Note: I am continuing my summer reading survey of works from 19th century historical-critical Biblical studies. Here are some notes from Martin Kähler's 1896 classic:
Book Note
Martin Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the
Historic Biblical Christ, trans. by Carl E. Braaten (Fortress Press, 1964
[original Der sogennante historische
Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus, 1896]): 153 pp.
Kähler writes to
oppose 19th century attempts to reconstruct the life of Jesus based
on the Gospels. He begins, “I regard the
entire Life-of-Jesus movement as a blind alley” (p. 46). The title of the book distinguishes between
the “historical” (historische) Jesus and the “historic” (geschichtliche) biblical
Christ. Braaten discusses and compares
translation of these important terms on p. 21:
historische (historie) geschichtliche (geschichte)
C. Braaten/R. Fuller “historical” “historic”
J. Macquarrie “objective
history” “existential
history”
H. R. Niebuhr “outer
history” “inner
history”
For
Kähler, the Gospels do not provide an adequate
“historical” picture of Jesus, but they do provide an adequate “historic”
picture. He contends that “we have no sources
for a biography of Jesus of Nazareth which measures up to the standards of
contemporary historical science” (p. 48).
He rejects, in particular, attempts to present psychological studies of
Jesus’ inner life or of development in his thought from the Gospels, stating,
“The New Testament presentations were not written for the purpose of describing
how Jesus developed” (p. 51). Indeed, he notes, “The inner development of a
sinless person is as inconceivable to us as life in the Sandwich Islands is to
a Laplander” (p. 53)! Thus, he
concludes, “Without a doubt the Gospels are the complete opposite of the
embellishing, rationalizing, and psychologizing rhetoric of the recent
biographies of Jesus” (p. 93). Along these
lines, Kähler also adds his famous aphorism that one could well
call the Gospels “passion narratives with extended introductions” (p. 80, no. 11).
Kähler wants to
walk the line between both traditional (pre-critical) and modern (historical-critical)
understandings of the Scripture. He
calls the choice between the two “an Either/Or.” This means, “Either we retreat to the
standpoint of the seventeenth century … affirming the inerrancy of the external
features of the Bible as it was taken over at the Reformation, and rejecting
any kind of historical study of the sacred text. Or we deny that there is any essential
difference between the biblical writings and other books….” (p. 110). Both approaches, he claims, are
misguided. The purpose of the Gospels is
not to provide “for a scientifically
reconstructed biography of Jesus” but their purpose “is to awaken faith in
Jesus through a clear proclamation of his saving activity” (p. 127).
In
his critique of modern theology, Kähler offers this
observation: “The assertion of the
absolutely unlimited inerrancy of everything found in our vernacular Bibles has
caused a progressive uneasiness ever since the investigation of the traditions
of Judaism hit its full stride” (p. 115).
In a footnote for the word “everything” in the previously quoted
sentence, Kähler notes how this “uneasiness” in “everything”
has included the undermining of the traditional text found in Luther’s Bible
which he notes has met more opposition in Germany than in England (!):
This word has been chosen advisedly. The situation is such that a devoted reader
of the Bible has usually felt himself entitled to rely literally upon all the
statements made in the headings and subheadings in Luther’s translation of the
Bible. How reluctantly a person resigns
himself to the elimination of the pericope of the adulteress and of the end of
Mark’s Gospel. How enraged people become
when doubt is cast upon the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, etc. This attitude has been partly to blame for
the difficulties encountered in connection with the revising of Luther’s
translation. In England, devotedness to
the letter of Scripture produces zeal for a continual improvement of the
translation; among us Germans it has produced a certain resentment of any such
attempts; and in still others it has inspired the naïve confidence of being
able to give Bible readers a more faithful reproduction of the original text,
even though the translator may have a most inadequate knowledge of the biblical
languages and often not the vaguest notion of the textual problems. These mutually exclusive examples show that
the starting point, the same in each instance, cannot be the correct one (p.
115, n. 26).
In
the end, one might question whether Kähler’s supposed
effort to stand above and beyond the fray between traditionalists and modernists
is sincere. In truth, Kähler stands steadfastly with modern theology. Efforts like his, and that of others in
liberal Protestantism, to forfeit the historical reliability of the Gospels
while affirming their unique spiritual content did not salvage a high view of
the Scriptures or a vibrant Christian faith.
Would that Kähler had, instead, stood with the
seventeenth century Reformers in affirming both
the “historic” and “historical” Jesus of the Gospels and the “historic” and “historical” Christ of faith, with no
contradiction between the two. His
critique of the “Life-of-Jesus” movement, however, is usefully on target and
anticipated the devastating critique of this movement in Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Though his remedy is inadequate, Kähler also rightly anticipated the way in which the
application of the historical-critical method was undermining Christian faith
in Germany and beyond.
Jeffrey T. Riddle, Christ Reformed
Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia
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