Quest for the historical Jesus

This article is about the history of academic Jesus research. For discussion of the historical evidence of his existence, see Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus. For the book by Albert Schweitzer, see The Quest of the Historical Jesus.
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The quest for the historical Jesus consists of academic efforts to determine what words and actions, if any, may be attributed to Jesus, and to use the findings to provide portraits of the historical Jesus.[1] Conventionally, since the 18th century three scholarly quests for the historical Jesus are distinguished, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during each specific phase.[2][3][4] These quests are distinguished from earlier approaches because they rely on the historical method to study biblical narratives. While textual analysis of biblical sources had taken place for centuries, these quests introduced new methods and specific techniques to establish the historical validity of their conclusions.[5]

The enthusiasm shown during the first quest diminished after Albert Schweitzer's critique of 1906 in which he pointed out various shortcomings in the approaches used at the time. The second quest began in 1953 and introduced a number of new techniques but reached a plateau in the 1970s.[6] In the 1980s, a number of scholars gradually began to introduce new research ideas,[2][7] initiating a third quest characterized by the latest research approaches.[6][8] Since the late 2000s, concerns have been growing about the usefulness of the criteria of authenticity[9] and proclamations of a more expansive and genuinely interdisciplinary Next Quest.[10]

While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus[a][11] and a basic consensus on the general outline of his life,[12] the portraits of Jesus constructed in the quests have often differed from each other and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts.[13][14] There are overlapping attributes among the portraits and, while pairs of scholars may agree on some attributes, those same scholars may differ on other attributes. There is no single portrait of the historical Jesus that satisfies most scholars.[15][16][17]

  1. ^ Powell 1998, pp. 13–15.
  2. ^ a b Witherington, Ben III (1997). The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (second expanded ed.). InterVersity Press. pp. 9–13. ISBN 0830815449.
  3. ^ Theissen & Winter 2002, pp. 1–6.
  4. ^ Powell 1998, pp. 19–23.
  5. ^ Porter 2004, pp. 100–120.
  6. ^ a b Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 2–6. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Symbol41 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Porter 2004, pp. 28–29.
  9. ^ Keith & Le Donne 2012.
  10. ^ Crossley, James (September 2021). "The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus". Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 19 (3): 261–264. doi:10.1163/17455197-19030003.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Grantmajority was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference AmyJill4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Theissen & Winter 2002, p. 5.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Charlesworth2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Köstenberger, Kellum & Quarles 2009, pp. 124–125.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference familiar20 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Amy-Jill Levine in The Historical Jesus in Context edited by Amy-Jill Levine et al., Princeton University Press 2006 ISBN 978-0-691-00992-6 p. 1: "no single picture of Jesus has convinced all, or even most scholars"


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