The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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The roughly synonymous terms, "the historical Jesus," "the Jesus of history," "the actual Jesus," "Jesus as a fact of the past," and so on, are all ambiguous in that they can have at least two different meanings. Thus what is usually meant by "the historical Jesus" may be defined as the actual Jesus, in his being in himself then and there in the past, prior to any and all re-presentations of him by others. When it is used in this sense, however, I prefer to speak more precisely of "the empirical-historical Jesus." Why? Because the actual Jesus in this sense is, for all practical purposes, one and the same with Jesus insofar as he is knowable to us today by way of empirical-historical inquiry using the writings of the New Testament as sources.

But I also speak of "the existential-historical Jesus," so as to distinguish yet another sense in which the term, "the historical Jesus" is sometimes used. In this sense, the term may be defined as the actual Jesus, in his meaning for us here and now in the present, authoritatively re-presented through the witness of the apostles and any and all subsequent witness authorized by it.

September 2000

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