Although not the first theologian to suggest that the miraculous and supernatural elements of the life of Jesus should be treated as myth, Strauss became immediately famous with his publication of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined and at the same time found his career in ruins.
In 1835, David Friedrich Strauss, a twenty-seven-year-old professor at Tübingen University, published the first volume of the groundbreaking and controversial Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (1835-1836, 2 vols.; The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 1846, 3 vols.). The second volume followed the next year. Strauss was born January 27, 1808, in the village of Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart, Württemberg, in modern-day Germany. At the age of twelve, he began theological study at Blaubeuren under Ferdinand Christian Baur, a well-respected classical and biblical scholar. He continued his study at Tübingen University and in 1830 took a position as pastor at a rural parish and professor of Latin and history at a high school in Maulbronn. A year later, he was drawn to Berlin to study with the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Examined[1910]
Strauss was not the first person of his era to write a life of Jesus. The Enlightenment and the age of rationalism had brought new eyes to the study of biblical texts. The increase in rationalism and the discovery of ancient manuscripts led biblical scholars to engage in intense textual and source criticism: They carefully compared published editions of the Bible to each other and to the oldest manuscripts they could find. They began with the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and then turned to the Gospels. As questions were raised about the process of biblical composition and the effects of composition upon meaning, the scholars’ work seemed to discredit Christianity.
Hermann Samuel Reimarus
Friedrich Schleiermacher.
While in Berlin, Strauss had attended lectures by Schleiermacher on the life of Jesus that had first attracted him to the topic. (The 1832 version of these lectures would be posthumously published in 1865.) Schleiermacher differed from Reimarus
Strauss’s approach was also influenced by the work of Hegel
Many subsequent German thinkers (most famously Friedrich Engels) modified Hegel’s system, in which each term of the dialectic confronts itself with its own inadequacies. Instead, they used a model in which each term, or thesis, is confronted with its precise opposite, or antithesis, and the two terms combine to create a third term, a synthesis. It was Strauss’s early teacher Ferdinand Christian Baur
Strauss referred to this approach as mythical in character. During the late eighteenth century, Christian Gottlob Heyne
Strauss’s approach to the historical Jesus thus attempted to find a middle ground between the rationalists, whom he criticized, and the orthodox traditionalists such as his colleague Johann Tobias Beck
Strauss rejected both views and argued that the meaning of the story can be found in the imagery borrowed from Exodus texts about feeding the multitude in the wilderness with manna from heaven. The purpose of the story in Strauss’s analysis, then, is not to describe what actually happened on a particular day but to present Jesus as the bread of life who feeds his followers with a spiritual food. The result of the publication of Strauss’s text was a healthy skepticism about what one could know about the historical Jesus. For Strauss, though, it did not matter. Behind the words of the Gospels existed Jesus the Messiah, and the spiritual meaning behind the words transcended any literal considerations about the use of the words themselves to understand temporal history.
Strauss’s work has often been characterized by the immediate negative reception it received in Europe. Contemporaries labeled Strauss as the new Judas Iscariot and referred to The Life of Jesus Critically Examined as a book originating in hell. Public outcry caused him to lose his teaching position at Tübingen. When he was offered another position at Zurich in 1839, a petition bearing forty thousand signatures was presented against him. The result was that he was offered a pension and never allowed to teach. He had a failed marriage to a famous opera singer, and he entered German politics for a time, taking rather conservative positions. Strauss retired to continue writing, producing several revisions of his book.
On the other hand, many modern scholars see Strauss’s work as beginning the modern era of critical New Testament study. It influenced the development of many German theologians, such as Adolf von Harnack, whose presentation of the moral core of Jesus’ teaching owes much to Strauss. Strauss’s influence went further than Germany, moreover. The Englishman Charles Christian Hennell’s An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity (1838) had many similarities to The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. In 1846, novelist George Eliot
Ultimately, Strauss’s work led to Albert Schweitzer’s Von Reimarus zu Wrede: Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (1906; The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, 1910), which was foundational for twentieth century Gospel study. Although Schweitzer was highly critical of Strauss, the work of the former continued that of the latter in several important points. Like Strauss, Schweitzer continued to be highly skeptical of what one could know about the historical Jesus. The methodology of following the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) more closely than that of John remained intact. Finally, Strauss’s characterization of Jesus primarily as an eschatological prophet became the hallmark of Schweitzer’s work.
Strauss’s The Life of Jesus Critically Examined really was not a portrayal of the life of Jesus as such but rather an analysis that questioned whether such an undertaking was even possible. Schweitzer’s quest for the historical Jesus drew the same conclusions, as did the new quests for the historical Jesus that came about in the 1950’s and at the end of the twentieth century.
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Borg, Marcus. “David Friedrich Strauss: Miracle and Myth.” The Fourth R 4, no. 3 (May/June, 1991). Focuses on the interpretation of miracles in Strauss. -
Grant, Robert M., and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible. Rev. ed. London: SCM, 1996. Historical survey of approaches to biblical interpretation. Chapters 12 and 13 treat the nineteenth century. -
Krentz, Edgar. The Historical-Critical Method. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975. Discusses the roots of modern historical criticism in the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. -
Neill, Stephen, and Tom Wright. Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1961. Rev. ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1988. Treatment of Strauss’s work and subsequent developments in New Testament interpretation. -
Strauss, David Friedrich. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. Edited by Peter C. Hodgson. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972. A twentieth century edition of the original George Eliot translation. Includes a thorough introduction. -
Theissen, Gerd, and Annettte Merz. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1998. Comprehensive modern study of the historical Jesus.
British and Foreign Bible Society Is Founded
Hegel Publishes The Phenomenology of Spirit
Ranke Develops Systematic History
Oxford Movement Begins
Finney Lectures on “Revivals of Religion”
Pius IX Decrees the Immaculate Conception Dogma
Pius IX Issues the Syllabus of Errors
Kulturkampf Against the Catholic Church in Germany
Samuel Taylor Coleridge; George Eliot; Friedrich Engels; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; Ernest Renan; Friedrich Schleiermacher.