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Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

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§4.2 The Flight from Dogma<br />

conviction of <strong>the</strong> cont<strong>in</strong>u<strong>in</strong>g importance of dist<strong>in</strong>guish<strong>in</strong>g historical from unhistorical.<br />

That said, however, <strong>the</strong> question rema<strong>in</strong>s whe<strong>the</strong>r a viable concept and<br />

practice of 'historical method' can also be retrieved from <strong>the</strong> bl<strong>in</strong>kered historicist<br />

and positivist perspectives of modernity, from <strong>the</strong> narrow<strong>in</strong>g rationalist and scientific<br />

assumptions of <strong>the</strong> Enlightenment. That is a question to which we shall<br />

have to return (<strong>in</strong> chapter 6).<br />

4.2. Exit Revelation and Miracle<br />

From <strong>the</strong> perspective of faith <strong>the</strong> most dramatic and challeng<strong>in</strong>g conclusions to<br />

emerge from <strong>the</strong> phase of 'scientific criticism' of <strong>the</strong> Gospel accounts of <strong>Jesus</strong> related<br />

to <strong>the</strong> fundamental concepts of revelation and miracle. Whereas reason had<br />

previously been quiescent before <strong>the</strong> higher claims of revelation and <strong>the</strong> proofs of<br />

miracle, now <strong>the</strong> roles were reversed and <strong>the</strong> claims of revelation and for miracle<br />

were submitted to <strong>the</strong> judgment of reason. The account of miracle <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> biblical<br />

record received its first serious challenge from scientific criticism by Baruch/Benedict<br />

Sp<strong>in</strong>oza (1632-77). 12 And <strong>the</strong> first onslaught on traditional views of <strong>Jesus</strong><br />

was made by <strong>the</strong> English Deists, particularly Thomas Chubb (1679-1747). 13 But<br />

<strong>the</strong> weight of <strong>the</strong> challenge to faith 14 can be best illustrated by reference to <strong>the</strong> two<br />

classic texts which emerged subsequently, from Hermann Reimarus (1694-1768),<br />

whose controversial work was published only posthumously, 15 and David<br />

12. See particularly D. L. Dungan, A History of <strong>the</strong> Synoptic Problem (New York:<br />

Doubleday, 1999) ch. 16 (here 212-13, 229-32).<br />

13. See, e.g., Kümmel, New Testament 54-57; Baird, History 39-57. Despite his lack of<br />

scholarship, Chubb can be hailed as '<strong>the</strong> orig<strong>in</strong>ator of <strong>the</strong> quest for <strong>the</strong> historical <strong>Jesus</strong>' (Allen,<br />

Human Christ 76). For o<strong>the</strong>r po<strong>in</strong>ts at which <strong>the</strong> Deists anticipated and <strong>in</strong>fluenced Reimarus<br />

see Talbert's Introduction to Reimarus (n. 15 below) 14-18, and fur<strong>the</strong>r Brown, <strong>Jesus</strong> 36-55.<br />

14. David Brown has rem<strong>in</strong>ded me that 'faith' was a category which much of <strong>the</strong> Enlightenment<br />

rejected, preferr<strong>in</strong>g to speak ra<strong>the</strong>r of knowledge or belief; my cont<strong>in</strong>ued use of <strong>the</strong><br />

term <strong>in</strong>dicates my own perspective on this phase of <strong>the</strong> quest.<br />

15. In seven fragments by G. Less<strong>in</strong>g (1774-78), of which <strong>the</strong> last and longest, 'Von dem<br />

Zwecke Jesu und se<strong>in</strong>er Jl<strong>in</strong>ger', is available <strong>in</strong> ET, 'Concern<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> Intention of <strong>Jesus</strong> and His<br />

Teach<strong>in</strong>g', edited by C. H. Talbert, Reimarus Fragments (Philadelphia; Fortress, 1970/London:<br />

SCM, 1971); and G. W. Buchanan, Hermann Samuel Reimarus: The Goal of <strong>Jesus</strong> and His Disciples<br />

(Leiden: Brill, 1970). Typically, Schweitzer regarded Reimarus as <strong>the</strong> beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>the</strong><br />

Quest, ignor<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> English Deists. Schweitzer's evaluation of <strong>the</strong> fragment is also overblown:<br />

'This essay is not only one of <strong>the</strong> greatest events <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> history of criticism, it is also a masterpiece<br />

of world literature' {Quest 2 15-16). It should be noted, however, that Schweitzer's high estimate<br />

of Reimarus followed from his conclusion that Reimarus 'was <strong>the</strong> first to grasp that <strong>the</strong><br />

world of thought <strong>in</strong> which <strong>Jesus</strong> moved historically was essentially eschatological' {Quest 2 22).<br />

29

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