Farrer on-line

There are several on-line resources connected with Austin Farrer and I thought I would gather them together here on this, the centenary of his birth. First, his own writings. This article is one that he is now quite well known for. I scanned it from the pages of the volume myself and edited and uploaded, I think in 1997 or 1998. At that point there was only one scanner in the university and I had to make appointments to hire it for an hour at a time, and a slow business it was:

Austin Farrer, “On Dispensing With Q”, D. E. Nineham (ed.), Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955): 55-88

This piece was an essay added to the English translation of Kerygma and Myth by Rudolf Bultmann and Five Critics (London: SPCK, 1953):

An English Appreciation by Austin Farrer

It is made available on-line, along with the whole of that book, by Religion-Online; unfortunately, the edition does not give the original page numbers.

Sadly, that about sums up the on-line Farrer content. But here are some interesting materials relating to him:

Synoptic Gospels Primer: Austin Marsden Farrer

This is a page from Mahlon Smith's fine Synoptic Gospels Primer.

This piece, by Jeff Peterson of Austin Graduate School, was given as a paper at the SBL Annual Meeting of 2000 in Nashville, as part of a session on the Farrer Theory of Synoptic origins, at which Mark Matson and I also spoke. The respondents were John S. Kloppenborg and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon:

Jeffrey Peterson, “A Pioneer Narrative Critic and His Synoptic Hypothesis: Austin Farrer and Gospel Interpretation”, Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 2000 (Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Paper Series, 39; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000): 651-672

Finally, the most important for today's celebration -- an on-line transcript of a sermon preached by the Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, at Oriel Colletge on 8 September this year, at the conclusion of the Centenary Conference:

Celebration of The Centenary of the Birth of Austin Farrer, October 11th 2004

This is hosted on the Diocese of Oxford website and features a colour picture of Farrer. Here is a nice excerpt:

When I was at Cuddesdon there were two sets of lectures which made the whole experience of college worthwhile. One was by Bill Vanstone, the other was the series of Holy Week lectures by Austin Farrer. He came quietly and quickly up the aisle at Cuddesdon parish church, mounted the pulpit and without any ado talked to God for an hour before descending the pulpit and walking quickly out again with as little fuss as he had come in. It was a privilege to overhear him talking to God. I also came out of the church with a sense that as he had spoken my mind had gone click, click, click as question after scarcely formulated question seemed to receive an answer and a fresh insight. I would have been hard put to decide whether it was a spiritual experience or an intellectual treat. It was of course both. And this highlights the nature of Farrer’s genius. Genius normally consists of one talent in extreme degree. Farrer’s was of three aspects, the mind, the imagination and the spirit fused together in such a way that each reached its perfection in relation to the other two.

I found out recently too that there does exist a recording of Austin Farrer's last sermon, preached on the Sunday before he died, on "The Ultimate Hope", and it is available for sale on a CD from St Mary's Church at Temple Balsall.