Intermission: The Carpenter's Son of Nazareth

The search for who Jesus is, what he did, and why that matters (or doesn’t matter) has accelerated over the last several decades. The official “quest” began with Hermann Reimarus, a German philosopher and writer; an outspoken deist, he’s credited with beginning what the later German scholar Albert Schweitzer called “The Quest for the Historical Jesus.” D.F. Strauss took the Quest to the next level with his own biography of Jesus, in which he denied Jesus’ divinity and attributed gospel miracles to natural events that the unenlightened first-century Jews misunderstood and thus misinterpreted. Since the Quest was born out of the Enlightenment, Strauss’ claims weren’t shots out of a vacuum but dispelled from a predominantly Enlightenment-infused approach to the gospels. The French philosopher Ernest Renan took a similar approach, construing Jesus as an historical person with no divinity. The Quest’s search for the historical Jesus (which was nothing more than a deconstruction of the biblical record through the lens of “enlightened” deist thought) didn’t come absent opponents: the famous German theologian Martin Kähler argued that the real Jesus was the one preached by the scriptures, not a mere historical hypothesis. Albert Schweitzer, the one who coined the movement’s emblem, argued that the gospels say less about Jesus than they do about the gospel writers’ biases. Protests emerged, namely in the biblical scholars Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann; Bultmann, though standing against Schweitzer, didn’t argue for a divine Jesus but, rather, argued that the only thing we can truly know for certain about him is that he existed. Out of this first wave of the Quest came the foundation for the epic dichotomy between “The Jesus of Faith” and “The Jesus of History.” 

The Quest went into a fizzle to be later recapitulated by a series of scholars who focused on form criticism (how the New Testament came together) and argued for the hypothetical document Q; earlier approaches to the historical Jesus focused on what’s called Markan priority, the idea that since the Gospel of Mark probably came first, the best way to understand Jesus is to study Mark’s gospel. This new wave of study focused on the hypothetical Q, which these scholars perceived to be an original albeit lost gospel from which Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all derived. The gospel of John remained its own peculiar breed and was all but lost in the hubbub of form criticism. The prominent biblical scholar of this time was Ernst Käsemann, a Lutheran student of Bultmann. 

A more recent movement, known as the Third Quest, focused and continues to focus on the social history of Jesus’ day and the use of non-canonical sources. These scholars (the most renown being Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg) seek to rework Jesus in various ways, their most notable accomplishment being the so-called “Jesus Seminar,” in which they deduced (more by presupposition than anything else) that Jesus was an itinerant Hellenistic-Jewish sage who preached, via strange tales and aphorisms, a sort of “social gospel”; he broke free from the restraints of Jewish norms, both when it came to Jewish theology and social conventions, and this nonconformity led to his death on the cross. He was executed because he was a nuisance and a troublemaker. As to the resurrection, the Jesus Seminar shouts a fiery “No!” Dominic Crossan speculated that Jesus probably hung on the cross for several days, slowly being torn apart by birds and wild dogs. While the Third Quest is most known for the “here and gone” Jesus Seminar, there are more scholars within the actual Quest who oppose the findings of the Seminar. This opposition sets itself starkly against the assumptions of the more liberal scholars, claiming that Jesus was a proto-rabbi announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. The opposition clings to a more Jewish background and understanding of Jesus, focusing on Jesus within the constraints of the first-century atmosphere of Jewish culture and religion. Most notable among these are Bruce Chilton, James Dunn, E.P. Sanders, and N.T. Wright.

The question is begged: What’s the point? Most people assume that Christians generally believe all the same things about Jesus; suffice to say, many of the scholars involved in the Quest for the historical Jesus are legitimate Christians who love God and their fellow man and are committed to Christ and his kingdom. Our current understandings of Jesus haven’t been without influence from the Quest. The Quest has influenced how we perceive Jesus, and even those most detached from the Quest—even those who know nothing about it!—aren’t free from its influence. Our presuppositions and perceptions about Jesus aren’t born out of a vacuum, nor even out of a “simple reading of the gospels,” but are, rather, influenced by the movement in minor and major ways.

One of the most common views among non-Christians is that Jesus was some sort of great moral teacher, a man who talked about loving your neighbor as yourself and going the second mile, a pacifist who puts even the most conservative Quakers to shame, who was one of the greatest hippies to ever walk the earth. This perception is fueled by the findings of the Jesus Seminar (though the “hippie” idea, while prevalent, isn’t what Jesus Seminarians would advocate). Within conservative Christianity, there is the contrarian view that Jesus is God and that he came to die on the cross for everyone’s sins so that we can go to heaven when we die (rather than going to hell, which is a harsh ordeal). Even this view gives much credence to the foundation of the Enlightenment and the heavy-rollers of the Quest’s beginnings. One must always be honest, and I confess that the produce of the Third Quest (specifically the works from those opposed to the liberalities of the Jesus Seminar) have influenced the way I understand the carpenter’s son of Nazareth. E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, N.T. Wright, and Bruce Chilton have all influenced how I read scripture and understand Jesus.

A wise old man once told me, “You must always establish your assumptions.” Throughout the entirety of the retelling of the Christian saga, my assumptions regarding Jesus are as follows: Jesus was the son of a Jewish carpenter, and he was known as a prophet akin to the prophet Jeremiah. He preached the kingdom of God and spoke of coming judgment on Jerusalem and, specifically, on her Temple. He was crucified not as a nuisance but, rather, because he was a blasphemer, and his deliberate actions in the Temple cemented his fate at the hands of the Jewish authorities. He died and rose again three days later, and his resurrection vindicated him over against his enemies and testified to his ultimate victory over evil: in the cross, he defeated evil, and in raising from the dead, evil’s ultimate handhold (death) was torn apart. Jesus defeated evil, reconstituted Israel around himself, swallowed up the Temple in himself, and he is now enthroned with God. He is with God, he is God, and he is Messiah. 

These are foundational assumptions, and while my assumptions run much longer, they certainly don’t run shorter. 

Do I fancy Jesus to be Messiah? 

Yes. 

Is it what I want him to be? 

Absolutely. 

Mere wishful thinking isn’t enough for someone who seeks the truth, and my assumptions are grounded in what I believe to be valid historical, theological, and philosophical argumentation. I won’t attempt to argue for every “jot and tittle” of my assumptions; I’ll leave that up to brilliant and wizened men and women. With these assumptions established, we march straight into Act IV: the Coming of the Messiah.