Session 3:
The First Quest for the Historical Jesus:
Reimarus through Wrede to Bultmann

• Announcements: RL 399A students please sign up for critiques
• Assignments
  • for today: finish Borg
  • Rec: Crossan, The Historical Jesus, Overture & Prologue
  • Rec: Meier, A Marginal Jew, Chpt. 6
• in class:
  • Sources for the Life of Jesus Outside the NT
  • Strauss
  • John v. Synoptics
• for next day:
  • Borg reaction papers due; Meier critique due
  • Read: The Five Gospels Prefatory Material & Introduction
  • Read: "Bible Scholars Debate...", Who Was Jesus?" and "Color Coding..." handouts
  • Rec: Crossan, The Historical Jesus, Chpt. 1-4
  • Rec: Meier, A Marginal Jew, Chpt. 7
  • Rec: Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, Chpt. 5-6

6:45 Mini-Lecture: Early Views of the Historicity of the Gospels

A. Origins of the canonical gospels:

• originate between 50-100 CE
• uoted as anonymous works until ca. 180 CE
• There are other gospels circulating at this time, under the names of Thomas, Mary, Peter, et alia
• The four canonical ones are selected and acquire the names we know (Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn)

B. Two primary early views (ca. 200 CE) of the gospel reports about Jesus:

1. naive historicism

• the 4 gospels are historical accounts
• they were written by eyewitnesses (Mt, Jn) or companions thereof (Mk of Peter, Lk of Paul)
• they were independent witnesses to Jesus' life, thus their reports corroborate each other
• what differences exist can be harmonized relatively easily (e.g., Tatian's Diatessaron, ca. 170)

2. dogmatic and/or devotional approach, with a critical eye for discrepancies (e.g. Origen, Commentary on John X; Augustine, The Harmonization of the Gospels)

• the 4 gospels (and SS as a whole) comprise God's message for salvation
• this message has four levels to it
• literal/historical
• tropological/moral
• allegorical
• anagogical/spiritual

C. These two basic positions were maintained from antiquity throughout the Middle Ages and into the Reformation period (and they have their partisans yet today)

D. In the modern period, the question of the historicity of the gospels is re-opened and, in the 16th century, this gave rise to a flood of Gospel Harmonies being produced.

Q: Why do you think this question was re-opened at that particular historical juncture?

• printing press invented
• first book was Erasmus' GNT
• first vernacular translation of the Bible was Luther's German edition
• NT no longer exclusively the domain of clerics
• educated laypersons raised questions about the NT

6:55 Discussion in Dyads:

• What benefits and limitations do you see in these two ancient views?
• Do either of these fit your current understanding of the gospels? How so? How not?

7:00 Mini-Lecture: The Modern Quest for the Historical Jesus, Part 1

• begins at the end of XVIII CE
• earlier rationalist lives of Jesus
• Johann Jakob Hess (1768)
• Franz Volkmar Reinhard (1781)
• Ernst August Opitz (1812)
• Johann Adolph Jakobi (1816)
• Johann Gottfried Herder (1796, followed by a harmonization of the gospels in 1797)
• Thomas Jefferson (1820)
• cf. Benjamin Franklin, whose Poor Richard's Almanac can be read as a compilation of the (self-evident) truths which Jesus taught
• early fictitious lives of Jesus depict Jesus as connected with the Essenes
• Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, Popular letters about the Bible (1782); An Explanation of the Plans and Aims of Jesus, in 11 volumes (1784-1792)
• Karl Heinrich Venturini, A Non-supernatural History of the Great Prophet of Nazareth, in 4 volumes (1800-1802; second ed. 1806)
• first historical conception of the life of Jesus: Herman Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples (1778); published posthumously by his disciple, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
• focusses on Jesus' preaching
• Jesus must be understood in a Jewish context
• even claims to messiahship are not equivalent to claims to divinity; "son of God" = human being, like the Israelite kings
• Jesus did not break with the Jewish law
• Jesus did not intend to found a new religion
• the hope of the parousia was the fundamental idea in early Christianity
• one problem, according to Schweitzer, was that he saw the eschatological tendency of Jesus as exclusively earthly and political in character ("son of David" but not "son of Man" idea to balance it)
• refutation of Reimarus by Johann Salomo Semler (1779)
• Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (1892) was essentially a rehabilitation of Reimarus' eschatological emphasis

7:20 Dyads: What do you think of Reimarus' assertions about Jesus? Where do you agree or disagree, and why?

7:30 Break

7:35 Mini-Lecture: The Modern Quest for the Historical Jesus, Part 2

• XIX CE developments
  • Questions of historiography are raised (i.e., what are the rules of history)
    • therefore, evaluation of sources
    • gospels viewed as more adequate sources for Jesus' life than are the epistles or Creeds
    • synoptics are preferred to John (see handout for discrepancies)
    • the fourth gospel is evaluated as a theology presented in historical guise (e.g., David Friedrich Strauss)
    • eventually, the synoptics are no longer seen as independent witnesses
  • Johann Jakob Griesbach first formulated a view of the interdependence of the synoptics:
    • Mt first
    • Then Lk
    • Then Jn
    • Mk was pieced together out of Mt and Lk
    • Griesbach's hypothesis is still alive today, in scholars like Farmer (author of the two volume Anchor Bible commentary on Matthew)
  • other lives of Jesus by:
    • August Wilhelm Neander (1837)
    • Ernest Renan (1863)
    • Daniel Schenkel (1864; 4th ed. 1873)
    • Theodor Keim, 3 vols. (1867, 1871, 1872)
    • Hugo Delff (1889)
    • Willibald Beyschlag (1864, re: Renan's; 1885-86, his own)
    • David Friedrich Strauss
  • by the end of the XIXth century, the current synoptic theory was developed (see overhead on "The Growth of the Gospels")
    • Mk is the earliest of the synoptics
    • Mk is a source for Mt and Lk
    • in addition, there was another source for Mt and Lk, the hypothetical "Q"
    • M = material distinctive to Mt (or hypothetical documents
    • L = material distinctive to Lk as sources for each of them)
    • dated ca. 50
    • Mk ca. 70 or a bit earlier
    • M & L later
  • fully-developed rationalism
    • NB: rationalism, as a movement, was a rebellion against the dogmatism of the church
    • "This [Chalcedonian] dogma [of the two natures of Christ] had first to be shattered before men [sic] could once more go out in quest of the historical Jesus, before they could even grasp the thought of His existence."⁽¹⁾
    • "The historical investigation of the life of Jesus did not take its rise from a purely historical interest; it turned to the Jesus of history as an ally in the struggle against the tyranny of dogma."⁽²⁾
    • E.g., rationalists found Jesus was the revealer of true virtue coincident with right reason (e.g., Reinhard, Hess, Paulus, Jefferson, Franklin)
  • But we find different portraits of Jesus from different scholars:
    • "But it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each individual created Him in accordance with his [sic] own character. There is no historical task which so reveals a man's [sic] true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus. No vital force comes into the figure unless a man [sic] breathes into it all the hate or all the love of which he [sic] is capable. The stronger the love, or the stronger the hate, the more life-like is the figure which is produced. For hate as well as love can write a Life of Jesus, and the greatest of them are written with hate: that of Reimarus, the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist, and that of David Friedrich Strauss. It was not so much hate of the Person of Jesus as of the supernatural nimbus with which it was so easy to surround Him, and with which in fact He had been surrounded. They were eager to picture Him as truly and purely human, to strip from Him the robes of splendour with which he had been apparelled, and clothe Him once more with the coarse garments in which He had walked in Galilee."⁽³⁾
  • Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (1828)
    • even gives a rationalist explanation of miracles
    • proposes the trance theory (Jesus did not die on the cross)
    • Judas believed Jesus was the messiah, and wanted to force him to declare himself; that is why he "betrayed" him to the Jewish authorities (cf. "Jesus of Nazareth")
• early XX
  • Wilhelm Wrede: even the earliest gospel is impregnated with theological interpretation; it is not just historical narrative. Thus,
    • Mk is inadequate as a source for the historical Jesus
    • even the earliest community was interested in proclaiming the kerygma, which reveals the significance of Jesus' ministry for the community, not the "facts" of Jesus' life
  • recovery of the eschatological element of the Gospel tradition (e.g., the basileia, the end) by Schweitzer, Dodd, and Weiss; thus,
    • there is a gulf between the historical Jesus and the modern world
  • emergence of Form Criticism (Schmidt, Dibelius, Bultmann)
    • during the first generation of Jesus' followers, there was oral tradition
    • there was no continuous narrative, but single isolated stories which were passed on
    • the Passion narrative was the first to acquire consecutive form
    • stories were repeated in response to various needs of the communities: preaching, teaching, controversy, ethical guidance
    • thus, stories as told tended to fall into stereotyped patterns, or forms, characteristic of oral tradition
    • therefore, there exists the possibility of profound modification via oral tradition, and also invention of some material over the process
  • this led to the form critics' radical skepticism regarding establishing the historicity of Jesus material, e.g.,
    • Rudolph Bultmann
    • John Lightfoot
    • even the RC, Albert Loisy
  • Three basic responses to the Form Critics' skeptical challenge:
    • the synoptics represent eyewitness tradition (very few; e.g., Gary Habermas, T. W. Manson)
    • the Christian community exercised careful control over oral transmission, similar to that found in rabbinic Judaism, thus radical modification or free invention was not possible (popular among Scandinavian scholars, e.g., Gerghardsson)
    • accept contention of anonymous oral tradition, but disagree as to extent to which this undermines factual accuracy of the incidents and conversations, e.g.:
      • E.g., Günther Bornkamm, moderate, sees oral tradition as inaccurate re: bare facts, but accurate in reflecting the central significance of a person (cf. James H. Charlesworth)
  • Distinctively RC solution:
    • church as a community gave rise to the gospels
    • God inspired the communities which authored them (e.g., Raymond Brown)
    • this does not mean accuracy of historical facts
    • it does maintain the inerrancy of the Bible re: faith and morality, which the church now has the authority to interpret
    • still must answer the Form Critics' challenge re: historicity, but it takes the pressure off since the doctrinal tradition (and, therefore, contemporary belief) is distinguished from the historical question
    • essentially, in other words, this is a rejection of the Rationalist agenda of repudiating the authority of dogma to embrace the authority of "pure reason"

7:55 Dyads

• Which do you think is the best response to the Form Critics' skeptical challenge? Why?
• What do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of the Rationalist approach?

8:05 Break

8:15 Mini-Lecture: What kinds of interpretive methods are now available?

• Dogmatism
• Naive historicism
• Bultmann's "de-mythologization" (and, for him, an existentialist re-mythologization)
• Charlesworth's interplay of archaeological and literary data
• Crossan's "triple triadic" method

1. Data generation

• cross-cultural social anthropology (ancient & modern)
• Greco-Roman & Hellenistic history
• literature concerning Jesus

2. Textual problem of the Jesus tradition

• inventory
• chronological stratification
• level of independent attestation

3. Manipulation of inventory

• sequence of strata (earliest to latest)
• hierarchy of attestation (date & number)
• bracketing of singularity
• Sanders' historical reconstruction -- the search for the Sitz im leben Jesu (matching content & context)

Discussion (triads):

• Which of these models do you think is best? Why?
• How should we apply these models?
• How stringent should we be in applying the criteria for historicity?

9:00 Group Discussion

9:10 Short written response:

• What is the most valuable thing you learned in this session?
• What exercise was the most helpful in learning and/or integrating the material?
• What is one question you have concerning this material/topic?

Reminder of Assignment for Monday (just to think about):

• Which of the criteria outlined in Wednesday's lecture do you see as the most important to an historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus?
• What is your sketch of the life of Jesus?
• How do you know it? (sources & reliability)
• How does this sketch fit (or not fit) with the criteria outlined in the lecture?

1. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, tr. W. Montgomery from the first German Edition, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 1906 (A. & C. Black, 1910; New York: Macmillan, 1959), 3.

2. Ibid, 4.

3. Ibid.