Albert Schweitzer
"Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee."
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer is a name that everyone interested in the bible should know. He did many wonderful things that are still impacting our world. He was a missionary, doctor, musician, author, theologian, and scholar. He even founded a hospital in Africa and became a surgeon there. Everyone involved in religious scholarship remembers him especially for a book he authored in 1906. He wrote the book in German and it was translated and published in English in 1910 under the title: “The Quest for the Historical Jesus”. This book ignited a firestorm of debate among scholars and even among church folk. Today it is regarded as one of the most important and influential works of the 20th century.
The quest for the historical Jesus, is more than just a book, however. It is the search for truth about Jesus Christ using historical methods instead of religious methods. The search began in the 18th century and still continues to this day. Each generation of scholar has used his own “historical” methods to decide what was historically factual concerning Jesus and what was probably untrue. These scholars are looking for something more than “the bible tells me so”! Check out this link for more on the quest. Also check out this article on Bishop N. T. Wright’s views.
In his book, Schweitzer discussed all work on the subject prior to his own research. He pointed out how each generation of scholar viewed Jesus differently and then he gave his own interpretation. He stated that if you were seriously going to look at the life of Jesus, then you must look at it through the convictions of Jesus himself, of which he described as “late Jewish eschatology”. Eschatology is basically the study of the last things. So what he was saying is that Jesus’ beliefs were pretty much in line with Jewish beliefs within what is called the “Late Second Temple Period” of Jewish history; that is from around 150 years prior to his life on earth. What is significant is that scholars prior to Schweitzer didn’t consider what Jesus himself believed in reaching their conclusions.
Schweitzer proposed that Jesus believed, just as other Jews of his day believed, that the Kingdom of God would be preceded by a time of suffering that would serve as an atonement for sin. Furthermore, Schweitzer wrote that these convictions led Jesus to believe that by sending out his apostles into the world that he would bring about this time of suffering (the tribulation). However, when that didn’t happen he changed his views. And upon study of Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, Jesus realized that he would have to bear the burden of the woes upon himself in order to atone for sin and bring in the kingdom.
Schweitzer concluded that Jesus and his disciples expected the end of the world in their own generation; and that the apostle Paul believed this also. And that all of Jesus' 1st century followers expected fulfillment of his promised return as written in Mark 13 “You will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory” and Matthew 24, “this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled”.
Schweitzer continues that as time passed and the world did not end, the leaders of the church changed the original message to maintain their own positions of power. And further that 1st century theology is completely different from the theology that the Roman Emperor Constantine decreed as the “official” theology for the church in the year 325.
By no means is Schweitzer’s book an endorsement of Orthodox Christianity. But his life is one to be looked at and admired. And although his erred interpretations of Mark 13 and Matthew 24 led him to some incorrect conclusions, we can be grateful to him for opening our eyes so that we can view eschatology through Jesus’ own eyes. Scholars prior to Schweitzer had merely cast off all belief in anything miraculous and basically doubted that Jesus really said anything that had a supernatural tone as recorded in scripture. Some even doubted that he ever lived at all!