The contentious issue of historical consciousness and its contribution to Christian scholarship has long been assumed to be the domain of Protestantism in the wake of its embrace of Enlightenment categories. This and other truisms are questioned in the present work, suggesting that the origins of the question emerge from within Christian scholarship itself and may precede the Enlightenment's influence.

Made up of papers originally delivered at a conference, this volume originated in the American Academy of Religion's Working Group on the Rise of Historical Consciousness among the Christian Churches. In endeavoring to demonstrate the book's thesis the contributors address several contexts across the ecclesiastical and historical landscape. Darrell Jodock ably handles the tension between historical consciousness and revelation in his chapter on the controversy over D. F. Strauss's critical examination of Christianity's founder in Life of Jesus. Harvey Hill gives a fine treatment to the debate in England that emerged with the publication of Essays and Reviews and the question of religious authority that informed the rhetoric between opposing parties in the heresy trial of Charles Augustus Briggs. Lesser known instances involving the “Dutch Radicals” (Eduard Verhoef) and Landmark Baptists (Bill Leonard) indicate the breadth with which the rise of historical consciousness reached into all corners of the Church. Welcome additions to this topic are the several chapters addressing the influence of historical consciousness within Catholic scholarship. The debate over the uses of history and its implications for the question of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council (Kenneth Parker), and rise of critical biblical studies in nineteenth-century French Catholicism (C. J. T. Talar) reveal that historical consciousness was just as problematic in Rome as it was for scholarship in Catholic universities across Europe. Of particular note is Theodore Letis's chapter suggesting that historical consciousness loomed large in the Christian humanism of Erasmus.

All in all, this volume is a fine contribution to the question of the role played by historical consciousness in biblical and doctrinal scholarship. The work here suggests a reconsideration of the question's chronology and sources is in order for subsequent scholarship on the issue.