Talk:Quest for the historical Jesus

Frequently asked questions

Q 1: Why is the term "quest" used here?

A: The process for studying the historical Jesus is called "quest" because Albert Schweitzer called it that in 1906, and it became common thereafter. If Schweitzer had called his book "search for Jesus" that may have become the topic name. But the whole field now calls it "quest", in the same way that New York is called New York. The fact that scholars widely use the terms "second quest" and "third quest" is an indication that the term has been totally attached to the topic now, and is hence used per WP:Commonname.

Q 2: How is this article different from Historical Jesus?

A: This article discusses the "processes and the techniques" used by academics. The Historical Jesus article discusses the end product of those efforts. This is in the same sense that automobile manufacturing is the process by which automobile is produced as an end product. Another analogy for this article being about the "academic process" and the Historical Jesus article being about the "material/end product" is this:

The article Coffeemaker discusses a "device and a process" for making coffee.
The article on Coffee discusses material involved in and produced by the process.

Of course, the Coffee and Coffeemaker pages refer to each other, but they are separate concepts and separate articles. So this article (which is about the process) and the Historical Jesus article (which is about the material/product) refer to each other, but are distinct concepts and articles.

Q 3: How does this article fit in the overall scheme of the articles on Jesus?

This article is about "techniques and processes" for gaining an understanding of Jesus. The article Historicity of Jesus on the other hand does no address these issues, but only focuses on the very basic issue of the "existence of Jesus" - in effect only addressing the question: "Did Jesus walk the streets of Jerusalem?". The Historical Jesus article discusses the various aspects of what can be understood about the activities of Jesus as he walked the streets or preached, e.g. "Was Jesus seen as a social reformer by the people of his time?" These are hence three different aspects and topics with three separate articles. For a further overview of the related articles, please see Jesus and history which lists more items.

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The answer to your question may already be in the FAQ.

Please read the FAQ.

A summary of this article appears in Historical Jesus.

Untitled

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

Archives

Index

Archive 1

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by when more than 3 sections are present.

Demise of Authenticity

What is "Demise of Authenticity"?

Keith, Chris; Le Donne, Anthony, eds. (2012), Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, Bloomsbury Publishing
Book Review: Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, by Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne
T. Hägerland (2015), The Future of Criteria in Historical Jesus Research, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus
Chris Keith (2016), The Narratives of the Gospels and the Historical Jesus: Current Debates, Prior Debates and the Goal of Historical Jesus Research, Journal for the Study of the New Testament,
Michael Licona (2016), Is the Sky Falling in the World of Historical Jesus Research?, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2016), pp. 353-368
Bernier, Jonathan (2016), The Quest for the Historical Jesus after the Demise of Authenticity: Toward a Critical Realist Philosophy of History in Jesus Studies, Bloomsbury Publishing

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:32, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, "postmodern" has come to mean "there are no facts" or "we may spin history the way we want". And for some fundamentalist Christians, the historical Jesus is bogus scholarship. Fundamentalist Christians are not by default opposed to postmodernism, some found in it a way to do away with science. Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:56, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Does anybody know more about "Social memory theory"? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:24, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Alan Kirk (2018), Memory and the Jesus Tradition
Bart Ehrman (2016), Jesus before the Gospels
Rafael Rodríguez, Review of Ehrman's "Jesus Before the Gospels (8 parts)

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:43, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"(who confessed himself to be the author)"? 1.1.1 paragraph 4

This construction implies that Houston was the author, when he has been established as the translator. I am guessing that "(who stated in a confession that he was the author)" or ("claimed authorship in a confession") would better reflect the facts. Since I don't know the facts, I am referring this question to someone here who might know them. Thank you. Michael (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pagan

@Hardyplants: Of course, Jewish and Christian authors did write about Jesus in the 1st century. That's how we have much of the New Testament and apocryphal books about Jesus. Ehrman meant that no 1st century AD Greek or Roman author wrote about Jesus, with the exception of Jews and Christians. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:20, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]