The Quest of the Historical Jesus

The Quest of the Historical Jesus is a work of historical biblical criticism written by Albert Schweitzer in 1905 and published in 1906, while he was still preparing to begin his medical studies. It surveys the research into the historical Jesus from the late eighteenth century up to the author's own time, an account Schweitzer undertakes to show how the image of Jesus has shifted with the spirit of each age and with the personal leanings of those who drew it.

Schweitzer reviews the successive lives of Jesus written by rationalists, romantics and liberals, pointing out in each case how the resulting portrait reflects the concerns of its author more than the facts. From this critique he develops his own synthesis. He argues that the life and thought of Jesus can only be understood in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which he characterizes as those of late Jewish eschatology. On this reading, Jesus genuinely believed that his ministry would bring about the end of history and did not foresee a long interval between his time on earth and God's final judgment. For this reason, Jesus resists any attempt to make him resemble the ways of thinking or feeling of modern men.

The book was expanded in 1913 in a second German edition that added two new chapters rebutting the so-called mythicists, those who deny that Jesus ever existed. Schweitzer examines there the thesis of Arthur Drews and of other writers who supported it, and concludes that the historical existence of Jesus is far more probable than its denial, since the mythicist hypotheses contradict one another and face greater difficulties than their opponents. That expanded edition did not appear in English until 2001.

The book established Schweitzer's reputation as a scholar of the New Testament. Its impact was considerable: after its appearance, research into the historical Jesus as a sub-discipline was largely suspended for decades, until it resumed under new approaches.