Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer was a French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of the historical Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of justification by faith as secondary.
Bruno Bauer was a German philosopher and theologian. As a student of G. W. F. Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy, politics and Biblical criticism. Bauer investigated the sources of the New Testament and, beginning with Hegel's analysis of Christianity's Hellenic as well as Jewish roots, concluded that early Christianity owed more to ancient Greek philosophy (Stoicism) than to Judaism.
Ferdinand Christian Baur was a German Protestant theologian and founder and leader of the (new) Tübingen School of theology. Following Hegel's theory of dialectic, Baur argued that second century Christianity represented the synthesis of two opposing theses: Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity. This and the rest of Baur's work had a profound impact upon higher criticism of biblical and related texts.
Hermann Samuel Reimarus, was a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a knowledge of God and ethics from a study of nature and our own internal reality, thus eliminating the need for religions based on revelation. He denied the supernatural origin of Christianity, and was the first influential critic to investigate the historical Jesus. According to Reimarus, Jesus was a mortal Jewish prophet, and the apostles founded Christianity as a religion separate from Jesus’ own ministry.
The term "historical Jesus" refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified.
The quest for the historical Jesus consists of academic efforts to determine what words and actions, if any, may be attributed to Jesus, and to use the findings to provide portraits of the historical Jesus. Since the 18th century, three scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during each specific phase. These quests are distinguished from earlier approaches because they rely on the historical method to study biblical narratives. While textual analysis of biblical sources had taken place for centuries, these quests introduced new methods and specific techniques to establish the historical validity of their conclusions.
Günther Bornkamm was a German New Testament scholar belonging to the school of Rudolf Bultmann and a Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg. Under Adolf Hitler, he opposed the nazification of the Protestant churches and their unification into the movement of the 'German Christians'. His post-war fame as a scholar rested on his effort to separate fiction from facts in his reconstruction of Jesus' life and in his subsequent treatment of the gospel of Matthew. His brother was the ecclesiastical historian and Luther scholar Heinrich Bornkamm.
Form criticism as a method of biblical criticism classifies units of scripture by literary pattern and then attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. "Form criticism is the endeavor to get behind the written sources of the Bible to the period of oral tradition, and to isolate the oral forms that went into the written sources. Insofar as this attempts to trace the history of the tradition, it is known as tradition criticism." Form criticism seeks to determine a unit's original form and the historical context of the literary tradition.
The Messianic Secret is a motif in the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus is portrayed as commanding his followers to maintain silence about his Messianic mission. Attention was first drawn to this motif in 1901 by William Wrede.
Georg Friedrich Eduard William Wrede was a German Lutheran theologian.
Adolf Jülicher was a German scholar and biblical exegete. Specifically, he was the Professor of Church History and New Testament Exegesis, at the University of Marburg. He was born in Falkenberg near Berlin and died in Marburg.
Franz Volkmar Reinhard was a German Protestant theologian born in Vohenstrauß.
David Friedrich Strauss was a German liberal Protestant theologian and writer, who influenced Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus", whose divine nature he explored via myth. Strauss conceived of myths as expressions of Truths, as opposed to the modern shorthand of myth for "falsity"- Strauss did not deny Jesus' divine nature. His work was connected to the Tübingen School, which revolutionized study of the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient religions. Strauss was a pioneer in the historical investigation of Jesus.
Albert Kalthoff was a German Protestant theologian, who along with Emil Felden (1874–1959), Oscar Mauritz (1867–1959), Moritz Schwalb (1833–1916) and Friedrich Steudel (1866–1939) formed a group in Bremen, named the Deutscher Monistenbund, who no longer believed in Jesus as a historical figure.
The Christ Myth, first published in 1909, was a book by Arthur Drews on the Christ myth theory. Drews (1865–1935), along with Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) and Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906), is one of the three German pioneers of the denial of the existence of a historical Jesus.
Die Leugnung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart was a 1926 book in German by Arthur Drews on Christ myth theory.
Andrzej Niemojewski was a Polish social and political activist, poet, rationalist and writer of the Young Poland period.
The question of whether the historical Jesus was in good mental health has been explored by multiple psychologists, philosophers, historians, and writers. The first person, after several other attempts at tackling the subject, who broadly and thoroughly questioned the mental health of Jesus was French psychologist Charles Binet-Sanglé, the chief physician of Paris and author of a four-volume work La Folie de Jésus. This view finds both supporters and opponents.
Moderne Leben-Jesu-Forschung unter dem Einflusse der Psychiatrie is a book published in 1908 by Philipp Kneib. In the years before the publication, several authors had brought up the notion that Jesus was not divine, but rather an influential mentally ill individual. Kneib tries to reject this idea in his book by discussing the general possibility of miracles and the resurrection of Jesus. He further deals with every argument for the notion that Jesus was mentally ill and brings up counterarguments. By upholding the believe that Jesus was sane, Kneib tries to reinforce the belief in Jesus' divinity.
Philipp Kneib was a German Catholic theologist.
