Marcus Borg | The Historical Jesus | The Quest of Albert Schweitzer

Marcus Borg Foundation
The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith
“The teachings of Jesus and his behavior reflect an alternative social vision. Jesus was not talking about how to be good and how to behave within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself.”
Dr. Marcus Borg

In this groundbreaking work that made his reputation as a theologian, Albert Schweitzer traces the search for the historical person of Jesus (apart from the Christ of faith) and puts forward his own view of Jesus as an apocalyptic figure who preached a radical message of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Though Schweitzer's own proposals about Jesus no longer command assent, his lasting contribution, comprising the bulk of the book, is the critique of his predecessors. Through examining the works of more than 50 18th- and 19th-century authors and scholars, he shows conclusively that each historical reconstruction of Jesus was largely a fantasy made in their own self-image.
Schweitzer's work has proved the touchstone for all subsequent quests for the "Jesus of history." It also contributed in no small measure to the remarkable resurgence in Jesus studies in the latter part of the 20th century, which culminated in the much publicized and highly controversial findings of the Jesus Seminar.

Schweitzer Fellowship

"The closer one gets to the historical Jesus, the more extraordinary Jesus becomes."
John Dominic Crossan

In Schweitzer’s final and most important chapter he argues that the union of what he calls “thoroughgoing skepticism” and “thoroughgoing eschatology” represents an impassible and enduring obstacle to traditional Christian theology. Jesus, according to Schweitzer, “lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and he throws himself on it. Then it does turn; and crushes him” (p. 370-71). And yet, even with this perspective, this “negative theology” as Schweitzer calls it of a “failed messiah,” he leaves the reader with his final chapter that he calls “Results.” He writes that “Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from him and flows through our time also,” and “…it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world.” (pp. 399, 401).

John Carlisle Kilgo
The quest for the historical Jesus has gone on for about three centuries. Now, the classical study of this was done by Albert Schweitzer, at the turn to the 20th century, in his book, "The Quest of the Historical Jesus." What he showed was that from the 18th century on, the attempt to find out who Jesus really was had been conditioned all the way through by the needs and wants and desires of the people who were writing the book.

You refer to Schweitzer. What did he think he found, what did he make of Jesus?

Albert Schweitzer concluded at the end of this enormous study of all these lives of Jesus, that the Jesus that might have been the Jesus of the synoptic gospels was an apocalyptic figure who preached a fiery message of the coming of the Kingdom of God, who separated families, who told people they should have no occupations but go out and follow him and so on. He had to conclude this was quite irrelevant to the needs and wants of Western Christians at the turn to the 20th century. This was not a form of Christianity that was compatible with his day and age.

THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS
It is impossible to disentangle in the New Testament accounts what the later church believed Jesus to be, or the later church believed Jesus thought himself to be, from what the historical Jesus actually thought himself to be... That is lost to us.

“The divine origins of Jesus are, to be sure, just as fictional or mythological as those of Octavius. But to claim them for Octavius surprised nobody in that first century. What was incredible was that anyone at all claimed them for Jesus.”
— John Dominic Crossan

"Christianity both admits and subverts the historical Jesus," Crossan says.
He was crucified because he threatened Roman stability