Quest for the historical Jesus

Conventionally, since the 18th century three scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have been distinguished, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during each specific phase. The threefold terminology uses the literature selectively, poses an incorrect periodization of research which fails to note the socio-cultural context of the so-called first quest, which began with a critical questioning of Christian origins predating Reimarus, in contrast to what Albert Schweitzer had claimed. First quest Lives of Jesus 's book The Quest of the Historical Jesus introduced the term Mark Powell states that the production of these Lives of Jesus were typically driven by three elements: 1. the imposition of a grand scheme (e.g. Jesus as a reformer) which dictated the theme of the work and in terms of which the gospels were interpreted; 2. the exclusion of those parts of the gospel accounts that did not fit in the scheme; 3. the addition of new material which did not appear in any of the gospels to fill in the gaps in the story. The underlying theme used by the authors of the various Lives of Jesus during the first quest varied. In some cases it aimed to praise Christianity, in other cases to attack it. Later, Gotthold Lessing (1729–1781) posthumously published Reimarus' thesis. Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) who had no interest in recovering a historical Jesus but to criticize religion wrote Ecce Homo! Or, A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus Christ; Being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels and published it anonymously in Amsterdam in 1769. The book was translated into English by George Houston, and published in 1799 and then 1813, for which Houston (who confessed himself to be the author) was condemned for blasphemy to two years in prison. Search for the historical Jesus , whose book was one of the most popular 19th-century Lives of Jesus was one of the first and most influential systematic analyses of the life story of Jesus, aiming to base it on unbiased historical research. Albert Schweitzer wrote in The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906; 1910) that Strauss's arguments "filled in the death-certificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive, but are not really so". He added that there are two broad periods of academic research in the quest for the historical Jesus, namely, "the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss". Among the works that appeared after Strauss, Ernest Renan's book Vie de Jesus, which combined scholarship with sentimental and novelistic psychological interpretation, was very successful and had eight re-printings in three months. Both Weiss and Wrede were passionately anti-liberal and their presentations aimed to emphasize the unusual nature of the ministry and teachings of Jesus. Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906), in the chapter "Was There An Historical Jesus?" of his 1904 work, How Christianity arose. New contributions to the Christ-problem (published in English 1907 as The rise of Christianity) wrote, "A Son of God, Lord of the World, born of a virgin, and rising again after death, and the son of a small builder with revolutionary notions, are two totally different beings. If one was the historical Jesus, the other certainly was not. The real question of the historicity of Jesus is not merely whether there ever was a Jesus among the numerous claimants of a Messiahship in Judea, but whether we are to recognise the historical character of this Jesus in the Gospels, and whether he is to be regarded as the founder of Christianity." Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), a historian of theology, presented an important critical review of the history of the search for Jesus's life in The Quest of the Historical Jesus – From Reimarus to Wrede (1906, 1st ed.), denouncing the subjectivity of the various writers who injected their own preferences in Jesus' character. There is one chapter (Ch. 10) on the two-source hypothesis of Christian Hermann Weisse and the Wilke hypothesis of Christian Gottlob Wilke and three chapters to David Strauss (Ch. 7, 8, and 9), as well as a full chapter to Bruno Bauer (Ch. 11). Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) was the first academic theologian to assert the non-historicity of Jesus. However his scholarship was buried by German academia, and he remained a pariah, until Albert Kalthoff rescued his works from neglect and obscurity. Schweitzer highly praised Bauer's early work, prior to his later period work and conclusion regarding the ahistoricity of Jesus. Christ myth theory A direct challenge to the first quest was The Christ Myth, first published in 1909 by Arthur Drews on the Christ myth theory and the denial of the existence of a historical Jesus. Drews, by amplifying and publicizing the thesis initially advanced by Bruno Bauer, rose to international prominence from the resulting international controversy provoked by his book. In 1912, Shirley Jackson Case noted that within the last decade, doubts about Jesus' existence had been advanced in several quarters, but nowhere so insistently as in Germany where the skeptical movement had become a regular propaganda, "Its foremost champion is Arthur Drews, professor of philosophy in Karlsruhe Technical High School. Since the appearance of his Christusmythe in 1909 the subject has been kept before the public by means of debates held in various places, particularly at some important university centers such as Jena, Marburg, Giessen, Leipzig, Berlin." To discuss Drews's thesis, Schweitzer added two new chapters in the 1913 second edition of his work, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. (, 2. Auflage, 1913) • Ch. 22, (pp. 451–499), "The New Denial of the Historicity of Jesus" () analyzes Drews's thesis, plus eight writers in support of Drews's thesis about the non-existence of Jesus: J. M. Robertson, Peter Jensen, Andrzej Niemojewski, Christian Paul Fuhrmann, W.B. Smith, Thomas Whittaker, G.J.P.J. Bolland, Samuel Lublinski. Three of them favor mythic-astral explanations. • Ch. 23 (pp. 500–560), "The Debate About the Historicity of Jesus" (''), reviews the publications of 40 theologians/scholars in response to Drews, and mentions the participants in the February 1910 public debate. Most of the publications are critical and negative. Schweitzer continues his systematic exposure of the problems and difficulties in the theories of the Bestreiter'' ("challengers') and Verneiner ("deniers") – the Dutch Radicals, J. M. Robertson, W. B. Smith and Drews – and the authenticity of Paul's epistles and Paul's historicity as well. Schweitzer himself also argued that all the 19th-century presentations of Jesus had either minimized or neglected the apocalyptic message of Jesus, and he developed his own version of the profile of Jesus in the Jewish apocalyptic context. Final act of the first quest Schweitzer's work was preceded by Martin Kähler's book The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ which was published in 1896. Ben Witherington states that at the end of the first quest, historical Jesus research was assumed to be dead, although that did not turn out to be the case. However, other scholars such as Stanley Porter or Dale Allison disagree with that assessment, or the separation in terms of these phases. Stanley Porter states that Schweitzer's critique only ended the "romanticized and overly psychologized" studies into the life of Jesus, and other research continued. Dale Allison states that other research did take place during the so-called no quest phase, and the progress was continuous in that every year except 1919 a new academic book on Jesus was published. A key figure in the relatively quiet period from 1906 to 1953 was Rudolf Bultmann, who was skeptical regarding the relevance and necessity of historical Jesus research and argued that the only thing we can or need to know about Jesus is the "thatness" (German: Dass) of his existence and very little else. Bultmann believed that only a few scattered facts could be known about Jesus, and although a few things could be known about Jesus such a search was pointless for all that matters is following "the call of Jesus" which can only be known through an existential encounter with the word of God. However, in the end Bultmann did not totally close the door on historical research and by 1948 suggested the possibility of further investigation. Käsemann's lecture marked a departure from the teachings of his former professor Bultmann who emphasized theology and in 1926 had argued that historical Jesus research was both futile and unnecessary; although Bultmann slightly modified that position in a later book. Käsemann's perspective that it is possible to know something about Jesus if the tools of historical analysis are applied in a systematic manner proved highly consequential and inspired a number of scholars to develop new approaches to the study of the historical Jesus. James M. Robinson's 1959 book A New Quest for the Historical Jesus was reprinted numerous times, indicating the high level of interest in the subject during the 1960s. In order to analyze biblical passages, Käsemann introduced the criterion of dissimilarity, that compares a gospel passage (e.g. a statement by Jesus) to the Jewish context of the time, and if dissimilar, places weight on its being on safe ground. During the second quest the criterion of embarrassment was also introduced. This criterion states that a group is unlikely to invent a story that would be embarrassing to themselves. For instance, this criterion argues that the early Christian Church would have never wanted to invent the kernel of the story about the Baptism of Jesus because John baptised for the remission of sins, and Jesus was viewed as without sin, hence the story served no purpose, and would have been an embarrassment given that it positioned John above Jesus. While the baptism of Jesus itself is a historical event, the presence of the dove and the voice from Heaven may be later embellishments to the original happening. Third quest , By the early 1970s the initial momentum of the second quest had all but disappeared. Paul Zahl stated that while the second quest made significant contributions at the time, its results are now mostly forgotten, although not disproven. Palestinian Judaism The 1977 publication of E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, renewed interest in the historical Jesus, and initiated a third quest. The third quest yielded new insights into Jesus' Palestinian and Jewish context, and not so much on the person of Jesus himself. It also has made clear that all material on Jesus has been handed down by the emerging Church, raising questions about the criterion of dissimilarity, and the possibility of ascribing material solely to Jesus, and not to the emerging Church. Even so, the criteria of authenticity reigned supreme during this period of the quest. The Next Quest In 2021, James Crossley (editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus) announced that historical Jesus scholarship now had moved to the era of the Next Quest. The Next Quest has moved on from the criteria, obsessions with the uniqueness of Jesus, and the supersessionism still implicit in scholarly questions of the Jewishness of Jesus. Instead, sober scholarship now focuses on treating the subject matter as part of the wider human phenomenon of religion, cultural comparison, class relations, slave culture and economy, memory studies, and the social history of historical Jesus scholarship and wider reception histories of the historical Jesus. The book by Crossley and Robert J. Myles, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict, is indicative of this new tendency. Others have criticized claims of a Fourth Quest and had a more measured response to critique of the criteria. The actual problem is arguably that critics use them inappropriately, trying to describe the history of minute portions of the Gospel text, rather than a true flaw in the historical logic of the criteria. According to Tucker Ferda, "...criticisms of the criteria have sometimes produced rather grandiose claims about their "uselessness," which do not seem justified when one looks at the kind of argument that those same critics will use when making positive claims about the historical Jesus...criticisms of the notion of "authenticity" or "historicity" can create the impression that there is more disagreement with earlier research than is actually the case." Demise of authenticity Since the late 2000s, concerns have been growing about the usefulness of the criteria of authenticity. According to Keith, the criteria are literary tools, indebted to form criticism, not historiographic tools. They were meant to discern pre-Gospel traditions, not to identify historical facts, but have "substituted the pre-literary tradition with that of the historical Jesus." According to Le Donne, the usage of such criteria is a form of "positivist historiography." However, scholars who reject or marginalize the criteria are not monolithic and some wish to rebuild the criteria and use it with memory studies. Memory studies James D. G. Dunn's 2003 study, Jesus Remembered, was the onset for an "increased [...] interest in memory theory and eyewitness testimony." Dunn argues that "[t]he only realistic objective for any 'quest of the historical Jesus' is Jesus remembered." Dunn argues that Christianity started with the impact Jesus had on his followers, shaping their memories of him, which were passed on through oral tradition. According to Dunn, to understand the person and impact of Jesus, scholars must look at "the broad picture, focusing on the characteristic motifs and emphases of the Jesus tradition, rather than making findings overly dependent on individual items of the tradition." According to Dunn, the remembered Jesus was Jewish, set in first-century Palestine. Central in Jesus' message was the idea of an inclusive Kingdom of God, which was already coming into existence. Dunn deems it possible that "talk of rejection (the prophetic tradition), of the son of man suffering, and of a cup to be drunk and a baptism to be endured began in greater or less part with Jesus himself reflecting on his own destiny." Chris Keith, Le Donne, and others argue for a "social memory" approach, which argues that memories are shaped by socially determined interpretative frameworks, which are shaped by the needs of the present. Any Gospel unit is shaped and interpreted by the ones who remember; the distinction between "authentic" and "inauthentic" is therefore useless. Instead of searching for a historical Jesus, scholarship should investigate how the memories of Jesus were shaped, and how they were reshaped "with the aim of cohesion and the self-understanding (identity) of groups." Anthony Le Donne elaborated on Dunn's thesis, basing "his historiography squarely on Dunn's thesis that the historical Jesus is the memory of Jesus recalled by the earliest disciples." ==Methods==

Textual, source and form-criticism The first quest, which started in 1778, was almost entirely based on biblical criticism. This took the form of textual and source criticism originally, which were supplemented with form criticism in 1919, and redaction criticism in 1948. Form criticism began as an attempt to trace the history of the biblical material during the oral period before it was written in its current form, and may be seen as starting where textual criticism ends. Form criticism views Gospel writers as editors, not authors. Redaction criticism may be viewed as the child of source criticism and form criticism. and views the Gospel writers as authors and early theologians and tries to understand how the redactor(s) has (have) molded the narrative to express their own perspectives. In view of the skepticism produced in the mid-twentieth century by form criticism concerning the historical reliability of the gospels, the burden shifted in historical Jesus studies from attempting to identify an authentic life of Jesus to attempting to prove authenticity. The criteria developed within this framework, therefore, are tools that provide arguments solely for authenticity, not inauthenticity. By 1987, D.Polkow lists 25 separate criteria being used by scholars to test for historical authenticity including the criterion of "historical plausibility". Other scholars disagree and state that the criteria are meant to be used with caution and are simply tools for historical plausibility than certainty. Nonetheless, while the state of the criteria is "hotly debated" among scholars; the criteria and its reasoning are still employed by even scholars who reject or diminish the criteria, indicating that "authenticating criteria are inherent to historiography" in general. Furthermore, a comparative study tested the methodology of Jesus researchers and Greco-Roman historians on how they assessed the trial of Jesus and Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. The study concluded that the criteria are used by both fields to test historical probability of events. General historians outside of biblical studies have noted that some of the same criteria existed before New Testament form criticism even existed and that they have been in operation by general historians for more than a century. Dissimilarity In 1901, the application of criteria of authenticity began with dissimilarity. It was often applied unevenly with a preconceived goal. The criterion of dissimilarity or discontinuity says that if a particular saying can be plausibly accounted for as the words or teaching of some other source contemporary to Jesus, it is not thought to be genuine evidence of the historical Jesus. The "Son of Man" sayings are an example. Judaism had a Son of Man concept (as indicated by texts like 1 Enoch 46:2; 48:2–5,10; 52:4; 62:5–9; 69:28–29 and 4 Ezra 13:3ff), but there is no record of the Jews ever applying it to Jesus. The Son of Man is Jesus' most common self-designation in the Gospels, yet none of the New Testament epistles use this expression, nor is there any evidence that the disciples or the early church did. The conclusion is that, by the process of elimination of all other options, it is likely historically accurate that Jesus used this designation for himself. Multiple attestation The criterion of multiple attestation or independent attestation, sometimes also referred to as the cross-sectional method, is a type of source criticism first developed by F. C. Burkitt in 1906. Simply put, the method looks for commonalities in multiple sources with the assumption that, the more sources that report an event or saying, the more likely that event or saying is historically accurate. Burkitt claimed he found 31 independent sayings in Mark and Q. Within Synoptic Gospel studies, this was used to develop the four-source hypothesis. Multiple sources lend support to some level of historicity. New Testament scholar Gerd Theissen says "there is broad scholarly consensus that we can best find access to the historical Jesus through the Synoptic tradition." A second related theory is that of multiple forms. Developed by C. H. Dodd, it focuses on the sayings or deeds of Jesus found in more than one literary form. Bible scholar Andreas J. Köstenberger gives the example of Jesus proclaiming the kingdom of God had arrived. He says it is found in an "aphorism (Mat.5:17), in parables (Mat.9:37–38 and Mark 4:26–29), poetic sayings (Mat.13:16–17), and dialogues (Mat.12:24–28)" and is therefore likely an authentic theme of Jesus' teaching. Contextual credibility (Semitic language and Palestinian environment) A series of language-based criteria have been developed since 1925, when the 'criterion of Semitic language phenomena' was first introduced, followed by and linked to the 'criterion of Palestinian environment' by scholars such as Joachim Jeremias (1947). Jeremias's criterion of traces of Aramaic evaluates a biblical saying based on the presence of possibly Aramaic vocabulary or grammar, while the similar criterion of the Palestinian environment considers a saying authentic if it fits in the Palestinian setting of Jesus' time.). John P. Meier (1991) defined a 'criterion of traces of Aramaic' and a 'criterion of Palestinian environment', noting they are closely connected and warning that they are best applied in the negative sense, as the linguistic, social, and cultural environment of Palestine did not suddenly change after the death of Jesus, and so traditions invented inside Palestine in the first few decades after Jesus's death may – misleadingly – appear contextually authentic. Bart D. Ehrman (1999) combined them into the 'criterion of contextual credibility'. This 'asserts that traditions are more likely to be reliable if they conform well to what is known of the historical and social situation of the time', namely 1st-century Palestine. As an example, Ehrman cites the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John: their confusion is based on the multiple meanings of the Greek word ανωθεν/anothen ('again' and 'from above'), but in 1st-century Palestine they would have spoken Aramaic, which does not have a word with the same double meaning; therefore, the conversation could not have taken place as narrated. Embarrassment The Second Quest introduced the criterion of embarrassment. The criterion of embarrassment is based on the assumption the early church would not have gone out of its way to "create" or "falsify" historical material that only embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. As historian Will Durant explains: These and other possibly embarrassing events, such as the discovery of the empty tomb by women, Jesus' baptism by John, and the crucifixion itself, are seen by this criterion as lending credence to the supposition the gospels contain some history. The criterion of the crucifixion is related to the criterion of embarrassment. In the first-century Roman empire, only criminals were crucified. The early church referred to death on the cross as a scandal. It is therefore unlikely to have been invented by them. New Testament scholar Gerd Theissen and theologian Dagmar Winter say one aspect of the criterion of embarrassment is "resistance to tendencies of the tradition". It works on the assumption that what goes against the general tendencies of the early church is historical. For example, criticisms of Jesus go against the tendency of the early church to worship him, making it unlikely the early church community invented statements such as those accusing Jesus of being in league with Satan (Matthew 12:24), or being a glutton and drunkard (Matthew 11:19). Theissen and Winter sum this up with what can also be referred to as enemy attestation: when friends and enemies alike refer to the same events, those events are likely to be historical. Coherence By the 1950s, coherence was also included. The criterion of coherence (also called criterion of consistency or criterion of conformity) can be used only when other material has been identified as authentic. This criterion holds that a saying or action attributed to Jesus may be accepted as authentic if it coheres with other sayings and actions already established as authentic. While this criterion cannot be used alone, it can broaden what scholars believe Jesus said and did. For example, Jesus' teaching in Mark 12:18–27 concerning the resurrection of the dead coheres well with a saying of Jesus in Q on the same subject of the afterlife (reported in Matthew 8:11–12/Luke 13:28–29), as well as other teachings of Jesus on the same subject. Other criteria from the Third Quest Beyond the previous criteria of multiple attestation, dissimilarity (also called discontinuity), context (language and environment), and embarrassment, a number of other criteria have been developed through the third quest. • The criterion of rejection and execution was developed in 1985. It is quite different from other criteria and does not directly point to an individual saying or act of Jesus as authentic, but focuses attention on the fact that Jesus was rejected by the Jews and executed by the Romans and then asks what words and deeds would fit into this scenario. • The criterion of congruence (also called cumulative circumstantial evidence) is a special case of the older criterion of coherence. The criterion of coherence, also called the criterion of consistency and conformity, looks back at what has already been established as historical, and tests if a new hypothesis is consistent and coherent with what is already known. Memory studies Chris Keith, Le Donne, and others argue for a "social memory" approach, which argues that memories are shaped by socially determined interpretative frameworks, which are shaped by the needs of the present. Any Gospel unit is shaped and interpreted by the ones who remember; the distinction between "authentic" and "inauthentic" is therefore useless. Instead of searching for a historical Jesus, scholarship should investigate how the memories of Jesus were shaped, and how they were reshaped "with the aim of cohesion and the self-understanding (identity) of groups." Rafael Rodriguez states, though not persuaded by revisionist reconstructions, instead of using criteria to isolate historical data in a binary of authenticity of precise details, memory studies provide a wider view to capture "gist" of a historical event (e.g. baptism of Jesus, demonic possession) since the sources only represent how Jesus was remembered (interpreted by early followers). Anthony Le Donne elaborated on Dunn's thesis, basing "his historiography squarely on Dunn's thesis that the historical Jesus is the memory of Jesus recalled by the earliest disciples." Archaeological and interdisciplinary at Capernaum A new characteristic of the modern aspects of the third quest has been the role of archeology and James Charlesworth states that few modern scholars now want to overlook the archaeological discoveries that clarify the nature of life in Galilee and Judea during the time of Jesus. A further characteristic of the third quest has been its interdisciplinary and global nature of the scholarship. While the first two quests were mostly by European Protestant theologians, the third quest has seen a worldwide influx of scholars from multiple disciplines, e.g. Jewish scholars involved in historical Jesus research have contributed their detailed knowledge of Second Temple Judaism as the backdrop for the third quest. Jonathan Reed states that chief contribution of archaeology to the study of the historical Jesus is the reconstruction of his social world. An example archaeological item that Reed mentions is the 1961 discovery of the Pilate Stone, which mentions the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, by whose order Jesus was crucified. David Gowler states that an interdisciplinary scholarly study of archeology, textual analysis and historical context can shed light on Jesus and his teachings. An example is the archeological studies at Capernaum. Despite the frequent references to Capernaum in the New Testament, little is said about it there. However, recent archeological evidence show that unlike earlier assumptions, Capernaum was poor and small, without even a forum or agora. This archaeological discovery thus resonates well with the scholarly view that Jesus advocated reciprocal sharing among the destitute in that area of Galilee. ==Historical interpretations of Jesus==

While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus as a historical figure, the portraits of Jesus constructed during the three quests have often differed from each other and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts. The many differences of emphasis among mainstream interpretations in the third quest may be grouped together based on a number of primary interpretations of Jesus as variously an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, cynic philosopher, Jewish Messiah or prophet of social change. However, there is little scholarly agreement on a single interpretation of his life, or the methods needed to construct it. There are also overlapping attributes among the accounts and pairs of scholars which may differ on some attributes may agree on others. John Dominic Crossan stated that the trend has continued and summarized the situation by stating that many authors writing about the life of Jesus would "do autobiography and call it biography". More recent scholarship has challenged this view that reconstruction of Jesus has to be a self-portrait. For instance, James Crossley and Robert J. Myles argue that a rigorous and sober materialist approach can help counter anachronism and scholars' interest in talking about themselves when doing historical Jesus studies. ==Criticism==

The historical analysis techniques used by Biblical scholars have been questioned, and according to James Dunn it is not possible "to construct (from the available data) a Jesus who will be the real Jesus." W.R. Herzog has stated that "What we call the historical Jesus is the composite of the recoverable bits and pieces of historical information and speculation about him that we assemble, construct, and reconstruct. For this reason, the historical Jesus is, in Meier's words, 'a modern abstraction and construct. Bart Ehrman and separately Andreas Köstenberger contend that given the scarcity of historical sources, it is generally difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus that can be considered historically valid beyond the basic elements of his life. On the other hand, scholars such as N. T. Wright and Luke Timothy Johnson argue that the image of Jesus presented in the gospels is largely accurate, and that dissenting scholars are simply too cautious about what we can claim to know about the ancient period. Bias Academic historians have looked at the social, historical, political, and ideological influences on scholarship. In different ways, William Arnal and James Crossley look at a range of factors behind the scholarly discourse about the "Jewishness" of Jesus and how scholars present their Jesus as "very Jewish", while implicitly continuing Christian and cultural supersessionism. Robert J. Myles has looked at how contemporary scholars claim Jesus was "subversive" while in actuality they bolster a non-subversive liberal view of him, similar to the phenomenon of the Hipster. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has shown how different forms of patriarchy have skewed the scholarly Jesus in the male image. Bible scholar Clive Marsh has stated that construction of the portraits of Jesus has often been driven by various "specific agendas" and ideologies. He argues that historical components of the relevant biblical texts are often interpreted to fit specific goals. There are indeed divisions on worldviews among scholars that range from metaphysical naturalism to skepticism of naturalism. Maintaining neutrality on historical matters "is not a problem for only one kind of historian — for atheists or agnostics or Buddhists or Roman Catholics or Baptists or Jews or Muslims; it is a problem for all historians of every stripe." John P. Meier, a Catholic priest and a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, has stated "... I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they're doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed ..." Meier also wrote that in the past the quest for the historical Jesus has often been motivated more by a desire to produce an alternate Christology than a true historical search. Some have argued that modern biblical scholarship can sometimes be insufficiently critical, and sometimes amounts to covert apologetics. On the other side of the coin, historian Michael Licona says there is a "secular bias that ...often goes unrecognized to the extent such beliefs are ...considered to be undeniable truths." New Testament scholar Scot McKnight notes that bias is a universal criticism: "everyone tends to lean toward their own belief system" though historian Michael Grant notes that within life of Jesus studies the "notorious problem reaches its height." Licona adds that because "there is no such thing as an unbiased reader/author," and that every scholar of the historical Jesus "brings philosophical baggage," and because there are no "impartial historians," and "only the naive maintain that historians who are agnostics, atheists and non-Christian theists... [are] without any biases," this is a criticism inevitably accurate to varying degrees for everyone in the field. Stephen Porter says "We are all very biased observers, and given how biased we are, it is no wonder that our criteria so often give us what we want." The New Testament scholar Nicholas Perrin has argued that since most biblical scholars are Christians, a certain bias is inevitable, but he does not see this as a major problem. Licona quotes N. T. Wright:It must be asserted most strongly that to discover that a particular writer has a bias tells us nothing whatever of the value of the particular information he or she presents. It merely bids us be aware of the bias (and of our own for that matter), and to assess the material according to as many sources as we can." However, there is a diversity of backgrounds among scholars, for example, the Society of Biblical Literature has 6,900 members and half is made up New Testament scholars composed of "liberals, conservatives, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists, all from numerous countries and ethnic groups from all over the world." And notable scholars have also been known to be converts to different worldviews, for example, from Christianity to Judaism, Christianity to atheism and agnosticism, and atheism to Christianity. Historian Thomas L. Haskell explains, "even a polemicist, deeply and fixedly committed" can be objective "insofar as such a person successfully enters into the thinking of his or her rivals and produces arguments potentially compelling, not only to those who potentially share the same views, but to outsiders as well." This has led Licona to recognize 6 tools/methods used to check bias. • Method—attention to method reduces bias • Making point of view (horizon) and method public allows scrutiny of, and challenges to, that which stands behind the narrative • Peer pressure—can act as a check, but can also hinder • Submit work to the unsympathetic—they look for issues the sympathetic overlook • Account for relevant historical bedrock—some facts are established • Detachment from bias—historians must force themselves to confront all data Amy-Jill Levine states that since numerous portraits of Jesus exist in scholarship, one should use the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John as the starting point and basis on Jesus instead of the "gospels" according to modern scholars. Lack of methodological soundness A number of scholars have criticized the various approaches and techniques used in the study of the historical Jesus: the lack of rigor in research methods, and for being driven by "specific agendas" that interpret ancient sources to fit specific goals. New Testament scholar John Kloppenborg Verbin says the lack of uniformity in the application of the criteria, and the absence of agreement on methodological issues concerning them, have created challenges and problems. For example, the question of whether dissimilarity or multiple attestation should be given more weight has led some scholars exploring the historical Jesus to come up with "wildly divergent" portraits of him, which would be less likely to occur if the criteria were prioritized consistently. Methodological alternatives involving hermeneutics, linguistics, cultural studies and more, have been put forth by various scholars as alternatives to the criteria, but so far, the criteria remain the most common method used to measure historicity even though there is still no definitive criteriology. Disagreements on the criteria of authenticity usually stem from observations that there are multiple portraits of Jesus instead of one generally agreed upon portrait in scholarship. Partly this comes from the assumption that the criteria are supposed to provide agreed upon results on who Jesus was. However, some scholars argue that the criteria are more like governing principles paralleling other fields that lack consensus such as ethics, law, and science, where disagreements do not mean the tools (e.g. criteria) are undermined. Also it is noted that scholars who disagree with the criteria such as Dale Allison use other methods to reach generally accepted events such as the baptism of Jesus and his teachings of divorce. Historians such as David Fischer observe that though historians can agree in very general and basic principles, in practice "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon". General historiographical texts on historical methods include sections on authenticity of sources using various criteria. According to Licona, classicist historian A. N. Sherwin-White noted that approaches taken by biblical scholars differed from those of classical historians and that Sherwin-White expressed surprise at the loss of confidence in the Gospels and Acts among biblical scholars when classical historians have been growing in confidence in such ancient works. In particular, Sherwin-White says Roman historians take the basic historicity of Acts for granted. Licona observed that both biblical scholars and classical historians rarely reflect on or develop historical methods to grant historicity in their historical works and both commonly rely on their intuition, which is why there are a plurality of historical conclusions for historical inquiries on Jesus and also for historical inquiries that are completely unrelated to religion. An interdisciplinary study tested the methodology of New Testament scholars and Greco-Roman historians on how they assessed the trial of Jesus and Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. The study concluded that general historians of Greco-Roman antiquity routinely employed criteria used by New Testament scholars such as multiple attestation, coherence, criteria of embarrassment and dissimilarity to the point that "It should be increasingly clear that the criteria of authenticity known to NT studies are not, in fact, unique to Jesus research". Scholars fall into 3 categories: critically accepts the criteria, critical but accepting with new or revised criteria, or marginalizes/rejects the criteria; and when reconstructing the trial of Jesus, every scholar (no matter their view on the criteria) ended up using things like multiple and independent attestation, general and historical coherence, embarrassment, and dissimilarity. Even modern Greco-Roman historians such as Michael Grant and Robin Lane Fox used these criteria when reconstructing the trial of Jesus. Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies in the department of history at Queen's University has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians attempting to reconstruct a biography of the man Jesus of Nazareth apart from the mere facts of his existence and crucifixion have not followed sound historical practices. He has stated that there is an unhealthy reliance on consensus for propositions which should otherwise be based on primary sources, or rigorous interpretation. He also identifies a peculiar downward dating creep, and holds that some of the criteria being used are faulty. Licona states that consensus can be valuable as a mark of objectivity when biblical scholars of diverse backgrounds agree on particular points, similar to how there is consensus on the Holocaust among both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars. It is difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus that can be considered historically valid beyond the basic elements of his life. As a result, W.R. Herzog has stated that: "What we call the historical Jesus is the composite of the recoverable bits and pieces of historical information and speculation about him that we assemble, construct, and reconstruct. For this reason, the historical Jesus is, in Meier's words, 'a modern abstraction and construct. According to Dunn it is not possible "to construct (from the available data) a Jesus who will be the real Jesus." Since Albert Schweitzer's book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, scholars have stated that many of the portraits of Jesus are "pale reflections of the researchers" themselves. John Dominic Crossan summarized saying, many authors writing about the life of Jesus "do autobiography and call it biography." By way of contrast, James Crossley and Robert J. Myles argue that a rigorous and sober materialist approach can help counter anachronism and scholars' interest in talking about themselves when doing historical Jesus studies. While there are additional second and third century references to Jesus, evangelical philosopher and historian Gary Habermas says extra-biblical sources are of varied quality and dependability and can only provide a broad outline of the life of Jesus. He also points out that Christian non-New Testament sources, such as the church fathers, rely on the New Testament for much of their data and cannot therefore be considered as independent sources. The primary sources on Jesus are the Gospels, therefore the Jesus of history is inextricably bound to the issue of the historical reliability of those writings. The authenticity and reliability of the gospels and the letters of the apostles have been questioned, and there are few events mentioned in the gospels that are universally accepted. However, Bart Ehrman says "To dismiss the Gospels from the historical record is neither fair nor scholarly." He adds: "There is historical information about Jesus in the Gospels." Representative of critical scholarship today are the comments of James Crossley and Robert J. Myles who "are sceptical about what we can know with confidence" and "prefer to think in terms of whether ideas about Jesus were early or late and whether they were particular to his geographical location or beyond." ==See also==