Two Scholars Disputing (Peter and Paul?)
By Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1628)
Oil on panel. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.
“We have been studying cheerfully and seriously. As far as I was concerned it could have continued in that way, and I had already resigned myself to having my grave here by the Rhine!… And now the end has come. So listen to my piece of advice: exegesis, exegesis, and yet more exegesis! Keep to the Word, to the Scripture that has been given to us.”
–Karl Barth, on the event of his formal farewell to his students in Bonn, just prior to his expulsion from Germany in 1935. Quoted in Gordon Fee, New Testament Exegesis (Louisville, KY.: Westminster, 2002), front matter. Fee cites Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976).
