Читать книгу The Origins of Christianity and the New Testament - Rebecca I. Denova - Страница 32

Albert Schweitzer was a German theologian and doctor (the latter part of his life was spent as a missionary in Gabon, Africa). In 1906 he published The Quest for the Historical Jesus, largely a critique against Lives of Jesus, but he also provided new tools for the “quest” through the rest of the century.

A significant omission in the Lives according to Schweitzer was the “apocalyptic Jesus.” In the gospels, Jesus had proclaimed the imminence of God’s “kingdom” on earth. This was the Prophetic claim that God would intervene in history one more time in “the final days.” But the “kingdom” did not arrive. Was Jesus wrong?

Over the centuries, the delay of the kingdom was rationalized as time passed; Christians still awaited the kingdom, but in the interim, the church became idealized as a form of the kingdom on earth until Jesus returned. The problem of Jesus as a failed prophet became buried as somewhat embarrassing. The focus was more on elucidating Christian dogma. Schweitzer claimed that analysis of the “apocalyptic Jesus” should be the starting point for historical exploration, in the context of various views of apocalyptic thinking by Jews in the first century. This portrait of Jesus became a template for research in the rest of the nineteenth century. The importance of understanding apocalyptic thinking by Jews in the first century is now a fundamental element of research for New Testament scholars.