Historical Jesus

Definition and Meaning

The term "historical Jesus" refers to Jesus of Nazareth, a first-century figure, as he can be reconstructed through historical methods such as source criticism, with the framework of doctrine and confessions of faith temporarily set aside. It is used in contrast to the "Christ of faith," whom the church confesses. This contrast became widely known through a book published in 1892 by the German theologian Martin Kähler. In scholarship, this study of Jesus Christ is commonly called the "quest for the historical Jesus."

Biblical and Historical Background

The principal sources are the Gospels of the New Testament. Brief references by non-Christian writers of the first and second centuries, such as Josephus and Tacitus, are also examined. By analyzing the relationships among the Gospels (the Synoptic Problem) and the process by which the traditions were transmitted, scholars seek to determine what Jesus actually said and did.

Many scholars trace the beginning of modern research to the posthumously published writings of the eighteenth-century German scholar Hermann Samuel Reimarus. In a book published in 1906, Albert Schweitzer criticized the nineteenth-century lives of Jesus for projecting their authors' own ideals onto Jesus. Later, Rudolf Bultmann and others held that the historical Jesus could not be known with certainty. Research then passed through the "New Quest" of the 1950s and continued, from the 1980s onward, in the "Third Quest," which seeks to understand Jesus within the context of first-century Judaism. The Jesus Seminar, founded in the United States in 1985, treated the Gospel of Thomas, which is not part of the canon (the books the church has recognized as Scripture), as a source alongside the canonical Gospels, and it consequently attracted both attention and criticism.

Practice in the Korean Church

This subject is addressed mainly in seminary courses and theological literature rather than in sermons or Bible studies. Denominations differ in their response to it.

• Conservative Presbyterians: Bodies such as the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapdong) and the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Kosin) hold to biblical inerrancy (the doctrine that Scripture contains no errors) and regard the Gospels as reliable historical records. They criticize historical Jesus research for resting on presuppositions that exclude miracles and the Resurrection from the outset.
• Progressive denominations and seminaries: The Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea and Hanshin University, among others, have incorporated historical criticism (a method of biblical interpretation that analyzes the historical circumstances and processes from which a text arose) into theological study. The minjung theologian Ahn Byung-mu is known for exploring the relationship between Jesus and the minjung (the common people), taking the ochlos ("crowd") of the Gospel of Mark as his point of departure.
• Evangelical scholars: Among evangelical scholars there is also a movement that, rather than rejecting historical research, uses its methods to defend the reliability of the Gospels.