A Bibliography of Historical Theology and Historiography

Note: This bibliography is intended to alert HT students to the existence of some important and/or useful works for students of historical theology. I have omitted standard and older works in church history (e.g., Schaff) and reference works, since they are available in reference room of the library. This list includes both general and specialized works (e.g., Muller’’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics) which contain discussions of methodology.

On Research

Adler, Mortimer. How to Read a Book. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1940.

Barzun, Jacques and Henry F. Graff. The Modern Researcher. rev ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1970.

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Gotham, 2006.

Zinsser, William K. On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary: the Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. New York: Collins Refernce, 2001.

On The Academy

Bozeman, Theodore Dwight. Protestants in an Age of Science. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1977.

Gill, David W., ed. Should God Get Tenure? Essays on Religion and Higher Education. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Hart, D. G. The University Gets Religion. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Kaiser, Christopher B. Creation and the History of Science. London and Grand Rapids: Marshall Pickering and Eerdmans, 1991.

McGrath, A. E. Science and Religion: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.

Schwenn, Mark R. Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Historiography

Bauman, Michael and Martin I. Klauber. Historians of the Christian Tradition: Their Methodology and Influence on Western Thought. Broadman & Holman Pub, 1995.

Bebbington, David. Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.

Bloch, Marc. The Historian’s Craft. New York: Vintage Books, 1953.

Breisach, Ernst. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Bradley, James E. and Richard A. Muller. Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Methods. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Butterfield, H. Christianity and History. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1950.

Butterfield, Herbert. The Origins of History. New York: Basic Books, 1981.

————. The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800. rev ed. New York: The Free Press, 1965.

Cairns. E. E. God and Man in Time: A Christian Approach to Historiography. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979.

Clark, G. H. Historiography: Secular and Religious. Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1971.

Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.

Engel, M. P. Revisioning the Past: Prospects in Historical Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

Gogarten, Friedrich. Demythologizing and History. Translated by Neville Horton Smith. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955.

Green, Anna and Kathleen Troup, eds. The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Harvey, Van. The Historian and the Believer. Urbana and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Hegel, G. F. W. The Philosophy of History. Translated by J. Sibree. New York: Dover Publications, 1956.

Klauber, M. I., “Continuity and Discontinuity in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology: An Evaluation of the Muller Thesis.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33 (1990), 467–75.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1957.

————. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Kuklick, Bruce and D. G. Hart, eds. Religious Advocacy and American History. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Machen, J. Gresham. History and Faith. Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1915.

Marsden, George and Frank Roberts, eds. A Christian View of History. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

————. and Bradley J. Longfield, eds. The Secularization of the Academy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

————. The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

————. Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

McIntire, C. T. God, History and Historians: Modern Christian Views of History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

————. and R. A. Wells. History and Historical Understanding. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

————. ed. Herbert Butterfield: Writings on Christianity and History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989.

Reid, W. Stanford. “Subjectivity or Objectivity in Historical Understanding.” In Jerusalem and Athens, ed. E. R. Geehan. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1974.

Walsh, W. H. Philosophy of History. New York: Harper, 1960.

Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1962.

————. Science, Faith and Society. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1946.

Van Til, C. Common Grace and the Gospel. Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1977.

Historical Theologies

Berkhof, Louis. This History of Christian Doctrines. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1978

Bromiley, Geoffrey. Historical Theology: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Cunningham, William. Historical Theology. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1960.

Danielou, A. H. Couratin and John Kent. The Pelican Guide to Modern Theology: Historical Theology. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969.

Dillenberger, John and Claude Welch. Protestant Christianity Interpreted Through Its Development. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954.

Dorner, J. A. History of Protestant Theology. 2 vols. Translated by G. Robson and Sophia Taylor. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1871.

Dray, William H., ed. Philosophical Analysis and History. New York and London: Harper and Row, 1966.

Gonzalez, Justo L. A History of Christian Thought. 3 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 1975.

Hagglund, Bengt. History of Theology. Translated by Gene L. Lund. St Louis: Concordia, 1968.

Harnack, von, Adolph. History of Dogma. 7 vols. Translated by Neil Buchanan. New York: Dover Publications, 1967.

Johnson, William Stacy and John H. Leith, eds. Reformed Reader: A Sourcebook in Christian Theology.  2 vols. Louisville: WJKP, 1993.

McGiffert, A. C. A History of Christian Thought. Edited by . 2 vols. New York and London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954.

————. Protestant Thought Before Kant. London: Duckworth & Co, 1919.

Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725. 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003.

————. Scholasticism and Orthodoxy in the Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition. Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1995.

————. “The Era of Protestant Orthodoxy.” Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition. eds. D. G. Hart and R. A. Muller. Grand Rapids, 1996.

————. “The Use and Abuse of a Document: Beza’’s Tabula Praedestinationis, the Bolsec Controversy, and the Origins of Reformed Orthodoxy.” Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment. eds. C.R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark. Carlisle, 1998.

Neve, J. L. A History of Christian Thought. 2 vols. Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press, 1946.

Newman, J. H. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1960.

————. The Idea of a University. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1912.

Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999.

Pelikan, J. Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969.

————. Historical Theology: Continuity and Change in Christian Doctrine. New York: Corpus, 1971.

————. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Edited by . 5 vols. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Placher, William C. Readings in the History of Christian Theology. Edited by . 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988.

Seeburg, R. Text-Book of the History of Doctrines. 2 vols. Translated by Charles E. Hay. Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1905.

Shedd, W. G. T. A History of Christian Doctrine. Edited by . 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1909.

Tillich, Paul. A History of Christian Thought. Edited by Carl E. Braaten. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1968.

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  • R. Scott Clark
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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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