Quest for the historical Jesus

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Quest for the historical Jesus. The attempt to recover from the New Testament, especially the gospels, an account of Jesus disentangled from the confessional presentation of him in those documents of faith. The ‘Quest’ is associated with A. Schweitzer and his review of previous attempts (mainly of the 19th cent.) to write ‘lives of Jesus’; its impossibility was strongly argued by R. Bultmann (see also KERYGMA). A New Quest of the Historical Jesus (1959) was initiated by J. M. Robinson, who argued that ‘Jesus’ understanding of his existence, his selfhood, and thus in the higher sense his life, is a possible subject of historical research.’