The Historical Jesus Puzzle (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Historical Jesus: Investigating the unthinkable
A question important to Christology today is one that, potentially, could spell the end of Christianity as we know it. Did the historical Jesus exist? Was there a man called Jesus who lived in 1st century Palestine, preached a unique message of compassion and love, gathered a following of faithful disciples, was arrested and then later crucified by Roman authorities. Is this so called Jesus of history genuine and easily supported by historical evidence? The purpose of this study is to look at the available evidence, both biblical and non-biblical, presenting original manuscripts, commentary and current scholarship. What does come through strongly is the inability to make a water tight case for the existence of an historical Jesus. Furthermore, the possibility that the Jesus story may be a reworking of ancient pagan mythologies is particularly challenging.
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 2005
This article provides a detailed description of the presuppositions and procedures of a representative group of six scholars currently contributing to the study of the ‘historical Jesus’. The intention of the study was to draft a ‘handbook’, a ‘recipe’, of the best methods and the surest presuppositions for achieving the result of a solid historical conclusion about Jesus. What resulted from the project was not what had been hoped. In fact, what resulted was a deep scepticism about the quest, at least as it is currently being conducted. Though, admittedly, not offering solutions, this article seeks to raise questions about the real potential and usefulness of any quest for the so-called ‘historical Jesus’.
What You See is What You Get: Context and Content in Current Research on the Historical Jesus
Theology Today, 1995
A century ago, scholarship on the historical Jesus had polarized around two distinct options. To the one side stood the ethical constructions of the liberal Protestants. Optimistic about the use of history in service of theology, endlessly producing studies of the life of Jesus to anchor their religious formulations, these scholars held that Jesus' basic message centered on preaching, in Harnack's famous formula, "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." To the other side stood scholars less optimistic-indeed, pessimistic-about the Gospels' servicability as witnesses to Jesus. The erosion of scholarly confidence in the Gospels' historical adequacy can be plotted along a trajectory that passes from Lessing's publication of the Reimarus essays in the late eighteenth century to Weiss's book on Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the late nineteenth century. This trajectory terminated in the conclusion, summed up by Weiss and energetically extended by Schweitzer, that the kingdom Jesus preached was the kingdom anticipated by his firstcentury Jewish contemporaries: an apocalyptic event, centered on a new or renewed Jerusalem, inaugurated by the messiah, and established by God. Where are we, a hundred years later? Jesus the charismatic healer and existential religious thinker, Jesus the wandering cynic sage, Jesus the social revolutionary, Jesus the prophet of the impending end of days-all of these versions of Jesus populate the pages of the most recent books, all presented with the same calm authority, all constructed through appeals to the same data. If this is progress, we might wish for less of it.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 2016
The article argues that current debates over method in historical Jesus studies reveal two competing ‘models’ for how to use the gospel tradition in order to approach the historical Jesus. These models differ over their treatments of the narrative frameworks of the gospels and, concomitantly, their views of the development of the Jesus tradition. A first model, inspired by form criticism and still advocated today, attempts to attain a historical Jesus ‘behind’ the interpretations of early Christians. A second model, inspired by advances in historiography and memory theory, posits a historical Jesus who is ultimately unattainable, but can be hypothesized on the basis of the interpretations of the early Christians, and as part of a larger process of accounting for how and why early Christians came to view Jesus in the ways that they did. Advocating the latter approach to the historical Jesus and responding to previous criticism, this article argues further that these two models are methodologically and epistemologically incompatible. It therefore challenges the suggestion that one can affirm the goals of the second model while maintaining the methods of the first model. Keywords
Encyclodedia of psychology and Religion, 2019
The historical Jesus research is critical in how the Christian faith is appropriated and practiced, a combination of acts and thoughts for a holistic religious life. So far, there had been various quests for the historical Jesus: the old quest, no quest, new quest, the third quest, and renewed quest (Jacobs 1996: 105). These quests were not issues of grave concern in the Early Church until the emergence of social scientific study of religion in the nineteenth century. It opposed the orthodox views concerning the historical Jesus. Attempts were made to suppress the social scientific exploration of the historical Jesus. “Deviation from orthodox stances espoused by religious authorities has always been negatively viewed and often suppressed” (Spilka 2016). It is both a psychological and epistemological issue focused on human behavior influenced by cultural lenses on how we know and provide empirical evidence to support what we know (Dentice 2018).
The Quest(s) for the Historical Jesus: A Review from an Evangelical Perspective
This essay will introduce the history and methodology of the scholarship that has been expended on the search for the historical Jesus. It will summarise some of the different `portraits' of Jesus that have been proposed, and then will review some of the debated issues which go into such sketches of Jesus. The essay closes with an assessment of the current state of work in this field.
Lessons from the Historical Jesus Research
Who do people say I am?" asks Jesus of his disciples (Mark 8:27). The disciples answer, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others one of the prophets." Not satisfied, Jesus asks them, "But who do you say I am?" Peter answers him, "You are the Christ" (Mark 8:27-29). Apparently, the popular perception regarding who Jesus was during his lifetime in firstcentury Palestine was varied. Similarly, a variety of contemporary concerns and personal viewpoints results whether we see Jesus as a man, as God, as peasant, as symbol of human struggle, or as the savior of humanity. Even in scholarly research into the historical Jesus evinces a variety of portrayals of Jesus, his identity and life, his sayings and message, his crucifixion and death. So what is research into the historical Jesus? We differentiate between the Jesus of history, the historical Jesus, the Christ of faith, and the Christ of dogma. The Jesus of history refers to the knowledge of Jesus by his contemporaries. But since no contemporary of Jesus lives, there cannot be any knowledge of the Jesus of history, just as there cannot be any knowledge of the Washington or the Lincoln of history because there are no more living contemporaries of theirs. The historical Jesus refers to the knowledge of Jesus that can be gleaned from historical records, primarily from the Gospels and other historical records of that time, like the writings of Josephus. Thus, there can also be the historical Washington and the historical Lincoln from historical records. The Christ of faith is the portrayal of Jesus as the Messiah, as the Second Person of the Trinity, as the object of faith to believe and believe in. The Christ of dogma is Jesus as taught in the doctrines of the Christian Church, formulated especially