The better we understand the Bible via the Higher Criticism, the less useful biblical study becomes for theology. The more the student of the Bible is obedient to an inherited theology, the less he can understand the Bible, for his vision will be clouded by a vested interest in having what he reads there say one thing and not another. W.C. van Manen was able to make his breakthroughs in early Christian literature, especially Paulinism, because he had ejected theology (with all its nagging) from the study. After he got some peace and intellectual privacy in this manner, he understood many...