After six hours, I want to pick up where I left off my reading of historical Jesus. In the first two articles, I mentioned my initial journey to know the current status of the quest for the historical Jesus and my initial response to the foundational assumptions of the first quest as explained in the first five pages of the book, The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Now after taking a rest for six hours, I aim to complete at least my reading of the first quest. Checking the book, I see the first quest divided into three periods:
From Reimarus to Strauss
From Strauss to Schweitzer
Ending with Wrede and Schweitzer
From Reimarus to Strauss
The editors mentioned several names of scholars who did their research during this period. However, for the sake of simplicity, we will cover only three: K. H. Venturini, H. E. G. Paulus, and David Friedrich Strauss. The primary characteristic of the studies done by scholars under this period is described as "rationalist," and Jesus is interpreted as a teacher of morality.
K.H. Venturini, finding a rationalist explanation of the miracles in the Gospels, found historical support by claiming “that Jesus was a proficient herbalist” and always brought with him his "portable medicine chest" (p. 14). As for the crucifixion narrative, Jesus did not really die; he “only appeared to die and was later revived” (ibid.).
Paulus had his share of rationalist interpretations of Gospel miracles. Notable among them was the mistaken interpretation of the disciples about Jesus walking on the water. For Paulus, it was an “optical illusion," for Jesus had been walking in the shallow water. However, looking at Jesus from a distance, the disciples were deceived by their eyes. Nevertheless, typical of liberal double-talk, incidents like this should not cause us to discredit the moral character of Jesus, which is far more important than miracles.
D.F. Strauss diverted from his predecessors’ efforts to find a rationalist and naturalist explanation of miracles. For him, the earlier scholars took for granted the strength of the “religious imagination” of Christ’s followers. He labeled the product of this imagination as “myth” (p. 16). By adopting this interpretation, Strauss did not question the substance of miraculous narratives. He thought that this was the advantage of his perspective compared to earlier interpretations. He accepted the Gospel narratives as a whole but refused to categorize them "as true history, but as a sacred legend” (ibid.).
Equipped with the above interpretive lens, Strauss’ studies were primarily focused on unmasking the fabrication created by the imagination of early Christians. Though the response to Strauss’ study was overwhelmingly negative, his idea of the Gospels as sacred legends or myths anticipated a century later the development of form criticism. Rudolf Bultmann, described as “the single most influential New Testament scholar of the 20th century” (ibid.), picked up this insight.
From Strauss to Schweitzer
Bruno Bauer pushed further Strauss’ mythical idea by arguing that not only the miracle narratives but all Gospel narratives are not history, concluding that Jesus was never a historical person. Karl Marx found this "Christ-myth" theory captivating and it "became a common feature of Soviet Marxist thought” (p. 18).
Responding to such a very negative view of the Gospel narratives, other scholars attempted to recover the historical credibility of the Gospels. As such, source criticism emerged. The “two-source” theory of the Gospels received widespread recognition. Scholars agreed to Markan priority and Q (the letter stands for Quelle, which is the German word for source) as the two sources of Matthew and Luke. It was believed that due to the absence of an infancy narrative in Mark’s Gospel and the absence of miracles in Q, both of them served as reliable sources to reconstruct the life of Jesus. This two-source theory, up to this day, is widely accepted as the solution to Synoptic problems.
So far, the above research covers what’s going on in the quest for historical Jesus in Germany. As for France, the work of Ernest Renan became popular. Like the German rationalists, Renan rejected anything supernatural in his reconstruction. He saw Jesus as:
A wise teacher of ethical principles who revealed the loving character of the heavenly Father but who, inspired by apocalyptic hopes, eventually became a would-be messiah who was crucified for his efforts (ibid.).
During this period, there was no significant contribution coming from the conservative wing. The reason given is that conservatives hold to the traditional view of Jesus as presented in the Gospel and therefore didn’t deserve any attention. And besides, whenever conservatives published their studies, they were written as responses to radical views of Jesus.
Ending with Wrede and Schweitzer
The first quest considered producing a “liberal” Jesus its greatest accomplishment. Those who still cling to Jesus’ divinity and miracle narratives were considered “unenlightened” (p. 19). This is the Jesus that theological giants like Albrecht Ritschl and Adolf von Harnack teach:
A moral reformer to be sure, a teacher who revealed the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of humankind, and the simple tenets of a reasonable, love-based religion (ibid.).
The consensus in the first quest about Jesus was challenged by two new voices that marked the end of the period. William Wrede questioned the Markan priority as a reliable source. In his study, he came up with a conclusion that even the sources of the Gospel of Mark are “fabrications fed by post-Easter theological reflection of the early church” (p. 20).
Albert Schweitzer came up with a different interpretation. To understand Jesus as a social reformer and teacher of love is defective. Instead, he argued “that the proper context for understanding Jesus was Jewish apocalyptic eschatology” (ibid.). From this perspective, Schweitzer interpreted Jesus “as an end-times enthusiast who fervently believed that his own sufferings would play a vital role in the apocalyptic culmination of the world” (ibid.). Unfortunately, Jesus failed, for the predicted end of the world did not happen. Learning from Schweitzer, after scholars dismissed the eschatological beliefs of Jesus as an outdated Jewish worldview, they can still retain Jesus’ message of love.
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