Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), famous for being a missionary doctor in Africa (Out of My Life) and for his "reverence for life," had three earned doctorates -- music, theology, and medicine -- and it was his second one that got him in trouble with the religious authorities. When he sniffed the wind of opposition to his free-thinking about Jesus, he chose to spend his life in Africa in obscurity as he worked out his own ideas.

At the turn of the 20th Century, he published a book now called The Quest of the Historical Jesus that changed the scholarly approach to Jesus. Building on Reimarus and taking the form of a travelogue through the history of Jesus books, Schweitzer's final chapters spelled out his own ideas on Jesus -- and they were very similar to Johannes Weiss, a contemporary German scholar.

1. Jesus was an enthusiastic political aspirant who was absorbed in an apocalyptic mindset -- the world was about to end.
2. So convinced was he that the end was imminent, he sent out his twelve to evangelize and was convinced the would not get back before the end of history: Matthew 10:23 ("you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes").
3. When the twelve returned, Jesus was shocked.
4. So he reconfigured his ideas to see himself in terms of the suffering servant of Isaiah.
5. Jesus acted in the last week to force God to act in history to bring about the end.

Here are the haunting words of Schweitzer, words not found in the later editions of his work.

"There is silence all around. The Baptist apppears, and cries: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Soon after that comes Jesus, and in the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to His purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign" (370-371).

Reimarus (Tuesday), Schweitzer (Wednesday), and tomorrow Bultmann.