Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

CHAPTER 10
Through the Gospels to Jesus
10.1. Can a Further Quest Hope to Succeed?
The question underlying most of what has preceded is whether any 'quest of the
historical Jesus' can hope to succeed, given the quality of the data available to the
quester and the character of the historical and hermeneutical tasks involved. It
will be recalled that the original quest was counted a failure, its objectives (to uncover
the 'inner life' of Jesus) deemed to be both illegitimate (faith must not be
made to depend on the findings of historians) and impossible of achievement (in
view of the theological character of the data). 1 We have been able to surmount
the first obstacle by noting the importance for faith of the life and mission of Jesus
and history's important role in informing, though not proving, faith. Moreover,
it has become clear that to abstract faith from the historical task is to proceed
unhistorically. For the first faith of those called by Jesus is itself part of the
historical data to be considered. The task is to uncover historically the character
of the impact Jesus made, of the effect he had on those who first formulated the
traditions which have come down to us. Without taking account of their faith and
the faith dimension integral to the Jesus tradition it will not be possible to provide
a responsible historical account of the Jesus tradition.
In Part Two a fuller attempt has been made to answer the claim that a successful
quest is impossible. Its findings point the way ahead. 2
a. First, the study of the available sources (chapter 7) has reinforced the
1. See above chapter 5 nn. 46-47.
2.1 have borrowed the title of the chapter from Keek's Future 26-35, and have taken account
of his five provocative theses expounded there, but note that he continues to work with
the imagery of 'layers' of tradition (29) and that he is characteristically 'new quest' in his focus
on the 'intrinsic authenticity' of individual data (30).
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