The Historical Jesus and Christology from David Friedrich Strauss to Käsemann

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have seen significant effort invested in historical-critical reconstruction of the portrait of the figure of Jesus. Tracing the progress of these endeavours concisely from the leading contributions of D. F. Strauss, Adolf von Harnack, and Ernst Troeltsch, through the critical rejoinders offered by Martin Kähler, Wilhelm Herrmann, and Rudolf Bultmann, and on to the subsequent second ‘quest’ inaugurated by Ernst Käsemann, consideration is given to the complex and evolving relations between this conversation and doctrinal Christology. The chapter considers the long-term implications of the nineteenth-century separation of the so-called‘Jesus of history’ from the so-called ‘Christ of faith,’ noting in particular the impact of this supposed gulf on ecclesiology.