The name—a translation of the German original Religionsgeschichtliche Schule—given to a group of scholars working in the late 19th Cent and early 20th Cent who sought to understand the developmnt of the OT, NT, and the early church as continuing processes of other religious movements.
Thus, OT scholar Hermann Gunkel argued that the themes of creation and chaos in Genesis derived from Babylonian creation myths. In reaction to other OT scholars of the time who held that Genesis was a late work from the exilic period, Gunkel argued that it derived from the 2nd Millennium BC.
Other scholars of the school, e.g., argued that Paul derived his teachings of the eucharist not from Jesus but from Hellenistic sources, or that the early Church derived their thinking about Jesus as Lord from mystery cults.
The school is now pretty much defunct. The most succinct criticism that has been dealt the school of thought is probably Earle Ellis' observation that there is in the movement "a tendency to convert parallels into influences and influences into sources."
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