1. Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction
Chapter 12
Faith and History
The Christological Agenda of Modernity
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

2. The Enlightenment and Christology The Problem of Faith and History
Reason, revelation, and the nature of history
The philosophical uselessness of history
The critique of miracles
David Hume, Essay on Miracles (1748)
The development of doctrinal criticism
The “history of dogma” movement
The Problem of Faith and History
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
The chronological difficulty
The metaphysical difficulty
The “ugly great ditch” between faith and history
The scandal of particularity
The existential difficulty
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

3. Questing for the Historical Jesus
The original quest of the historical Jesus
Hermann Samuel Reimarus
The quest for the religious personality of Jesus
Liberal Protestantism
“life of Jesus” movement
The critique of the quest,
The apocalyptic critique
Johannes Weiss ( )
Albert Schweitzer ( )
The skeptical critique
William Wrede ( )
The dogmatic critique
Martin Kähler ( )
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

4. The quest suspended (“no quest”): Rudolf Bultmann
That: All that is necessary is to believe that Jesus Christ lies behind the kerygma (gospel proclamation)
The new quest of the historical Jesus
Ernst Käsemann, 1953
Need to explore continuity between preaching of Jesus and preaching about Jesus
Joachim Jeremias: what Jesus actually said and did
Käsemann: continuity in the theme of the kingdom of God
Gerhard Ebeling: the “faith of Jesus”
Günter Bornkamm: confrontation with God
The third quest of the historical Jesus
Focus on relation of Jesus to his Jewish context
Main contributors
John Dominic Crossan
Marcus L. Borg
Burton L. Mack
E.P. Sanders
N.T. Wright
Wiley-Blackwell 2010

5. The Resurrection of Christ: Event and Meaning
The Enlightenment: the resurrection as non-event
Truth and the autonomous, rational individual
David Friedrich Strauss: the resurrection as myth
“Myth” - the gospel writers’ social and cultural outlook
Rudolf Bultmann: the resurrection as an event in the experience of the disciples
Jesus raised in the kerygma
Karl Barth: the resurrection as an historical event beyond critical inquiry
Faith as a response to the risen Christ, not historical evidence
Wolfhart Pannenberg: the resurrection as an historical event open to critical inquiry
Revelation as public and universal historical event
Proleptic disclosure of the end of history
Resurrection and the Christian hope
Wiley-Blackwell 2010