David Strauss 1808 – 1874
David Friedrich Strauss was a German Protestant theologian, philosopher, and biographer and one of the most controversial religious thinkers of the nineteenth century. After studies under F. C. Baur at Tubingen and a brief stint as a tutor under Schleiermacher and Hegel in Berlin, he produced his Life of Jesus Critically Examined in 1835 to 1836, in which the supernatural elements of the Gospel narratives are interpreted as products of the religious imagination of the early Christian community. The book ended his academic career and provoked a generation of controversy. His later Old Faith and the New renounced traditional Christianity and provoked a celebrated polemic from the young Nietzsche.
Key facts
- Nationality
- German
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Continental, German Idealism
Selected quotes
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Attributed to David Strauss:
“The miracles of the Gospels are products of mythic religious imagination.”
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Attributed to David Strauss:
“Jesus the historical person and Christ the dogmatic figure must be carefully distinguished.”
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Attributed to David Strauss:
“Religion must be read as it actually grew, not as later orthodoxy declared.”
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Attributed to David Strauss:
“What was sacred to one age becomes the historical document of another.”
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Attributed to David Strauss:
“Faith and history are not the same kind of knowledge.”