa. 1983), 39 ff.
- "Les Eschatologies du Nouveau Testament," Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses (Paris, 1969), 217 ff.
- Major review of E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia, 1977), in Journal of Theological Studies NS 29 (1978), 540 ff.
- "New Wine in Old Wine-Skins: I. Wisdom," Expository Times 84 (1973), 164 ff.
- "The New Testament Concept of Salvation," Tantur Yearbook (1976-7), Tantur, Jerusalem, 19 ff.
- "The New Testament," in D. T. Jenkins (ed.), The Scope of Theology (Cleveland, 1965), 39 ff..
- "On Deciphering the Book of Revelation" ("I. Heaven and Earth;" "II. Past and Future;" "III. The First and the Last;" "IV. Myth and Legend"); Expository Times (1962-3), 13 ff.; 51 ff.; 82 ff.; 103 ff.
- "Paul and Women's Liberty," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 54 (1972), 268 ff.
- "Paul the Apostle," in J. Hastings (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible, rev. edn. by F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley (New York, 1963), 731 ff.
- "Paul's Theology," in J. Hastings (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible, rev. edn. by F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley (New York, 1963), 736 ff.
- "Perfection and Grace," in C. R. Young, R. A. Leaver, and J. H. Litton (eds.), Duty and Delight: Routley Remembered, memorial vol. for Eric Routley (Carol Stream, Ill. 1985), 21 ff.
- "Predestination: Romans 9-11," Expository Times 68 (1956-7), 324 ff.
- "Recent Articles on Biblical Interpretation," Interpretation 6 (1952), 458 ff.
- "Relations with Roman Catholics: A Congregationalist View," in B. Leeming (ed.), Towards Christian Unity (London, 1968).
- "Saint Paul the Apostle," Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edn. (Chicago, 1972 and 1974), xiii. 1090 ff.
- "Samuel," Encyclopædia Britannica (Chicago, 1962; repr. 1972), xix. 984.
- "Son by Appointment," in William C. Weinrich (ed.), The New Testament Age: Essays in Honor of Bo Reicke (Macon, Ga. 1984), 73 ff.
- "The Study of the Gospels" (three articles: "I. Source Criticism;" "II. Form Criticism;" "III. Redaction Criticism"), Expository Times 87 (1975-6), 99 ff.; 137 ff.; 168 ff.
- "Towards a Lexicon of the Septuagint I," Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1968), 453 ff.
- "Towards a Lexicon of the Septuagint II," Journal of Theological Studies 20 (1969), 21 ff.
- "The Transfiguration," Expository Times 67 (1955-6), 291 ff.
- "Uncomfortable Words: II. Shake off the Dust from Your Feet (Mk. 6: 11)," Expository Times 81 (1969–70), 40 ff.
- "The Will of God in the Fourth Gospel," Expository Times 72 (1960-1), 115 ff.
Lectures, studies, and other writings
- Christianity and Progress, the twenty-sixth Shaftesbury Lecture, (London: The Shaftesbury Society, 1971).
- The New Testament View of Life (Inaugural Lecture) (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1951).
- with J. Johansen-Berg, South Africa: Reflections on a Visit (London: The United Reformed Church in England and Wales, 1976).
- The Unity We Seek: II, Making It Visible (London: The British Council of Churches, 1964).
- War and the Christian (Surrey: The Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1979).
- The Word for Today (Sackville, NB, Canada: Mount Allison University Press, 1979).
External links
- Memoir of G. B. Caird in The Proceedings of the British Academy by James Barr
- "George Bradford Caird, 1917-1984: A Memoir" by Henry Chadwick in The Glory of Christ in the New Testament
- Review of New Testament Theology in The Princeton Seminary Bulletin by Bruce M. Metzger
- 360° panoramic tour of Mansfield College, Oxford