A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus return to religion-online 46 A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus by James M. Robinson James M. Robinson is the Arthur J. Letts Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at the Claremont Graduate School and Co-chair of the International Q Project. Published by SCM Press LTD, Bloomsbury Street, London, 1959. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. (ENTIRE BOOK) A respected New Testament scholar indicates the impossibility of the nineteenth-century German quest for the historical Jesus, and describes a different kind of quest based upon new premises, procedures and objectives. This quest calls for a total encounter with the person of Jesus, and calls upon the seeker himself to make a radical decision. List of Abbreviations Chapter 1. Introduction From a survey of current German discussion we may conclude that the proposal of a new quest of the historical Jesus, originally made within the context of the ‘post-Bultmannian’ direction of leading pupils of Bultmann, has broadened itself, not only in traditionally conservative circles, but also by support from the Barthian side as well as from Bultmann himself. Chapter 2: The Impossibility and Illegitimacy of the Original Quest Dr. Robinson examines the various factors at work in the study of the "historical" Jesus which crystallized into the consensus that the quest is both impossible and illegitimate. Chapter 3: The Possibility of a New Quest A new quest for a historical Jesus must be built upon the fact that the sources do make possible a new kind of quest, working in terms of the modern view of history and the self. Chapter 4: The Legitimacy of a New Quest Although the historical existence of Jesus could not be proved objectively by any quantity of the authenticity of his sayings, yet that historical existence can be encountered historically and understood existentially. The existential decision with regard to the kerygma is an existential decision with regard to Jesus. http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showbook?item_id=2073 (1 of 2) [2/4/03 2:19:01 PM] A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus Chapter 5: The Procedure of a New Quest Jesus’ thought centers in a call to the present on the basis of the eschatological event of the near future. He pronounces divine judgement and blessing, and explains God’s other mighty acts (such as exorcism) which he does on the basis of the nearness of the kingdom. This call to the present in terms of the nearness of the kingdom is so central a theme as to produce something approaching a formal pattern. 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Robinson James M. Robinson is the Arthur J. Letts Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at the Claremont Graduate School and Co- chair of the International Q Project. Published by SCM Press LTD, Bloomsbury Street, London, 1959. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. List of Abbreviations List of Abbreviations: BZ, n.F. Biblische Zeitschrift, neuc Folge ChrW Die Christliche Welt EvTh Evan.gelische Theologie ExpT The Expository Times GuT" Rudolf Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, Vol. I, 1933. (Vol. II, 1932, is cited from the Engl tr., Essays Philosophical and Theological, 1955.) JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JTS, n.s. Journal of Theologital Studies, new series KD Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, 1932 ff. KuD Kerygma und Dogma KuM Kerygma und Mythos, ed. H. W. Bartsch, 1948-55 RGG Die Relgion in Geschichte mid Gegenwart SgV Sammlung gemeinverständlicher Vorträge STK Svennk Teologisk Kvartalskrift TB Theologische Blätter TLZ Theologische Literaturzeitung TR, n.F. Theologische Rundschau, neue Folge TZ Theologische Zeitschrift TWNT Tbeologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament V/uF Verkündigung und Forschung http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showchapter?chapter_id=1906 (1 of 2) [2/4/03 2:19:38 PM] A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus ZNTW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissen- schaft ZTK Zeitschrift Theologie und Kirche 16 http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showchapter?chapter_id=1906 (2 of 2) [2/4/03 2:19:38 PM] A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus return to religion-online A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus by James M. Robinson James M. Robinson is the Arthur J. Letts Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at the Claremont Graduate School and Co- chair of the International Q Project. Published by SCM Press LTD, Bloomsbury Street, London, 1959. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. Chapter 1. Introduction [Editor's Note: The extensive footnotes for these chapters are omitted. They are available only in the printed copy.] A. The ‘Bultmannian’ Epoch in German Theology The present work is intended as a programmatic essay, i.e. as a contribution to basic thought about the unfulfilled task of New Testament scholarship. Hence its point of departure is not in the relatively untroubled and uninterrupted quest of the historical Jesus going on in French’ and Anglo-Saxon scholarship. Rather it is based upon the conviction that this continuation of the nineteenth-century German quest ought probably to be interrupted or at least disturbed. The present study has to do with a quite different kind of quest based upon new premises, procedures and objectives, a quest which may well succeed in a way the other did not. For a new and promising point of departure has been worked out by precisely those scholars who are most acutely aware of the difficulties of the previous quest.’ As a matter of fact this new development is recognized in its full significance only when one observes that it forms a central thrust in a second, ‘post- Bultmannian’ phase of post-war German theology. Clearly the first phase of post-war German theology was the rise of the Buitmannian position to the centre of debate. The cumulative weight of Bultmann’s prodigious career, focused into the concrete programme of demythologizing, burst like a meteor into the void caused by the http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showchapter?chapter_id=1905 (1 of 10) [2/4/03 2:19:47 PM] A New Quest of the Biblical Jesus attrition of the Nazi ideology, the war and post-war collapse, and the passing of such leading New Testament scholars as Lietzmann, Büchsel, Behm, von Soden, Lohmeyer, Kittel, Dibelius, and Schniewind. Such pupils of Bultmann as Ernst Käsemann (Tülbingen), Günther Bornkamm (Heidelberg), Ernst Fuchs (Marburg), Erich Dinkler (Bonn), and Hans Conzelmann (Göttingen) have proven sufficiently distinguished to rise into the leading professorial positions, and a theological affinity to Gogarten and Tillich has provided a broad theological context. Bultmann himself provided a pre-established rapprochement with the dominant cultural trend in Germany centring in the existentialism of Martin Heidegger. His own monumental Theology of the New Testament provided the theological synthesis of the day, as did Barth’s Romans a generation