J. Random Hermeneut

And I quote:

The confessional polemics of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries consisted very largely of attacks upon, and apologies for, Luther the Reformer. In an interesting and illuminating study of Roman Catholic polemical literature Adolf Herte (Das katholische Lutherbild im Bann der Luther-kommentare des Cochlaeus, 1943) has shown that the character assassination perpetrated by Johann Cochlaeus' biography of Luther continued to pass from one Roman Catholic writer to another for centuries after the Reformation, making an objective assessment of Luther and his work almost impossible. On the Lutheran side objectivity was also difficult, for the discussion of Luther's personal virtues and vices was more often a confessional issue than a biographical one. Lutheranism was defending itself, but in so doing it was defending Luther.

Such a congruence between the biographical issue and the confessional issue was due in part to the circumstance that Lutheranism was -- or at least thought it was -- faced with the same set of opponents against whom Luther had contended. The Roman Catholicism with which it had to deal was post-Tridentine both chronologically and theologically, and the Reformed thought it confronted was Calvinistic rather than Zwinglian. Both of these transformations should probably have brought about a revision of Luther's judgments; in any case there is considerable ground for such a contention. But most confessional theologians continued to interpret Trent in the light of Luther's Roman Catholic antagonists and to read both Calvin and Beza as Zwinglians. Engaged as it was in this confessional polemic during the centuries following the Reformation, Lutheranism tended to develop a stereotype of Luther as well as of his opponents. Luther at Worms was its answer to Rome; Luther at Marburg, its answer to Geneva. And against both Rome and Geneva Lutheranism continued to hurl many of the charges Luther had voiced at Worms and Marburg.

--- Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther the Expositor, pp. 38-39.

Wot Pelikan sez (it b tru):

On the history of dogma and its relationship to the history of the interpretation of the Scriptures...

It is also -- as the orthodox theologians of past and present have often neglected to realize -- the history of how theology has sometimes avoided or even abused the interpretation of the Scriptures in the defense of a personal theological whim or of an ecclesiastical party line. A study of the history of theology reveals that the exegesis of the Scriptures has profoundly influenced Christian thought, but it also shows that many theologians have been unable to hear the testimony of the Scriptures because of their personal or denominational prejudices have foreclosed the possibility of any exegesis that would change their minds about anything.

Helping to foreclose such a possibility is the polemical stance of many theologians. The press of polemics has often helped a theologian to a more profound understanding of a Biblical text which he had been taking for granted or interpreting in a superficial and conventional manner. ... In short, polemics has helped theologians to see deeper menaings in a text; but it has sometimes helped them to see meanings that were not in the text or to overlook meanings that were.
(Pelikan, Luther the Expositor, pp. 18-19)

It's tru, dat.

The interpretation of the history of theology as the ongoing record of the way in which the church has interpreted the Scriptures is an attractive one to me, especially as it has been put forth by Ebeling. As a postmodern cynic to the core, I would add that this history of interpretation is quite often the history of eisegesis and misappropriation of Scriptures for the purposes of establishing power, authority, and authenticity within the various factions and divisions which have marked Christianity from the outset. With respect to the issue of church polity, Niebuhr's observation is most certainly true:

Opinions as to church polity, varying from denomination to denomination, have been based in theory on New Testament reports of primitive church organization. The episcopal, the presbyterian, and the congregational forms have each been set forth as representing the original and ideal constitution of the Christian church. Yet the relationship of these forms to the political experience and desire of various groups is considerably more pertinent than is their relationship to the New Testament. (The Social Sources of Denominationalism, pp. 14-15.)

It merely remains to be pointed out that "political experience" and "desire of various groups" is also often "considerably more pertinent" to the formation of what is considered (by the various groupings in question) to be a sound, true, authoritative interpretation of the New Testament texts on this and other matters than is a critical, dispassionate attempt at interpretation.

Just sayin'.