The Jesus Quest: The DANGER from within by Norman L. Geisler

Author:Norman L. Geisler [Geisler, Norman L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781628718744
Publisher: Xulon Press
Published: 2014-03-16T07:00:00+00:00

PART FOUR

BEWARE OF “CRITICAL”

POSTMODERN HISTORY

What Can We Learn from the Past

“Critical” & “Postmodern” Attempts to Reconstruct the “Historical” Jesus?

Does the Method Yield the True Jesus of History?

CHAPTER 9

SEARCHING FOR THE “HISTORICAL” JESUS: THE RISE OF THE THREE SEARCHES

F. David Farnell

INTRODUCTION TO “SEARCHING”

FOR THE “HISTORICAL JESUS”1

For the past several hundred years, scholars have conducted what is known as “the search for the historical Jesus” or also today as “historical Jesus research.” Such a search operates under the a priori assumption that the four canonical Gospels, the only documents written about the life of Jesus, are in some significant ways deficient, incorrect, or inadequate in their presentation of Jesus’ life and work in actual history. This search posits a sharp cleavage between the Gospel portraits of Jesus and his actual existence in first century Palestine and seeks to establish a scholarly consensus view of Jesus that would be considered a more accurate representation of His life than what is contained in the Gospels. This chapter covers the rise of the three periods of activity known as “searching for the ‘historical Jesus,’” the overarching purpose of which is to deliberately destroy the influence of the Gospels and the church upon society. While this purpose is openly and honestly admitted by theological liberals, evangelicals who participate now in the “third” quest are far less candid as to its design. These searches started with the rise in dominance of the ideology of historical criticism over two hundred years ago and are a natural consequence of the innate historical skepticism replete in them. The first two searches ended as declared failures by those who engaged in them. Now some of the same scholars who have inspired the New Perspective on Paul have also been largely influential in stimulating the “third search for ‘the historical Jesus’” (e.g. Sanders, Wright, Dunn). When the evidence is examined, only one overall “search for the ‘historical Jesus’” has actually existed. All three are unified by sharing, to some degree, the unifying characteristics of significant degrees of suspicion regarding the Gospels, similar ideological approaches in utilizing historical criticism, a refusal to accept the biblical accounts as truly depicting Jesus as He actually was in history, and a marked preference for developing a view of Jesus that is acceptable to scholarship.

The Consistent Testimony of the

Orthodox Church for 1700 Years

From the nascent beginnings of the church until the seventeenth century, orthodox Christians held that the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Luke, Mark and John) were historical, biographical, albeit selective (cf. John 20:30-31) eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life2 written by the men whose names were attached to them from the beginning.3 These Gospels are virtually the only source for our knowledge of the acts and teachings of Jesus.4 The Gospels were considered by the Church as the product of Spirit-energized minds (John 14:26; 16:13; 1 John 4:4) to give the true presentation of Jesus’ life and work for the thirty-plus years that He lived on the earth. The consistent, as well as persistent, testimony expressed in

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