The Three Quests for the Historical Jesus

1. Introduction

2. The Three Quests for the Historical Jesus
2.1. The First Quest: Reimarus to Schweitzer
Herman Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768) had a career as an eminent professor of oriental Languages in Hamburg in northern Germany. His argument had been known after publishing his bundle of papers in the ‘fragments’ by G. E. Lessing. Reimarus acknowledges that the primary preaching of Jesus in the Gospel, particularly in the synoptic Gospels, is repentance. He, then, continues that this preaching was preparing for coming of the Kingdom of God. However Reimarus assumes that Jesus was not able to explore the meaning of the Kingdom of God. Its meaning, he presumed that depended on those who heard Him, in this context the Jewish people.

What was the aim of establishing the Kingdom of God? Reimarus asserts it was to draw the Jewish understanding about a new righteousness, which is to love God and their neighbors. His dying, in his point of view, was the result of his failure to do this and a feeling that God had abandoned him and he cried out on the cross “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me”? (Matt 27:46)[2] Reimarus, then, states that the disciples fabricated the Jesus story by saying that Jesus’ real kingdom was not in this world; with the purpose of keeping a good thing going they explained Jesus’ failure away.

In the resurrection issue, Reimarus argued that the disciples stole Jesus body and then they proclaimed that he had been raised from the dead, with the intention of securing their position. According to Reimarus, the story of Jesus had suffered; had died for the sins of humankind; had ascended into heaven and would come again in power and glory, was the scenario made up by the disciples. In conclusion, he emphasized that the aim of Jesus and the disciples was thoroughly different. Jesus, he says, wished to restore Israel and he was a failed religious and nationalistic revolutionary, while Christianity was the result not of Jesus’ intention, but of a fraud on the part of his disciples. The disciples were the one who created what became the Christian story.[3]

Reimarus writings have become a debatable issue between two groups which are known as Rationalist and supernaturalist.[4] The supernaturalists attempted to highlight two doctrines about the truth of the bible. Firstly, the Bible, in their point of view, is directly inspired by God. It is to say that God is principal author of the Bible and the human authors are as passive instruments who contributed the message from God. Secondly, because of the Bible is directly inspired by God it contains no mistakes of any kind. This group seems plunged into the traditional self-understanding of Christian faith. The rationalist group, on the other hand, is attempting to be at once Christian and modern. For this reason ‘while they were enthusiastic about they understood to be the teachings of Jesus’, what stuck in their craw were the NT miracle stories.[5]

The debate between rationalist and supernaturalist generated a series of books which discussed the life of Jesus. David Friedrich Strauss’s book entitled The Life of Jesus Critically Examined published in 1835 was one of the most famous. By exploring the Gospel narratives account by account, he seemed to question the supernaturalist case for its literal historicity, discredits the rationalist interpretation and placed his own position. The reason given for refusing the rationalist project was ‘their success comes with a price tag that they overlooked.’[6] Whereas he offers no comfort to the supernaturalist either, before exploring his position about this issue by saying that Reimarus’ point of view that Christianity was invented by the disciples was a big mistake. Strauss, however, recognizes that Reimarus questions were necessary to shake European Christianity out of Dogmatism.

The emergence of Schweitzer in the world of quest had brought the old quest to the end. In his discourse The Quest of the Historical Jesus, he rejected the liberal portrait about Jesus. Jesus in his point of view is not a modern man at all. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, he added. He argues that, ‘Jesus died a failure, disappointed in his mission of the apocalyptic establishment of the kingdom’.[7]

2.2. The Second Quest: Kasemann to Schillebeeckx
The second quest also known as the new quest was different from the previous quest (old quest) are has no longer burdened by the rationalist or secular presuppositions of the enlightenment. There were two outstanding scholars who had worked on the historical Jesus. Firstly, Ernst Käsemann, (1953) who was a New Testament professor at Tübingen in Germany as well as former student of Rudolf Bultmann and who gave a programmatic lecture at Marburg entitled “The Problem of the Historical Jesus”. [8] In reacting against Rudolf Bultman’s position, he said the problem of the historical Jesus was legitimate, necessary and possible by using the new methods of historical-critical scholarship, source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism.

Why was it legitimate? He emphasized that, with the invention of critical historical method, we do have various way of learning about Jesus. In doing so, he argues that we have the same basic intention as the evangelist. On the other hand, he argued that such a quest was necessary to keep Christian faith firmly tied to the life history of Jesus. Second, he mentioned that, a new quest is necessary. Accepting Kähler’s dichotomy[9] placed Christians in an unsustainable position. This is to say that ‘if the message about Jesus is centered completely on the Christ of faith, it can be assumed that this may be seen as a myth those human beings have concocted for themselves’.[10] Kasemann, then, argues that it is necessary to take up anew the question of continuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. There is the possibility of a new quest being raised because that most scholars have their own disposal research methods which were unavailable to the old quest.

Secondly, Edward Schillebeeckx the Belgian Dominican appeared at the end of the second quest. In his massive two-volume work, Jesus and Christ, he drew his theological point of view about the historical Jesus. Schillebeeckx explored how Jesus approached his death and useful for establishing what critical research is able to affirm about his life and ministry. His approach seems “hypercritical” because too dependent on the hypothesized multiple levels of the “Q” community. Schillebeeckx’s point of view, however, seems helpful for establishing a critical minimum in terms of the life and preaching of the historical Jesus. [11]

The New Quest has compared what could be learned about Jesus by the critical historical Method and the figure of Jesus as the Christ presented by the New Testament and Christian Tradition. Walter Kasper, then, summarizes three historical and theological principles of Kaesmann’s New Quest. In the first place he argues that in the new quest the Gospels contain more historical material than had previously been acknowledged. In the second place, he mentions that, in the new quest Christology remains focused on the identity of the exalted Lord with the earthly Jesus and the primacy of Christ before and after the church. On the other words, faith can not focus only on the kerygma of the early church. Finally he says that the new quest proceeds through the medium of the preaching of the kerygma, so that the historical Jesus is interpreted through it and at the same time the historical Jesus helps us to understand and to interpret the kerygma[12] in other words the history of Jesus becomes “source” to interpret the Kerygma.

2.3. The Third Quest
The third quest for the historical Jesus has emerged since in the early 1980s up to the present. It is quite distinguishable from the previous quest. The presence of the third quest is far more confident about being able to reconstruct the basic outline of Jesus’ ministry.[13] The fundamental aim of this quest was to investigate the historical world of Jesus. The scholars tended to discover the structure of a Galilean Family and social relationship, the influence of Greek culture and the impact of the Roman Domination. In doing so, the scholars did not only count on the literary source in scriptural exegesis but also used the true historical methods and sociological and anthropological approaches. John Meier and N.T. Wright were known as two underpinning figures in the appearance of the third quest. In A Marginal Jew, Meier asserts that to say that ‘Jesus acted as and was viewed as an exorcist and healer during his public ministry has as much historical corroboration as almost another statement we can make about the historical Jesus’.[14]

As a part of the third quest, there was a group of people that has characterized the so-called ‘the Jesus Seminar’ held in 1985 from the academic group which tended to discover ‘the real Jesus’ hidden behind the gospel and the doctrine of the Church. There were many discussions, debates and notions as a result of the seminar which was done twice a year. Their discussions, debates, however, stand on the scale of probability and personal understanding or interpretation about Jesus according to the Gospel. Robert Funk one of the most influential members argues that ‘the church has kept the faithful in ignorance’. Another significant figure from this group was John Dominic Crossan who defines ‘Jesus within a secular social and cultural matrix characterized by the class, social distinctions and political dynamic.’[15] He refuses the idea that Jesus calls Abba his Father. Jesus, for him, is no more than a Jewish cynic philosopher and ‘magician’ not miracle worker as it publicly known. Jesus was executed by the Romans not by the leaders of the Jews, and his body was eaten by the dogs and Christianity, he claims, knew nothing about Jesus’ passion.

3. The Significance for Christology of the Quest of the Historical Jesus
4. Conclusion
Bibliography