Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and the Quest for the Historical Jesus

Abstract

The feminist theological and historical work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has been met with diverging responses. For feminist biblical scholars, Schüssler Fiorenza is essential reading, with even her works from the 1970s and 1980s still standing as key reference points. For mainstream (“malestream”) biblical scholarship, however, her entire body of writing is typically ignored, including within historical Jesus research (HJR), despite its value in both problematising and advancing the so-called Quests for the Historical Jesus. By evaluating and synthesising Schüssler Fiorenza’s HJR work on fundamentalism, feminism, and anti-Semitism, this article situates the effects of Schüssler Fiorenza’s work and the credibility of her critics within the Quests. While the themes Schüssler Fiorenza addresses, such as feminism and Judaism, are key features of the Third Quest, Schüssler Fiorenza’s proposals with regard to HJR, including the politics of interpretation, the shift to memory and orality studies, and the evaluation of meaning-making itself, are theoretically critical and self-reflexive in a way which the Third Quest has rarely been. Given the emphasis Schüssler Fiorenza places on self-evaluation, and her critical examination of the work of her peers in HJR, one is led to consider the possibility that her work may represent a Third Quest Critical-Stream, or even a Fourth Quest.

Do We Need a Fresh Quest for the Historical Jesus?

“…It is unclear where Schüssler Fiorenza fits within the New Quest movement, which is known for its multi-criteria form criticism and its separation of Jesus and Judaism, the latter of which appears to have been intended to produce a Jesus who is strangely detached from both his Jewish milieu and the church that followed him. Regarding anti-Judaism in biblical studies, Fiorenza draws a clear line (Walters, 2020).…”

“…The Third Quest's optimism is another of Fiorenza's main gripes. To avoid a positivistic reading of the Bible or history, she advocated venturing into a rhetorical realm of interpretation (Walters, 2020).…”

“…This is a crucial aspect of her research, as the study of Jesus' historical context has implications for how Jewish and Christian women are viewed and treated. Academics would be doing women a favor if they acknowledged their role in the composition of the New Testament (Walters, 2020). Schüssler Fiorenza argues that since the doctrinal paradigm regards the Bible as God's direct revelation, it restricts the scope of potential interpretation and reconstruction (Fiorenza 2002).…”

“…Fiorenza is a member of the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, despite the fact that her work diverges significantly from that of the other members. She is capable of guiding either a Third Quest Critical Stream or a Fourth Quest Stream (Walters, 2020).…”