Thehistory of religions school (German:Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) is a term applied to a group of GermanProtestant theologians associated with theUniversity of Göttingen in the 1890s.[1][note 1]
TheReligionsgeschichtliche Schule used the methodologies ofhigher criticism,[web 1] a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text."[2] It compared Christianity to other religions, regarding it as one religion among others and rejecting its claims to absolute truth, and demonstrating that it shares characteristics with other religions.[web 1] It argued that Christianity was not simply the continuation of the Old Testament, but syncretistic, and was rooted in and influenced by Hellenistic Judaism (Philo) and Hellenistic religions like the mystery cults andGnosticism.[web 2]
The school initiated new areas of research into Biblical history and textual analysis.
The circle includedBernhard Duhm (1873),Albert Eichhorn (1856–1926; 1886),Hermann Gunkel (1888),Johannes Weiss (1888),Wilhelm Bousset (1890),Alfred Rahlfs (1891),Ernst Troeltsch (1891),William Wrede (1891),Heinrich Hackmann (1893), and laterRudolf Otto (1898),Hugo Gressmann (1902) andWilhelm Heitmüller (1902). Related wereCarl Mirbt (1888),Carl Clemen (1892),Heinrich Weinel (1899), and in his early yearsPaul Wernle (1897).Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) may be considered as a third-generation member of this school.[web 2]