1We will deal with a similar outlook in Chapter 3.
2Other writings that defend the trustworthiness and inspiration of Scripture, both by the author and by other writers, will be listed in the footnotes throughout the volume.
Part One
Contemporary Challenges to the Historicity of Jesus
1The Modern Quest for the Historical Jesus
Throughout church history, there has always been an interest in expressing the story of Jesus in terms of a historical survey of his life, frequently in a more-or-less chronological manner. Many differing stances have motivated such enterprises. For example, a desire to combine the four Gospel accounts into a single narrative has always been popular. Other writers have concentrated on limited aspects of his life, such as his birth, preaching, death, or resurrection. Many such attempts have sought to be faithful to the New Testament record, believing it to be fully accurate in all it recorded.
Other approaches to the life of Jesus have not shared the conviction that the Gospels were totally accurate. Some scholars think that the Gospels are poor records, dominated not by historical concerns, but written as religious propaganda for the purpose of communicating a particular message. Many such critical surveys have sought to reinterpret the story of Jesus in manners that emphasize non-traditional roles, viewing him as a political revolutionary, or as a Jewish prophet, or even as a magician.
But of course there are far more than just two general approaches that view the Gospels either as historical or as less than reliable. There is a myriad of possible “resting places” along the conservative-liberal spectrum. There are also attempts to address the life of Jesus in other than strictly historical terms, preferring fictional settings that often imagine Jesus’ life during the years over which the Gospels say almost nothing — from his birth to the beginning of his public ministry.
In brief, there has been no shortage of different approaches to what is often called the most influential life ever lived. A brief overview of some of the more dominant trends during the last two centuries may be a helpful backdrop for the remainder of this volume.
The Fictitious Lives of Jesus
From the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries, both before and during the heyday of Protestant Liberalism, there were numerous attempts to formulate what Albert Schweitzer called the “fictitious lives of Jesus.” In his view, these volumes were chiefly characterized as the words of “a few imperfectly equipped free-lances.” Yet, in spite of the preponderance of fictional elements, Schweitzer considers them the first of the modern lives of Jesus.1
Such works often attempted to invent Jesus’ internal motivations and speculate on other aspects of his life, even in areas where the Gospels are silent. The typical approach was to postulate the existence of a secret organization or association. Often this was the Essenes, who were portrayed as being leading, but secret, members of society, and hence were able to manipulate events and circumstances in Jesus’ life. But Schweitzer refers to these plot theses as “rather a sorry makeshift.”2
Karl Bahrdt wrote one of the earliest attempts, a multi-volumed effort, from 1784–1792. For Bahrdt, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were Essenes who sought to keep secret their identity. At an early age, Jesus got involved with this clandestine order and later was viewed as a valued member. Through the efforts of this secret group, Jesus staged his “miracles.” Luke was particularly responsible for the healings. The Essenes also plotted Jesus’ death, and Luke administered drugs, causing Jesus to survive crucifixion. Afterwards, Jesus was nursed back to health, which allowed him to make several visits to his followers.3
Perhaps the best known and most imitated of the fictitious lives of Jesus was written by Karl Venturini from 1800–1802. From his youth, Jesus was protected and trained by the Essenes. The “miracles” he performed during his public ministry were not really supernatural. His healings, for example, were effected by medicines. Venturini did not invent a plot surrounding Jesus’ death, and Jesus actually expected to die. But Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus noticed signs that Jesus might still be alive while they were preparing his body for burial. They signaled the Essenes, who later removed his body. After having recovered somewhat, Jesus was periodically seen by his disciples.4
Later, fictitious lives by writers such as Gfrörer (written between 1831 and 1838), Hennell (1838) and Salvator (1838) all postulated that the Essenes were involved in many aspects of Jesus’ ministry. All three authors likewise asserted that Jesus was nursed back to health by the Essenes after his crucifixion so that he could visit his followers.5
Each of these writers conjectured that Jesus did not die by crucifixion, but was nursed back to health by the members of a secret group, and recovered sufficiently enough to visit with his disciples.6 Such attempts to construct a speculative life of Jesus attracted very little scholarly attention. They were plainly based on supposition and thus could add little to more serious historical studies, as noted by Schweitzer.
The Classical Period
The nineteenth century was the classical period of Protestant Liberalism. Often dated from the publication of Schleiermacher’s On Religion7 in 1799 until World War I, these decades probably produced the largest number of “lives of Jesus.” In fact, this period of thought is sometimes characterized by these volumes.
However, Jesus was not depicted as he was portrayed in the Gospels. The emphasis in the majority of these studies was on Jesus as a great example for living, with the implication that we should pattern our lives after his. But at least two key elements in the Gospels were usually either denied or ignored. Supernatural aspects such as Jesus’ miracles were treated as nonhistorical. Further, dogmatic theology was eschewed, especially the doctrine of Jesus’ deity. It was assumed that, while Jesus was an outstanding moral pattern, he was only a man.
An example may serve to illustrate the liberal methodology. In the early phase of the movement, the predominant approach to Jesus’ miracles was to rationalize them, most often by explaining how something that the Gospel writers considered to be supernatural could really be understood better as the normal operation of nature. This was a carryover from the deistic thinking of the previous century.8 In his life of Jesus, published in 1828, Heinrich Paulus treated a fair amount of the New Testament text as historical, but he supplied naturalistic explanations of the miraculous elements. He thought that understanding the secondary causes behind the purported miracles would serve to explain what “really” happened.9
David Strauss’ Life of Jesus, published just a few years later in 1835, presented a serious and influential challenge to Paulus’ classic approach. Strauss supplanted the rationalistic replacement method with a mythical strategy that questioned many reports about the historical Jesus. He held that the Gospels were chiefly mythological documents that utilized normal description in order to depict transcendental ideas in seemingly historical garb. The overall purpose of the New Testament language was to express essentially inexpressible truths in a manner that allowed them to be more readily applied to life.10