Rediscovering Jesus? A Critique of the Old, New, and Third Quests

ARTICLE • Since the 19th century, three unorthodox perspectives of Jesus have emerged: the Old, New, and Third Quests. Being able to recognize the remnants of each today can heighten our cultural discernment and deepen our faith in the Jesus of Scripture.

Read time: 8 min

“Who was Jesus, really?” the skeptic asks. Since the 1800s, outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity, three major historical movements sought in succession to answer this question. If you know about these movements, you can recognize vestiges of their influence today. They are the “old” (ca. 1850), the “new” (ca. 1920) and the “third” (ca. 1980) quests for the historical Jesus.

1. The Old Quest

The Old Quest for the historical Jesus arose with the skepticism of the Enlightenment and dominated New Testament scholarship from the 1850’s into the 1920’s. This quest was not an effort to confirm the traditionally accepted veracity of the canonical gospels but an attempt to sort through the gospels and discover the “real” Jesus as the purely human man he must have been. It was presumed in this quest that an accurate portrait of Jesus’ life could be known. The quest tried, ultimately, to produce a true biography of Jesus stripped of most of what Christianity for so long had cherished about him.

Classical Liberalism

The driving ideology of the Old Quest was Classic Liberalism. As such, liberal theology became for many in academia the grid for interpreting the biblical texts; and “Jesus as a great human” emerged. The Jesus of this quest went about advocating the “fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” Jesus’ teachings were treated as a basis for social ethics. Some of the more influential advocates of this understanding of the historical Jesus include Adolf von Harnack, a German theologian and church historian, and Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar.

The Old Quest’s methodology was Source Criticism. Liberal scholars sought to determine the extra-canonical sources that, in their thinking, must have been borrowed from by the synoptic gospel writers. By this methodology, the value of eyewitness accounts was weakened.

Liberal Christology: Jesus the Great Human

The resulting view of Jesus—far removed from the claims of both Old and New Testaments—was that Jesus was not God in the flesh, nor was he a sin-bearing Redeemer. Jesus was to be understood as the human pinnacle of the evolution of the monotheistic, moralistic Jewish religion. Viewing Jesus’ miracles as supernatural was untenable to the modernistic and “enlightened” Liberal paradigm. Thus, miracles were simply explained away as natural phenomena. Consistently, the resurrection of Jesus was ruled out as a possibility, though the Old Quest allowed that Jesus’ superstitious followers may have indeed mistakenly believed that Jesus performed miracles and bodily rose from the dead.

What brought the Old Quest to an end?

A critical turning point in ending the Old Quest prominence occurred with the publication of Albert Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1906. In this work, Schweitzer challenged the methods and conclusions of earlier scholars and argued that the true historical Jesus differed significantly from the portrayals by scholars of the 19th century. He claimed that the essence of Jesus' life and teachings was apocalyptic, and he criticized contemporary scholars for shaping a version of Jesus influenced by their own cultural and philosophical perspectives. Rudolf Bultmann, too, reasoned that a quest for the historical Jesus was ultimately futile and that what mattered was the "Christ of faith." His approach to demythologizing the New Testament narratives further moved the focus away from historical inquiry.

The New Quest

Near the 1920’s, a New Quest effectively replaced the Old Quest’s understanding of the Jesus of antiquity. With the rise of a new ideology—Existential Theology—came the inevitable reworking of the historical Jesus. The concurrent rise of Form Criticism in Germany impacted the way the canonical gospels were to be viewed. In contrast to the assumption of the Old Quest, the New Quest scholars were less optimistic that an accurate biography of Jesus’ life could be written. At best, it could be parsed in part by analyzing the “forms” the stories and sayings of Jesus in the gospels took over time. What was left in the wake of such Form Criticism was a History of Religions paradigm that could be used to investigate the continuity of various parts of the story of Jesus with the existentialist gospel of the early 20th century. Thus, the New Quest sought to find continuity between what they believed the Bible taught about “radical openness to others” and the actions and teachings of the “historical Jesus.” This is what they put in place of the biography of Jesus sought by the first quest.

Existentialist Christology: Jesus the example of radical obedience to God and self-authentication

With a new ideology and methodology came a new view of Jesus: Jesus as an example of radical obedience to God and self-authenticity. This existential gospel held that Christianity is essentially a religion of stepping outside of oneself, becoming open to others and being eager to serve them. It extolled the virtue of breaking free of routine and the daily grind and the self-authentication of one’s existence by radical obedience to God. It is easy to see how that the Jesus of the gospels could be used to advance this novel understanding of the gospel. Rather than being explained away, Jesus’ miracles were interpreted and even spiritualized so as to be useful examples of radical openness to others, especially the resurrection of Jesus. What became of the orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus? Well, that was explained away as Jesus being morphed into something—so existential theology said—that he allegedly never claimed to be: a God-man, miracle-working Messiah. The traditional, orthodox narrative, however lovely it may be, had been likely propagated in order to better serve the agenda of Jesus’ 1st century, Jewish followers—so the New Quest narrative went.

The Common Ground between the Old and New Quests? Sinking Sand.

By way of evaluation, the Old and New Quests both operated by 1) an anti-supernatural bias and 2) they both used highly subjective criteria for determining the historicity of the gospels (i.e. the devaluation of eyewitness accounts, the assumption that the gospel very quickly morphed like folklore, and that since the disciples thought the end of the world was soon they were not concerned with maintaining a factual account of Jesus’ life, etc.). The two quests dealt differently with Jesus’ miracles, the former explaining them away and the latter interpreting them for their own ends. Still, neither quest adequately accounted for Jesus’ understanding about his death and, further, why he was killed in the first place.

Rise of the Third Quest

Many in the world of scholarship began a Third Quest in the 1980s. This quest seeks to discover the Jesus of history. Ideologically, this group is more varied and less influenced by a particular strain of theology—in contrast to the former two quests. The operating methodology is that of normal historical investigation. The gospels are viewed as legitimate sources and accounts of Jesus’ life. The Jewish-ness of Jesus is also upheld as key to this approach.

In this tradition, Jesus is to be understood in his Jewish context, predominantly as an apocalyptic teacher whose aim was to bring in the kingdom of God. This third quest thus bears part of the image of the late German, New Testament scholar, Albert Sweitzer. He long before had critiqued the Old Quest, advocating that they misunderstood Jesus completely. Sweitzer maintained that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet of his day. In this strain, the Third Quest believes that Jesus was a Jewish peasant that went about attempting to bring in the kingdom of Yahweh by healing people and exorcising demons. Jesus thought of himself as the Jewish Messiah. Some further maintain that Jesus understood his own death as itself advancing the kingdom cause of God.

This movement is generally open to the fact of miracles—with the exception of Jesus’ miracles over nature and of his resurrection. This can be partly understood seeing that today there is a growing openness and even preoccupation with the paranormal, the sensational, “spirituality,” and even the occult.

The Third Quest in the Balance

An evaluation of the Third Quest should include that it is 1) less ideologically-driven; 2) open to miracles; 3) assumes a Jewish, apocalyptic, Messianic Jesus; and 4) that it views the canonical gospels as legitimate sources for historical inquiry.

Though this last quest is a move in the right direction as compared with the Old and New Quests, the Third Quest still falls short of taking the biblical writers for their word. A presuppositional bias is presupposed against the basic tenets of the claims of orthodox Christianity and the New Testament. “Jesus wasn’t God in the flesh. Get over that idea. Now, we can figure out who he really was.”

Walking in Circles: We’ve Been Here Before

The Old Quest's emphasis on Jesus as a purely human figure and its skepticism about the supernatural aspects of the Gospels still resonate in some modern theological circles and secular viewpoints. This perspective can be seen in movements that prioritize Jesus' moral and ethical teachings over his divine nature. Ever hear that? Sure we do. Such perennial views frame Jesus as a great moral teacher or a social reformer, rather than as the Son of God or the Savior of fallen sinners.

The existential approach of the New Quest, which emphasized personal faith over historical facts, has influenced contemporary Christian thought that focuses on the personal and subjective experience of faith. There are many examples of Christians and non-Christians who deny or dismiss the biblical text in exchange for emphasizing individual spiritual experiences and interpretations over traditional doctrine. Let’s not make the same mistake. Scripture must always trump subjective feelings and experiences.

The Third Quest's focus on Jesus within his Jewish context and its openness to historical investigation provides a framework for contemporary Christians to understand Jesus. Though it falls short of orthodoxy, it’s emphasis on seeking to reconcile the Jesus of history with the Christ of faith by appealing to the historical gospel accounts serve the gospel well, insofar as it treats the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ claims and works as reliable narratives that must be taken seriously. Christians may lean into this latest emphasis, confident that the “Jesus of Scripture” is the “Jesus of history” and, when believed, also the “Christ of Faith.” ❖