Synopsis of Schweitzer's QHJ [Ch. 10, Weisse & Marcan Priority]

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Irish1975
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Synopsis of Schweitzer's QHJ [Ch. 10, Weisse & Marcan Priority]

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Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus (1st ed., tr. Montgomery, 1910) is accessible here on Early Christian Writings.

Links to earlier posts on:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapters 4 & 5
Chapter 6
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9


Chapter 10: Marcan Priority & Christian Hermann Weisse


1. Weisse’s background was in philosophy. He admired Strauss for clearing the ground of the primeval forest of theology. His aim was to find a “historically certain” thread of connection in the Gospel history.
2. Weisse and Wilke, working independently, both developed the thesis of Marcan priority in 1837-38 (but Schweitzer takes no account of Wilke in the present chapter).
3. The graphic details in Mark are too insignificant to have been inserted for the purpose of epitomizing Matthew or Luke. But it is the composition and arrangement of the 2nd Gospel as a whole that is most telling.
4. There is a complete absence of eyewitness testimony, or of the sort of detail that would imply a reliance, direct or indirect, on eyewitnesses.
5. Nevertheless, Mark provides a recollection of the general impact of Jesus’ appearance and fame from Galilee to Jerusalem, which an arbitrary collection of anecdotes could not produce.
6. Mark’s simplicity makes his narrative more credible than that of Luke, who has Jesus undertake an implausible detour through Samaria.
7. The core of Weiss’s argument for Marcan priority is as follows—

i. In Matthew and Luke, traces of a common plan are found only where they share material in common with Mark, and not where they agree against Mark.
ii. The non-Marcan (“Q”) material consists of same or similar language and incident, but not of any order of narration that would differ from Mark.
iii. Divergences of wording in Luke and Matthew are greater when they do not follow Mark.

8. As for the 4th Gospel, Weisse provides a reductio ad absurdum of the belief that it contains historical reminiscences of a disciple of the historical Jesus. He can find no reason to support that proposition other than “the authority of the whole Christian Church from the 2nd century to the present day.” No argument against the genuineness of the 4th Gospel could be as effective as this defense of it.
9. “What matters for the historical study of the life of Jesus is simply that the 4th Gospel should be ruled out.”
10. Weisse recognizes Mark as the earliest Gospel, but not unreservedly as a historical source. Its author is imaginative, enthusiastic, faith-promoting, and exhibits a mythopoetic tendency that is difficult to square with his being “a reporter who stands near the facts.”
11. Weisse interprets some of Mark’s miracles as myths that attached themselves to historical fact. The empty tomb is not a historical fact, but an element that came into the story later in order to counter rumors that Jesus’ body had been stolen. The Gospels’ emphasis on the identity of Jesus’ risen body with his dead body was a late idea, contrived in opposition to “Gnosticism.” The historical fact of the resurrection is nothing but the personal belief of the Apostles in Jesus’ presence to them in visions and appearances, which would have occurred in Galilee.
12. Thus Weisse was the first to handle the problem of the resurrection by appealing to both historical and psychological considerations. The mythical model of Strauss would not suffice. On the resurrection specifically, Schweitzer can only find fault with Weisse’s neglect of the eschatological dimension.
13. Weisse: Jesus did not fail in his purpose. Nor did he die because of happenstance, but rather by his own purposeful obedience to a higher necessity. The crucifixion happened according to Jesus’ “deep and penetrating spiritual insight”—however, it is impossible to weigh and discriminate the influence of Isaiah 53 on the whole character of the story.
14. For Weisse as for Strauss, the key to Jesus’ messianic self-conception is the phrase “son of man.”
15. After Weisse, many proponents of Marcan priority were to cling to the idea of an original and spiritual conception of messiahship in the mind of Mark’s Jesus in a way that would severely frustrate Schweitzer and the ideas of the eschatological school.
16. Weisse: If “son of man” had been for Jesus a properly messianic title, how could Jesus repeatedly refuse recognition of his messiahship? The title was calculated by Jesus to stimulate reflection, and spiritualization of the messianic idea, in the minds of his listeners. It is simply not the case that Jesus had accepted the Jewish apocalyptic system of ideas.
17. Weisse: Jesus did not speak to his disciples of his resurrection, ascension, and parousia as three distinct events, because the event to which he looked forward was a composition or synthesis of all three in a single reality. The disciples misunderstood him, and fell back on Jewish apocalyptic ideas when telling their story.
18. Thus did Weisse set the pattern for the “liberal Lives of Jesus” that would be such a thorn in Schweitzer’s ass. He simply refused to associate Jesus with classic Jewish eschatology, imposing an anachronistically modern Christian awareness onto the historical Jesus that would eventually have to be abandoned.
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Irish1975
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Re: Synopsis of Schweitzer's QHJ [Ch. 10, Weisse & Marcan Priority]

Post by Irish1975 »

So much labor went into clarifying these few discoveries about the NT that are now considered facts established by historical criticism. Today it seems hard to believe that no one before the 1830s could tell that Matthew and Luke built their foundation on the text of Mark. Or that John and the Synoptics cannot be reconciled by any possible historical world.

On the other hand, it might be said, if people had achieved these basic insights into the Gospels, they would not have been free to to talk or write about it. Poor Reimarus was afraid to publish in his own lifetime. In the case of Spinoza, he said whatever he really thought, and he said a lot about the Old Testament to displease 17th century Europe. But about the NT he was astonishingly complacent and traditional. (Then again, he knew how much he needed the sympathy of his liberty-friendly Protestant allies in the Netherlands.)

In so many ways the NT is our best record of how fallible and erratic human judgment is. I am enjoying the strangeness of the books that Schweitzer dissects for us even more than the insights. Also, how much he wrestles with Weisse, who holds up pretty well in several respects (IMO).

There is so much more to QHJ than the platitude that biographers project themselves onto their subjects. That's not even a main theme of the book.
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