and Goodspeed. And the third, or "Conservative" group, includes some of the most highly-regarded names in New Testament scholarship: Godet, Salmon, Zahn, Lightfoot, Westcott, "and practically all the Roman Catholic writers." However, within the conservative group, Thiessen finds considerable disagreement on the subject of inspiration, which he would consider one of the principal foundations of conservatism: that the New Testament as we have it today is, according to Gaussen's definition, "that inexplicable power which the divine Spirit put forth of old on the authors of Holy Scripture, in order to their guidance even in the employment of the words they used, and to preserve them alike from all error and from all omission."
Thiessen divides his work into two parts, "General Introduction," and "Special Introduction," the former dealing with the basics of New Testament study, the latter being a study of the individual books of the New Testament, grouped according to the author's preference (i.e., The Synoptic Gospels, John-Acts, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Corinthians-Galatians-Romans, etc.). Of these two parts, the first is particularly worthwhile.
Thiessen has constructed a very concise, well-ordered presentation of the major schools of theology whic
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