Remembrance of Things Past? Albert Schweitzer, the Anxiety of Influence, and the Untidy Jesus of Markan Memory.

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to consider the formation and reception of the historical Jesus genre through a detailed analysis of its “strong poet,” Albert Schweitzer. Though the classification of this thesis is most likely to be designated as Leben Jesu Forschung and the rise of early Christianity, it encompasses several adjacent fields of research: viz., social and literary theories, philosophies of history, biblical studies, critical memory theory, and classical history. Leben Jesu Forschung is therefore a kind of case study for the construction and reception of ideas. Part One suggests, after a sustained engagement with Schweitzer and his constructive project, that his pervading influence is most strongly felt in the underlying assumptions of his method of konsequente Eschatologie. Schweitzer’s concept of konsequente Eschatologie is the singular criterion by which all the material is judged and filtered so as to construct a singular profile of the historical Jesus. It is this desire for a “tidy” Jesus which this thesis attempts to problematize. Part Two attempts a constructive counter proposal by appropriating theories of memory to historical Jesus research and concludes by demonstrating the appropriation of this theory within the Gospel of Mark. I understand the Markan author as evoking Jesus memories and setting them within a narrative framework for the purposes of identity construction and communal direction. As such, we are presented with an “untidy” Jesus of Markan memory.