Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §4.4
sentiment would have provided the only sure access to his inner life. All that was
available was contained in the four Gospels of the NT. But what kind of sources
are they? Are they all of the same order and equally reliable? Up until the nineteenth
century the four Gospels had been considered equally valid sources for
historical information about Jesus. By harmonizing the different accounts and
weaving them together a single picture could be formed. But now intensive study
led to a revised estimate.
a. John's Gospel
As late as 1832 Schleiermacher was able to use John's Gospel as not only a source
but the primary source for his Life of Jesus. It was precisely the Fourth Gospel's
portrayal of a Jesus deeply conscious of his relation as Son to God as Father which
substantiated Schleiermacher's focus on Jesus' 'God-consciousness'. 64 But ironically
by the time Schleiermacher's lectures were published (1864) his major prop
had been undermined. The differences between John and the other three Gospels,
particularly as regards the chronology of the passion, had been a long-standing
problem, 65 but considered resolvable even if never fully resolved. But Strauss had
posed a serious challenge especially to the authenticity of the Johannine discourses.
66 And in 1847 F. C. Baur produced a powerful case for his conclusion
that the Fourth Gospel was never intended to be 'a strictly historical Gospel'. 67
Given the strength of Baur's critique, the inevitable conclusion could
hardly be avoided: John's Gospel is determined much more by John's own theological
than by historical concerns. Consequently it cannot be regarded as a good
source for the life of Jesus. The conclusion by no means became established
straight away. 68 But for those at the forefront of the 'quest of the historical Jesus'
64. 'What John represents as the content of the discourses of Christ must have been
what Christ really said, and there is no reason to believe that John introduced any of his own
ideas into Christ's discourses' (Schleiermacher, Life 262).
65. The differences between John's Gospel and the first three had been emphasized by
Griesbach's Synopsis in 1776 (see n. 72 below) and by Lessing's reference to John's Gospel as
a quite separate category from the other three (1778). 'It belongs to a class all of its own'
(H. Chadwick, Lessing's Theological Writings [London: Black, 1956] 21 and 79). See also
Kümmel, New Testament 85-86.
66. Strauss, Life 381-86; other extracts in Kümmel, New Testament 124-26. See also
Strauss's Christ of Faith 38-47.
67. F. C. Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonische Evangelien (Tübingen,
1847); extracts in Kümmel, New Testament 137-38.
68. Schweitzer notes several German scholars, including Neander and Ewald, who
continued to use the Gospel of John as the authentic framework for the life of Jesus (Quest 1
115-18 = Quest 1 105-107). Typical of the still sustained traditional apologetic in Britain was
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