Page 287 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

EARLY HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY: A BRIEF LOOK 267

therefore open themselves up to interpretation, and interpreters often commit
the mistake of seeing the texts through the filter of their own beliefsregarding
Jesus, finding in the texts exactly what they set out to discover in the first
place."
These canonical sources, four gospels and other NT writings, are so
meagre that they do not allow the objective compilation of a full biography.
The life ofJesus was in fact relevant only insofar as it furthered Christian
dogma; with only a handful of gospel passages ever emphasised in congre-
gations (as noted by Maurice Bucaille)," interest in the historicalJesus was
at best merely subsidiary.
Hermann Reimarus, Professor of Oriental Languages in Hamburg during
the 1700s, was the first to attempt a historical reconstruction ofJesus' Iife.?
Before Reimarus, "the only life of Jesus... which has any interest for us
was composed by aJesuit in the Persian language" .10 It was written in the
latter half of the 1500s and tailored specifically for the use of Akbar, the
Moghul Emperor. This biography is,

a skilful falsification of the lifeofJesus in which the omissions,and the
additions taken from the Apocrypha, are inspired by the solepurpose
of presenting to the open-minded ruler a gloriousJesus, in whom there
should be nothing to offend him.11

The dubious nature of this work did not stop it from being translated
into Latin a century later, by a theologian of the Reformed Church who
wanted to discredit Catholicism. 12And so the Erst attempt at a biography,
written a full sixteen centuries after Jesus walked the winding alleys of
Jerusalem, was nothing more than a historically invalid missionary text
which became another pawn in the doctrinal wars between Catholics and
Protestants. Even subsequent scholars failed to compose a viable biography.
After the loss of the original gospel," no successful effort appears to have
been made in the two thousand years of Christianity to compile a historical
overview ofJesus. Robert Funk describes the case as follows:

7 Dictionary ofthe Bible, p. 477.
8 Maurice Bucaille, TheBible, The Qyr'an andScience, AmericanTrust Publications,
Indianapolis, Indiana, 1978.
9 AlbertSchweitzer, TheQyest ofthe HistoricalJesus, CollierBooks, 1968,p. 13.Cited
thereafteras Schweitzer.
10 ibid, p. 13.
11 ibid, p. 14.
12 ibid, p. 14.
13 i.e. the disciples' own writings concerningthe teachings ofJesus. See this work
pp.279-80.