David Friedrich Strauss’ major work The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (first translated into English by George Eliot in 1846) influenced Victorian hermeneutic methods through its proposal that much of the Bible should be read as a myth. As an heir to eighteenth-century philosophy, Strauss was part of a tradition that had liberated itself from Christian orthodoxy while simultaneously holding up the Bible as an important
“source of religious insight.” 58 Thus, in his work, Strauss intended to resolve problems inherent in both the supernaturalist and realist positions, that is, between those who accepted the biblical record as historically true and those who believed the writers of the
57 Ludwig Feuerbach. The Essence of Christianity. Trans. George Eliot. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1957, xxii.
58 Hans W. Frei. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale UP, 1974, 113-114.
biblical account had deliberately told false stories.59 In doing so, Strauss suggested reading the Gospel accounts not as historical, but rather as mythical, which Strauss defines as a “fiction, the product of the particular mental tendency of a certain
community.”60 By connecting this myth with the early Christian community, Strauss was not suggesting that the Gospel writers were intentionally dishonest, but rather that they were writing the stories that formed the religious practice of the early church. This led Strauss to postulate that Jesus the historical figure is not entirely disconnected from the Christ on whom the Christian faith is built. Using a dialectical model of interpretation, Strauss began his analysis of each event within the Gospel narratives with a summary of the supernaturalist and naturalist explanations of the text before offering his own
mythical interpretation. Strauss’ work was a climactic response to the eighteenth-century debate over the historicity of the Gospel accounts, and his use of mythical interpretations had the intention of retaining belief in the Gospel narratives while still acknowledging the uncertainties that arose for supernaturalist interpretations in light of scientific
explanations of the text.
While Strauss’ work does undermine faith that is built upon supernaturalist foundations, he nonetheless attempts to uphold Christian practice through his postulation that religion can be reconstructed on philosophical grounds. Strauss wrote near the end of his work: “The object of faith is completely changed; instead of a sensible empirical fact, it has become a spiritual and divine idea, which has its confirmation no longer in history but in philosophy.”61 Echoing the work of Immanuel Kant, Strauss believed that
59 David Klemm. “The Influence of German Criticism,” 137.
60 David Friedrich Strauss. The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. Trans.George Eliot. 2nd ed. London:
Swan Sonnenschein, 1892, 87.
61 Ibid,781.
Christianity can best be found in an idea—not an idea limited to the mind but rather an idea “which has an existence in reality.”62 For Strauss, this meant that the idea of Christianity must be found in something that is tangible in the present era. Strauss claimed that this idea of Christianity is found within the human race. It is humanity itself that is the incarnated God, which “dies, rises, and ascends to heaven” by transcending the earthly life and finding a “higher spiritual life.”63 Strauss’ hermeneutic method is directly tied to his projection of humanity as the incarnated God. By understanding the narratives of scripture as a myth, Strauss builds upon the work of earlier German Idealists to create an approach to scripture in which the biblical text is read as a type of fiction that can only become a true history when enacted within the lives of individuals.64
Strauss’ work systematically creates a hermeneutic approach that first questions the accuracy and authenticity of scripture and second argues against the rationalist explanations by those who believed the gospel narratives were full of errors. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined divides Christ’s life into a series of chapters which create a single biographical narrative out of the four Gospels. The commentary for each section begins with a description of the supernatural aspects of the biblical narrative. Then, Strauss goes on to describe natural explanations for the supernatural aspects before giving his own mythical view of the story. It is in his mythical interpretation that Strauss begins rewriting the biblical narratives as a type of fictional work. In his chapter on “The First Tidings of the Resurrection,” Strauss begins by pointing out the inconsistencies between the gospel narratives, which in this particular case mainly concern which women were
62 Ibid,780.
63 Ibid.
64 One illustration of this is found in Strauss’s admonition to the clergy thus enlightened by his teaching to not ignore the historical interpretation of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday but to nonetheless dwell chiefly on the act of the individual being buried and raised with Christ. (Ibid,783)
visiting Jesus’ grave and why they were there. Then, Strauss lists numerous
interpretations used by biblical scholars to remove the contradictory aspects of the story, such as the theory that perhaps the individual gospel narratives are describing “a
multiplicity of different scenes.”65 Strauss finds these explanations ridiculous, as they result in the “restless running to and fro of the disciples and the women” along with “the useless repetition of the appearances of Jesus before the same person.”66 As the
incorporation of all the narratives into a single narrative does not result in creating a believable story, Strauss decides to investigate which one of the gospel narratives is “pre-eminently apostolic,”67 that is, which is most likely to be closest to the historical record.
He then turns to the supernatural aspects of the account, in this case the angels and earthquake, and offers various ways to interpret those using natural explanations. Finally, as he recounts the individual versions of this particular narrative, Strauss strives to uncover the mythical explanation of the stories, particularly with regard to what the Gospel writers sought to emphasize within their narratives. Here is where Strauss’
mythological interpretation begins to operate as a work of fiction. In this particular narrative, Strauss imagines “secret colleagues”of Jesus to be the angels seen by the disciples or perhaps an “accidental meeting”68 between two groups of people. He gives motives to his characters which are absent in the biblical text. He reinterprets the biblical text as a means of explaining what the biblical writers wished to convey within their narratives.
65 Ibid, 710.
66 Ibid, 713.
67 Ibid, 714.
68 Ibid, 718.
The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, then, not only is a work of philosophy and theology, but also functions as a literary work of fiction in which Strauss himself is rewriting the biblical narratives while concurrently encouraging readers of the Bible to understand scripture as an imaginative text. Matthew Arnold’s appreciation for German thought is confirmed in his 1873 work Literature and Dogma when he echoes Strauss’
mythical hermeneutic: “To understand the language of the Bible is fluid, passing, and literary, not rigid, fixed, and scientific, is the first step towards a right understanding of the Bible.”69 Underlying this type of interpretation was a breakdown of the authority that the biblical text had held within the Church for centuries.70 As scripture increasingly became questioned throughout the nineteenth century, readers of the Bible were
empowered to interpret sacred narratives in ways that encapsulated their own experiences as particular individuals. Because Strauss understood the Bible as a literary, mythical work, his work The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, which uses his understanding of the nature of scripture to rewrite biblical narratives, essentially created a work of fiction out of the sacred text. By revealing both the mythic and historical aspects of scripture, Strauss imaginatively re-visions the biblical narratives, fabricating a new fictional account to be embodied within the true lives of believers.
In The Life of Jesus Critically Examined Strauss argues that the main element of religion is incarnation, that is, the understanding that the divine enters into human history,
“thus assuming an immediate embodiment.”71 As depicted in the Gospel accounts and
69 Arnold. Literature and Dogma: An Essay Towards a Better Apprehension of the Bible, xv.
70 David Klemm argues that this disintegration of authority was tied to Strauss’ Christology, which understood Christ mythically rather than historically. Klemm writes that “Strauss’s criticism dislodged the connection—so crucial for traditional Christian faith—between the (mythical) idea of the Christ as divine Son of God and the particular, historical person of Jesus.” (“The Influence of German Criticism,” 138.)
71 Strauss. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 39.
perpetuated by the Church, a belief in a historically incarnate Christ, according to Strauss, becomes increasingly improbable in the modern age,72 and can only be recovered
properly through the embodiment of the divine within the community of those who profess faith in Christ. Faith in Christ and justification before God is described by Strauss as beginning with “the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity” through which “the individual man participates in the divinely human life of the species.”73 Humanity approaches the Divine not through Christ’s historical existence, but through the incarnation of God within the lives of those who profess faith in Christ. Strauss’
discussion of the embodiment of the Divine within the human species and interpretation of the Gospel accounts as a mythical text opened up the possibility for fiction itself to be understood in relation to incarnation. If the Bible is a mythical work that can only be proved ‘real’ through the actions of the human species, other imaginative narratives likewise have the potential to become incarnated by the reader as they too begin to embody the fictionalized text. Strauss’ detailed fictionalized interpretations of the Gospel texts form a theoretical framework from which to imaginatively re-vision the biblical narratives. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined ultimately draws the fantastical myths of scripture into the sphere of reality, an exercise that was frequently practiced in the fiction of George Eliot and many other Victorian authors who rewrote biblical narratives and figures into their fictional plots as a way of imaginatively recovering the reality of the myth. The stories then become incarnate, not only through the words on the page, but also through the life of the reader.
72 Ibid, 40.
73 Ibid, 896.