HKB
doubtful or pseudonymous authorship, takes precedence as a whole over the Literature of the Catechist, with its later and more or less idealized narration, exemplified in the Book of Acts.
Modern criticism acknowledges, then, its indebtedness to the Tübingen school for a clearer definition of both its task and method, by concentrating attention upon the contrast between the Petrine and the Pauline conception of 'the gospel.' Still it must be admitted that most of the inferences first drawn have since been overthrown. In their chronological scheme of the New Testament writings the Tübingen critics under-estimated the force of the external evidences (including early tradition) and misinterpreted the internal. New discovery and more careful study of literary relations have inverted Baur's views as to dates of the Johannine writings. Four of these (the Gospel and three Epistles) are anonymous. Baur's date for these has been forced back by no less than half a century. The fifth (Revelation) bears the name of John, but was hotly disputed as pseudonymous in the second century, and even by its supporters was dated so late as "the end of the reign of Domitian" (95). The Tübingen school placed Revelation thirty years earlier, and attributed it to the Apostle. Modern criticism emphatically reverts to the ancient date, and regards the book as pseudonymous, or as written by "some other John."
Again the relative dates of the Synoptic writings (Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts) were inverted by the Tübingen critics, primarily through wrong application of their theory of doctrinal development; secondarily, and as a consequence, through misinterpretation of the intricate literary relationships. Present-day criticism considers it established that Mark is the oldest of the three, taken up by each of the other two. There is almost equal unanimity in regarding the discourse material common to Matthew and Luke and variously combined by each with Mark, as independently drawn by them from the book of the "Precepts of the Lord," reported by Papias to have been compiled by Matthew "in the Hebrew (i. e. Aramaic) tongue." Tübingen gospel criticism is thus almost entirely set aside, in favour of the so-called 'Two-document' theory.
So with the Pauline Epistles of the second period. Doubt still clings to Ephesians. It had been treated by some as pseudo-Pauline even before the time of Baur; but Baur's own followers soon receded from his extreme application of his theory to the internal evidence of Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. It became evident that Paul's "gospel" included something more than the mere antithesis of Law and Grace. He had other opponents than the Judaizers, and had to defend his doctrine against perversion by Grecizing mystics as well as against opposition by Pharisaic legalists.