Essays on the Work Entitled Supernatural Religion

Questions about the evidence for early Christianity give J. B. Lightfoot's collected essays their focus. Originally published in The Contemporary Review, they respond to the anonymously issued Supernatural Religion and examine testimony from the first two centuries concerning the New Testament. In his preface, Lightfoot explains how a dispute over a friend's reputation prompted the articles, then widened into an investigation of historical sources.

The chapters consider Eusebius, Polycarp, Papias, the churches of Gaul and Tatian's Diatessaron. One detailed exchange concerns Polycarp's use of First Peter: Lightfoot compares passages and challenges the selection of references offered by his opponent. The reader encounters religious scholarship through arguments over wording, citations and the strength of surviving evidence. For anyone studying Christian origins or nineteenth-century theological debate, the essays show how a scholar builds a case from ancient writings while answering another critic's claims.