Everything about David Friedrich Strauss totally explained
David Friedrich Strauss (or
Strauß;
January 27,
1808 –
February 8,
1874) was a
German theologian and writer. He scandalized
Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "
historical Jesus," whose divine nature he denied. His work was connected to the
Tübingen School, which revolutionized study of the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient religions. Despite the flaws that are now apparent in his work, he was a pioneer in the
historical investigation of Jesus.
Biography
Strauss was born at
Ludwigsburg, near
Stuttgart. At twelve he was sent to the evangelical seminary at Blaubeuren, near
Ulm, to be prepared for the study of theology. Amongst the principal masters in the school were Professors Kern and
FC Baur, who taught their pupils a deep love of the ancient classics and the principles of textual criticism, which could be applied to texts in the sacred tradition as well as to classical ones. In
1825, Strauss entered the
University of Tübingen. The professors of
philosophy there failed to interest him, but he was strongly attracted by the writings of
Schleiermacher. In 1830 he became assistant to a country clergyman, and nine months later accepted the post of professor in the high school at Maulbronn, where he'd teach
Latin, history and
Hebrew.
In October
1831 he resigned his office in order to study under Schleiermacher and
Georg Hegel in
Berlin. Hegel died just as he arrived, and, though he regularly attended Schleiermacher's lectures, it was only those on the life of
Jesus that exercised a very powerful influence upon him.
Strauss tried to find kindred spirits amongst the followers of Hegel, but wasn't successful.
While under the influence of Hegel's distinction between
Vorstellung and
Begriff, he'd already conceived the ideas found in his two principal theological works: the
Leben Jesu ("Life of Jesus") and the
Christliche Dogmatik ("Christian Dogma"), the Hegelians generally
would not accept his conclusions.
In
1832 he returned to Tübingen, lecturing on
logic,
Plato, the history of philosophy and
ethics with great success. However, in the autumn of
1833 he resigned this position in order to devote all his time to the completion of his
Leben Jesu. It was published in 1835, when he was 27 years old.
Since the Hegelians in general rejected his "Life of Jesus," in 1837 Strauss had to defend his work against the Hegelians in a booklet entitled "In Defense of My LIFE OF JESUS against the Hegelians." The famous Hegelian scholar,
Bruno Bauer, led that attack on Strauss.
Bauer continued to attack Strauss in academic journals for years. When a very young
Friedrich Nietzsche began to write criticisms of David Strauss,
Bruno Bauer gave the young
Nietzsche every support he could afford.
The Leben Jesu
The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined was a sensation. One reviewer called it "the Iscariotism of our days" and another "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell." When he was elected to a chair of theology in the
University of Zürich, the appointment provoked such a storm of controversy that the authorities decided to pension him before he began his duties.
What made his book so controversial was his analysis of the miraculous elements in the gospels as being "mythical" in character. The
Leben Jesu closed a period in which scholars wrestled with the miraculous nature of the New Testament in the rational views of the
Enlightenment. One group consisted of "rationalists", who found logical, rational explanations for the apparently miraculous occurrences; the other group, the "supernaturalists", defended not only the historical accuracy of the biblical accounts, but also the element of direct divine intervention. Strauss dispels the actuality of the stories as "happenings" and reads them solely on a mythic level. Moving from miracle to miracle, he understood all as the product of the early church's use of Jewish ideas about what the Messiah would be like, in order to express the conviction that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. With time the book created a new epoch in the textual and historical treatment of the rise of Christianity.
In
1837, Strauss replied to his critics with the book
Streitschriften zur Verteidigung meiner Schrift über das Leben Jesu. In the third edition of the work (1839), and in
Zwei friedliche Blätter ("Two Peaceful Letters") he made important concessions to his critics, which he withdrew, however, in the fourth edition (1840). In 1846 the book found an outstanding English translator in
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), who later wrote
Middlemarch and other great novels. It was her first published book and has recently been republished (see Reference).
In 1840 and the following year Strauss published his
On Christian Doctrine (
Christliche Glaubenslehre) in two volumes. The main principle of this new work was that the history of Christian doctrines has basically been the history of their disintegration.
Interlude, 1841 - 1860
With the publication of his
Glaubenslehre, Strauss took leave of theology for over twenty years. In August
1841, he married
Agnes Schebest, a cultivated and beautiful
opera singer of high repute. Five years afterwards, after two children had been born, they agreed to separate. Strauss resumed his literary activity by the publication of
Der Romantiker auf dem Thron der Cäsaren, in which he drew a satirical parallel between
Julian the Apostate and
Frederick William IV of Prussia (1847).
In
1848 he was nominated member of the
Frankfurt parliament, but was defeated by
Christoph Hoffmann. He was elected for the
Württemberg chamber, but his actions were so conservative that his constituents requested him to resign his seat. He forgot his political disappointments in the production of a series of biographical works, which secured him a permanent place in German literature (
Schubarts Leben, 2 vols., 1849;
Christian Morklin, 1851;
Nikodemus Frischlin, 1855;
Ulrich von Hutten, 3 vols., 1858-1860, 6th ed. 1895).
Later works
In 1862, with a biography of
H.S. Reimarus, he returned to theology, and two years afterward (1864) published his
Life of Jesus for the German People (
Das Leben Jesu für das deutsche Volk) (13th ed., 1904). It failed to produce an effect comparable with that of the first
Life, but the replies to it were many, and Strauss answered them in his pamphlet
Die Halben und die Ganzen (1865), directed specially against
Schenkel and
Hengstenberg.
His
The Christ of Belief and the Jesus of History (
Der Christus des Glaubens und der Jesus der Geschichte) (1865) is a severe criticism of Schleiermacher's lectures on the life of
Jesus, which were then first published. From 1865 to 1872 Strauss lived in
Darmstadt, and in 1870 he published his lectures on
Voltaire. His last work,
Der alte und der neue Glaube (1872; English translation by M Blind, 1873), produced almost as great a sensation as his
Life of Jesus, and not least amongst Strauss's own friends, who wondered at his one-sided view of Christianity and his professed abandonment of spiritual philosophy for the
materialism of modern science. To the fourth edition of the book he added an
Afterword as Foreword (
Nachwort als Vorwort) (1873). The same year symptoms of a fatal malady appeared, and death followed on the 8th of February 1874.
Critique
Strauss's approach was analytical and critical, without philosophical penetration or historical sympathy; his work was rarely constructive. His
Life of Jesus was directed against not only the traditional orthodox view of the Gospel narratives, but likewise the rationalistic treatment of them. He criticized the manner of
Reimarus, whose book
The Aim of Jesus and His Disciples (1778) is often marked as beginning the historical study of Jesus and the
Higher criticism, and that of
Paulus. Strauss applied his theories with merciless vigour, especially his mythical theory that the Christ of the gospels, whose life was built upon the meagerest of details, was the unintentional creation of early Christian Messianic expectations. His operations were based upon fatal defects, positive and negative. Strauss also held a narrow theory as to the miraculous, and a still narrower one as to the relation of the divine to the human. He has been criticized as having had no true idea of the nature of historical tradition. F. C. Baur once complained that his critique of the history in the gospels wasn't based on a thorough examination of the manuscript traditions of the documents themselves.
As
Albert Schweitzer wrote in
The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906; ET 1910), Strauss's arguments "filled in the death-certificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive, but are not really so." He adds that there are two broad periods of academic research in the quest for the historical Jesus, namely, "the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss."
Marcus Borg has suggested that "the details of Strauss's argument, his use of Hegelian philosophy, and even his definition of myth, have not had a lasting impact. Yet his basic claims -- that many of the Gospel narratives are mythical in character, and that "myth" isn't simply to be equated with "falsehood" -- have become part of mainstream scholarship."
One of the more controversial interpretations that Strauss introduced to the understanding of the historical Jesus, is his interpretation of
Virgin Birth. In the
Demythologization, Strauss's response was reminiscent of the German Rationalist movement in Protestant theology. According to Strauss, Jesus' Virgin Birth was added to the biography of Jesus, as a legend in order to honor him in the way that Gentiles most often honored their greatest historical figures. However, Strauss believed that greater honour would be given to Christ if the Virgin Birth were not present and Joseph recognised as the legitimate father of Christ.
Further Information
Get more info on 'David Friedrich Strauss'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://david_strauss.totallyexplained.com">David Strauss Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
