From Fear to Pity—David Pryce-Jones, page 64In Siberia,

the Jew—and Jesus the Christ has not been widely observed either inside or outside the academy. Jesus has been presented by popular authors as an existentialist, a social reformer, a universalist, a proto-Protestant, a feminist, even an Aryan opposed to everything Jewish.

For most Christian writers, meanwhile, Jesus has remained the model for the Christian life, and his death and resurrection the redemptive climax of the life to which he called others and by which they would attain salvation. But there has also been a movement in the opposite direction, more in line with Schweitzer’s hopes. Many Christian scholars, feeling the claim of dispassionate historical research, have concluded that their faith does not require them to portray Jesus as having shared it in his own lifetime. These scholars may detect a challenge to religious commitment in historical criticism, but they do not find it insurmountable, and some find it religiously enriching.

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Colin Thubron

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the Jew—and Jesus the Christ has not been widely observed either inside or outside the academy. Jesus has been presented by popular authors as an existentialist, a social reformer, a universalist, a proto-Protestant, a feminist, even an Aryan opposed to everything Jewish.

For most Christian writers, meanwhile, Jesus has remained the model for the Christian life, and his death and resurrection the redemptive climax of the life to which he called others and by which they would attain salvation. But there has also been a movement in the opposite direction, more in line with Schweitzer’s hopes. Many Christian scholars, feeling the claim of dispassionate historical research, have concluded that their faith does not require them to portray Jesus as having shared it in his own lifetime. These scholars may detect a challenge to religious commitment in historical criticism, but they do not find it insurmountable, and some find it religiously enriching.