Birch, Jonathan C.P. (2012) Enlightenment Messiah, 1627-1778: Jesus in history, morality and political theology. PhD thesis http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4240/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/
[email protected] ENLIGHTENMENT MESSIAH, 1627 – 1778: Jesus in History, Morality and Political Theology Jonathan C P Birch (BA Hons, MA, PGCE) Submitted in Requirement of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Glasgow College of Arts School of Critical Studies July 2012 © Jonathan C P Birch 2012 ABSTRACT This is a study of intellectual encounters with the figure of Christ during the European Enlightenment. In the first instance, it contributes to a body of research which has sought to revise the customary view in New Testament studies, that the historical study of Jesus began with the posthumous publication of Herman Samuel Reimarus's Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger (1778), the last in a series of Fragments published by G. E. Lessing. The thesis proposed here is that Reimarus’s writings on Jesus are a notable but relatively late entry, by the German intellectual establishment, into arguments about Jesus and Christian origins which had been raging across Europe for more than a century: arguments concerning history, morality and political theology.