The Quest for the Historical Nicodemus

E-ISSN： 1469-901x|16|4|481-486

ISSN： 0034-4125

Source： Religious Studies, Vol.16, Iss.4, 1980-12, pp. : 481-486

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Abstract

The quest for the historical Jesus was assumed by Schweitzer to have started from Reimarus in the eighteenth century; in fact it began with Mary, John, Peter, Caiaphas and many others in the first, and was found by them to be futile and doomed to frustration. The Gospels are a witness, all the stronger for being unreflective, implicit and probably unwitting, that Jesus was impossible to know as men are known. The Gospels tell you what people heard Jesus say, and what they saw him do. They record the effect he had on people, the things he prompted and provoked them to do and say. They enable you to know about Jesus, about his teaching, his activity and even his emotions. But to know Jesus, to enter his mind and heart, to see the world from his point of view, they recognized to be not susceptible to ordinary human empathy, and therefore to be beyond the scope of their narrative. Knowing Jesus is an act of faith and spiritual recognition or it is nothing. Getting to know others is a human gift, but getting to know Jesus is the gift of the Holy Spirit.