A Quest for the Historical Jesus is a Necessary Task

This is a short response to an anonymous brief essay sent to me by Bill Yarchin on Dec. 26^th, 2025, entitled “The Quest for the Historical Jesus was a Category Error.” The essay begins this way:

The so-called quest for the historical Jesus therefore emerges not as a difficult enterprise, but simply as a misframe. From Schweitzer onward, the Jesus-quest has rested on a fundamental mistake: the assumption that texts composed as mythological literature can be mined for biographical recovery. That assumption is not merely optimistic. It is categorically confused.

I am responding to this statement: “From Schweitzer onward, the Jesus-quest has rested on a fundamental mistake: the assumption that texts composed as mythological literature can be mined for biographical recovery.” I do not accept the author’s contention that the synoptic gospels were deliberately “composed as mythological literature.” Such a statement, however, is perhaps somewhat more accurate for the Gospel of John.¹

            The synoptic gospels on the other hand present themselves, at least superficially so, as historical narrative but use the conventions of myth and legend in telling their story about an Israelite man, Jesus, an artisan, the son of Mary whose brothers (James, Joses, Judas, and Simon) and sisters were described as still living at the time of his public career (Mark 6:3).² The authors locate the events of their stories in a specific geographical location—in Judea of occupied Roman Palestine at specific times: In the days of Herod, the King (Matt 2:1; Luke 1:5, Matt 14:1, Mark 6:14)); during the administration the Roman Prefect, Pilate (Matt 27:1; Mark 15); when Caesar Augustus was issuing decrees (Luke 2:1) and Quirinus was Governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). In the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judea, Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, Philip, Tetrarch of the regions of Ituriae & Trachonitis, and Lysanius Tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiphas (Luke 3:1–5). The location of the space and time is not the stuff of myth and legend.

Their narratives were about a man (anthropos) whom, they report, his fellow countryman knew to be one of them (Mark 15:39) and about whom they were perplexed because of the mighty deeds (dunamis, Mark 6:2) attributed to him. He is described as experiencing human emotions, fear (Mark 14:32–36), grief (Luke 12:41; Heb 5:7; John 11:35), and anger (Mark 3:5). Among other things he was known as a teacher and there are substantial numbers of sayings attributed to him by the authors of the gospels. It is a fit subject of inquiry to ask which of these sayings more probably originated with the historical man than the divinized Lord of Christian faith and which may be due to faulty memory or some other origin.

            Another thing with which I disagree is the way the anonymous author has framed the goal of the quest. S/he implies that the goal of the Quest of the Historical Jesus is the “recovery” of biography (see the statement above). In my view the goal is much less than what s/he implies. The goal is to recover historical aspects of the life of the historical man, Jesus, whom the authors of the gospels describe as someone who had a “hometown” (patrida, Mark 6:1) in Roman-occupied Palestine.

            For these reasons I still regard the Quest for the historical Jesus as not only possible but necessary. Or put another way, why should I not inquire into historical aspects of the man’s life, since the gospel writers have invited the inquiry by also describing him in mythological and legendary language, the goal of the inquiry being to sort out in so far as possible the man from the myth.

            Jesus, a first-century Israelite man “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4), was deprived of his humanity in the fourth/fifth century creeds of the Church. Aspects of his humanity were restored to him in the nineteenth and twentieth century Quest for the Historical Jesus. And now the anonymous author would erase even the scant bits of historical information restored to his human life. Such a retreat into myth and legend as s/he proposes would require the Church to completely surrender its curiosity, incredulity, and sapience.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹See Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths, 154–163. John does not know the difference between myth and history.

²Joseph is not mentioned in Mark. In Luke Joseph was assumed to be the father of Jesus (3:23; 4:22). In John Jesus is described as the son of Joseph (1:45; 6:42).