MATTHEW

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THE HISTORICAL JESUS

This lesson is an Introduction to the larger topic, The Historical Jesus, or the Quest for the Historical Jesus.
Advanced students, or those interested in a more detailed discussion of this topic may click on Historical Jesus Advanced and go to a more detailed lesson on the topic.

The question regarding the topic of the Historical Jesus grew out of an extremely critical and negative attitude toward the study of Jesus and the possibility of the resurrection which arose in the 18 h century and matured in the 19th century. This view initially was the outgrowth of the Mood of the Enlightenment which held that all matters of history to be considered real history had to stand the test of empirical verification (that is, be subject to verification by the scientific method of examination, measurement, and tabulation).

Since the miracles of Jesus and claims for divine intervention (virgin birth and resurrection) could not be empirically verified they were excluded form the definition of history. The consequence of this was that the Christian faith could not be based on historical events or fact, since these could not be verified and were of less value than matters that could be verified by empiricism or rationalism. Christian faith had to be grounded on matters more secure than the miraculous claims of a few "deluded" disciples! The grounds for faith had to be found elsewhere than in history.

The result was that in the 19th century liberal theologians denied the historical Jesus and claimed that the Jesus of the Gospels was the invention of the 1st and 2nd century Christians as they hung on to the faith they had, which faith had been severely challenged by the death of Jesus. Since Jesus' divine miraculous birth and resurrection could not be proven by empiricism, they could not be considered historical, therefore Christian faith had to be grounded in some other aspect of Jesus' life than historical evidence.

The result was that the Jesus of the Gospels was not an historical person, but the creation of faith.

The ground of Christian faith was viewed as the conviction, outstanding moral character, absolute openness to God, and unique God consciousness of Jesus. Why follow him? Because of his outstanding qualities and moral teachings, not because of his "supposedly" divine and miraculous qualities (which were denied by the liberal theological persuasion of 18th and 19th century theologians).

The subsequent Quests for the Historical Jesus have been quests into the human character of Jesus that could be the grounds of Christian faith.

Modern theologians who follow in the tradition of this mindset think of the "Jesus Tradition" (what the disciples would have wanted Jesus to say) speaking in the Gospels, not the Historical Jesus of whom we can know very little since the Jesus of the Gospels was shrouded in the miraculous!

It was primarily Karl Barth who challenged 19th century theology in the early 20th century (Beginning in 1918, Barth argued against the anthropomorphizing tendencies of 19th c. theology, and with the cry of "Let God be God" turned theology around 180 degrees. Barth nevertheless did not locate faith in the historical Jesus, but in the message of God in Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit ). Then in the 1950's Wolfhardt Pannenberg and the Pannenberg Circle (1950's and 1960's) restored the possibility of considering Jesus as a real person of history. Pannenberg challenged the dominant 18th and 19th century definitions of history based on an empirical model, and Barth's and Bultmann's rejection of the role of history in faith. Others in Britain (Howard Marshall, Alan Richardson et al) and in America (Daniel Fuller, John Montgomery, et al) joined the movement challenging the Historical Jesus and argued for faith in Jesus as an historical, divine, and miraculous person.

The "Quest" continues today among liberal theologians in the Jesus Seminar movement, but this has not been as widely received as some would hope.

This course is developed in keeping with the conviction that Jesus was a real person of history, that God from even before his birth was involved in the events that take life in the person of Jesus, that he performed miracles to prove his divinity and mission, that he died according to the plan and will of God, that he was resurrected in history on the third day as recorded in the New Testament, that he now reigns in God's kingdom as God's designated Messiah over both Jew and Gentile, and that he will return as predicted in Scripture to judge the world in righteousness.