John Robinson (bishop of Woolwich)
John Robinson | |
---|---|
Bishop of Woolwich | |
Church | Church of England |
Diocese | Southwark |
In office | 1959 to 1969 |
Predecessor | Robert Stannard |
Successor | David Sheppard |
Other post(s) | Dean of Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge (1969–1983) |
Orders | |
Ordination |
|
Consecration | 1959 by Geoffrey Fisher |
Personal details | |
Born | John Arthur Thomas Robinson 16 May 1919 Canterbury, Kent, England |
Died | 5 December 1983 Arncliffe, North Yorkshire, England | (aged 64)
Denomination | Anglicanism |
Profession | Clergyman and scholar |
Alma mater | Westcott House, Cambridge |
John Arthur Thomas Robinson (16 May 1919 – 5 December 1983) was an English
Early life and education
Robinson was born on 16 May 1919 in the precincts of
Ordained ministry
Robinson was
In 1948, Robinson became chaplain of
Following an invitation from Stockwood, by then the Bishop of Southwark, Robinson became the Bishop of Woolwich in 1959.[8] The appointment of Robinson as a suffragan bishop was in Stockwood's gift, and whilst the Archbishop of Canterbury (at that point Geoffrey Fisher) questioned the appointment on the grounds that he believed Robinson at that point would be doing more valuable work as a theologian, he accepted that once he had given advice he had "done all that it was proper for him to do" and proceeded to consecrate Robinson to the episcopate. In 1960 Robinson served as a witness for the defence in the obscenity trial of Penguin Books for the publication of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. Following a ten-year period at Woolwich, Robinson returned to Cambridge in 1969 as Fellow and Dean of Chapel at Trinity College, where he lectured and continued to write.
Death
Robinson was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1983[9] and died on 5 December of that year in Arncliffe, North Yorkshire.[10]
Selected writings
In the End, God (1950)
Modern
Jesus and His Coming (1957)
In this book, an analysis of the early history of the doctrine of the
Honest to God (1963)
Robinson wrote several well-received books. The most popular was
The media furore concerning Honest to God – one which was to portray him as anything but conservative in the public mind
To what extent this is in fact the case depends very much on the frame of reference of the reader. However, the work of Robinson in Honest to God provided a departure point which would be followed up in the writings of the radical theologians Don Cupitt and John Shelby Spong and in the 1977 symposium The Myth of God Incarnate, edited by John Hick. Whether Robinson would have gone as far as Cupitt did in declaring the idea of God to be an entirely human creation is something which can only be conjectured. However, he said as he was dying that he "never doubted the essential truth of Christianity".[27] Robinson seemed to rapidly become a person upon whom religious people projected their own ideas of what he was like, and the book The Honest to God Debate, edited by Robinson and by David L Edwards, also published in 1963, contains a mixture of articles which either praise Robinson for his approach or accuse him of atheism.[28]
Redating the New Testament (1976)
Although Robinson was considered a liberal theologian, he challenged the work of like-minded colleagues in the field of exegetical criticism. Specifically, Robinson examined the reliability of the New Testament as he believed that it had been the subject of very little original research during the 20th century. He also wrote that past scholarship was based on a "tyranny of unexamined assumptions" and an "almost wilful blindness".[29]
Robinson concluded that much of the New Testament was written before AD 64, partly basing his judgement on the sparse textual evidence that the New Testament reflects knowledge of
In a letter to Robinson, the New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd wrote, "I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton[;] the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic's prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud."[35][36] Robinson's call for redating the New Testament – or, at least, the four gospels – was echoed in subsequent scholarship such as John Wenham's work Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem and work by Claude Tresmontant, Günther Zuntz, Carsten Peter Thiede, Eta Linnemann, Harold Riley, Jean Carmignac, and Bernard Orchard.[citation needed]
Bart Ehrman maintains that Robinson's early dates for the gospels, especially those for John, have not been taken up among most
The Priority of John (1984)
In The Priority of John,[39] Robinson furthered the argument put forward in Redating the New Testament that all the books were written before 70 AD, by focusing on the book that is placed early least often. He also wanted to prove that John is independent of the Synoptics and better than them at describing the length and time period of Jesus' ministry, Palestinian geography, and the cultural milieu of the early first century there.
This work was put together posthumously by J. F. Coakley according to Robinson's basically complete but unfinished notes for his Bampton Lectures.
Other
Robinson was also noted for his 1960 court testimony against the censorship of Lady Chatterley's Lover, claiming that it was a book which "every Christian should read."[40]
Robinson's legacy includes the work of the now late Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong in best-selling books that include salutes by Spong to Robinson as a lifelong mentor. In a 2013 interview, Spong recalls reading Robinson's 1963 book: "I can remember reading his first book as if was yesterday. I was rather snobbish when the book came out. I actually refused to read it at first. Then, when I read it – I couldn’t stop. I read it three times! My theology was never the same. I had to wrestle with how I could take the literalism I had picked up in Sunday school and put it into these new categories."[41]
The Bishop John Robinson School in Thamesmead, south-east London, which is within the area for which he was responsible as Bishop of Woolwich, is named after him.[42]
Works
- The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology. Bimillennial Press. 2002a [1952]. ISBN 978-0-9641388-4-1..
- Jesus and His Coming. SCM Press. 1979 [1959]. ISBN 978-0-334-00757-9.
- On Being the Church in the World. Mowbrays. 1977 [1960]. ISBN 978-0-264-66459-0.
- Twelve New Testament Studies. SCM. 1962. ISBN 9780334047254.
- Honest to God. Westminster John Knox Press. 2002b [1963]. ISBN 978-0-664-22422-6.
- The New Reformation?. SCM Press. 1965. ISBN 9780334011248.
- Exploration into God. Stanford University Press. 1967. ISBN 978-0-8047-4636-6.
- But That I Can't Believe!. New American Library. 1967.
- In the End, God: A Study of the Christian Doctrine of the Last Things. James Clarke & Co. 2011b [1968]. ISBN 978-0-227-17349-7.
- The Difference in Being a Christian Today. Collins. 1972 [1971]. ISBN 9780006229575.
- The Human Face of God. Hymns Ancient & Modern. 1 March 2012 [1973]. ISBN 978-1-85931-016-8.
- Redating the New Testament. Wipf & Stock. 1 October 2000 [1976]. ISBN 978-1-57910-527-3.
- "The New Testament Dating Game", Time, p. 95, 21 March 1977
- Truth is Two-Eyed. SCM Press. 1 November 1979. ISBN 978-0-334-01690-8.
- Wrestling with Romans. Hymns Ancient & Modern. 1979. ISBN 978-0-334-01819-3.
- The Roots of a Radical. Crossroad. 1981. ISBN 978-0-8245-0028-3.
- Where Three Ways Meet. SCM Press. 1987 [1983]. ISBN 978-0-334-02422-4.
- Twelve More New Testament Studies. SCM. 1984. ISBN 978-0-334-01693-9.
- Coakley, J. F., ed. (2011a) [1985]. The Priority of John. Wipf & Stock. ISBN 978-1-61097-102-7.
Notes
- ^ "It is this shift of emphasis which, I believe, may be seen at work upon the sayings of Jesus and was to prove one of the most potent factors in attributing to him a concern with a second event lying beyond his on ministry. In the course of transmission his teaching became focused not upon the present event whose urgency he was proclaiming but upon another event whose imminence he was predicting. [...] His concern was with the present moment, with the crisis introduced into history by the advent of the Kingdom of God, at work proleptically in his ministry and shortly to be 'fulfilled' in his death and vindication."[15]
References
- ^ "New Bishop Suffragan of Woolwich". Official Appointments and Notices. The Times. No. 54477. London. 3 June 1959. p. 12, col G..
- ISBN 0-7136-3457-X.
- ^ "Deaths", The Times, no. 61706, London, ENG, UK, p. 30, col A, 7 December 1983.
- ^ Dybdahl, Jon, "Is There Hope for the Unevangelized?", Dialogue, Adventist, archived from the original on 7 July 2012, retrieved 29 November 2007.
- ^ a b "ROBINSON, Rt Rev. John Arthur Thomas". Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. April 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
- ^ "John Arthur Thomas Robinson". Crockford's Clerical Directory (online ed.). Church House Publishing. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
- ISBN 0-19-200008-X.
- ^ Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1977-79, Oxford University Press
- ^ Belcher, Fred (19 October 2008). "Living with cancer". Sermons from Sherborne. Archived from the original on 3 May 2014.
- ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (7 December 1983), "New York Times Obituary", The New York Times
- ISBN 978-0-19-162508-4.
- ^ Robinson 2011b.
- ISBN 978-0-595-81105-2.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-4940-3.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-334-00757-9. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
- ^ Robinson 2002b.
- ^ McLeod 2017.
- ^ Vidler, A. R. (1962). Soundings, Essays Concerning Christian Understanding. Cambridge: CUP.
- ISBN 9780002168090.
- OCLC 40052234.
- S.P.C.K.
- ISBN 978-0-340-27568-9.
- ^ Robinson 2002b, pp. 63, 75, 105, 115f., 127, 130.
- ^ Robinson 2002b, pp. 22, 75.
- ^ Robinson 2002b, p. 105.
- ^ Wright, N. T. (5 April 2016). "Doubts about Doubt: Honest to God Forty Years On". ntwrightpage.com.
- ^ James 1988.
- ^ Robinson, J. A. T. & Edwards, D. L. 1963 and 2012. The Honest to God Debate. London. SCM.
- ^ Robinson 2000, pp. 310, 307.
- ^ Be thinking, 25 November 2007.
- ^ Robinson 2000, p. 352.
- ^ "The Historicity of Jesus Christ", The Christian Courier.
- ^ Grant R. Jeffrey Ministries.
- ^ "Robinson's views on the Shroud of Turin", Shroud story (FAQ), archived from the original on 25 November 2005.
- ^ JMM, AU: AAA, 11 February 2005.
- ^ Robinson 2000, pp. 359–60.
- ^ Professor Bart D. Ehrman, The Historical Jesus, Part I, p. 6, The Teaching Company, 2000. Quote: "Scholars are fairly unanimous that they were written some decades after Jesus’ death: Mark, AD 65–70; Matthew and Luke, AD 80–85; and John, AD 90–95."
- ^ Cross, F. L., ed. (2005), "Robinson, John Arthur Thomas", The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, New York: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Robinson 2011a.
- ^ "Attempt To Portray Sex As Something Sacred – Bishop A Witness For Defence",The Times, 28 October 1960; p. 6.
- ^ "The retired Bishop John Shelby Spong interview", Read the Spirit, 23 June 2013.
- ^ Bishop John Robinson C.E. Primary School
- James, Eric (1988). A life of Bishop John A. T. Robinson: scholar, pastor, prophet. Wm B Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-3651-9.
- Kee, Alistair (January 1988). The Roots of Christian Freedom: The Theology of John A. T. Robinson. SPCK. ISBN 978-0-281-04338-5.
- Edwards, David Lawrence (1963). The "Honest to God" Debate: Some Reactions to the Book "Honest to God". Westminster Press. ISBN 9789030038153.
- McLeod, Hugh (2017). "The Number One Theological Best Seller. John Robinsons Honest to God". In Gumundsson, David; Nykvist, Martin (eds.). Classics in Northern European Church History over 500 Years. Essays in Honour of Anders Jarlert. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ISBN 9783631720837.