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Course 16 · Lesson 2.1

The three quests for the historical Jesus

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 16 outline

Module 1: How Historians Reason

  1. Sources and evidence: primary, secondary, early and late
  2. Criteria of authenticity and their limits
  3. What historical probability means
  4. Where history stops and theology begins

Module 2: Jesus in the Ancient World

  1. The three quests for the historical Jesus
  2. Josephus and the Jewish sources
  3. Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius on the Christians
  4. What outside sources can and cannot prove

Module 3: The Gospels as Historical Sources

  1. Dating the Gospels
  2. Authorship, anonymity and church tradition
  3. The Synoptic problem and John
  4. Eyewitness testimony, memory and reliability
  5. The Gospels as ancient biography

Module 4: The Death of Jesus

  1. How the Romans practiced crucifixion
  2. The evidence that Jesus died on a cross
  3. Burial and the empty tomb accounts

Module 5: The Earliest Testimony

  1. What the first Christians actually claimed
  2. Paul and the tradition in 1 Corinthians 15
  3. The appearance accounts in the Gospels and Acts
  4. Jewish and Greco-Roman expectations about resurrection

Module 6: Martyrdom and Its Limits

  1. Early persecution and the martyrdom traditions
  2. Late legends and early evidence about the apostles
  3. What martyrdom shows about sincerity and what it does not show about truth

Module 7: Alternative Explanations

  1. Hallucination and visionary experience
  2. Legend and the development of belief
  3. Conspiracy, the swoon theory and the wrong tomb
  4. Comparing explanations by explanatory power

Module 8: Building and Testing a Case

  1. Assembling the evidence into a case
  2. Background beliefs and the question of miracles
  3. Stating the limits of the case honestly

All courses

Program / Course 16: Historical Defense / Lesson 2.1

What you will learn

  • Describe the main aims and results of the first, second and third quests.
  • Name some leading figures of each period and what they argued.
  • Explain why different scholars have produced different portraits of Jesus.
  • State what is widely agreed about Jesus today.

The big idea

Since the eighteenth century scholars have tried to reconstruct the Jesus of history by the methods of ordinary historical research. Historians call these efforts quests and usually divide them into three phases. The first sought a Jesus freed from church doctrine, the second returned to the question after a period of doubt, and the third set Jesus firmly within first century Judaism. The portraits have varied widely, but a few conclusions command broad agreement across the whole range of scholars, believing and unbelieving.

Key terms

Historical Jesus
The figure reconstructed by historians from the sources, as distinct from the Christ of faith proclaimed in the church. Whether the two should be separated is itself debated.
Quest
The name given to the scholarly project of reconstructing the life and teaching of Jesus by historical methods.
Apocalyptic prophet
A portrait in which Jesus expected God to intervene soon to end the present age and set up his kingdom.
Jesus Seminar
A group of scholars, begun in the 1980s, who voted on the authenticity of sayings attributed to Jesus. Its conclusions were widely discussed and widely criticized.
Christ of faith
The Jesus proclaimed in the creeds and in worship, as Lord and Son of God.
Mythicism
The claim that Jesus never existed as a historical person. It is held by very few professional historians.

Background

The first systematic efforts came in the Enlightenment, when thinkers began to ask whether the Gospels could be studied like any other ancient books. Hermann Samuel Reimarus, whose writings were published after his death in 1768, argued that Jesus had been a Jewish preacher whose disciples invented the resurrection. David Friedrich Strauss, in 1835, proposed that much of the Gospel story was myth. Many lives of Jesus appeared in the nineteenth century, each describing a figure remarkably like its author’s own ideals. Albert Schweitzer’s book of 1906 summed up the period. He argued that the scholars had often painted a Jesus in their own image, and that the real Jesus, an apocalyptic preacher, was a stranger to the modern world.

Three phases are usually distinguished. The details of the labels are debated, and some scholars say the neat division hides continuities. But the pattern is useful for orientation.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The first quest (about 1778 to 1906)

The first quest was largely driven by a wish to find a Jesus separate from church dogma. Many participants were liberal Protestants who sought a moral teacher. They tended to set aside miracles and apocalyptic language as later additions. Schweitzer’s criticism was that the portraits told more about the scholars than about Jesus.

The period gave birth to important tools, including the study of Gospel sources and the idea that Mark is the earliest Gospel. Its weakness was a tendency to read modern values into the sources.

Step 2: The no quest and the new quest (about 1906 to 1970s)

After Schweitzer, and under the influence of Rudolf Bultmann, many scholars concluded that a biography of Jesus was impossible, since the Gospels were preaching, not biography, and faith did not depend on historical results. This is sometimes called the period of no quest, though some scholars worked on the question throughout.

In 1953 Ernst Käsemann, a student of Bultmann, argued in a lecture that the question had to be raised again, since the church’s message claimed to be about a real person. The new quest developed the criteria of authenticity discussed in Lesson 1.2. Its Jesus was often seen as an individual teacher whose self-understanding stood behind later Christian belief.

Step 3: The third quest (from the 1980s)

The third quest, a label popularized by N. T. Wright, used new knowledge of Second Temple Judaism, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology and the study of social history. It insisted that Jesus must be understood as a Jew of his time. E. P. Sanders’s Jesus and Judaism (1985) was influential, placing Jesus within a movement expecting the restoration of Israel.

Some scholars, such as those of the Jesus Seminar, saw a wandering wise man or social critic. Others, such as Sanders, Dale Allison and Bart Ehrman, saw an apocalyptic prophet. Wright argued for a Jesus who understood his mission as the long awaited return of God to Zion. These pictures differ widely, which is why the label third quest covers many positions.

Step 4: What is widely agreed

Across the range of scholars, including skeptics, there is broad agreement on several points. Jesus was a Jew from Galilee. He was baptized by John the Baptist. He taught and healed, and gathered disciples including a group of twelve. He spoke about the kingdom of God. He was crucified in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. His followers continued as a movement and some of them claimed to have seen him alive again.

Agreement on the last point means that many scholars accept that the disciples sincerely reported experiences they took as appearances. What caused those experiences is the point on which scholars divide.

Step 5: Why the portraits differ

Reasons include the nature of the sources, which are writings of believers with different emphases; disputes about which sayings are authentic; disagreement about the importance of apocalyptic expectation; and the background assumptions of the scholars themselves. Schweitzer’s warning remains relevant. Readers should ask how much a given portrait owes to the evidence and how much to the author’s hopes.

As to mythicism, the claim that Jesus never lived, it is a position held by very few scholars in relevant fields, including nonreligious ones, who argue that the evidence for his existence, though limited, is of the ordinary ancient kind and better explained by a historical person.

  1. What does this portrait of Jesus need to ignore or downplay in the sources?
  2. Does the author seem to find in Jesus what he or she already valued?
  3. How does the portrait explain both his execution and the rise of the movement?
  4. How does it handle miracle stories, and is that decision argued or assumed?
  5. Is Jesus placed within first century Judaism or set against it?
  6. Which conclusions are shared by scholars of very different views?

Examples

Schweitzer’s warning

Schweitzer observed that each generation seemed to find a Jesus resembling itself, a rationalist teacher, a moral reformer, a social revolutionary. The warning applies equally to believers who find a Jesus who agrees with their politics, and to skeptics who find a Jesus who agrees with theirs.

Two scholars, two portraits

One scholar describes Jesus as a wandering teacher of wisdom who challenged social conventions. Another describes him as a prophet announcing that God was about to act. Both use the same Gospels. The difference lies in which sayings are treated as authentic and in how the expectation of the end is judged.

Agreement among opponents

Skeptical and believing scholars alike agree that Jesus was baptized by John and crucified under Pilate. Their agreement does not rest on faith. It rests on the independence of the sources and the fact that such details were hard to invent.

Different perspectives

Critical scholars with a skeptical outlook

Scholars such as Bart Ehrman, Gerd Lüdemann and members of the Jesus Seminar hold that the Gospels are heavily shaped by later belief, and that historical Jesus research yields a figure who is not identical with the Christ of the creeds. Their positions differ among themselves.

Evangelical and Protestant scholars

Many, including N. T. Wright, Craig Evans and Richard Bauckham, argue that the Gospels give a historically credible picture of Jesus and that the third quest, by placing him in his Jewish setting, supports rather than undermines the main outline of the Gospel story.

Catholic scholarship

Catholic scholars such as John P. Meier have produced major studies using historical method while remaining within the church. The Catholic Church teaches that the Gospels are rooted in the history of Jesus, though they present it through the faith of the early church.

Orthodox Christians

Orthodox Christians receive Christ as the church’s tradition presents him and often see the quests as a Western Protestant enterprise. Some Orthodox scholars engage the research selectively, in the conviction that the church’s memory stands closer to Jesus than modern reconstructions.

Jewish scholars

Jewish scholars such as Geza Vermes and Amy-Jill Levine have emphasized Jesus’ place within Judaism and have often criticized portraits that make him an opponent of the Judaism of his day.

Why it matters

Almost every book, film and sermon about Jesus rests on some portrait. Knowing the history of the quests helps a student see that portraits vary, that the variations have causes, and that a core of agreed facts survives all the disagreement. That core is the starting point for the rest of the course.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Scholars have discovered that the real Jesus was completely different from the Gospels.

Correction: Scholars disagree widely. Many conclude that the broad outline of the Gospels is historically sound, and even skeptical scholars accept a core of facts about his life and death.

Misunderstanding: The Jesus Seminar represents the consensus of New Testament scholars.

Correction: It was a self-selected group with a particular approach, and many mainstream scholars, believing and nonbelieving, criticized its methods and conclusions.

Misunderstanding: Serious historians doubt that Jesus existed.

Correction: Almost all historians of antiquity, including those who are not Christians, accept that Jesus lived and was crucified. Mythicism is a minority view with little support in the field.

Misunderstanding: Faith and the historical quest are enemies.

Correction: Some scholars have used the quest against faith, others for it, and many simply to understand history. The outcome depends on the scholar and the argument, not on the method itself.

Knowledge check

What did Schweitzer’s 1906 book argue?

Schweitzer argued that many nineteenth century lives of Jesus had reflected the ideals of their authors, and that the real Jesus was best understood as an apocalyptic preacher who expected the end of the age. He thought this Jesus was strange to modern readers and could not be made to fit modern preferences.

What marks the third quest?

The third quest, from the 1980s, stresses the Jewish setting of Jesus, drawing on the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology and social history. It uses the criteria less mechanically and asks for a portrait that explains both his death and the rise of the movement, while producing very different portraits among scholars.

Name three points on which most scholars across the spectrum agree.

Examples: Jesus was a Galilean Jew, he was baptized by John the Baptist, he proclaimed the kingdom of God, he gathered disciples, and he was crucified under Pilate. Any three of these, or similar well supported points, are correct.

Why do scholars’ portraits differ so much?

They differ because the sources are written by believers, because scholars disagree about which sayings are authentic and how much weight to give apocalyptic language, and because background assumptions about miracles and about the church shape the reading. Schweitzer’s warning about reading oneself into Jesus still applies.

Think it through

  1. What picture of Jesus did you grow up with, and where did it come from?
  2. How do you think your own values influence the Jesus you find most appealing?
  3. Why might a core of agreed facts be more useful than any single portrait?
  4. What would it take for you to revise your picture of Jesus?

Independent assignment

Comparing two portraits

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Summarize two different portraits of Jesus from scholars (for example a wisdom teacher and an apocalyptic prophet) from your readings. State what evidence supports each, what each has to explain away, and which one you find more persuasive for now. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study