UNION BIBLICAL SEMINARY, PUNE

Topic: “Current Debate on Historical Jesus”

Submitted to Dr. Lanuwabang Jamir

In Partial Fulfilment for the Requirement of the Course

Methodological and Critical Issues in New Testament (MNT001)

By Birendra Subba MTh-I

(NT-ATA) November 18, 2022

Respondent: Robert Seb

 Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Current Debate on Historical Jesus

2. The Quest for the Historical Jesus
3. The Old or First Quest for the Historical Jesus (1778-1906)
3.1. Albert Schweitzer
3.2. Hermann Samuel Reimarus
3.3. David Friedrich Strauss
3.4. Ernest Renan
3.5. Johannes Wise
3.6. William Wrede
4. The “No Quest” for the Historical Jesus (1906-1953)
5. The “New Quest” or Second Quest for the Historical Jesus (1953-1970s)
5.1. Earnest Kasemann
5.2. Gunther Bornkamm
5.3. J. Jeremias
5.4. James M. Robinson
6. The “Third Quest” for the Historical Jesus (1980s-present)
6.1. N. T. Wright
6.2. E. P. Sanders
6.3. John Dominic Crossan
6.4. Jesus Seminar
6.5. Geza Vermes
6.6. James Dunn
6.7. Dale Allison
6.8. Other Scholars
7. Evaluation and Conclusion

Bibliography

1
Introduction

Until the last two or three centuries, Christians assumed that the four canonical gospels divinely
inspired and written by eyewitnesses, or their compatriots are excellent records of what Jesus of
Nazareth said and did. Modern criticism, however, has concluded not only that no gospel is likely
to be directly from eyewitnesses, but further that the four different stories are often in disagreement
with each other, has dismantled the old certainties of faith and generated a host of difficult
historical questions. The upshot is the gospels are, today, a battleground of arguments, with
numerous scholars defending their diverse reconstructions of Jesus and attacking those of others.
Therefore, this paper briefly discusses the current debate on the historical Jesus.

1. Current Debate on Historical Jesus

“The historical Jesus” is the Jesus constructed by historical research.”1 The historical Jesus is what
we know about that Jesus, what we can reconstruct of that Jesus by historical means. 2 According
to Leander Keck “historical Jesus is the historian’s Jesus, not a Kantian Ding an sich (thing in
itself).”3 Jesus of Nazareth continues to capture the attention of the contemporary western world
like no other figure in history. Today, pseudo-scholarly publications on Jesus and their theories
are available. Michael Baigent finds Jesus surviving the crucifixion, getting married (most often
to Mary Magdalene), having children, and living to a ripe old age.4 Simcha Jacobovici and Charles
Pellegrino, in the book The Jesus Family Tomb, claim that they have finally found his gravesite –
and with it the very bones of Jesus.5 Holger Kersten finds him traveling to the East, spending years
learning from the ancient Asian religions, and coming back to his culture as something of a
Buddhist master.6 Again Lena Einhorn finds out that the true identity of Jesus has finally been
discovered: Jesus was really the apostle Paul!7

1
James D. G. Dunn, A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed (London:
SPCK, 2005), 28.
2
Dunn, A New Perspective on Jesus, 29.
3
Leander E. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus: The Place of Jesus in Preaching and Theology, 1.
British ed. (London: SCM Press, 1972), 20.
4
Michael Baigent, The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-up in History (New York: HarperSan
Francisco, 2007), 115–30.
5
Simcha Jacobovici and Charles R. Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb: The Evidence behind the
Discovery No One Wanted to Find, 1st HarperCollins pbk. ed.; rev.updated. (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 1–7.
6
Holger Kersten, Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life before and after the Crucifixion (Shaftesbury:
Element, 1994), 1–20.
7
Lena Einhorn, The Jesus Mystery: Astonishing Clues to the True Identities of Jesus and Paul, trans. Rod
Bradbury (Guilford: Lyons, 2007), 1–10.

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2. The Quest for the Historical Jesus

What has come to be known as the “quest for historical Jesus” is a child of the eighteenth century
and the European Enlightenment.8 The history of the modern scholarly quest for Jesus recognizes
four distinct stages: The “Old” (or “first”) quest, the so-called “no quest” period, the “new” (or
second) quest, and the most recent the “third quest.”9 The first quest diminished after Albert
Schwitzer’s critique of 1906, the second quest began in 1953, and10 in the 1980s a number of
scholars gradually began to introduce new research ideas,11 initiating a third quest characterized
by the latest research approaches.12 Since the late 2000s, concerns have been growing about the
usefulness of the criteria of authenticity13 and proclamations of a more expansive and genuinely
interdisciplinary Next Quest.14

3. The Old or First Quest for the Historical Jesus (1778-1906)

The so-called “first” or “old quest” of the historical Jesus, from the late-eighteenth to the earliest
years of the twentieth century, is virtually always described as being marked by numerous
descriptions of Jesus in terms of the highly romanticized sociopolitical issues of the day, as well
as reflecting post-Enlightenment critical skepticism15.
3.1. Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer attributed the origin of the “Old Quest” to H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768), and this
claim is repeated in many handbooks on the historical Jesus.16 Schweitzer’s book which was
originally titled The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus

8
Colin Brown, Jesus in European Protestant Thought, 1778-1860 (Pasadena: Fuller seminary, 2008), 1–10.
9
Paul Eddy Rhodes and James K. Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” in The
Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul Eddy Rhodes (Illinois: IVP Academic, 2009), 10–11.
10
Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence,
Studying the Historical Jesus (Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000), 2–6.
11
Ben Witherington, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity, 1997), 9–13; William E. Arnal, The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the
Construction of Contemporary Identity, Religion in Culture (London: Equinox, 2005), 41–43.
12
Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament, 2–6.
13
Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne, Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (New York: T &T
Clark, 2012), 1–6.
14
James Crossley, “The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus
19 (2021): 261–64.
15
Stanley E. Porter, ed., The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and
New Proposals, T & T Clark Academic Paperbacks (London New York: T & T Clark, 2004), 32.
16
James H. Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide, Essential Guides (Nashville: Abingdon,
2008), 2.

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to Wrede17 presented an important critical review of the history of the search for Jesus’ life.18 There
were numerous attempts to formulate what Schweitzer called “fictitious lives of Jesus.”19
Schweitzer argued that the key to understanding the historical Jesus was not his ethics but his
eschatology.20 Schweitzer’s work was preceded by Martin Kahler’s book The So-Called Historical
Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ,21 he argued that it was not possible to separate the Jesus of
history from the Christ of faith and that in any case, the key goal of biblical analysis should be to
better understand the Christ of faith who had influenced history.22 Schweitzer understood Jesus as
universalistic in orientation, but particularistic in a demonstration as elect Gentiles would replace
unbelieving Jews.23

3.2. Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768)

The first quest is generally associated with G.E. Lessing’s posthumous publication of the work of
Heremann Reimarus in his Fragments (1694-1768), although he was not identified as the author
until 1913.24 The pioneering work of H. S. Reimarus, Apologie oder Schutzshrift fur die
vernunftigen Verehrer Gottes25, was not published in full until 1972, but its conclusion became
known after G. E. Lessing published the Wolfenbuttel fragments.26

Reimarus was unable to believe in miracles, he compiled objections to the Bible, including the
gospels. He argued that Jesus’s kingdom was basically political, a sort of Jewish replacement for
the Roman empire and that his tomb was empty because the disciples stole the body.27 Reimarus

17
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to
Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (Ney Work: Macmillan, 1968), 1–5.
18
Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede,
159.
19
Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin: College, 1996),
154.
20
Helen K. Bond, The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed, First edition. (London: Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2020), 12.
21
Martin Kähler and Carl E. Braaten, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ,
Fortress Texts in Modern Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).
22
Witherington, The Jesus Quest, 23.
23
Craig A. Evans, ed., Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus (New York: Routledge, 2008), 213.
24
Darrell L. Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Michigan: Baker
Academic, 2002), 143.
25
Reimarus’ major work, Apologie order Schutzschrift fur die vernunftigen Verehrer Gotts (“Aoologia or
Defense for the Rational Reverers of God”) took 20 years to complete and was deliberately left unpublished until after
his death.
26
Frank Leslie Cross and Livingstone Elizabeth, “Historical Jesus,” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church, 779.
27
Dale C. Allison Jr., “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” in The Blackwell Companion to the New
Testament, ed. David Aune (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 221.

4
argued that Christianity was based on apostolic fraud rather than divine revelation.28 He portrayed
Jesus as a less-than-successful political figure,29 and the perspective of Jesus in the Gospels
differed from that of the apostles in the Epistles.30

3.3. David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74)

David Friedrich Strauss’s book The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, originally published in
1835, became one of the most controversial studies of Jesus ever written.31 Strauss disbelieved in
miracles and believed the gospel narratives to be thoroughly unreliable, and he dismissed John
entirely. Straus argued that Jesus was not a historical figure who attracted myths but was rather a
myth himself.32 He argued that the Gospels were not historical reports of the life of Jesus, but
rather mythical accounts of Christian origins, composed by the evangelists largely on the basis of
their Hebrew scriptures.33 Strauss challenged two approaches to Jesus of the time: one was
conservative, which he called “supernaturalism,” and the other rationalistic, which he called
“naturalism.”34 Strauss explains, the advantage of the “mythical view”35 Strauss viewed the
miraculous accounts of Jesus’ life in the gospels in terms of myths.36
3.4. Ernest Renan (1823-92)
Earnest Renan composed a classic “biography” of Jesus. His Vie de Jesus (1863)37 has been
heralded for changing the world’s conceptions, Renan argued that Jesus wept in Gethsemane
because he imagined the women he could have wooed in his life.38 Renan’s book presents a Jesus
who began as a wise teacher of ethical principles who reveals the loving character of the heavenly
Father, but who, inspired by apocalyptic hopes, eventually became a would-be messiah who was
crucified for his efforts. Renan denied any room for the supernatural in his reconstruction.39 Renan

28
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 8.
29
Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee, 1st
ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 13–15.
30
Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, 143.
31
David Friedrich Strauss, Peter Crafts Hodgson, and George Eliot, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined,
Sigler Press ed. (Ramsey: Sigler, 1994), 1–7.
32
Allison Jr., “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” 221.
33
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 9.
34
Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, 143.
35
Strauss, Hodgson, and Eliot, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 56.
36
Michael James McClymond, Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth (Michigan:
Eerdmans, 2004), 82.
37
Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus, Great Minds Series (New York: Prometheus Books, 1991).
38
Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus, 4.
39
Renan, The Life of Jesus, 1–20.

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merged gospel narratives with his own psychological interpretations, e.g., that Jesus preached a
“sweet theology of love” in Galilee but turned into a revolutionary once he encountered the
establishment in Jerusalem.40

3.5. Johannes Wise (1863-1914)

Johannes Weiss argued that a study of Jewish apocalyptic literature demonstrated that Jesus’
message of the kingdom was apocalyptic – the end of the world was imminent – and could not be
equated with ethical conduct or the Christian community envisioned by Liberalism.41 For Weiss,
the kingdom is radically future, in no way present, and will bring the present age to an end. Jesus
thus did not inaugurate the kingdom, but he waited for God to establish in the near future. Weiss
brought the eschatological aspects of the ministry of Jesus to the attention of the academic world.42

3.6. William Wrede

William Wrede’s Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, was published in 1901,43 where he
argued that Mark had imposed the “secret” as a device to camouflage the fact that Jesus’ ministry
was not messianic, even though the church preached him as such. This instruction in Mark that the
disciples and others do not speak of his messiahship was a theological construction of the
evangelist.44 Wrede brought the eschatological aspects of the ministry to the attention of the
academic world.45 He emphasized the unusual nature of the ministry and teaching of Jesus. He
wrote on the Messianic Secret in the Gospel of Mark and argued that it was a method by early
Christians to explain Jesus not claiming himself as the Messiah.46
4. The “No Quest” for the Historical Jesus (1906-1953)

Schweitzer’s 1906 critique undermined the previous attempts in historical Jesus research and is
often seen as the start of a period of “no quest” lasting until Earnst Kasemann’s 1953 lecture which

40
Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History, 25.
41
David B. Gowler, What Are They Saying about the Historical Jesus?, What Arey They Saying About--
(New York: Paulist, 2007), 12.
42
Paul F. M. Zahl, The First Christian: Universal Truth in the Teachings of Jesus (Michigan: Eerdmans,
2003), 20–21.
43
William Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des
Markusevangeliums (Treuchtlingen: Literaricon, 2017), 1–5.
44
Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, 144.
45
Zahl, The First Christian, 20.
46
Kelly R. Iverson, Christopher W. Skinner, and Society of Biblical Literature, eds., Mark as Story:
Retrospect and Prospect, Society of Biblical Literature : Resources for Biblical Study no. 65 (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2011), 183.

6
started the second quest.47 Witherington states that at the end of the first quest, historical Jesus
research was assumed to be dead, although that did not turn out to be the case.48

The key figure in the relatively quiet period from 1906 to 1953 was Rudolf Bultmann, who
was skeptical regarding the relevance and necessity of historical Jesus research and argued that the
only thing we can or need to know about Jesus is “Thatness” (German: Dass) of his existence and
very little else.49 He sought ways to find history in the pre-gospel traditions. He was also a founder
of Form Criticism, which sought to study the history of the literary forms in the Gospels.50 In Jesus
and the Word,51 Bultmann claimed that our only sources for obtaining reliable historical
information about Jesus are the Gospels, but the Evangelists do not show any interest in the
development of Jesus’ personality or in history. In The History of the Synoptic Tradition,52
Bultmann defended the Two Source Hypothesis. Matthew and Luke depended on Mark and a lost
sayings source of Jesus (called Q) when they composed their Gospels. In The Theology of the New
Testament,53 Bultmann emphasized that Jesus is the presupposition of New Testament theology.
Bultmann argued that very little can be known of the Jesus of history,54 therefore, Bultmann sought
to illumine the literary and contemporary-religious backgrounds of the traditions and sources
underlying the Gospels, clarifying also the theological contributions made by the evangelists and
their editors.55 Bultmann analyzed the formation of the Gospels56 and argued that the earliest
Christian literature showed little interest in specific locations and that the study of Jesus through
historical analysis was not only impossible but unnecessary.57

47
Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research, 36.
48
Witherington, The Jesus Quest, 9–13.
49
Marcus J. Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1994), 187.
50
Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus, 5.
51
Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, trans. Louise P. Smith and Erminie Huntress (New York:
Scribners, 1934), 1.
52
Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. John Marsh (New York: Harper and Row,
1963), 1.
53
Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), 1.
54
Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, 1–10.
55
Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 1–15.
56
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 14.
57
Edwin Broadhead, “Implicit Christology and the Historical Jesus,” in Handbook for the Study of the
Historical Jesus, ed. Tom Holmen and Stanley E. Porter (Boston: Brill, 2011), 170–72.

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5. The “New Quest” or Second Quest, for the Historical Jesus (1953-1970s)
New Quest began in 1953, with Kasemann’s stirring lecture, this perspective is a pan-Garmanic as
Schweitzer’s claim that the Old Quest began with the German Reimarus and not with the
Englishman Chubb.58

5.1. Earnst Kasemann

Several ironies are tied to what has come to be known as the “new” (second) quest for the historical
Jesus.59 The second quest began in 1953 with Ernst Kasemann who gave a paper entitled, “The
Problem of the Historical Jesus.” That paper launched what became known as the “new quest” for
the Jesus of history. He argued that, though it is true that a life of Jesus cannot be written, one must
be careful not to disconnect Christian faith altogether from its historical roots, for fear that it turns
into a sort of Docetism in which Jesus simply a cipher, and the cross is robbed of its significance.
If the earthly Jesus can only be understood in terms of Easter, Easter can only be understood in
relation to Jesus.60 Kasemann advanced the position that although the gospels may be interpreted
for theological purposes, they still contain historical memories which can yield information about
Jesus.61 Kasemann’s perspective that it is possible to know something about Jesus if the tools of
historical analysis are applied in a systematic manner proved highly consequential and inspired a
number of scholars to develop new approaches to the study of the historical Jesus.62

5.2. Gunther Bornkamm

Within three years of Kasemann’s call for a renewal of the quest another of Bultmann’s former
students, Gunther Bornkmm answered that challenge with a slim volume entitled Jesus of
Nazareth63 this work reflected the newfound confidence that we can know something about the
historical Jesus by implementing the tools of critical inquiry. Bornkmm believed that a large
percentage of Jesus’ teaching was authentic and disclosed his radically transcendent personality.
The Kingdom was both present and future.64 The Jesus of Nazareth by Bornkamm set the stage

58
Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus, 7.
59
Rhodes and Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” 24.
60
N. T. Wright, “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary 3:801.
61
Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History, 20.
62
Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History, 21.
63
Günther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1960).
64
Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey, 2. ed., updated version.
(Nashville: B & H, 2009), 210.

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for a host of treatments on Jesus in the decades that followed.65 His well-known statement that
“what the Gospels report concerning the message, the deeds and the history of Jesus is still
distinguished by an authenticity. These features point us directly to the earthly figure of Jesus.”66
Bornkamm’s Jesus speaks of an eschatological fulfillment in the present, as opposed to one located
in the future.67 For Bornkamm, Jesus was a transcendent personality who called people to repent.68

5.3. J. Jeremias

J. Jeremias demonstrated Jesus’ chosen noun for “God” as Abba and popularized a study of Jesus’
prayer life in The Prayer of Jesus.69 He proved that some of the traditions of the Last Supper
though developed in the Palestinian Jesus Movement derived authentically from Jesus’ last supper
with his disciples in Jerusalem.70 Jeremias agreed with Schweitzer that Jesus believed in a near
consummation, expected his death to inaugurate the great tribulation, and hoped for his own
resurrection as part of the general resurrection of the dead. 71

5.4. James M. Robinson

In 1959 James M. Robinson chronicled the Second or New Quest in A New Quest of the Historical
Jesus,72 a work arguing that an eschatological Jesus certainly, the entire early Christian kerygma
demanded a historical basis.73 During this phase of the quest, a number of new developments took
place in Gospels research. First was the rise of redaction criticism in the 1950s.74 Unlike the
terminus points of the old and no quest periods. The most common assessment is that the new
quest period slowly ground to a halt over the course of the 1970s.75 There were a variety of reasons
for this, and most have to do with reactions – for or against – the Bultmann tendencies within the
new quest.76

65
Günther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 1–10.
66
Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, 9–12.
67
Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, 24.
68
Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, 146.
69
Joachim Jeremias and Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 1–5.
70
Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus, 6.
71
Allison Jr., “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” 222.
72
James Mcconkey Robinson, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus: (By) James M. Robinson, First.
(London: Alec R. Allenson, 1959).
73
Witherington, The Jesus Quest, 11.
74
Rhodes and Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” 26.
75
Rhodes and Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” 27.
76
Rhodes and Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” 27.

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6. The “Third Quest” for the Historical Jesus (1980s-Present)
The so-called Third Quest of the historical Jesus has been marked by a variety of portraits. Jesus
has been depicted as a rabbi, a sage, a prophet, a philosopher (perhaps even a Cynic), a holy man,
and a Messiah. What lies behind these discrepancies is a lack of consensus about context and
differing assessments of source materials.77

6.1. N. T. Wright

The term was coined by N. T. Wright in a 1982 article.78 Wright saw these approaches as
constituting a “Third Quest” for Jesus, and much of this work has sought to recover the Jewishness
of Jesus.79 Wright originally used the term in a synchronic fashion to demarcate not a distinct
chronological period, but rather a new methodological orientation.80 Wright sees Jesus who
retelling Israel’s story and recasting it as he declares the opportunity for Israel to come out from
spiritual exile while also opening up the promise of God to the nations.81 His fullest portrait of
Jesus can be found in Jesus and the Victory of God (the second in a five-volume series on Christian
origins),82 along with a number of more popular studies. Wright sees Jesus as a Jewish prophet,
announcing and inaugurating the Kingdom of God.83

6.2. E. P. Sanders
The 1977 publication of E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism,84 renewed interest in the
historical Jesus and initiated the third quest.85 Sanders sees Jesus as a reformer of Judaism, who
offended the leadership by his associations and religious practices.86 His two major publications,
Jesus and Judaism87 and the more popular The Historical Figure of Jesus,88 present Jesus as a

77
Craig A. Evans, “The Jesus of History,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, ed. Markus Bockmuehl
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 11.
78
N. T. Wright, “Towards a Third Quest? Jesus Then and Now,” ARC 10 (1982): 20–27.
79
Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London: Collins, 1973), 1–11.
80
Rhodes and Beilby, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” 28.
81
Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, 148.
82
N. T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, 1st North American ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1992), 1.
83
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 32.
84
E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1977), 1–5.
85
Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria, 1st
American ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 1–6.
86
Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus, 148.
87
Ed Parish Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: S.C.M., 1985), 1–3.
88
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 1–4.

10
Jewish apocalyptic prophet, announcing the establishment of a new Temple and the restoration of
the twelve tribes of Israel.89 He argues that Jesus’ actions were a symbolic prophecy of the
Temple’s imminent destruction and its replacement by an eschatological one in the coming
Kingdom of God.90

6.3. John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan’s reconstruction of Jesus can be found in a number of publications, with
the fullest study in The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant91 and an
abbreviated version in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.92 Two aspects of Crossan’s
reconstruction are particularly noteworthy. First in his connection between Jesus and the Cynics.
The second notable aspect of Crossan’s work concerns his treatment of the passion narratives.
Drawing on non-canonical texts, particularly the Gospel of Peter, he argues that the accounts of
Jesus’ last few hours contain virtually no historical details.93 For Crossan, Jesus was indeed
utopian, but what he envisaged was not the standard catastrophe found in some of the Jewish
apocalypses. Jesus was instead a Jewish peasant whose revolutionary social program is best
preserved in aphorism and parables.94

6.4. Jesus Seminar

The Jesus Seminar was founded in 1985 by Robert Funk under the auspices of the Westar Institute
in Sonoma, California, and was co-chaired by Funk and John Dominic Crossan until the former’s
death in 2005.95 It was a group of 50 critical biblical scholars and 100 laymen. The Jesus Seminar
systematically worked through every saying and deed attributed to Jesus in the New Testament,
seeking to demarcate the historical reliability of all material pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth.
Identifying “seven pillars of scholarly wisdom”, texts were analyzed at their meetings and voted
on with colored-based denoting varying degrees of historicity: black – not historical, grey –

89
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 23.
90
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 24.
91
John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Live of a Mediterranean Jewish Paesant (New York:
HarperCollins, 1998), 1–5.
92
John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 1st ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
1994), 1–3.
93
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 28.
94
Allison Jr., “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” 223.
95
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 25.

11
unlikely, pink – possibly, red – probably.96 They produced new translations of the New Testament
and Apocrypha to use as textual sources. They published their results in three reports: The Five
Gospels,97 The Acts of Jesus,98 and The Gospel of Jesus.99 A colloquial translation of the four
canonical Gospels along with the Gospel of Thomas in which Jesus’ sayings were color-coded to
reflect the seminar’s estimation of their historicity. Overall, 18 percent of the saying’s tradition
was thought to go back to Jesus, of which John’s gospel could lay claim to only one saying in the
red/pink category, Mark could muster 19 and the Gospel of Thomas could boast 43.100

The Seminar’s reconstruction of the historical Jesus portrayed him as an itinerant Hellenistic
Jewish. The Jesus Seminar has appealed to Thomas as an important mid-first-century source, even
calling one of their major publications The Five Gospels to make the point.101 The historical Jesus
versus the Christ of faith appears in the work of the Jesus Seminar. For Funk, the continuing
purposes of the quest of the historical Jesus “is to set Jesus free from the scriptural…prisons in
which we have incarcerated him…the pace, anemic, iconic Jesus suffers by comparison with the
stark reality of the genuine article.”102 According to the Jesus Seminar, Jesus was neither a prophet
nor the Messiah. After His death, the disciples of Jesus purportedly forced images upon Jesus
because they could not accept the fact that their charismatic leader was nothing more than a Jewish
sage.103

6.5. Geza Vermes

For more than thirty years, Geza Vermes has published works on the historical Jesus. Vermes has
been one of the major authors in the last few decades to champion Jesus’ Jewishness, a hallmark

96
R.W. Funk, R.W. Hoover, and Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of
Jesus (Polebridge PressWestar Inst, 1993), 1–17.
97
Funk, Hoover, and Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, 1.
98
Robert Walter Funk, ed., The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, 1st ed. (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 1.
99
Robert Walter Funk, ed., The Gospel of Jesus: According to the Jesus Seminar (Santa Rosa: Polebridge
Press, 1999), 1.
100
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 26.
101
Robert Walter Funk and Roy W. Hoover, eds., The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of
Jesus: New Translation and Commentary (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993), 5–20.
102
Robert Walter Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium, 1st ed. (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 300.
103
Birger A. Pearson, “The Gospel According to the Jesus Seminar,” Religion 25.4 (1995): 321,
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-721X(05)80018-1.

12
of the third quest for the historical Jesus.104 Vermes was a prominent scholar in the contemporary
field of historical Jesus’ research. Vermes described Jesus as a 1st-century Jewish holy man, he
concludes that Jesus did reach out to non-Jewish.105 Vermes’ first work, Jesus the Jew, which
describes, Jesus as a thoroughly Jewish Galilean charismatic,106 The Gospel of Jesus the Jew,
which examines Jewish parallels to Jesus’ teaching107 and Christian Beginnings, which traces the
evolution of the figure of Jesus from Jewish charismatic in the synoptic Gospels to equality with
God in the Council of Nicaea.108

6.6. James Dunn

Although the historical Jesus features in many of his publications, the fullest account can be found
in Jesus Remembered, the first of his three-volume Christianity in the Making.109 The most
distinctive aspect of Dunn’s work is his stress on oral traditions. Dunn’s portrait is largely a
traditional one. He argues that we cannot go beyond the remembered Jesus, he spends a great deal
of time on the historical man behind the memories.110

6.7. Dale Allison

Dale Allison most recent book, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination and History,111 includes
a fascinating study of human memory. The broader picture that Alisson finds most plausible is one
in which Jesus emerges as an apocalyptic prophet. His Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet112
draws on comparative religions and millenarian movements. Allison’s Jesus saw himself as the

104
Gary R. Habermas and Evangelical Philosophical Society, “Geza Vermes and the Third Quest for the
Historical Jesus: A Review Essay on Jesus in His Jewish Context,” Philosophia Christi 6.2 (2004): 325–32,
https://doi.org/10.5840/pc20046234.
105
Géza Vermès, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 398–417.
106
Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels, 1–10.
107
Géza Vermès, The Gospel of Jesus the Jew, Riddell Memorial Lectures 48 (Newcastle: University of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1981), 1–17.
108
Géza Vermès, Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, (AD 30-325) (London: Allen Lane,
2012), 1–10.
109
James D. G. Dunn, Christianity in the Making. Volume 1: Jesus Remembered, Paperback edition.
(Michigan: Eerdmans, 2019), 1–10.
110
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 34.
111
Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History, Paperback edition. (Michigan:
Baker Academic, 2013), 1–5.
112
Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 1–5.

13
Herald of Isaiah 63:1-3, as the expected prophet like Moses (Deut. 18: 15-18) and the Baptist’s
Coming One.113

6.8. Other Scholars

Brian Ronser notes that New Testament studies can be done by three quests of the historical
Jesus.”114 The third quest yielded new insights into Jesus’ Palestinian and Jewish context and not
so much into the person of Jesus himself.115 Colin Brown raises four particular issues with the term
Third Quest. (1) Whether it is a legitimate description of “post-Bultmannian developments in Jesus
research’ and “all scholarly investigation of the relationship between the texts of the NT and the
historical figures of Jesus”. (2) The lack of any “common methodology”. (3) The Third Quest
seems to be part of a train of Jesus research which has continued “without interruption.” (4) He
surmises that its only possible distinctive is the emphasis on the Jewishness of Jesus.116

B.F. Meyer’s book is the most learned and methodologically rigorous of modern works. He
analyzes Jesus’ aims, highlighting the restoration of Israel as the theme underlying the
proclamation of the kingdom.117 Martin Kahler in his well-known essay The So-Called Historical
Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ118 argues that we have no sources capable of sustaining a
biography of Jesus. The biographers of Jesus can achieve their goal only by drawing upon what
Kahler called the fifth gospel, meaning the historian’s own ideals.119 Others such as the classicist
T. R. Glover, T. W. Manson, C. H. Dodd, C. J. Cadoux, G. S. Duncan, and H. A. Guy, a significant
group of scholars relied upon the Gospels as the basis of presenting the message and teaching of
Jesus.120

113
Bond, The Historical Jesus, 35.
114
Brian S. Rosner, “Looking Back on the 20th Century. 1. New Testament Studies,” The Expository Times
110.10 (1999): 317–20, https://doi.org/10.1177/001452469911001003.
115
Andries G van Aarde, “The ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical Jesus — Where Should It Begin: With
Jesus’ Relationship to the Baptiser, or with the Nativity Traditions?,” JSTOR, Neotestamentica 29.2 (1995): 325–56.
116
Colin Brown, “Historical Jesus,” in Doing Theology for the People of God: Studies in Honor of J.I.
Packer, ed. Donald M. Lewis, Alister E. McGrath, and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), 74–78.
117
Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM, 1979), 1–10.
118
Kähler and Braaten, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ, 1–5.
119
Dunn, A New Perspective on Jesus, 33.
120
T. R. Glover, Jesus of History (Read Books Ltd., 2015), 1–5; T. W. Manson, Teaching of Jesus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), 1–5; C.H. Dodd, The Framework of the Gospel Narrative
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1932), 1–5; Cecil John Cadoux, The Historic Mission of Jesus: A Constructive Re-
Examination of the Eschatological Teaching in the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2022), 1–5; G. S.
Duncan, Jesus, Son of Man: Studies Contributory to a Modern Portrait (London: Nisbet, 1947), 1–5; Harold Alfred

14
7. Evaluation and Conclusion

The current debate on the historical Jesus provides various research and arguments of scholars
who sought to identify Jesus through their research work. The true identity of Jesus has been
discovered by many scholars throughout history. The quest for historical Jesus divides into four
stages: 1) The Old or Frist Quest, 2) The No Quest Period, 3) The New or Second Quest, and the
recently, 4) Third Quest. The first quest was an attempt to be “historical” by noting how the
scriptural accounts were not coherent and then seeing what remained. The first quest is generally
associated with G.E. Lessing and ends with the work of Albert Schwitzer in 1906. The No Quest
period was dominated by Rudolf Bultmann who sought ways to find history in the pre-gospel
traditions and found the Form of Criticism. The New Quest or Second Quest was far less radical
than the first quest had been which was started in 1953 when Earnst Kasemann entitled his paper
“The Problem of the Historical Jesus.” The third quest began with the work of N. T. Wright in
1982. The third quest for Jesus sought to recover the Jewishness of Jesus. Jesus has been portrayed
as a rabbi, a sage, a prophet, a philosopher, a Cynic, a holy man, and a Messiah.

The first and second quest is grounded in historical and tradition criticism as well as in Greco-
Roman background and the third quest is rooted in the study of Jesus in his Jewish context.
Scholars have discussed and debated what His ministry was all about and what context best
describes Him. This has been the case, especially since the Enlightenment and the rise of skeptical
criticism, such study tried to separate the confessed Christ of the Bible. Christian faith is centered
on God’s activity in a historical person who lived and died in Palestine in the first century. Because
of this, Christians cannot avoid having a serious concern for historical questions. Christian faith is
directly related to historical events (the death and resurrection of Jesus), but also to a person who
lived and ministered in historical circumstances, many of which are clear to the historian as well
as to the believer. When this conflict arises, the person of faith must not necessarily be dissuaded
from confidence in the God who acts in history and has acted in the life of Jesus but must realize
that personal appropriation of that activity cannot be found in the historical-critical dimension but
only through faith.

Guy, Life of Christ (Place of publication not identified: Macmillan, n.d.), 1–5; Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity
in Historical-Jesus Research, 42.

15
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