Modern Search for the Real Jesus
by Robert B. Strimple

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Book Reviews of Modern Search for the Real Jesus

Book Review: A Solid Introduction to the Evolution of Gospels Criticism
Summary: 4 Stars

As Strimple notes, the Enlightenment era provided the kind of fertile environment that was necessary for skepticism to begin to reign supreme in Biblical scholarship. Strimple attempts to describe the major schools of thought in Gospels criticism from that time forward, along with analyzing the specific thoughts of many prominent scholars from those schools. Being an introductory work, Strimple touches on the major themes of each school of skepticism, and in many places, provides summary level critiques of those schools.

What quickly becomes apparent when reading Strimple's book is that all forms of Gospels criticism are based on skeptical presuppositions that require their adherents to make leaps of faith (pretty ironic) to align themselves with the presuppositions that undergird their program. Over and over again, it is seen that liberal, radical, postliberal, and existentialist scholars, in seeking the supposed real Jesus, inevitably start their quest with a very definite view in mind that validates whatever their own presuppositions are. Not surprisingly, these scholars invariably end up 'discovering' the exact kind of Jesus they were looking for, one that bears virtually no resemblance to the Jesus actually discussed in Scripture. It is most educational to read this book from the vantage point of seeing how the basic presupposition that the Gospel accounts are unreliable results in complete subjectivism relative to Jesus scholarship, as can be seen from different scholars staking out various positions all over the spectrum without being able to ground their positions in anything other then their own presuppositions. I was very happy to see Strimple give positive due to Schweitzer at least as far as Schweitzer's honest appraisal of such scholarship as being almost purely an exercise in myth making - the very thing such scholarship claims to be trying to get rid of in the Gospel accounts of Jesus. While not mentioning it specifically, Strimple's inclusion in this book of these kind of comments by Schweitzer are very telling concerning the folly of the Jesus studies of the last 2 centuries. If someone who was as unorthodox and radical as Schweitzer could recognize the futility of Gospels criticism as it existed, those who subscribe to such skeptical methods are actually forced to answer not only criticisms from evangelical scholars like Strimple, but from prominent scholars in their own camp.

I gave the book 4 stars mainly because of the glaring omission concerning the Jesus Seminar. Strimple makes passing references to the Jesus Seminar and how their methodology is based heavily on old-line form criticism which has been beaten to a pulp over the last several decades by scholars across the entire spectrum of New Testament scholarship. But a more in-depth treatment of the Seminar would have been completely appropriate, but was not undertaken here. An unfortunate omission that spares the most high profile New Testament skepticism around today from the kind of analysis and critique it readily deserves. How Strimple could have written a book about various quests for the real/historical Jesus without devoting some ink to the most popularized form of the quest today is something that frankly escapes me. As such, the book gets 4 stars for being decidedly incomplete even on an introductory level.

But other then cutting off his analysis a decade short, what Strimple does interact with is high quality stuff and should be read carefully by Christians who seek to make sense of the Biblical skepticism that continues to reign among many non-evangelical academics today.

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