Strauss begins from the mythical origins of Jesus. He recollects that the only historical certainties of the background of Jesus are that he was from Nazareth, that his parents were probably called Joseph and Mary and that he was baptised by John the Baptist. Since Jesus was considered to be the Messiah, Strauss explains, it was necessary to add to these known facts the assumption that he hailed from the line of David. Now, the Old Testament recounted David’s family line, starting from Adam, the supposed progenitor of all human race, all the way down to David’s descendant Serubabel. It was then down to the gospel writers to invent the line connecting Serubabel to Jesus. Strauss notes that while Matthew proceeded to do exactly this, probably because it was important to him as the writer closest to the Jewish interests, to show that Jesus was part of the royal line, Luke is content to use the biblical family line only down to Rehabeam, probably because later kings of Israel were told to worship false divinities.
Now, Strauss notes, the introduction of these two genealogies of Jesus created some problems. Firstly, because both Matthew and Luke were interested in the numerology of their genealogies, they had to do some creative editing with them: Matthew wanted to divide the family line into three segments with equal number of people and was therefore forced to drop out a few links in the already determined chain of the Old Testament to do this, while Luke repeats a few names, in order to get to a sufficiently round number. Another problem lies in the fact that genealogies in both Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels are based on Joseph, which suggests that they hailed from a time when Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not yet thought to be a virgin. Finally, there’s the obvious problem that Matthew and Luke give two completely different persons as the father of Joseph: a problem that Augustine tried later to solve by suggesting that the other one was an adoptive father.
Jesus was not just supposed to come from the line of David, but his life should have reflected that of David. Thus, Strauss notes, the gospel writers wanted to show something reminiscent of David being anointed by the prophet Samuel. Because there was no indication that Jesus was so anointed, the probable historical baptism of Jesus was repurposed for this task. In order to make his baptism stand out from those of other people baptised by John, the gospel writers introduced a divine voice proclaiming Jesus as the new Messiah. Strauss points out that the less human the notion of Jesus became, especially in the gospel of John, the less he was supposed to be in need of any purification. Thus, with John, the baptism of Jesus became just a sign of his divine origin.
An important part of the legend of Messiah was that he was supposed to be born in Bethlehem, where David had also been born. The problem was, Strauss indicates, that Jesus was known to come from Nazareth. This dilemma was solved by two gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, but, as Strauss points out, in completely opposite ways. Thus, Matthew suggested that the family of Jesus had originally lived in Bethlehem, but had to move to Nazareth due to avoiding the wrath of Herod. Then again, Luke made the opposite assumption that his family had always lived in Nazareth, but had to travel to Bethlehem due to a census (Strauss notes that this story goes particularly against known historical facts, since the known dates of the officials mentioned by Luke do not match the known dates of years when a census was made, and furthermore, even if a census had been arranged at the time, there was no need for Mary to accompany Joseph).
A further addition to the legend of Jesus was the idea of Jesus as the son of God. Strauss points out that originally Jews had used this epithet to simply describe any holy person and that probably the Greco-Roman part of early Christianity interpreted it more literally, being more accustomed to say, for instance, that the emperors were of divine origin. Strauss surmises that the Judaist part of the new faith could accept this reinterpretation because of biblical tales of God helping old women to conceive. Furthermore, the account in the book of Isaiah of a young woman giving birth to a boy could also be repurposed as a prophecy about such a miraculous event, where God uses the forces of nature to make Mary carry a child. Luke particularly added the story of the foretold birth of John the Baptist and a familial link to Jesus, just like in the Old Testament the birth of Samuel preceded that of David.
This divine birth was not enough for John, Strauss says, and this gospel writer supposed that Jesus had lived as a divine entity even before his time on earth. This idea was not completely novel, Strauss thinks. One precursor was the notion that God had planned the coming of the Messiah at the very moment of creation. Another precursor was Philo’s idea of interpreting the dual creation of human beings in Genesis as describing first the creation of a heavenly human that worked as a model for the earthly Adam. Strauss notes that Paul similarly spoke of Christ as the second Adam, but meaning him to be second only by his earthly life and existing in heaven even before Adam’s creation.
Another clear predecessor of John’s gospel, Strauss thinks, was Philo’s idea of divine Logos, which is a combination of the personified Wisdom of the Old Testament proverbs and the world spirit of Stoic and Platonic philosophy. John took the step of identifying the Judaist Messiah with this divine Logos and he hinted at Logos taking on a human body, perhaps already at the time of birth, although the details were left murky. Thus, while the natality stories of Matthew and Luke saw Jesus as a combination of divine spirit and a female bred body, with John, Jesus was a direct embodiment of Logos.
Strauss also points out that the gospel writers admonished the origin story of Jesus with tropes familiar from legends of both pagan and Jewish heroes, singling especially Moses out as a person Jesus was supposed to resemble. Thus, Strauss begins, many ancient heroes were believed to be born at a time of astronomical spectacles, for instance, the birth of Caesar was supposedly marked by a comet. Furthermore, Balaam in the book of Numbers was said to have prophesied about a rising star that was connected with the Messiah. Matthew appears to link this passage with Isaiah’s mention of kings bearing gifts to Messiah, further connection being that the kings in Matthew were said to come from orient, that is, from the lands where Balaam was supposed to live.
It was also a common trope, Strauss says, that the heroes faced in their childhood a death threat by old rulers, who had learned from seers that the babies would later defeat their rule. While Romulus is an obvious pagan example, Strauss also notes a Jewish folktale describing how pharaoh was set out to kill the baby boys of the Hebrew, because he had heard a prophecy describing the birth of Moses. Strauss suggests that this folktale lies behind Matthew’s account of Herod killing babies in Bethlehem and the family of Jesus running away, not from, but to Egypt. Strauss also points out that Matthew’s story contradicts Luke's story: while Matthew told that Joseph and Mary moved to Galilee and avoided the Israel proper, due to the rule of the son of Herod, Luke showed Jesus visiting a temple in Jerusalem in his childhood.
Luke’s tale of young Jesus in the temple, Strauss adds, is also a familiar trope of a precocious hero showing wisdom beyond their years. Strauss particularly mentions the Old Testament story of Joseph, and just like Joseph’s father, Jacob, was said to have enclosed the words of Jacob in his heart, so is Mary, the mother of Jesus, said to have enclosed the various indications of the superhuman nature of his son to her heart. Strauss points out that later apocryphal gospels even added to the legend of the child Jesus, showing him performing miracles at an early age.
Great heroes of old faced trials, often at the beginning of their career, whether it be Hercules having to choose between life of virtue and vice or Abraham facing the command of God to sacrifice his son. Strauss especially points out the failed trial of Israelites following Moses, who started worshipping idols in the wilderness. The tale of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, Strauss suggests, adds to the tale of the Israelites the Persian notion of the evil principle tempting humans to sin, but the three temptations still reflect the temptations of Jewish people: the Hebrews complained about the food, while Jesus said that he could come by with the word of God, they demanded miracles from God, while Jesus refused to throw himself off a cliff and be rescued by angels, and they served false gods, while Jesus did not bow down to the devil in order to gain earthly power.
While the origin stories of Jesus are completely mythical, there is more historical in the story of the public life of Jesus, Strauss thinks, like his baptism by John the Baptist. Still, there are clear mythical additions to this story, Strauss admits, like the supposed recognition of Jesus as Messiah by the Baptist, due to a miraculous event of God proclaiming Jesus as his son. Strauss points out that this mythical addition creates an internal contradiction, when the Baptist later sends his disciples to ask whether Jesus is the Messiah. Strauss notes that the gospel of John developed the tale further away from historical truth by letting Baptist himself declare that Jesus is a heavenly being and the disciples of Baptist turning straightaway into disciples of Jesus.
Strauss considers it a historical fact that Jesus had at least a fisher and a tax collector as his disciples (although gospels do not agree upon the name of the tax collector) and thinks it probable that Jesus compared his disciples to fisher of men. What Strauss already finds improbable is the suggestion of gospels that the disciples just left what they were doing when Jesus commanded them to follow him. Furthermore, the gospels also introduced some of the disciples with an unhistorical tale of fishing miracle, most likely as an analogy to the idea of disciples as fisher of men. John’s gospel differed again radically from the synoptic gospels, Strauss points out, since John did not mention any fishermen or tax collectors among disciples of Jesus, but did mention a relative of the high priest, probably because of a need of later times to make Christianity more palatable to higher circles of the society.
As to the names of the disciples, Paul had already mentioned Kephas (more familiarly known as Peter), John and Jacob, the brother of Jesus, as the leaders of the early Christians. It is then no wonder, Strauss indicates, that the synoptic gospels used these three as names of the disciples, although they refrained from taking Jacob as a brother of Jesus, but interpreted him to be a brother of John. Now, Paul had described the three leaders as very Judaistic and opposed to Paul’s idea of proselytising to pagans. In an attempt to break the connection to the early Judaistic Christianity, Strauss suggests, John’s gospel belittled especially the role of Peter and emphasised an unnamed favourite disciple of Jesus, who supposedly wrote the gospel and was probably meant to be identified with John.
The evident mythical aspect of the gospels appears in the miracles of Jesus. Jews expected Messiah to heal sick people, Strauss suggests, because of a passage from Isaiah – originally a parable written during Babylonian captivity, describing the awaited paradisiacal state of Jews returning to their homeland, where blind, deaf and lame would be cured – was taken literally as a prophecy and because the Old Testament prophets like Elijah and Elisha had been told to do similar miracles.
It is no wonder then that stories of miraculous healing were also told of Jesus, although in difference from the Old Testament tales, the various afflictions Jesus heals are not divine punishments. Strauss suggests that if these tales had any historical origin, like use of charisma and folk medicine to ease the symptoms of people, by the time of gospels this historical kernel had been wrapped in a layer of mythology. For instance, while the original Jesus might have thought he opened up people’s eyes figuratively, in gospels he did this quite literally, and in the case of John’s gospel, Jesus was said to heal even people blind from their birth.
Despite the rather crude physicality of the healing miracles, Strauss admits, gospels did try to add also more subtle issues to their wondrous tales. Thus, the aforementioned John also used the figurative meaning of blindness to indicate that the non-repenting Jews were unable to see the truth in front of them. Furthermore, gospels considered the doctrinal issue of whether healing is allowed on Sabbath and John argued on this point that God and the divine Logos never truly rest. Finally, Luke used a story of lepers to show the ingratitude of Jews in comparison to a Samaritan, linking this miracle to his fable of a Good Samaritan (interestingly, of all gospel writers John alone never spoke of any lepers, which makes Strauss surmise that the so-called John came from the upper echelons of the society and had thus never really met any lepers).
Among the conditions healed by Jesus, deafness and muteness, Strauss says, were often explained to be caused by a demonic possession, although Jesus also healed other possessed persons. The notion of healing possessed people in general is interesting, Strauss adds, because there is no equivalent to it in the Old Testament. Furthermore, Strauss thinks, if any healings were real, driving away demons must have been, because these were clearly psychological phenomena. Still, he concludes, even these healing stories cannot be always explained naturalistically: in Luke and Mark people possessed by demons recognised Jesus as Messiah, and Jesus also transmitted demons into pigs, making the animals drown themselves (Strauss notes here analogies with Hellenistic tales of demon possession). Strauss concludes his discussion of possessions by noting that John spoke only of figurative possessions, probably because they were not in fashion at his time anymore.
Strauss notes that some tales of miraculous healing add further mythical layers. Thus, both Matthew and Luke told that even mere touching of garments of Jesus, without any voluntary act on the part of Jesus, was enough for curing a woman: while in Matthew, this might just have been understood as the woman feeling psychologically better because of her own faith in the power of Jesus, Luke suggested a literal energy flowing from Jesus to the sick person, which Strauss likens to movement of electric fluid or to cases of the so-called animal magnetism. On the contrary, Jesus was also said to be able to heal people from distance, requiring no physical medium, but only his own will.
It was not enough for the Messiah to just heal sick people, since Elyah and Elisha had already told to have awakened dead, and it seemed reasonable, Strauss surmises, that Jesus, whose death and resurrection was supposed to be precursor of a general resurrection, would have awakened dead in his own lifetime. Thus, we see synoptic gospels telling the story of the daughter of Jairus (the name of the father was mentioned only by Luke, thus, Strauss considers it to be probably unhistorical). In Matthew, the father was said to come straightaway to ask Jesus to raise her from the dead: Strauss points out the problem that the father could not yet have known that Jesus was able to do such miracles. Hence, he argues, Mark and Luke felt the need to add the further point that the father asked Jesus to heal his daughter, but she died while they were on the way to meet her. In addition to this story, Luke added a tale of Jesus raising an only son of a widow, which Strauss sees as meaning to provide more emotional resonance with the harrowing details.
The more time from the death of Jesus went by, the more urgent the question became whether even people long dead would be resurrected. Hence, Strauss thinks, the gospel of John felt the need to tell the story of Lazarus, with even more emotional details than in the tales of synoptic gospels, Lazarus coming from a family of friends of Jesus. John’s tale is, according to Strauss, an even more outrageous miracle, since Lazarus had been dead for a few days and was said to be already smelling, and furthermore, the divine Jesus of John was said to know beforehand that Lazarus was dead and was able to just order Lazarus to rise.
Even if the outrageous nature of the miracle and the lack of any similar story in the synoptic gospels would not already prove enough that the story of resurrected Lazarus was fabrication, Strauss argues, further evidence would be that John had combined in it completely disparate details from Luke’s gospel (Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus, appear in a story of their own, while Lazarus is seen only in an allegorical fable about death). Strauss also rejects all attempts to explain the story naturalistically, for instance, Lazarus going through a mere false death and Jesus just trying his luck calling him, or the three siblings trying to make a joke on Jesus, because they do not seem psychologically convincing.
Not all miracles of Jesus centred on human beings. Jesus lived by the Sea of Galilee (despite its name, more like a lake), thus, Strauss states, it was natural to tell tales involving the lake. We have already mentioned the story of Jesus helping the fishermen and then asking them to be his disciples, and another example is the tale of Jesus asking Peter to find a coin in a fish for paying the temple tax. Strauss points out that this tale is intrinsically connected with the question of whether future Christians were supposed to pay for the maintenance of Jewish priesthood, and since later Mark and Luke felt no need to ponder such issues, they dropped the tale.
Other tales about the Sea of Galilee involve boats. In one tale, Jesus was said to calm a raging storm, when sailing on the lake. Strauss suggests that this tale refers back to Psalms, where God was said to calm the raging storm, which symbolised Israel during time of trials: similarly Jesus was seen as the symbolic saviour of early Christians in trying times. Another tale involved Jesus coming in a miraculous manner to save the disciples, who were stuck in a boat. Strauss explains the method Jesus took for his miracle in this tale (walking on water) by noting that while Moses had crossed sea by parting the waters, Jesus wasn’t going to cross the Sea of Galilee (his destination was a boat on the sea), so the only possible reference to the Old Testament the gospel writers could have used was that of God moving on waters in Genesis.
The Israelites were told to have been provided manna and occasionally even meat in the desert. Thus, Strauss makes the comparison, Jesus was naturally rumored to have provided ample food for hungry people, with manna and meat being replaced by bread and fish, as more familiar to the local conditions. Strauss also suggests that the tale also reflects the custom of the early Christians to share their evening meals.
In addition to manna, Moses also found water in the desert. While there is no exactly similar tale in the gospels, Strauss finds a natural analogy in John’s tale of Jesus turning water into wine, just like Jesus replaced mere baptism of water with a baptism of spirit. Strauss also surmises that the tale might hearken back to the tale of Moses turning water into blood, thus already pointing to the link of seeing wine as the blood of Jesus.
Strauss singles out the story of Jesus making a fig tree without any fruits wither as the only tale of a destructive miracle in the gospels. He points out that the tale has obvious connotations about the sterility of Judaistic faith (many of the Old Testament prophets had compared Jews to a fruitless figtree), and while Matthew and Mark presented the story as a straightforward miracle, Luke made it into a parable.
The face of Moses was said to be alighted by his constant communion with God, thus, Strauss explains, it was natural that the early Christians would assume that the face of Jesus had to be similarly lighted. The outcome of this expectation was the tale of the transfiguration of Jesus on a mountain, where he had taken only his closest disciples, just like only a select group of priests followed Moses to the mountain. To top Moses, not just the face, but also the clothes of Jesus brightened, and Moses was also told to be there to greet Jesus, showing how Christianity stood higher than Jewish law. Strauss notes that the story mentions also the presence of the prophet Elijah, probably because Elijah was prophesied to come before Messiah (Strauss notes that the gospels also tried to explain this prophecy by Jesus identifying John the Baptist with Elijah, when the disciples asked about it, but at the same time this second explanation created a contradiction – why should the disciples ask about the prophecy of Elijah, if they had already met him on the mountain?). John dropped the tale of transfiguration in its current form, Strauss conjectures, because he was not that interested of the Jewish background of Jesus.
Moving on to the final moments of the story of Jesus, Strauss notes that his arrival to Jerusalem on a donkey was clearly suggested by a prophecy of Zachariah. Strauss is not completely against the historicity of the tale – Jesus might have done this as an obvious publicity stunt – but he notes that Matthew already embellished the tale by having Jesus ride unbelievably on two donkeys, just because Zachariah appeared to suggest it. Another Old Testament passage suggested that the Messiah should miraculously know where to find a steed, thus, Strauss continues, the gospel writers made Jesus send two boys to fetch the donkey from a place he hadn’t visited before.
Connected to the story of Jesus in Jerusalem is a story of him being anointed by a woman while he was having a meal in the house of a person called Simon. Strauss points out that this story went through considerable changes in the different gospels. The original story, according to him, was the one in Matthew and Mark, where the disciples spoke against the anointing of the head of Jesus, because this wasted money that could have been given to the poor. Luke, Strauss continued, moved this story away from Bethany, into a house of a Pharisee called Simon, where a sinful woman anointed the head of the Jesus (Strauss suggests that Luke derived some of the details from a lost Hebrew gospel, which according to later sources included a story of a sinful woman anointing Jesus). Finally, John combined to Luke’s story from the same gospel the Bethanian sisters Martha and Mary, who washed the feet of Jesus with her hair – with John, it was Mary of Bethany who anointed the feet (and not the head) of Jesus, and the only local man mentioned is the resurrected brother Lazarus.
While the story of the meal in Bethany was important for the early Christians as indicating the anointment of Jesus, the story of the last meal of Jesus was also important as a precursor of Eucharist. Strauss points out that while the synoptic gospels added a miracle to the proceedings by Jesus setting out the disciples to find a place to stay without previously knowing where they would discover it, just like in the earlier case of the donkey, John’s account was lacking of any miracles in both accounts. A further difference is that while the synoptic gospels identified the last meal as the Jewish passah meal, John placed it on a day before passah, probably because John wanted Jesus to play the role of the sacrificial lamb. Again in difference from synoptic gospels, John added a passage of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, and while all gospels agreed that Jesus miraculously knew that someone was to betray him, only John made Jesus even spur the betrayer to action. Strauss also points out that John again used the opportunity to raise the beloved disciple over others.
From the last meal, the action turns to the Mount of Olives, where Strauss finds the tale of Jesus knowing beforehand that he would suffer completely unhistorical. He points out that in Matthew and Mark Jesus was tempted three times to escape his fate – just like he had faced three temptations in the wilderness – while Luke contracted this to a single moment of weakness, but added the detail of an angel comforting Jesus. Strauss notes that John was not pleased with the idea of divine Logos being anguished and so replaced the story with another one, where Jesus was transfigured by God.
The next bit of the familiar tale is that of the imprisonment of Jesus. Strauss notes that all the gospels disagree on the details. Most original is again John, who suggested that it was the devil imprisoning Jesus. The role of betrayer was also reduced by John, who made Jesus proclaim himself saying three times “I am”: Strauss suggests this is a reference to the name of God in the Old Testament – Jehovah or “I am” – and thus again a hint of the supposed divinity of Jesus.
Strauss finds further reasons to assume that the gospel writers were trying to accommodate their tale to agree with the Old Testament passages: the traitor dies by suicide, as told in the Book of Samuel, thirty silver coins come from the book of Zacharias and their final use to buy the Field of Blood derives from Psalms. The few historical details, like the name of the Field of Blood or the names of high priests questioning Jesus, seem to be mere embellishments to make the whole more convincing, Strauss adds.
A clear tendency of all the gospels is, Strauss says, to try to exonerate Jesus as being accused by false evidence and to place all the blame of his death on the Jews, de-emphasising the role of Pontius Pilate. Of course, the means to do it vary: Matthew made Pilate wash his hands and added the story of the wife of Pilate asking him to release Jesus, Luke added the unhistorical questioning by Herod, probably just to show that even Jewish authorities found no fault in Jesus, and John made Pilate even beg the Jewish crowd that they would find the flogging of Jesus an acceptable punishment.
The synoptic gospels made a man help Jesus carry his cross, but John again emphasised the divinity of Jesus by making him carry it all by himself: still, Strauss adds, the story as told in the synoptic gospels was probably also not a historical truth, since its obvious point was to spur Christians to emulate Jesus in carrying their burdens. Other remarkable differences between gospels arise in the last words of Jesus: Matthew and Mark emphasised his human suffering, while Luke and John did not want Jesus to show any weakness in face of death, Luke making him show mercy toward his condemners and John emphasising again the importance of the favourite disciple by making Jesus entrust his mother to that disciple.
Strauss points out a common trope that deaths of heroes are accompanied by cataclysmic events, when even nature mourns for their loss. Thus, the synoptic gospels spoke of an eclipse and an earthquake and temple veil breaking. Matthew was even willing to say that the death of Jesus made dead people rise from their graves, foreboding the general resurrection awaited by the early Christians. John’s gospels did not include any such obvious fabulations, but instead told that when the side of Jesus was pierced, blood and water flew out: Strauss explains that the movement of the blood was meant to show that the body of Jesus still worked after his death, while the water was a symbol of divine spirit.
It was told from early on that Jesus had been buried – even Paul mentioned it in his letters – but the gospel writers added the detail that the burial was done by a rich disciple, probably, Strauss suggests, because it fit in with a passage from Isaiah. Jews had suggested that the story of finding the tomb of Jesus empty was just a sign of his disciples stealing the body, thus, Strauss explains, Matthew added a story, where the Jewish priests ask Pilate to send soldiers to guard the grave, so that the disciples would not try to do this. Strauss thinks this addition is unhistorical, because it is unconvincing that the priests would have remembered that Jesus promised to arise on the third death after his death, when the disciples apparently had not heard of this promise and were thus struck by grief because of his death. Indeed, later gospels dropped this story, because they were not anymore interested in arguing such things with Jews.
The final moments of gospels all told very different tales. Matthew recounted that two women, both called Mary, visited the grave, where an angel had scared the guards and lifted the stone from the grave. The angel told them to go to Galilee, where the disciples had returned, and when going there, the ladies met on the road Jesus, who told them he would be with them to the end of days. Matthew mentioned nothing of ascension, Strauss suggests, because people were still having mental visions of Jesus resurrected, just like Paul said in his letters.
By the time of Mark and Luke, Strauss continues, the memory of these visions had faded away and so a story of Jesus returning to heaven was needed. Mark’s story of resurrection followed Matthew closely, but stopped with the story of the women going to Galilee, adding only a short and undetailed mention of ascension, which might not have even been a physically observable event. In Luke’s account, the disciples hadn’t yet returned to Galilee, making it possible that Peter also visited the empty grave, and while there was no meeting of Jesus with the two Maries, he did meet two disciples on their way to Emmaus and showed them his wounds. Finally, Luke added the most detailed and very visual story of Jesus ascending to heaven with two angels.
John’s ending followed first Luke’s, but reworked some details, for instance, by adding two meetings with disciples, allowing the famous line about doubting Thomas asking for physical proof of the resurrection – Strauss notes that this is a perfect example of John’s gospel combining the most crude materialism (wounds of Jesus) with the most immaterial spiritualism (the power of faith without seeing). Just like John felt no need to tell how divine Logos became human, he felt no need to add how Jesus returned to his heavenly abode, merely emphasising again in the end that true faith requires no observable proof.
Having gone through all the mythical additions to the historical kernel, Strauss points out that we know as little about the historical Jesus as we know about such semi-legendary figures as Pythagoras. In comparison, Strauss notes, we know a lot more about Socrates, who lived four hundred years before Jesus, mainly because Socrates lived in a more literary culture and had the advantage of two immediate followers, Plato and Xenophon, writing about him, so that we can corroborate the writings of one against the writings of another, and agreeing in enough details about the major aspects of his life and teaching. On the contrary, Strauss points out, the authors of Matthew and John were no immediate disciples of Jesus and had very conflicting ideas about the nature of Jesus. Strauss adds that our knowledge of the life of Jesus has often been compared to our knowledge of the life of Shakespeare, but in the latter case we have his works to read, while we are not really certain what in the gospels derives originally from Jesus. Strauss is certain that there are some sayings we can truly credit to Jesus, but we cannot say with utmost certainty what they are, while gospels do include much that we know cannot be true, like all the miracles.
Strauss is still not willing to throw the gospels completely away. It is not the historical person that is important for him, but the ideal of Jesus as an image of a perfect human being. Strauss suggests Jesus wasn’t the first of such human paradigms and he won’t be the last. True, even such paradigms do reflect the developmental phase of their time, and Strauss indicates few shortcomings of Jesus: his cultural surroundings were not yet suitable for showing how to live as a citizen of a good community and he was not civilised enough to appreciate higher culture and art. Despite these shortcomings, Strauss is happy to accept the ideal of Jesus as a stepping stone toward more perfect humanity.
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