Talk:Quest for the historical Jesus

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For a March 2005 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/The Quest for the Historical Jesus

Contents

[edit] How about a survey of the scholarship?

Why not an overview of the Quest for the Historical Jesus?

That is what I expected to find here. I am willing to write it, if I can get another person who also thinks it would be a good idea. --Peter Kirby 05:14, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Would be an excellent idea - I was rather shocked to see this as disambiguation page. See also below. Irmgard 07:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I will return to this later. --Peter Kirby 03:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Name should be moved to Quest for the Historical Jesus without the "The". --Haldrik 04:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List from Jesus as understood by influential leaders

The article Jesus as understood by influential leaders is up for deletion, but this part of the list contains some key people of the Quest of the Historical Jesus in the last two centuries so I copied it here for reference. I left the list as is, though it is pretty evident that e.g. Left Behind is not part of a Quest of the Historical Jesus ;-) Irmgard 07:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus Seminar

"Conversely others, such as the Jesus Seminar, have attempted to work around the eschatalogical Jesus and have been left with virtually nothing!" That's a little POV. How about "Conversely others, such as the Jesus Seminar, have denied the authenticity of Jesus' eschatological message, describing Jesus as nothing more than a clever, provocative, wandering sage." Jonathan Tweet 23:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Altered sentance (based on your suggestion) to read: "Conversely others, such as the Jesus Seminar, have denied the authenticity of Jesus' eschatological message, describing Jesus as a wandering sage." Vassyana 11:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section 2-b?

The whole idea of a section-2b seems POV. It strains to place living researchers (John Dom Crossan, et al.) in a dead-end of research history. I would like to see if I could write something better as a whole for this page of Wikipedia. Unrepresented also are the views of those scholars who think there have been no well-defined eras of research history. --Peter Kirby 01:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I deleted reference to this guy's criticism [1]. No one cares what he thinks about Borg, et al. The rest also seems POV and doesn't seem to match my reading of the Jesus Seminar, etc. Jonathan Tweet 03:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] quest structure after Schweitzer

What's the source for the stages of the quest after Schweitzer? Are these stages generally recognized? If we want to check whether this article represents these stages accurately, where do we look? Jonathan Tweet 14:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think these could be found in standard textbooks. I will have a rummage around and add some references. Generally there is very little referencing in this article, although more details are probably in the links Slackbuie 16:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to divide it as First Quest, No Quest, New Quest (or second quest(, Third Quest following NT Wright. I've not seen the breaking down to 2b etc before so some referencing could be helpful. Also (IMHO) New Quest is more normal that 2nd Quest. I would probably put Dunn in the Third Quest as a New Perspective man with Sanders and Wright. Jesus Seminar -I think there is a debate and can sometimes end up in both camps -but as they are as per Bultmann essentially form criticism with a belief that the NT tells you more about early church than Jesus are probably more New Quest than 3rdQuest which on the whole tends o be much more positive towards the posibility of developing an accurate portrait of Jesus from the Gospels. (Be Dave 22:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC))


[edit] Cleanup

New Quest should be removed, with the little useful information added to Second Quest. Second Quest should be condensed into a single section detailing the two opposed schools of thought. Both parts of that section have a strong need to be rewritten for NPOV. Complete lack of citations throughout the article. Thoughts? Vassyana 11:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of a "No Quest". My understanding is that Bultmann is the end of the first quest, Kasemann and Bornkamm are the beginning of the second and the third (somewhat debated) didn't start until the 1970's. There is no 2b quest. And, the Jesus Seminar, if is to be included, is to be included in the third quest. My understanding is that the prevailing academic attitude towards a number of those listed in the 3rd quest is one of polite disdain (as quoted in a course outline on the Historical Quests for Jesus, for point of reference):
Excluding the Jesus Seminar as part of this latest quest of the historical Jesus, G. Boyd claims that the third quest has five characteristics (Cynic Sage or Son of God, 47-49). (He classifies the Jesus Seminar as a continuation of the "Post-Bultmannian Quest.") First, unlike the previous two quests, there is an openness to the supernatural in historical explanation. Second, those involved in the "third quest" agree that the critieria of authenticity were too stringently applied by the second questers, in particular the criterion of double dissimilarity (that a saying or meaning-laden action of Jesus must be dissimilar to Judaism and the early Christian movement). Third, those in the third quest have much more confidence in the historical reliability of oral tradition, contrary to the form critics (see the work of B. Gerhardsson), and, fourth, they put greater emphasis of the Jewishness of Jesus, his continuity with first-century Judaism. Finally, there is no "one set of controlling theological and/or philosophical presuppositions" influencing the methodology and results of those involved in the third quest. What Boyd says is true, but agreement on these five issues hardly constitutes a unified movement. It seems impossible that a movement that lumps evangelical scholars in with E. P. Sanders can be described as part of the same movement.

http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/NTIntro/LifeJ/HistoryQuest.htm#HQ3

The article could use some mention of form criticism and Bruno Bauer (first quest), since Schweitzer found him to be far more important that Strauss. I'm going to change the sections to reflect the prevailing grouping of quest scholars. Phyesalis 07:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Rearranged questers and quests. Removed some of the more inflammatory POV. I know it looks like a hatchet job, esp. the third quest - what a mess - but I'll come back to it tomorrow to clean it up and start on the sources. Phyesalis 09:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why does this article exist?

Historicity of Jesus is more than enough, I would say.CharlesMartel (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)CharlesMartel