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New Testament Survey: Gospels - Lesson 33

Quest for the Historical Jesus

The Gospels are eyewitness accounts that clearly show that Jesus claimed to be fully human and fully God, and what he did to back up this claim. Some people try to reinterpret the Gospels to make Jesus out to be a moral teacher with good intentions, but not God in the flesh.

Robert Stein
New Testament Survey: Gospels
Lesson 33
Watching Now
Quest for the Historical Jesus

LESSON 33

I. HERMANN SAMUEL REIMARUS

II. QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS

A. Rationalism

B. Mythical interpretation

C. Liberalism

III. DEATH OF THE QUEST FOR HISTORICAL JESUS

A. Albert Schweitzer

B. William Wrede — synoptic problem

C. Martin Kähler

D. William Dilthey


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  • The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke record some of the same stories and even use the same wording in sections. They also each have material that is unique, and the chronology is different in some places. Both the purpose of each gospel and the role of oral and written tradition play a role in understanding the similarities and differences.

  • The Gospel of Mark is shorter than the other Gospels and some of the grammar and theology is unique. There are also significant portions of Mark that are contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

  • Discussion of the extensive similarities between the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It's possible that Mark was already written and they used that as a source. It's aslo likely that they had in common other oral and written sources of what Jesus did and taught. 

  • Some time passed between the ascension of Jesus and the writing of the Gospels because there was no need for a written account while the eyewitnesses were still alive. In that culture, oral tradition was the primary method of preserving history. Form critics also note that it is likely that it is likely that many of the narratives and sayings of Jesus circulated independently.

  • Form criticism is the method of classifying literature by literary pattern to determine its original form and historical context in order to interpret its meaning accurately. The Gospels were not written to be objective biographies. They omit large portions of the life of Jesus, they include accounts of miraculous events and they have a purpose to demonstrate that Jesus is both God and human.

  • Redaction criticism focuses on evaluating how a writer has seemingly shaped and molded a narrative to express his theological goals. Examining how Matthew and Luke used passages from Mark can give you insight into their theology and their purpose for writing their Gospel.  

  • Studying the background and theological emphases of the Gospel of Mark helps us to understand the central message of his Gospel. The central point of the Gospel of Mark is the death of Jesus when he was crucified. This event happened because it was a divine necessity in God's plan to redeem humanity. It's likely that the Gospel of Mark is a written record of the apostle Peter's account. 

  • The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes how Jesus' life, death and resurrection fulfilled prophecies that were made in the Old Testament. Matthew also shows concern for the church and has a strong eschatological emphasis. 

  • Luke emphasizes the great loving concern of God for the oppressed, such as tax collectors, physically impaired, women and Samaritans. He warns of the dangers of riches and emphasizes the ministry of the Holy Spirit. 

  • John's Gospel focuses on Christology and emphasizes dualism and eschatology.  John has long pericopes, clear statements about the identity of Jesus and a number of stories not found in the synoptic Gospels. 

  • By studying the background and comparing the text of the synoptic gospels, we can be confident of their authenticity. Many of the accounts in the Gospels appear in multiple Gospels and are confirmed by separate witnesses. Details in the narratives and parables are consistent with the culture and common practices of the time in that region.  

  • In order to understand Jesus' teaching, it is important to understand how he uses exaggeration and determine when he is using exaggeration to make a point. An exaggeration is something that is literally impossible and sometimes conflicts with teachings of the Old Testament or other teachings of Jesus. They often use idiomatic language that had a specific meaning to the original hearers. 

  • The Gospels record how Jesus used different literary forms to communicate his teachings. He communicated effectively with everyone including children, common people, religious leaders and foreigners. He used a variety of literary devices to communicate in a way that was effective and memorable. (This class was taught by a teaching assistant of Dr. Stein's but his name was not provided.) 

  • It's important to know how to interpret parables to accurately understand what Jesus was trying to teach. At different times in history, people have used different paradigms to interpret parables. Each parable has one main point. To interpret the parable, seek to understand what Jesus meant, what the evangelist meant and what God wants to teach you today.

  • Dr. Stein uses the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of how to apply the four rules of interpreting parables. He also applies the four rules to interpret the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl, the ten virgins, the unjust steward and the laborers in the vineyard. 

  • Jesus used different literary forms to communicate with people. It's important to know how to interpret these literary forms, including parables, to accurately understand what Jesus was trying to teach. The rule of end stress is one factor in determining the main teaching of a parable. Dr. Stein describes two parts of a parable as the, "picture part" and the "reality part." 

  • The kingdom of God is God's kingdom invading the earthly kingdom. In the Gospels, there are both "realized" passages and "future" passages. There is a tension between the "now" and "not yet" and it is important to emphasize each aspect equally.

  • Jesus' teaching about the fatherhood of God reveals for us a tension between reverence and intimacy. Jesus shows his reverence for God by not using the name of God even when referring to God. When he refers to God as Father, it is an indication of a personal relationship. 

  • Jesus does not provide an organized ethical system, but his ethical teachings are scattered throughout the Gospels. Sometimes they seem to be contradictory, until you look at them more closely. He emphasized the need for a new heart and the importance of loving God and our "neighbor." Jesus upheld the validity of the Law but was opposed to the oral traditions. 

  • Implicit Christology is what Jesus reveals of himself and his understanding of himself by his actions words and deeds. Jesus demonstrates his authority over the three sacred aspects of Israel which are the temple, the Law and the Sabbath. 

  • Explicit Christology deals with what he reveals concerning his understanding of himself by the use of various titles. Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word, Messiah. The titles, Son of God and Son of Man refer both to his human nature and divine nature. 

  • The Chronology of Jesus' life in the Gospels begins with his birth and ends with his resurrection. How you explain the miracles of Jesus depends on your presuppositions. He performed miracles to heal sicknesses and also miracles showing his authority over nature. 

  • The birth of Christ is an historical event. The virgin birth of Jesus is a fundamental aspect of his nature and ministry. The details of the birth narrative in Luke are consistent with historical events. 

  • Except for the accounts of a couple of events in Jesus' childhood, the Gospels are mostly silent about the years before Jesus began his public ministry. Luke records the story of 12 year old Jesus in the temple to show that already, you can see something different about Jesus. Jesus' public ministry began when John the Baptist baptized Jesus publicly in the Jordan River.

  • The three temptations that Satan put to Jesus were significant to him and instructive to us. Jesus had a specific purpose in mind in the way he called his disciples and the fact that he chose 12.

  • After Simon Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, Jesus begins teaching about his death and focuses his efforts on teaching the twelve. The Transfiguration was a significant event because the pre-existent glory of Jesus broke through and it was also a preview of future glory.

  • The events surrounding Jesus' "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem were the beginning of the week leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection. When Jesus cleansed the temple in Jerusalem, he was rejecting the sacrificial system, reforming temple worship and performing an act of judgment.

  • At the Last Supper, Jesus celebrated with his disciples by eating the Passover meal. He reinterpreted it to show how it pointed to him as being the perfect Lamb of God, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of all people. When we celebrate the Lord's supper, there is a focus of looking back at the significance of what Jesus did and how the Passover pointed toward him and of looking forward to the future. 

  • The night before his crucifixion, Jesus went to Gethsemane with his disciples to pray. Judas betrays Jesus there and Jesus allows himself to be arrested.

  • The trial of Jesus involved a hearing in the Jewish court conducted by the high priest and the Sanhedrin, and a hearing in the Roman court conducted by Pilate. The Jewish leaders brought in false witnesses against Jesus and violated numerous rules from the Mishnah in the way they conducted the trial. 

  • Jesus died by crucifixion. The Romans used it as a deterrent because it was public and a horrible way to die. The account of the crucifixion is brief, likely because the readers knew what was involved and it was painful to retell. Jesus was buried by friends.

  • The historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is compelling. Jesus appeared physically to people, many of whom were still alive when the books in the New Testament were written. Rising from the dead confirmed that Jesus has power over death and gives hope of eternal life to people who put their trust in him. 

  • The Gospels are eyewitness accounts that clearly show that Jesus claimed to be fully human and fully God, and what he did to back up this claim. Some people try to reinterpret the Gospels to make Jesus out to be a moral teacher with good intentions, but not God in the flesh.

This is the first part of an introductory course to the New Testament, covering the books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The synopsis Dr. Stein refers to is the Synopsis of the Four Gospels, English Edition, published by the American Bible Society. You can click here to order it from American Bible Society or click here to order it from Amazon

The lecture notes you can download (to the right) are for both NT Survey I and II. In some of the lectures, Dr. Stein does not cover all the points in his outline, but we include the additional outline points for your benefit. 

Thank you to Charles Campbell and Fellowship Bible Church for writing out the lecture notes for both sections of Stein's NT Survey class (to the right). Note that they do not cover every lecture.

Recommended Books

New Testament Survey: The Gospels - Student Guide

New Testament Survey: The Gospels - Student Guide

This participant’s guide is intended to be used with the BiblicalTraining.org class, New Testament Survey - The Gospels with Dr. Robert Stein. This is the first part of an...

New Testament Survey: The Gospels - Student Guide

I. HERMANN SAMUEL REIMARU

All right, we want to talk about the quest for the historical Jesus, and you have that material on the very last page of your notes. Now, the quest of the historical Jesus began with a man named Hermann Samuel Reimarus. A lot of good things came out of Germany. A lot of lousy things came out of Germany, and the quest for the historical Jesus for good or for bad came out of Germany.

Now, Reimarus was born in 1694 and died in 1768, and he never published his thoughts about the historical Jesus, and he probably did this knowing that it would raise a great storm of protest. He also probably did it because he was married to the daughter of a very conservative church leader in Germany. And when he died, his notes, probably given by a son to the librarian of the library at Wolfenbuettel, a man by the name of Lessing, a very famous German poet, received them, and he began to publish them under the title the Wolfenbuettel Fragments, and in this material, which was later traced to Hermann Samuel Reimarus, there was a critical attack on the traditional picture of Jesus. These fragments argued that Jesus never made any messianic claims in our Christological sense — that he was the son of God, that he would die for the sins of the word, or anything like that. He never instituted any sacraments. He never predicted his death. He never rose from the dead, and that the story of Jesus was, in fact, a deliberate fraud created by the disciples.

Now, let me just read to you a few comments from Reimarus that gives you an understanding of what came out at that time. "It was not until 30 to 60 years after the death of Jesus that people began to write an account of the performance of these miracles in a language which the Jews and Palestine did not understand. It was Greek, not in Aramaic, and this was at the time when the Jewish nation was in a state of greatest disquietude and confusion, and when very few of those who had known Jesus was still alive.

Nothing then was easier than to invent as many miracles as they pleased without fear of their writing being readily understood of refuted. It had been repressed upon all converts from the beginning that is was both advantageous and soul-saving to believe and to put the mind captive under the obedience of faith, and, consequently, there was as much credulity among them as there were pious frauds or deceptions from good motives among their teachers, and both of these, as is well known, prevailed in the highest degree in the early Christian church. Other religions indeed are quite as full of miracles. The heathen boasts of many. So does the Turk. No religion is without them, and that is what also makes the Christian miracle so doubtful and provokes us to ask, 'Did the events really happen? Were the attendant circumstances such as are stated? Did they come to pass naturally or by craft or by chance,'" and now the question arises – well, here we have the stories of Jesus – what was the real Jesus like, and you have now this quest to find out the real Jesus.

Elsewhere, he says, "We are justified in drawing an absolute distinction between the teaching of the apostles and their writings, and what Jesus himself, in his own lifetime, proclaimed and taught." For instance, he says, "When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he did so in order to have the people flock to him and support him as the messiah. He did so in open defiance of the authorities. The people, however, refused to rise and support him. As a result, on the cross when he cried, 'My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me,’ this avowal cannot without violence be interpreted otherwise than as meaning that God had not aided him in aim and purpose as he had hoped. That shows that he had not been his purpose to suffer and die but to establish an earthly kingdom and deliver the Jews from political oppression, and in that, God's help had failed him."

II. QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS

Now, people are saying, "Well, what was Jesus really like?" If you say he's not like what Reimarus says, then you have to argue against that, and you try to prove that Jesus was really like the New Testament portrait. Before, you didn't bother proving that. You simply believed it, and now as Schweitzer states, "Before Reimarus, no one had attempted to form a historical conception of the life of Jesus, and now both advocates and opponents of the Jesus of the gospels try to do so, and that's the starting point of the quest for the historical Jesus. There were some others like some of the deists in England, Tolland, and others who argued against certain miracles, but here is a whole complete portrait of Jesus as a historical figure that is radically different than the gospels. What was Jesus really, therefore, like?

A. RATIONALISM

Now, the first major movement that takes place after this is what we call rationalism where people now try to take the biblical text and rationalize what Jesus must have really been like, and we talk about, a kind of bell curve in the early attempts to do so, then rationalism at its peak, and then the questioning of how successful this ultimately is, and let me read to you. I'm sorry I'm going to read so much, but I don't know how else to get this out to you. Let me read to you some of these rationalistic attempts – early rationalism – a man by the name of Franz Volkmar Reinhard – there's no question his nationality. "All that which we call miraculous and supernatural is to be understood as only relatively so. It implies nothing further than an obvious exception to what can be brought about by natural causes so far as we know them and have experience of their capacity. A cautious thinker will not venture in any single instance to pronounce an event to be so extraordinary that God could not have brought it about by the use of secondary causes but must have intervened directly." So, now the whole question of all miracles comes into existence.

Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, the Feeding of the 5000, "It is more reasonable here to think of a thousand ways by which Jesus might have had sufficient supplies of bread at hand and by the distribution of it, have shamed the disciples' lack of courage than to believe in a miracle." This is the anti-supernatural movement of what we call the enlightenment. His own explanation is that the disciples had collected supplies of bread in a cave and this was gradually handed out to Jesus who stood at a concealed entrance to the cave and that the people who didn't know this thought that they – he was actually multiplying the bread. So, there was a storehouse of World War II surplus bread and fish and things like that, and that's how it all took place.

Walking upon the sea, he explains, "Jesus walked toward the disciples over the surface of a great floating raft. While the disciples were not able to see the raft, he believed that he actually was walking on the water."

The Resurrection, "Jesus, by uttering a loud cry and immediately bowing his head, appeared to have died a sudden death. The soldiers were bribed not to break his legs. Luke had previously given Jesus special medicines to prepare him for the crucifixion, and in the cave, the medicines were successful in restoring Jesus to health. His followers opened the cave and as Jesus began to descend the hill, the guards awakened and fled in fright at the sight. Jesus then appeared at intervals to his disciples from a special place of concealment. He finally bade a farewell to his disciples and ascended the Mount of Olives into a low-hanging cloud. From there he went into hiding only to appear on rare instances, such as DePaul on the way to Damascus until eventually, he died.

Now, it's fascinating about this rationalism is that a lot of details are taken very seriously. Jesus descends the Mount of Olives into a cloud. So, these – they believe that behind these is a real event that has been misunderstood, so rationalism tries to reinterpret in a nonsupernatural way what really took place.

Karl Heinrich Venturini – his title [foreign] from Nazareth – a non-supernatural history of the great prophet of Nazareth – isn't it nice to have a title in which you already know what the thesis is rather than have an ambiguous title, and after you read the book, you still don't know what it's all about.

The Miracle at Kaynah, "Jesus had brought with him a – as a wedding gift, some jars of good wine and had put them aside in another room. When the wine ran out, Jesus allowed the guests to wait for a little until the stone vessels for purification had been filled with water. After this had been done, Jesus told some of the servants to pour out some of the wine but did not tell anyone where it came from. Later on, they assumed that it came from the stone vessels."

The Resurrection, "Jesus truly expected to die but when he died so quickly, Joseph of Arimathea was moved by some premonition to ask quickly for the body of Jesus. He sought to bribe Pontius Pilot with the gift of money, but Pilot replied to him, 'Do you also misunderstand me? Am I such an insatiable miser? Still, you are a Jew. How could you as people do me justice? Know then that a Roman can honor true nobility wherever he may find it,' and so he sat down and wrote some words on a strip of parchment. 'Give this to the captain of the guard. You'll be permitted to remove the body. I ask nothing for this. It is granted to you freely.' After receiving the body, he and Nicadeemas washed it, anointed it with spices, and laid it on a bed of moss in the tomb. Seeing that the blood was still flowing, they hoped that this was a good sign, so they called the Essene brethren together. They promised to watch over the body.

There was no movement during the first 24 hours, but then an earthquake came, and as one of the Essene's dressed in white approached the cave by a secret path, he was illuminated by a flash of lightning. This caused the guard to panic and flee. In the morning, the brethren heard Jesus moving in the tomb. Finding him alive, they moved him to their – to their lodge. Two of the brethren remained behind in their white garments and were mistaken for angels. Jesus then appeared at intervals to his disciples for 40 days. At that point, the bed farewells to his disciples." It's fictional. How in the world does he obtain this scholarly evidence of what Pontius Pilot and Joseph of Arimathea were talking about but this was an age of rationalism, and at some times rationalism tends to be very, very fictional apparently.

Now in the middle period, you have Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus, again a German of course – concerning the walking on the water, "It was an illusion of the disciples. Jesus walked along the shore and, in the midst, was taken for a ghost by his followers. Peter, however, tried to walk on the water and was only saved because Jesus dragged him onto the shore." I mean he – he didn't realize. He's just walking on the shore and he says, "I can try it," but he walked on the water and [inaudible] people [inaudible] walk on water so he almost drowned, but Jesus grabbed him onshore.

The Feeding of the 5000 – "When Jesus saw the hungry multitudes, he said to his disciples, "We will set the rich among them a good example that they may share their supplies with the others, and when he began to distribute his own previsions and those of the disciples, the others followed their example. Concerning the transfiguration, Jesus was on the top of a mountain. He had an interview with two dignified men whom the disciples mistook for Moses and Elijah. These unknown persons informed Jesus of the fate awaiting for him in Jerusalem. In the morning as the sun was rising, the three disciples being half asleep looked upward from the hollow where they had been sleeping and saw Jesus with the two strangers illuminated by the beams of the rising sun and overheard them speak of the fate that awaited Jesus in Jerusalem."

B. MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION

All right, that is enough, I think of giving you some examples of rationalism. , today, no one would follow that kind of radical thinking, and the result is that there was another person who comes along – a man by the name of David Strauss and David F. Strauss is understood as bringing about the mythical interpretation of the gospel sayings and of the life of Jesus, and let me read to you some comments from Strauss, who is far more influential today than the rationalists.

After looking at the various explanations of the transfiguration, he says – the rationalist explanation – "Taking all this into consideration, little any longer stands in the way of the assumption of myths in all parts of the gospel narratives. Furthermore, the term myths itself should not give an intelligent person any offense other than a mere word should give a person at any time. For everything of the doubt – of double meaning that clings to that word because of recollection – recollection of paganess, this appears as a result of the argument to this point. That is, that by the New Testament myths, nothing else is to be understood than the expression of primitive Christian ideas formulated in unintentionally poeticizing sagas and looking very much like history."

In other words, in the subconsciousness of the church, these myths arise. It's not intentional. It is quite unintentional. Thus here, in the story of the transfiguration, as in every former instance, after having run through the circle of natural explanations, we are led back to the supernatural. In other words, you try all these rational explanations. You cannot get away from it. The story talks about miracles. Superna – in that sense that, the conservatives have more going for them than the rationalists because the rationalists totally lose sight of the fact that this story is about miracles. So, he says, "After you try all these rationalist explanations, it'd come back and you still have – led back to the supernatural. In which, however, we are precluded from resting by difficulties equally decisive. Why? You have difficulties, and the difficulties are what? What are the difficulties that you can't accept the supernatural?

Audience Member: You can't see it.

Dr. Robert Stein: Yeah, but philosophically, what are your presuppositions?

Dr. Robert Stein: You start out saying, "There are no such things as miracles," right? So, you can't accept that. So, you go through the rational explanations. You can't – they're all silly. You didn't laugh out loud but some of them are really laughable. So, you come back and you say – well, now you look at them. , you can't explain this but then you come back to the miracle, but you can't accept these. So, what do you do? Since then, the text forbids a natural interpretation. You can't – rationalists – that their explanations are not possible. While it is impossible to maintain his historical the supernatural interpretation which sanctions, we must apply ourselves to a critical examination of its statements.

Finally, this example – "The transfiguration may serve to show with a peculiar clarity, how the natural system of interpretation, while it seeks to preserve the historical continuity of the narratives, loses the ideal truth, sacrifices the essence of the form. Whereas, the mythical interpretation, by renouncing the historical body of such narratives, rescues and preserves the idea" – that subconscious idea that gave birth to it, let’s see "which resides in them, in which alone constitutes their validity in spirit. Thus, if as the natural explanation would have it, the splendor around Jesus was an accidental optical phenomenon, and the two appearances, either image of a dream or unknown men." Where is the significance of the incident? Where is the motive for preserving the memory of the church? "An anecdote so void of ideas and so barren of inference r – resting on a common delusion and superstition." On the other hand, well, according to the mythical interpretation – his – "I do not, it is true, see in the evangelical narrative, any actual occurrence. I yet retain a sense and a purpose in the narrative. I know that the first Christian community – I know what the first Christian community thought it meant and why the authors of the gospels included so important a passage in their memoirs."

, Strauss ultimately brings about the death of the rationalistic approach because there's nothing – there's nothing to preach on it. Whereas, if you deal with his approach, he says, "There is a spiritual truth, a something from the subconsciousness that has broken through into reality, and this idea is worth preaching and proclaiming." For instance, can you teach in class some of the stories from Homer's Odyssey and Iliad? You can. You – there can be a spiritual idea there, but it's nonsense to try to talk about it historically and try from – from it being a historical narrative getting such a truth, and for Strauss, the gospels are on the same level as Homer's Odyssey and Iliad or something like that.

C. LIBERALISM

Now, there came after Strauss, Bruno Bauer, who actually went and said, "Jesus never lived," which is about as far as you can go. I don't know if you can get any more radical than that unless you say, "I don't live." Then it gets, even more, radical than that.

At the end of the 19th century, up to World War I there was a movement called Liberalism. As a theological movement, that movement ended in World War I. What we mean by liberalism is something much broader than this, and that is a radical approach – a non-supernatural approach – a disbelief in the supernatural but Strauss was not a liberal and he could believe those things. So, liberalism, as a system, comes to the end in World War I, and I give here to you something of what liberalism essentially had as its heart – The kingdom of God and its coming, the kingdom of God in the human heart, not as an ecological end of the world kind of thing – that God was the father of all humanity, that the soul had infinite value and that Jesus' ethical teaching about this higher ethic of the commandment to love God and to one's neighbor, that's the essence of the Christian faith.

, however when you look at that, how can Jesus be relevant for us today? Well, at best, he can be relevant as our example, and so, it's at this point, that liberalism emphasizes what is called the Imitation of Christ. Now, there were people who wrote 'The Imitation of Christ.' Was that Merton – Thomas Merton? , he believed these things and argued Jesus as our example and we should imitate him, but generally, in liberalism, the imitation of Christ was imitating this Jesus who was the most loving of people, who had the greatest sense of the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the infinite value of the human soul and so forth.

 

II. DEATH OF THE QUEST FOR HISTORICAL JESUS

A. ALBERT SCHWEITZER

Now, this movement came to an end, and the early request for the historical Jesus – what Jesus was really like – died a death due to – I list here – four reasons. The first of them is that – Albert Schweitzer wrote a book, the Quest of the Historical Jesus – the German title was from Reimarus to Wrede. Reimarus who starts the quest – Wrede who was the contemporary of Schweitzer when he wrote – and Schweitzer's comments on this, I need to read to you because once you read it, you understand how that m – movement for the historical Jesus had to die. Quote – "Those who are fond of talking about negative theology can find their account here. There's nothing more negative than the result of a critical study of the life of Jesus. When you look at what people did, nothing is more negative. The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of God upon the earth and died to give his work its final consecration never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism endowed with life by liberalism and clothed by modern theology in historical garb. In either case, he will not be a Jesus Christ to whom the religion of the present can ascribe" – we Germans can't ascribe to something like that – "as it did with the Jesus of its own making."

The real Jesus, we can't – we won't be able to believe it, he says. Whereas the one we made and created on our own hands and stuff, that we could, but he goes on. He says, "Nor will the real Jesus be a figure which could be made, by popular historical treatments, so this sympathetic and" use it – "and universally intelligible to the multitude. The historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma. The study of the life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus believing that when it had found him, it could bring him straight into our time as a teacher and savior. It loosed the bands by which it had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine."

He does write well. You have to admit that. "And rejoice to see life and movement coming into the figure once more and the historical Jesus advancing as it seemed to meet it." So, in other words, here you have the church's Jesus. You know, you go to the art of the church, the crucified Jesus, the anemic Jesus on the cross and so forth you have this Jesus who is as a little child, very God, knows all things, and, is doing Einsteinium geometry while he is nursing on his mother's breast.

That kind of understanding is dominant in the church – and finally, they say, "No, was a real man. He bled. He had compassion," and people began to get excited. The Jesus from the church's doctrine was disappearing and you get the feeling of a real Jesus who was attractive, and – and they – the liberals and all these people, – they reached out. They said, "Jesus is coming. We're getting him," and all of a sudden, he just goes right by, and he goes back to the first century, and when they turn around, they see the Jesus of the first century and he's carrying a sign – repent, the world's coming to an end, and they're absolutely horrified by this, and he's repugnant to everything they believe, and so they say, "Well if that's the Jesus that's gonna result, who wants him," and so they give up on him.

Let me continue, however, reading here. , "It loosed the bands by which he had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing as it seemed to meet it, but he does not stay. He passes by our time and returns to his own. What surprised and dismayed the theology of the last 40 years" – this quest of the historical Jesus – "despite all forced and arbitrary interpretations, it could not keep him in our time but had to let him go. He returned to his own time not owing to the application of any historical ingenuity but by the same inevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to its original position. We are experiencing what Paul experienced. In the very moment when we were coming nearer to the historical Jesus than men had overcome before and were already stretching out our hands to draw him into our own time, we have been obliged to give up the attempt and acknowledge our failure, and further, we must be prepared to find that the historical knowledge of the personality and the life of Jesus will not be a help but perhaps, even an offense to religion."

All right, the quest dies because Schweitzer points out, you are not going to arrive at a German theologian educated in Berlin or Tubingen or Heidelberg in the 19th century. No, he's a first-century Jew, and his whole belief system is so contrary to our renaissance naturalistic thinking that he's an offense to us, and people said, "Who cares? I don't. If that's the result of my labor, who's going to want to find that kind of a Jesus," and the questers just give up. They become so disillusioned. They are no longer interested. He draws – he destroys any motivation for the quest of historical Jesus. Jesus is an enigma to the liberal, therefore, liberals are not interested anymore.

B. WILLIAM WREDE THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

Another reason for the death of the historical Jesus is that of William Wrede. We talked about the synoptic problem. Much of what drove the desire to know what the earliest gospel is was the desire to find the original earliest historical source. Now they have Mark, and now when they have Mark, they will get to a source that is not theological but is purely historical and objective, and we can mind Mark now as the gospel to find out about the historical Jesus.

Well, in 1901 this Messias [foreign] the messianic secret in the gospels was published, and what Wrede pointed out was that Mark is not a disinterested objective historical source. Mark is propaganda for the Christian movement. Now, propaganda can be true. It propagandizes it, argues for the Christian faith and so, they thought when they eventually got to Mark, they'd peeled away all that stuff, and they could just take Mark, remove some of the miracles and so forth, and have a real historical, gospel, but now, all of a sudden, the question comes up, "Well, where – where can we really arrive at an objective understanding of Jesus?"

All the sources – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – are theological works written by Christians, and so that raises questions as to whether the quest is possible at all, and then you have after Wrede, the form critics coming in and saying that our gospels are not objective historical biographies, and we described that earlier and I don't want that to be misunderstood. Not objective – of course, they're not – they're written by Christians. Historical in the sense that they have miracles – if you define historical as being nonsupernatural, the gospels are not historical, and they're not biographies in the normal sense because you don't begin a biography like Mark does – "Thirtythree years after his birth" – so, how can we really know about Jesus, and they begin to wonder and say, "It's not possible."

C. MARTIN KäHLER

 

A third work that comes along is that of Martin Kähler, The so-called Historical Jesus and Historic Biblical Christ. , what he destroys is the motivation for the quest. What – I wish I had brought Kähler because he reads beautifully and he has some good things to say. I just have one quotation from him. "The real Christ, that is, the Christ who has exercised an influence in history, with whom millions have communed in childlike faith, and with whom the great witnesses of faith have been in communion – while striving, apprehending, triumphing, and proclaiming – the real Christ is the Christ who is preached. The Christ who is preached, however, is precisely the Christ of faith."

The liberal Jesus never did anybody any – people are not – unbelievers are never converted to liberalism. That Jesus doesn't convert anybody. Liberalism converts evangelical Christians to it. That's the only way i – it can exist, but the gospel Jesus has changed the lives of people for centuries and that's precisely the Jesus that is proclaimed – not this historical Jesus but the Jesus of faith – that’s the lifechanging Jesus, and Kähler pointed out, the other Jesus is irrelevant. No one cares about that Jesus. The only Jesus that affects people's lives is the Jesus of faith, and, therefore, the whole quest for what a historical Jesus was like is illegitimate for faith. It's irrelevant.

D. WILLIAM DILTHEY

Finally, the last person I can mention who had a – a – an important influence is William Dilthey, who, as a historian, argued that the whole idea that you can be objective and arrive at an objective Jesus is nonsense. All history starts with presuppositions that already prejudice the case. , so, where you start is predetermined by you with your ideas and desires and it predetermines where you're going to come out. , for instance, think o – of various people doing a paper on the charismatic movement, and one person says, "I'm going to investigate similar psychological phenomena in the world." Well, you're gonna come out exactly where you started – or someone says, "No, I wanna – I want to investigate other present-day miracle events."

Well, okay, I see where you're coming from – or, I want to understand where li – similar linguistic phenomena occur. It does not, to a certain extent, what you're investigating, already determine where you're gonna come out – or you say, "Well, I want to do, a study of the – the Russian revolution." You say, "All right, okay, that's fine. , what are you gonna investigate?" "Well, I'm going to investigate the movement from various forms of production and see how that may have influenced the revolution." Okay, a good Marxian approach. You say, "Well, no, I'm gonna look at the rat population that existed in St. Petersburg at the time." Why not? Who knows? May – maybe the whole revolution started because they were so tired of rats there, they said, "Let's revolt. We have nothing better to do." You say, "Well – well, wait a minute." You say, "That's absurd." How do you prove something like that? You – you can't spend all your life investigating every absurd possibility.

Maybe it was some – it had something to do with the length of robes by the orthodox priests that caused the revolution. You say, "That's stupid." Well, it may be, but can you rule it out? You say, "Well, no – okay, we have to believe" – well, you can’t investigate everything. So what he's saying is historians by their very investigation of things, have already a predisposition. They're not neutral in those matters. Well, the result of this was the death of the quest of the historical Jesus. There later arose a new quest which we're not going to be able to talk about, and I just need to bring some sort of a conclusion here to this very, very superficial overview, but may – maybe something like this – can you see that?

, thank you – a do-it-yourself Jesus. Have you ever wondered why, for certain Christians, Jesus essentially is understood as going to Jerusalem with his stock portfolio to see him broker, and to see about his investment strategy, or that during the Jesus Movement of the 70s that the Jesus that was being portrayed by certain was the one who would dr – break into the offices of, the government and pour blood on records, or that he was a Jesus that had nothing to do with society but withdrew and formed his own communal group? How do people come out with Jesus like that? And that raises a serious question. Is the Jesus you and I believe in an idol that we have made or is he the real Jesus? Can we be the only group in this world that's never succumbed to making Jesus in our own image? How do you know if you're making Jesus in your own image?

I leave you with one bit of advice. When you become comfortable with Jesus, then you know you've made him in your own image because the Jesus of the gospel, if he never causes us to kick against the pricks and be shocked if he doesn't shake us up and cause us to repent, if our Jesus never does that, he's not the real Jesus because, you see, none of us are so much like God or of the Lord Jesus himself, that we don't find that we have sinned and need to repent. When that Jesus comes and, time and time again, causes us to see that we made him in our own image and we need to ask forgiveness, then I think we're on the track of the real Jesus.

Thank you for the privilege of teaching you this semester.