The Quest of the Historical Jesus

by Albert Schweitzer, W. Montgomery (Translator), F. C. Burkitt (Preface by)

Overview

In this groundbreaking work that made his reputation as a theologian, Albert Schweitzer traces the search for the historical person of Jesus (apart from the Christ of faith) and puts forward his own view of Jesus as an apocalyptic figure who preached a radical message of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Though Schweitzer's own proposals about Jesus no longer command assent, his lasting contribution, comprising the bulk of the book, is the critique of his predecessors. Through examining the works of more than 50 18th- and 19th-century authors and scholars, he shows conclusively that each historical reconstruction of Jesus was largely a fantasy made in their own self-image.
Schweitzer's work has proved the touchstone for all subsequent quests for the "Jesus of history." It also contributed in no small measure to the remarkable resurgence in Jesus studies in the latter part of the 20th century, which culminated in the much publicized and highly controversial findings of the Jesus Seminar.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486440279
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	02/11/2005
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	490,472
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. While still a young man he demonstrated extraordinary abilities in a wide range of pursuits, including science, theology, and music. In 1908 he published his magisterial study of the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He studied medicine from 1905 to 1913 at the University of Strasbourg, then founded a hospital in French Equatorial Africa, where he spent most of the remainder of his life. Schweitzer used his Nobel Prize stipend to expand the hospital and to build a leper colony. His bookThe Primeval Forest is also available from Johns Hopkins.

Table of Contents

	Foreword, 1998	ix
	Preface	xv
I	The Problem	1
II	Hermann Samuel Reimarus	13
III	The Lives of Jesus of the Earlier Rationalism	27
IV	The Earliest Fictitious Lives of Jesus	38
V	Fully Developed Rationalism--Paulus	48
VI	The Last Phase of Rationalism--Hase and Schleiermacher	58
VII	David Friedrich Strauss--The Man and His Fate	68
VIII	Strauss's First "Life of Jesus"	78
IX	Strauss's Opponents and Supporters	96
X	The Marcan Hypothesis	121
XI	Bruno Bauer	137
XII	Further Imaginative Lives of Jesus	161
XIII	Renan	180
XIV	The "Liberal" Lives of Jesus	193
XV	The Eschatological Question	223
XVI	The Struggle against Eschatology	242
XVII	Questions Regarding the Aramaic Language, Rabbinic Parallels, and Buddhistic Influence	270
XVIII	The Position of the Subject at the Close of the Nineteenth Century	294
XIX	Thoroughgoing Scepticism and Thoroughgoing Eschatology	330
XX	Results	398
	Index of Authors and Works, Including Reference to English Translations	405