CHAPTER 23
The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Appraisal
Helen K. Bond
The dominant view today seems to be that we can know pretty well what Jesus was out to
accomplish, [and] that we can know a lot about what he said. (Sanders 1985, 2)
The figure of Jesus has always aroused interest and inquiry, both from the devoted and from his
detractors. It is only since the Enlightenment and the rise of biblical criticism, however, that it
has been thought possible and even worthwhile to attempt to separate the "historical Jesus" who
walked the Galilean hills from the "Christ of faith" preached by the Christian church. With this
development, the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" was born, manifesting itself in a number of
distinctive phases over the last two centuries. The aim of this chapter is to offer an assessment of
the quest, particularly its most recent phase. What are the distinguishing features of modern
("Third Quest") Jesus research? What are the most disputed areas? Where is the quest most open
to criticism? And what are the ways forward for future research? First, though, a few words
about the Quest as a whole.
1
Quest or Quests? Messiness and Disorder
The Quest, as any introductory textbook will verify, is usually divided into four broad periods:
the Old Quest (from Reimarus to Schweitzer, 1778-1906); the period of No Quest (from
Schweitzer to Käsemann, 1906-1953); the New Quest (from Käsemann, 1953 to roughly 1985);
and the Third Quest (roughly from 1985 to the present). As an initial orientation, this scheme is
certainly useful in mapping the broad contours of research into the life of Jesus. Yet, it is clearly
an over-simplification, and like all over-simplifications there comes a point when the four-fold
schema may begin to obscure rather than to clarify—as a few examples will illustrate.
1. It is well known nowadays that the Quest did not really start as a "bolt from the blue" with
Reimarus; rather he developed and synthesized views already current elsewhere, particularly
amongst the English Deists (Brown 1985). It is true that Schweitzer began his highly influential
book The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) with the Hamburg professor, but Schweitzer was
writing very much from his own late nineteenth-century German context and took little interest
in scholarship outside his native land (Bowman 1949, Gathercole 2000).
More problematic is the period designated "No Quest." This title ignores the works of
eminent scholars such as T. W. Manson, C. H. Dodd and Joachim Jeremias, all of whom
published works on Jesus in the early twentieth century, not to mention important books by
Jewish scholars such as Joseph Klausner (1925), whose work in some respects foreshadowed a
number of third-quest assumptions. Furthermore, it quietly draws a veil over highly dubious
scholarship from the Nazi era, some of it arguing for an Aryan Jesus (a topic to which we shall
return below). The majority of New Testament researchers may well have been more interested
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in studying the composition of the gospels and the creativity of the early church at this period,
but the broad label "no quest" is, at best, misleading (Marsh 1997).
And finally we have the problem of the "Third Quest": who is included and who is not? N. T.
Wright, who coined the phrase (Neill and Wright 1988), redefined it some years later to include
only those who presented an apocalyptic Jesus (Wright 1996); the non-apocalyptic Jesus
presented by the Jesus Seminar and those associated with it (Crossan, Borg) was not included, an
assessment shared by the Seminar itself, which seems to locate its work more within the New
Quest. Most historical Jesus scholars, however, use the term much more inclusively to refer to
everyone involved in historical-critical reconstruction of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, though
some prefer "Life of Jesus Research" (Telford 1994) or simply "Jesus Research" (Charlesworth
2006). In what follows, I shall use all these terms interchangeably, simply to refer to the most
recent surge of interest in Jesus since the mid-1980s.
2. It is also important to note that the usual, linear trajectory gives the rather misleading
impression that research is moving in a straight line, and that there is a sense of “progress.” In
fact, things are much more cyclical than this (Carleton Paget 2001). Strauss’ thoroughgoing use
of “myth” in relation to the gospel stories anticipated the work a century later of Bultmann;
Schweitzer’s apocalyptic prophet was recreated to some extent in the work of Sanders; and some
see in the work of certain members of the Jesus Seminar a return not so much to the New Quest
as to the Liberal Lives of the nineteenth century (Dunn 2003). In any analysis of the various
quests, it is as important to stress the continuity and parallels between the various phases as what
distinguishes them.
3. The Quest also suggests a unity of purpose and goal which cannot be assumed for its
contributors over the centuries. The Old Quest grew out of Enlightenment rationalism and had a
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distinct anti-dogmatic motivation; the New Quest, arising from a post-Bultmannian desire to
recover the core of Jesus’ teaching, had a much more theological agenda; and the Third Quest (as
we shall see later) encompasses a diverse group of people, aims, and methods. Each phase of the
Quest was clearly interested in the first-century man from Nazareth, but the motivations and
presuppositions behind this interest diverged significantly from one to another.
4. Finally, Jesus Research clearly cannot be viewed in isolation, as if it existed in a vacuum
distinct from Western culture as a whole. The Liberal Lives of the nineteenth century were
clearly influenced by the artistic Romantic movement; the devastating legacy of two world wars
in the early twentieth century left its impact on many aspects of Jesus scholarship; and the
proliferation of profiles and methods in the most recent phase of research can hardly be unrelated
to postmodern culture. Jesus research, like any discipline in the humanities, mirrors its historical
and sociological setting. Changes in the landscape of New Testament studies have also left their
mark: e.g., archaeological discoveries (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi
library) and greater scholarly receptiveness to insights from the social sciences.
The story of the Quest needs constant revision. Decisions need to be taken over what is
included and what is not, and where to locate significant turning points and new trajectories,
which are often observable only in retrospect. Useful evaluations include Telford (1994), Wright
(1996), Marsh (1997), Powell (1998), Meier (1999), Carleton Paget (2001), du Toit (2001), and
Evans (2006). What is abundantly clear, though, is that the last thirty years or so have seen a new
and exciting phase in Jesus research, characterized by diverse methods and an almost
bewildering array of reconstructions. What, then, does all this work have in common? What is it
that allows us to see this new phase of scholarship as something distinct from what has gone
before?
4
Distinguishing Features of Recent Jesus Research
The modern Quest as an historical enterprise
One of the most striking features about modern Jesus research is its resolutely historical nature.
While earlier phases of the quest were driven by theological or ecclesiastical concerns, the
“historical Jesus” is now seen as a legitimate area of scientific enquiry, subject to the same
constraints and methods of historical reconstruction as any other great figure from the past
(Alexander the Great, for example, or the Emperor Augustus). Undoubtedly the main factor here
has been the movement of the center of Jesus study from German theological faculties to secular
University settings in North America (and, to a lesser extent, the British Isles). Contributors are
no longer drawn from exclusively Protestant circles (though they still predominate), but now
include Catholics, Jews, agnostics and secularists. A Christian agenda can no longer determine
the questions (still less the outcomes), and the only language permitted is that of historicalcriticism.
Of course, the appeal to “history” rather than “theology” is not quite so straight-forward as it
might at first appear. Scholars have widely different conceptions of what “history” actually is,
and the methods employed are as diverse as the contributors. Still, the essentially historical rather
than theological nature of the endeavour is now assumed. (We shall return later to some of the
implications of this assumption).
The Jewishness of Jesus
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For many observers, the leading characteristic of third-quest research is the insistence that Jesus
was a Jew (Casey 2005). This is not an entirely new phenomenon: earlier scholarship had
acknowledged Jesus’ Jewishness but had either regarded it as having little relevance (so the
Liberal Lives) or had used it to show Jesus’ inability to transcend the limitations of his own time
and place (Reimarus and Schweitzer). Bultmann’s de-mythologizing approach tended to reduce
the specifics of Jesus’ historical location in favour of a timeless, existentialist challenge, while
the form-critical assumption that much of the gospels derived from the creativity of the early
church directed attention towards nascent Christianity rather than the religion of its founder. The
New Quest accepted that Jesus was a Jew, but was seriously hampered by the “criterion of
double dissimilarity,” which maintained that only material demonstrably at variance with both
the Jewish milieu and the early church could be regarded as genuinely from Jesus (Perrin 1967).
Not surprisingly, as many have observed, this criterion produced a Jesus strangely at odds with
his Jewish environment (not to mention the church which followed him!).
What is distinctive about the Third Quest is its insistence that Jesus needs to be seen not
against his Jewish environment, but very much as belonging to it, as someone within the firstcentury Jewish world and its structures. Part of the spur here was the fact that scholars came to
appreciate more fully the diversity of Second Temple Judaism in the wake of the discovery of the
Dead Sea Scrolls. The surge of interest that these scrolls awakened led to the breakdown of the
division that scholars had erected between Judaism and Hellenism, the end of the assumption
that rabbinic attitudes could be read back into the first century, and the publication of a number
of significant works challenging the characterization of Judaism as legalistic (most notably
Sanders 1977). While New Questers presupposed a “normative,” monolithic Judaism of works-
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righteousness against which Jesus stood out, the Third Quest imagines Jesus operating within an
extremely complex and diverse understanding of Second Temple Judaism. The question now is
not so much “Was Jesus a Jew?” (the affirmative answer is assumed), but to which of the many
branches of first-century Judaism did Jesus belong: apocalyptic, sapiential, prophetic, or
sectarian (Essene, hasidic, Pharisaic, nationalist)? In other words, “What kind of a Jew was
Jesus?” If the criterion of dissimilarity has not been entirely abandoned by recent research, it is
used much more cautiously, while some prefer to replace it with a “criterion of plausibility,” in
which the significant question is whether Jesus’ actions make sense within a Palestinian setting
(Theissen and Winter 2002).
In view of the importance of Jesus’ context, reconstructing the Jewish world of the first
century is now central for Jesus scholars. It is necessary to know details not only of religious
observance, but also of the social, cultural, economic, and political strands of life so intertwined
in an ancient setting. Studies of Galilee in particular have proliferated, detailing the degree of
Hellenization in the region, the extent and effect of Antipas’ urbanization policies, relations
between village and city, settlement patterns, taxation, and so on (see L. Levine 1992; Meyers
1999; Reed 2000; Chancey 2002; Jensen 2006). Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly
popular, often drawing on sociological models developed by cultural anthropology and the social
sciences more generally in an attempt to understand peasant societies, honor and shame, purity,
patron and client relationships, and millenarian movements (so Oakman 1986; Horsley 1987;
Crossan 1991; Borg 1998; Allison 1998). Archaeological excavations, too, have played a crucial
role: historical Jesus scholars now take an interest in site reports from a variety of locations
throughout Israel—Jerusalem, Caesarea Maritima, Sepphoris, Capernaum, and Bethsaida
(Charlesworth 2006). The social and religious lives of women, along with the reconstruction of
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gender in the first century, have also become important (see, for example, Ilan 1996; Kraemer
and D’Angelo 1999).
Literary texts continue to occupy a central position in historical reconstruction, but Jesus
scholars now move beyond the information furnished by the gospels alone and consult a much
wider range of contemporary literature. Recent decades have seen more sophisticated studies of
Josephus (Freyne 1988; Mason 2003) and Jewish sectarian literature (Charlesworth 1982;
Sanders 1985; Rowland 2002), particularly the Dead Sea Scrolls (Vermes 1997), the targums
(Chilton 1984), and the New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Schneemelcher 199192; Robinson 1988). Although not all the authors mentioned in the last two paragraphs would
regard themselves primarily as “Jesus scholars,” their work has provided invaluable guidance in
situating Jesus within a realistic first-century environment. And this interest in the Jewish
environment, and Jesus’ place in it, leads to our third distinguishing feature of third-quest
research: its preference for what we might call the “larger picture.”
Focus on the larger picture rather than sayings
The New Quest focused all its attention on the sayings of Jesus; this was perhaps only to be
expected, given the high store set by Protestants on “the Word” and the tendency of the form
critics generally to regard narrative sections of the gospels as “legendary compositions.” While
some still prefer to start with sayings (e.g., the Jesus Seminar; Crossan 1991; Meier 1991-2009),
a striking feature of the majority of modern Jesus scholars is their confidence that it is possible to
present a much more rounded picture of Jesus, his role, and his significance in his ancient
setting. The search for the actual words of Jesus (the ipsissima verba) has now given way to
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broader questions: What were Jesus’ aims? Where do we locate him within first-century
Judaism? How did he relate to his contemporaries (social outcasts, women, the Jewish leadership
and the religiously impure)? Why did he die? And how can we explain the movement which
followed him?
The approach of Sanders (1985) may be considered paradigmatic. Sanders starts with a
reconstruction of both first-century Judaism and what he regards as “indisputable facts” relating
to Jesus’ life. These include baptism by John, calling of the twelve, preaching the Kingdom of
God, the demonstration in the Temple, and crucifixion. Sanders sees the Temple controversy as
central, so he starts his investigation at this point, interpreting Jesus’ actions within the wider
setting of Jewish restoration eschatology. Jesus, for Sanders, was an apocalyptic prophet,
announcing the establishment of a new Temple and the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel.
It is only once this broader picture is in place that various gospel sayings, after some analysis, are
placed into the framework. Most recent Jesus work has followed this basic pattern. There is still
an interest in criteria for determining which sayings of Jesus are most authentic (multiple
attestation, coherence, and embarrassment are popular), but this is very much secondary to
establishing the broader context.
This general concern to establish the “larger picture,” however, is as far as the agreement
goes. To a large extent, whichever aspect a scholar emphasizes in Jesus’ context determines the
resultant portrait of Jesus. Where healing is seen as central, Jesus is presented as a magician (M.
Smith 1978) or a charismatic healer and exorcist in the line of Honi the Circle Drawer or Hanina
ben Dosa (Vermes 1973). If apocalyptic eschatology is the defining element, Jesus is
characterized as an eschatological prophet of restoration (Sanders 1985; Meier 1994). Where
teaching takes center stage, Jesus is seen as a sage or rabbi (Flusser with Notley 2007; Chilton
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1984), a Pharisee (Maccoby 2003), a wisdom teacher preaching a radical egalitarianism
(Schüssler Fiorenza 1983), a subversive sage (Borg 1998), or a social revolutionary (Horsley
1987). And those who argue for a strong Hellenistic influence on Galilee often categorize Jesus
as a Cynic teacher (Downing 1992; Mack 1993; Crossan 1991). Despite their different emphases,
however, all these reconstructions represent attempts to situate Jesus firmly within his Jewish
environment, and to show his significance within that setting.
It is already apparent, however, that historical Jesus scholars are far from reaching a
consensus on who Jesus was. Once we go beyond the three broad areas which I have
highlighted—a commitment to the historical method, the certainty that Jesus was a Jew, and a
concern to present the larger picture within a Jewish context—division and diversity reign. We
shall now explore some of the main areas of disagreement.
Disputed Areas
Sources for the Study of Jesus
Until the nineteenth century, it was assumed that all four gospels were equally valid sources for
the life of Jesus. Two events, however, shattered this confidence. First, was Strauss’s forceful
presentation of the theological nature of John’s gospel and his consequent insistence that
historical reconstructions should utilize only the Synoptic Gospels (1835). This was followed,
secondly, by a growing acceptance of the “two document” hypothesis, in which Mark was
regarded as the earliest gospel and seen as the source (along with another document, Q) behind
both Matthew and Luke (Streeter 1924). Although it had to be admitted that Mark, like all the
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gospels, had a theological agenda, the question of sources had been raised, and the assumption
made that the earliest (and least obviously theological) was to be preferred. The New Quest,
consequently, confined itself to analyses of the Synoptics; even Dodd’s valiant attempts to
unearth historical traditions in the Fourth Gospel failed to have much of an impact (1963).
Today, however, the question of sources has been reopened and debated like never before.
This springs, partly, from a general revival of scholarly interest in apocryphal (non-canonical)
literature, but is also fuelled, in some circles, by a desire to move away from what is seen as the
constraints of an ecclesiastically determined canon (Hedrick 1988) or, for some, a desire to
embrace it. The (hypothetical) document Q, believed by some to be from Galilee and to date to
the 50s, has been analyzed and stratified into three literary layers (sapiential, apocalyptic and a
final redaction), each with a discernible theology(Kloppenborg 1987) While some take the first
of these layers as early evidence for the historical Jesus (for example, Crossan 1991),
Kloppenborg himself warns against such naïve assumptions (1996), and still others doubt the
possibility of redactional analysis on a non-extant document (Van Voorst 2000; Dunn 2003).
Most divisive of the non-canonical gospels is the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, a copy of which was
found in the Nag Hammadi library. While the majority date it to the second century, and regard it
as both Gnostic and in all probability dependent on the canonical gospels, others argue that it
may preserve more authentic traditions than the canonical gospels (Patterson 1993). Crossan
vigorously defends the “Cross Gospel,” a Passion Narrative he dates to the 40s and finds
embedded within the second century Gospel of Peter (1988). Less controversially, the historicity
of the Fourth Gospel has been reopened, with a number of scholars accepting John’s more
complex relationship between Jesus and the Baptist, his longer three-year ministry, his Jesus who
regularly attends Jewish feasts in Jerusalem, his more realistic depiction of Jesus’ Jewish
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interrogation, and his dating of Jesus’ death on the Day of Preparation (D. M. Smith 2001;
Anderson, Just, and Thatcher 2007).
It is impossible to underestimate the importance of sources in this whole enterprise: the
sources on which a scholar bases his or her reconstruction will fundamentally determine what
kind of Jesus emerges. In general terms, the more liberal the scholar, the more likely s/he is to
seek to use material beyond the four gospels. It is hardly an accident that the Jesus of Sanders,
Wright, or Dunn looks and sounds very much like the Synoptic Jesus on which their
reconstructions are exclusively based. Bringing John into the matrix (so Meier 1991-2009;
Fredriksen 2005) creates a subtly different picture, but one still very much in continuity with
older reconstructions and recognizable in ecclesiastical circles. Once precedence is given to other
sources, however, whether a putative earliest strand of Q or sayings from the Gospel of Thomas
(so Crossan 1991; Mack 1993; and the Jesus Seminar generally), the reconstructed Jesus begins
to look rather different. His death and its significance become much less prominent, since neither
Q nor the Gospel of Thomas have passion narratives or give any explicit importance to Jesus’
crucifixion; and the apocalyptic element so central to many Synoptic texts gives way to a portrait
of Jesus as a slightly Gnostic wisdom teacher. In fact, the whole question as to whether the
apocalyptic sayings in the tradition go back to the historical Jesus or to the early church is a
particularly divisive issue in modern Jesus studies, and one to which we shall now turn.
Did Jesus preach an apocalyptic eschatology?
Following Schweitzer (1906), it was taken for granted that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who
expected the imminent intervention of God in a decisive cosmic cataclysm which would sweep
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away this world and inaugurate a new creation. The centrality of theologies of hope after the
devastation of the Second World War reinforced this understanding (Kloppenborg 2005), as did
the vivid apocalyptic eschatology revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Although it was accepted
that there was an element of the “here and now” in Jesus’ kingdom language (see in particular
Dodd’s “realized eschatology,” 1935), the stress throughout the New Quest continued to be on
the imminent future arrival of God’s kingdom, and the view that Jesus was an apocalyptic
prophet is still the dominant position today (see for example the reconstructions of Sanders 1985;
Wright 1996; Allison 1998; Ehrman 1999; Fredriksen 1999; Meier 1991-2009; Dunn 2003).
Proponents of this view stress the flourishing of apocalyptic and millenarian beliefs within some
strands of contemporary Jewish thought (such as 1 Enoch, the Sybylline Oracles, and the
Testament of Moses). They argue that since both Jesus’ predecessor, John the Baptist, and his
earliest followers (including Paul) held an apocalyptic outlook in which Jesus would return to
herald God’s judgement, it seems only logical that Jesus himself held such a view. They also
stress the centrality of certain key passages within the tradition (such as Mark 9:1; 13:30; Matt
10:23). Other arguments can be brought too: Amy-Jill Levine (2005) suggests that Jesus’
teaching on sexuality (followed by Paul and the early church) assumes that his is the last
generation and that the world is about to end.
Since the 1980s, however, a number of scholars, particularly in the United States, have begun
to challenge this position (in particular, the Jesus Seminar and many of its members: Crossan
1991, Borg 1998, Mack 1993). Was Jesus’ teaching really apocalyptic, or was the stress rather
on the present and on what humans need to do to bring about the kingdom of God in their own
lives? Many would still regard Jesus as “eschatological” (in that he had some sense of the end of
things, of the establishment of the kingdom) but reject the view that he was an apocalyptist
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preaching the imminent end of the world through the decisive action of God. A great deal
depends on what is counted primary material. Do the sayings which predict the future
vindication of the “Son of Man,” for example, originate with Jesus or with the post-Easter
church? How much weight should be given to reconstructions of Q which suggest that the
earliest layers of tradition lacked apocalyptic orientation? And are the apocalyptic-sounding
kingdom passages to be understood literally or metaphorically? Did Jesus break with John the
Baptist on the question of apocalyptic eschatology (as he did in other areas, such as his rejection
of John’s ascetic lifestyle), only for it to be reinstated by the post-Easter fervour of the early
church? And does Jesus’ love of celebration sit awkwardly with an apocalyptic message in which
the world is about the pass away (so Funk 2000)?
Decisions on (the degree of) Jesus’ apocalypticism colour scholars’ assessments of his
teaching. In general terms, the more Jesus is seen as an apocalyptic prophet, announcing the
imminent end of the world, the more he is seen as an other-worldly figure and the less interest he
appears to have with worldly concerns or social reform. If, however, one rejects the apocalyptic
Jesus, this-worldly issues become more prominent, and Jesus emerges as a social prophet with a
specific programme. It is largely (though not exclusively) amongst those advocating a nonapocalyptic Jesus, therefore, that the greatest attention is paid to Jesus as a social reformer, or
even revolutionary, as we shall see below.
A social and political revolutionary?
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Precisely which aspects of society are targeted by Jesus’ critique depends to a large extent on
scholars’ analyses of the “problems” of first-century Galilean and Judaean society, though there
are several areas of overlap.
Borg (1998), for example, argues that Jesus set himself against the “politics of holiness”
which permeated first century society. Like the Hebrew prophets before him, he preached instead
the unmediated compassion of God. For Schüssler Fiorenza (1983), the problem was society’s
oppressive patriarchy; she sees Jesus as the leader of a Jewish renewal movement, a
“discipleship of equals” based on inclusivity, egalitarianism, and a rejection of all forms of
hierarchy and control. Horsley (1987) presents Jesus as a (non-violent) political rebel and
revolutionary; his Jesus set himself not only against Roman imperialism (as to varying extents
did the Jesus of Reimarus, Schweitzer and Brandon 1967), but also against deeper societal
injustices: political oppression, hierarchical structures, and unequal distribution of power,
privilege, and wealth (see also Oakman 1986). Crossan (1991), too, regards Jesus as a countercultural Cynic teacher inaugurating a “brokerless kingdom of God,” a social and political
revolutionary promoting religious and economic egalitarianism through free healing and
common eating.
Most of these presentations reconstruct a Galilee in which heavy Herodian taxation and
urbanization, coupled with priestly oppression, contributed to debt, land loss, and the rise of
brigandage. Jesus’ message, therefore, was one of hope to the economically and politically
oppressed. Not surprisingly, perhaps, those who argue for an apocalyptic Jesus often tend to have
a more positive assessment of conditions under Antipas (for example, Sanders 1985; Meier
1991-2009; Dunn 2003). Although there were clearly injustices in contemporary society, and
Jesus spoke out against them in his parables and other teaching, they were not the central
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concern for the apocalyptic Jesus. Once again, the way in which a scholar reconstructs the firstcentury context plays an important role in determining the resulting portrait of Jesus and his role
within society.
Critique of the Quest
We have now looked at both some shared features of modern Jesus research and areas of
considerable divergence. Is this lack of consensus a problem? And does the lack of secure results
undermine the whole project? In this final section, we shall look at critiques of the Quest, both
from Jesus researchers themselves and from outside observers.
It has to be acknowledged at the outset that the Quest is open to criticism on a number of
grounds. It is often said to be too western, too white, too bourgeois (Georgi 1992) and too male
(aside from Schüssler Fiorenza, Fredriksen, and Corley [2002], very few women write “Jesus
books”). The Quest has also been criticized for not taking into account the reconstructions of
liberation theologians and third-world scholars, who often do not work within traditional
historical paradigms. The lack of any kind of clear and agreed-on methodology is also a
difficulty for some, not to mention the lack of consensus as to how this might be rectified. The
Jesus Seminar’s reliance on a wider group of sources has been criticized by their opponents
(Johnson 1996; Meier 1999; Bock 2002); many question the existence of Cynic traditions in
Galilee in the first century; and even the use of sociological models is not uncontroversial (see
the critique in Sawicki 2000). And the tendency of some Jesus scholars to court media attention,
while beneficial in ensuring popular interest in the founder of Christianity, has the less
advantageous effect of promoting more sensational views.
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Perhaps the best known criticism of the Quest, however, is its subjectivity. It is often said
that those who look for the historical Jesus end up seeing only their own reflection at the bottom
of a deep well. In the following paragraphs, I shall focus on this critique. Is it true? Can it be
avoided? And should it be avoided?
One of Schweitzer’s most powerful arguments against the Liberal Lives was that they had
made Jesus into a nineteenth-century German who provided a relevant example for their own
day. The charge that researchers make Jesus in their own image, and concerned with their own
concerns, is a persistent and important one. It is also one which is much easier to see in others
than oneself. Ironically, even Schweitzer’s Jesus, whom he categorized as a “stranger and an
enigma,” served his own purposes of liberating the “spiritual Christ” rather well (Bowman
1949). As Kloppenborg (2005) notes, it is not so much that scholars construct a Jesus whom they
like, as that there is a tendency to conceptualize a Jesus who accords with (or fails to accord
with) their worldviews.
A few examples will illustrate this. One of the most glaring cases of agenda-driven research
comes from Nazi Germany. Jesus books from this period exhibit an appalling anti-Semitism. An
early example was the popular and bestselling work of Chamberlain (1899, in its 29th German
edition by 1944), which argued that Jesus belonged to the mixed ethnic group brought into
Galilee after the Assyrian deportation, and that he might possibly be of Aryan stock. More
academically, Grundmann (1940) similarly argued that Jesus was probably not racially a Jew,
even though his family held to the Jewish “confession,” and that he stridently opposed the
Judaism of his day. Grundmann’s views, though completely discredited now, are a particularly
good example of how assumptions and biases arising from a scholar’s own situation can
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influence his portrait of the historical Jesus (see discussion in Heschel 2008; Head 2004; Casey
2005).
At the opposite extreme, the Jesus of Vermes and Sanders has been criticized for
downplaying the opposition between Jesus and his co-religionists to such an extent that it
becomes difficult to account for his death (so, for example, Casey 2005). The implicit criticism
here is that these scholars have produced a Jesus who is too Jewish, that they are so concerned to
move away from outdated pictures of “normative Judaism” that they have blurred distinctions
and disputes between Jesus and his fellow Jews. In a similar vein, Holmén (2001) notes that
third-quest researchers emphasize Jesus’ Jewishness while the new understanding of the
diversity of first-century Jewish belief renders such assertions meaningless. What does it actually
mean to say that Jesus was Jewish? And at what stage, in the variegated landscape, might a
researcher argue that he was not Jewish? Jesus is held to a greater conformity to “common
Judaism” (to use Sanders’ well-known phrase) than any other first-century Jew. Not surprisingly,
perhaps, several researchers (Holmén 2001; Arnal 2005) see the Third Quest’s insistence on
Jesus’ Jewishness as a reaction to the Holocaust, as a reflection of (predominantly Christian)
guilt, and an attempt at atonement. This may also account for the fact that Jesus is nearly always
presented as someone who looks broadly like a Jew today: despite scholarly awareness of the
diverse character of first-century Judaism, Jesus is rarely seen as anything other than Torahobservant and upholding the traditions of Israel. Indeed, as Arnal notes, those who stress a
Hellenized, Cynic teacher often find themselves accused of presenting a non-Jewish Jesus. The
simple phrase “Jesus the Jew,” then, while clearly historical at a basic level, may stand as a
cipher for a whole host of modern concerns—from scholarly and societal guilt to the
construction of Jewish and Christian religious identity.
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The Jesus Seminar, and the works of those associated with it, have been particularly
criticized for producing a Jesus curiously attractive to modern concerns (see Johnson 1996).
Their Jesus—a “hippy in a world of Augustan yuppies” who challenged hierarchy and
“organized religion”—is deeply unpalatable to those of a more fundamentalist or conservative
persuasion, yet he appeals to many modern people, particularly those outside the church, for
whom the greater stress on social action coupled with a reduced role for dogma and the
supernatural is attractive. Just because a presentation has contemporary relevance, of course,
does not automatically mean that it is unhistorical, but it should make an interpreter stop and
consider.
Most Jesus scholars today, informed by postmodernism, are very much aware that historical
reconstruction is culturally embedded. No one can ever be “neutral”; the situation and interests
of scholars, not to mention those of the communities to which they belong, have an effect on
their reconstructions. While many still aspire to some degree of “objectivity,” there is a growing
sense that Jesus research needs to take postmodernism much more seriously (see the discussions
in Wright 1996; Crossan 1991; Dunn 2003). Crossan in particular declares himself striving after
“attainable honesty” rather than “unattainable objectivity” (1991, xxxiv). One of the advantages
of the wider participation of scholars in the Third Quest is that assumptions and preconceptions
not demonstrably arising from ancient sources can quickly be highlighted and challenged.
But is it always wrong to allow modern concerns to influence our reconstructions,
particularly when the focus of our scholarly endeavours is the founder of a faith which still has
enormous significance today? The answer to this question seems to be mixed. Some would say
that imputing one’s own concerns to Jesus is inadmissible. The “historical Jesus” is a scholarly
construct, a term to denote our best attempt, on the basis of available sources, to reconstruct the
19
life of Jesus of Nazareth. The “real Jesus” of Christianity, or the Christ of faith, though clearly
connected to this construct, is a different matter altogether. Christians are free to assign to the
“real Jesus” whatever values and concerns they deem theologically appropriate, but the same
freedom does not apply to the “historical Jesus.” The construction of ethically useable portraits
of Jesus (to say that he was egalitarian or that he had a social agenda) is of particular concern to
Jewish scholars, who realize that too much stress on Jesus as a reformer potentially suggests that
such concerns were not prevalent within contemporary Jewish society at large. An example of
such stress is the feminist emphasis on Jesus’ egalitarian attitude toward women. The more
Christian feminists emphasized Jesus’ egalitarian agenda, the bleaker the portrait of
contemporary Jewish attitudes towards women became, creating a dichotomy between a “good
and liberating Christianity” and a “bad and restricting Judaism” (Fredriksen 2005, A.-J. Levine
2005).
Those approaching the historical Jesus from a broadly Christian perspective, however, are
perhaps unlikely to have modern issues far from their minds. Although it is criticized for its
“modern” picture of Jesus, one of the intentions of the Jesus Seminar was to reform Christianity,
to present its founder as a social activist with relevance to the secular world rather than as the
Christ of dogma (the implications of this are spelled out in Jesus Seminar 2000). Non-Western
theologians might specifically promote the work of those scholars who see a strong sociopolitical agenda in Jesus’ message, arguing that it speaks more powerfully to the needs of people
in the third world who may similarly be confronted with issues of debt, land tenure, and
exploitation (Sugirtharajah 1990). And from a feminist perspective, Schüssler Fiorenza (2000)
argues that the focus on Jesus as the unique “genius” fails to give enough significance to the
groups of disciples who remembered him, revered him as God incarnate, and formed the earliest
20
Christian communities. Only by focusing on the movement rather than its founder can the many
contributions of women and marginalized men come to the fore and offer an alternative to
Christianity’s deeply patriarchal traditions.
What is needed in all this, besides honesty and self-reflection, is something between
historical positivism (the view that there is some kind of objective, recoverable “truth”) and an
irresponsible desire to modernize Jesus—though the path between the two is extremely difficult
to navigate.
Future inquiries
All indications suggest that Jesus studies are set to continue well into the twenty-first century.
The “historical Jesus” is a credible and lively area of study, within both secular and, increasingly,
more traditional settings. Several features of the Third Quest are now clearly established: the
need for interdisciplinary approaches (some of the older sociological models may have been
challenged, but others will doubtless take their place); the centrality of archaeology and the
Galilean context; and the study of first-century Judaism and Jesus’ place within it. Detailed
studies of the political situation of Judaea, the villages of Galilee, and the people associated with
Jesus are now possible and, even indirectly, will shed light on the man from Nazareth. Sources
and methods will continue to attract debate, as will the apocalyptic orientation of Jesus, though I
doubt, in the end, whether there will be much consensus. Perhaps an area of growth will be the
study of the transmission of the traditions, fine tuning older form-critical analyses through
attention to studies of orality (Bailey 1991; Weeden 2004) and memory (Schüssler Fiorenza
1983; Crossan 1999; Dunn 2003; 2005). Ultimately, historical Jesus studies, though based on a
21
scholar’s most accurate and tested set of “hard facts” will always involve some leap of
imagination. What new portraits of Jesus will emerge in the coming decades, only time will tell.
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