Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift

BZ

Biblische Zeitschrift

CTM.PT

Calwer theologische Monographien, Reihe C., Praktische Theologie und Missionswissenschaft

Eccl. Hist.

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History

EKK

Evangelisch-Katolischer Kommentar

EuA

Erbe und Auftrag

FB

Forschung zur Bibel

GTB

Gütersloher Taschenbücher Siebenstern

HNT

Handbuch zum Neuen Testament

HTKAT

Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament

HTKNT

Herders theolorischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament

HTR

Harvard Theological Review

JSHRZ

Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit

KEK

Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament

LD

Lectio divina

LThK

Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche

NBL

Neues Bibellexikon

NRSV

New Revised Standard Version

NSKAT

Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar, Altes Testament

NTS

New Testament Studies

ÖTK

Ökumenisher Taschenbuch-Kommentar

POxy

Oxyrhynchus Papyri

QD

Quaestiones disputatae

RST

Regensburger Studien zur Theologie

SANT

Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

SBAB

Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände

SBS

Stuttgarter Bibelstudien

SBT

Studies in Biblical Theology

TGl

Theologie und Glaube

ThWAT

Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and Helmut Ringgren. Stuttgart, 1970–

TQ

Theologische Quartalschrift

TRE

Theologische Realenzyklopädie. Edited by G. Krause and G. Müller. Berlin, 1977–

TTZ

Trierer theologische Zeitschrift

UTB

Uni-Taschenbuchkommentar

WMANT

Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

WUNT

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZAW

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZNW

Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZST

Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie

ZTK

Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Chapter 1

The So-Called Historical Jesus

Why is it that new books on the historical Jesus appear almost every year? Why aren’t the gospels enough for Christians? It must have something to do with the curiosity of Western people and their eagerness to know “the facts.” They want to know how it really happened. They want to illuminate the past to the last detail. They stand in line to see an exhibit that shows them the world of the pharaohs, the Celts, or the medieval court. When they finally get into the gallery they believe that they have reached the original: they see documented before their eyes the time and the people that are the subject of the exhibit.

They are looking for the same kind of access to Jesus in the gospels, and yet the gospels are closed to their thirst for knowledge. They are silent about many details of Jesus’ life that would be of particular interest to the fact-hungry Jesus-seekers. And so they reach for the newest Jesus book…

But there is something else as well: since the time of the Enlightenment the gospels have been dissected as no other text of the world’s literature has been. The people of the Enlightenment regarded what they said as having been inflated by dogma. The true figure of Jesus was painted over with ever-more glowing colors and his contours exalted to the level of the divine. Therefore it was thought necessary to remove the overpaintings and finally reveal the real Jesus, who would then emerge in his true colors and outlines.

So here again—and especially here—we find the lust for facts. What can we really know about Jesus? Who was the “historical” Jesus? How much of his life can be reconstructed? Which of his sayings in the gospels are authentic? What are his “own words,” what are his “own original deeds”? Did Jesus and the apostles preach the same things, or did Jesus’ message about God become, after Easter, the apostles’ message about Jesus?

In and of itself it would be quite all right that the thirst for facts that has gripped the West since the Presocratics and the first Greek historians should extend to Jesus. We should, in fact, say that in the case of Jesus that curiosity is thoroughly justified. If it is true that in Jesus the eternal Word of God became flesh—entered radically into history—then Jesus must be open to all the techniques of historical research. Then he should certainly be the object of historical scholarship. Then it must be permissible to analyze all the texts about him, to probe them, to determine their genre, and to pursue the history of their traditions.