page_title: Historical Jesus
section_title: First quest
hierarchical_section_title: Historical Jesus / Critical-historical research / Quest for the historical Jesus / First quest
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Albert Schweitzer Zentralbild: Prof. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Arzt, protestantischer Theologe, Musiker und Philosoph, geboren: 14.1.1875 in Kaysersberg (Elsaß), gestorben: 4.9.1965 in Lambarene (Republik Gabun), Friedensnobelpreisträger 1952 Abgebildete Personen: Schweitzer, Albert Prof. Dr.: Missionsarzt, evangelischer Theologe, Friedensnobelpreis 1951, Frankreich Information added by Wikimedia users.Deutsch: „Friedensnobelpreis 1952“ ist korrekt
context_page_description: Historical Jesus is the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus by critical historical methods, in contrast to Christological definitions and other Christian accounts of Jesus. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived.
  Virtually all reputable scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed. Reconstructions of the historical Jesus are based on the Pauline epistles and the Gospels, while several non-Biblical sources also bear witness to the historical existence of Jesus. Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and developing new and different research criteria.
  Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus; that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Historical Jesus scholars typically contend that he was a Galilean Jew and living in a time of messianic and apocalyptic expectations.
context_section_description: The scholarly effort to reconstruct an "authentic" historical picture of Jesus was a product of the Enlightenment skepticism of the late eighteenth century. Bible scholar Gerd Theissen explains that "It was concerned with presenting a historically true life of Jesus that functioned theologically as a critical force over against [established Roman Catholic] Christology." The first scholar to separate the historical Jesus from the theological Jesus in this way was philosopher, writer, classicist, Hebraist and Enlightenment free thinker Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768). Copies of Reimarus' writings were discovered by G. E. Lessing (1729–1781) in the library at Wolfenbüttel where Lessing was the librarian. Reimarus had left permission for his work to be published after his death, and Lessing did so between 1774 and 1778, publishing them as Die Fragmente eines unbekannten Autors (The Fragments of an Unknown Author). Over time, they came to be known as the Wolfenbüttel Fragments after the library where Lessing worked. Reimarus distinguished between what Jesus taught and how he is portrayed in the New Testament. According to Reimarus, Jesus was a political Messiah who failed at creating political change and was executed. His disciples then stole the body and invented the story of the resurrection for personal gain. Reimarus' controversial work prompted a response from "the father of historical critical research" Johann Semler in 1779, Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten (Answering the Fragments of an Unknown). Semler refuted Reimarus' arguments, but it was of little consequence. Reimarus' writings had already made lasting changes by making it clear criticism could exist independently of theology and faith, and by founding historical Jesus studies within that non-sectarian view.
  
  According to Homer W. Smith, the work of Lessing and others culminated in the Protestant theologian David Strauss's Das Leben Jesu ('The Life of Jesus', 1835), in which Strauss expresses his conclusion that Jesus existed, but that his godship is the result of "a historic nucleus [being] worked over and reshaped into an ideal form by the first Christians under the influence of Old Testament models and the idea of the messiah found in Daniel."
    
  The enthusiasm shown during the first quest diminished after Albert Schweitzer's critique of 1906 in which he pointed out various shortcomings in the approaches used at the time. After Schweitzer's Von Reimarus zu Wrede was translated and published in English as The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1910, the book's title provided the label for the field of study for eighty years.
caption: Albert Schweitzer, whose book coined the phrase Quest [for] the Historical Jesus
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