Nick was asking about historical Jesus movements in a private thread, and in the process of discussing that, I ran across this fresh interview (from “Word on Fire” - Brandon Vogt interviewing Bishop Robert Barron) where Barron gives - I surmise - a very nice summary of the history of “historical Jesus” quests of recent centuries. I thought it would be worthy of a wider audience and possible discussion here in a more public place as well.
Among several delightful take-aways for me … Barron quotes N.T. Wright (or was it Schweitzer?) as saying (this is from my memory after one watching) … People have tried to look deep down into the well of history to search out ‘the true’ historical Jesus, and they have ended up seeing a reflection of their own faces from the water below.
I believe its N.T. Wright but I could be wrong. From what I have studied the Jesus movement was a small sect of Jews seeking the triumphal return of Messiah, but over time with the inclusion of Gentiles and the turning away of Jewish roots it became something more universal and multi-cultural. There seemed to have been two strands of the Jesus movement, one Jewish and the other Pauline/Gentile based but over time they seemed to have merged by the dawn of the 2nd century and those not in the Church proper were seen as Judaizers. The Jesus movement started as a small cult following of a messanic rabbi prophet that would later turn into a mega religion world wide.
Yeah - there were those early Jesus movements from within and from without the established temple system to be sure. The “historical Jesus” phrase dealt with here and in the video refers to the relatively recent movements that began (“1st quest”) in the late 1700s. So they are reacting to a relatively recent phenomenon.
As to where the quote was from - someone who takes a fresh listen to my link above will be able to correct me - the attribute is given in the video, and this is just me being too busy to re-listen for that at the moment. But I do intend to listen again as there was much there to absorb.