Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society: Vol.40:4 (1997)
Abstract
Christianity is not quite two thousand years young. The term “ancient” in this paper’s title, in view of history’s millennia prior to Christ’s birth, seems hardly applicable to studies of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. But “ancient” is used here as a relative term. The focus of this study is not what people of recent centuries have thought about Jesus as an historical figure. Rather, it concentrates on what people thought about him in the first few centuries AD.
In the early Church, Christians identified Jesus as Christ. Now, in the modern Church, many consider themselves believers in the Christ of faith (as developed by the teachings of the Church) without believing in the iden- tity of that Christ as the actual, historical person of Jesus.
But this distinction between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history need not be accepted as a recent developmental stage in the life of the Church. Even in the early years of the Church, explanations were oˆered that considered Jesus to be just another man in the stream of history. It is these early interpretations of the historical Jesus that this paper seeks to examine as explanations of unbelief (i.e. not believing Jesus to be the Christ that the early believers—and Jesus himself—claimed him to be). Herman S. Reimarus (d. 1768) is considered to have begun in modern scholarship the so-called quest for the historical Jesus. Colin Brown, however, suggests several possible earlier influences in the thought of Reimarus that evoke from him Albert Schweitzer’s praise for his uniqueness.
Douglas S Huffman
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society: Vol.40:4 (1997)
Abstract
Christianity is not quite two thousand years young. The term “ancient” in this paper’s title, in view of history’s millennia prior to Christ’s birth, seems hardly applicable to studies of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. But “ancient” is used here as a relative term. The focus of this study is not what people of recent centuries have thought about Jesus as an historical figure. Rather, it concentrates on what people thought about him in the first few centuries AD.
In the early Church, Christians identified Jesus as Christ. Now, in the modern Church, many consider themselves believers in the Christ of faith (as developed by the teachings of the Church) without believing in the iden- tity of that Christ as the actual, historical person of Jesus.
But this distinction between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history need not be accepted as a recent developmental stage in the life of the Church. Even in the early years of the Church, explanations were oˆered that considered Jesus to be just another man in the stream of history. It is these early interpretations of the historical Jesus that this paper seeks to examine as explanations of unbelief (i.e. not believing Jesus to be the Christ that the early believers—and Jesus himself—claimed him to be). Herman S. Reimarus (d. 1768) is considered to have begun in modern scholarship the so-called quest for the historical Jesus. Colin Brown, however, suggests several possible earlier influences in the thought of Reimarus that evoke from him Albert Schweitzer’s praise for his uniqueness.
Click here to read this article from the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Sponsored Content