The Life and Ministry of Jesus According to the Historical and Critical Method

I am to speak to you of the life and ministry of Jesus, according to the historical and scientific conception. The first question, then, is: Whence do we derive our knowledge of the person, of the ministry, and of the life of Jesus? What are the sources of the history?

Substantially the only sources are the Scriptures of the New Testament. The New Testament is not a single book; it is almost a small library of books and booklets, which were composed at different times, by different authors, and with very different contents and purposes. The Church gathered them in the course of its first centuries. It was convinced that in them it possessed products of its classical period, namely, the Apostolic age, and also trustworthy memoirs and authentic records of its origin. This collection was made not without great caution, and not without historical sense and admirable tact. It chose from a great number of less worthy and uncertain materials those which, for ethical and religious reasons, stood the highest, and which had pre-eminently the greatest claim to genuineness, that is, Apostolic or primitive origin, and to authentic narration. But in spite of this, a more searching and historical investigation could not rest satisfied with this verdict; we must revise it more thoroughly, applying to it the most modern methods of research known to historical, religious, and linguistic criticism. Accordingly the New Testament as a whole, the Gospels and the Apostolic writings, have been subjected anew, book by book, to the severest and the most scrutinizing examination. This led to many changes in our judgment. Positions which had for centuries been regarded as certain and incontestable began to shift, became precarious, and proved to be untenable or uncertain. Innumerable questions were proposed and a chaos of answers follows. Everything was in a state of fermentation. Gradually, however, order and peace were again restored. Results of an assured character were brought to light, and a firm foundation was disclosed for further building. But amid all the storms of critical discussion, the four great epistles of Paul, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, and Romans, proved to be indisputable. Scientific criticism today is agreed to all intents and purposes upon the question of the integrity of these epistles. They purport to be and stand forth as the work of the Apostle; a man who was a member of the Apostolic circle, and who wrote them about twenty years after the Master’s death.