Kerygma, catechesis and other things we used to find: Twentieth-century research on early Christian teaching since Alfred Seeberg (1903)

Inquiry into the content of the preaching and teaching of the early Church was commonplace in the first part of the twentieth century. Such research was carried out under a number of different headings – kerygma, catechesis, etc. – and pursued with the form-critical tools of the day. However, these reconstructions encountered serious criticism and since the 1970s such inquiries have been more reserved. Today the field is divided, if sparse, with some employing the methods and results of earlier scholarship and others all but ignoring the question entirely. The present article examines this history of scholarship from Alfred Seeberg into the twenty-first century.