David Strauss facts for kids
David Friedrich Strauss (German: Strauß [ˈdaːvɪt ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ʃtʁaʊs]; January 27, 1808 – February 8, 1874) was a German Christian thinker and writer. He greatly influenced how people in Europe understood Christianity. He wrote about the "historical Jesus" and questioned if Jesus was truly divine. His work was part of the Tübingen School, which changed how people studied the New Testament and early Christianity. Strauss was a pioneer in looking at Jesus's life from a historical point of view.
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Early Life and Studies
David Strauss was born in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, Germany. When he was 12, he went to a special school in Blaubeuren to prepare for studying theology. His teachers, Friedrich Heinrich Kern and Ferdinand Christian Baur, taught him to carefully analyze old texts. This skill could be used for both ancient books and religious writings.
In 1825, Strauss started at the University of Tübingen. He was interested in the ideas of famous thinkers like Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In 1830, he worked as an assistant to a country priest. Later, he became a professor at the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren. There, he taught Latin, history, and Hebrew.
In 1831, Strauss went to Berlin to study more. He planned to learn from Hegel, but Hegel died just as Strauss arrived. Strauss then focused on the lectures of Friedrich Schleiermacher, especially those about the life of Jesus. He started to develop his own ideas for his two main books: Das Leben Jesu (Life of Jesus) and Christliche Glaubenslehre (Christian Doctrine).
In 1832, Strauss returned to Tübingen. He taught about logic, Plato, and ethics. He was very successful. By 1833, he decided to leave teaching to finish his book, Das Leben Jesu. It was published when he was only 27 years old. This book, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, was later translated into English by George Eliot.
Many people who followed Hegel did not agree with Strauss's ideas in Life of Jesus. Strauss wrote another book to defend his work. A famous scholar named Bruno Bauer was one of his main critics.
The Life of Jesus
Strauss's book, Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined), caused a huge stir. He did not say that Jesus never existed. Instead, he argued that the miracles in the New Testament were like myths. He believed they were added later and were not actual events.
Many people were very upset by his book. One person called it "the most dangerous book ever." When Strauss was offered a teaching job at the University of Zürich, there was such a big protest that he was given a pension instead. People even burned statues of him! Strauss gave his pension money to the poor.
What made his book so controversial? Strauss looked at the Bible and found many contradictions. He concluded that the miracle stories were not real events. He thought the early church created these stories to show Jesus as the Messiah, as predicted in Jewish writings. This idea was new. Before Strauss, people either explained miracles as misunderstandings of natural events, or they believed every word in the Bible was true. Strauss's idea that miracles were myths created by early Christians changed how people studied the history of Christianity.
In 1840, Strauss published another important work, On Christian Doctrine. In this book, he suggested that the history of Christian beliefs was actually a story of them falling apart over time.
Later Life and Other Works
After his book On Christian Doctrine, Strauss stopped writing about theology for about 20 years. In 1841, he married Agnese Schebest, a well-known opera singer. They had two children but divorced five years later.
Strauss then wrote other books. In 1847, he published A Romantic on the Throne of the Caesars. In this book, he compared a Roman Emperor who tried to stop Christianity to Frederick William IV of Prussia. He suggested the king was too focused on old ideas and not on the present.
In 1848, he tried to become a member of the Frankfurt Parliament but lost. He was elected to another local assembly, but his ideas were so traditional that his voters asked him to step down. After this, he wrote several biographies of famous German figures.
Strauss returned to theology in 1862. He published a biography of Hermann Samuel Reimarus. Two years later, in 1864, he released a simpler version of his first book, called Life of Jesus for the German People. It did not cause as much excitement as his first book, but it still led to many discussions.
His book The Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History (1865) criticized Schleiermacher's ideas about Jesus. From 1865 to 1872, Strauss lived in Darmstadt. In 1870, he published his lectures on Voltaire.
His last book, On The Old and New Faith (1872), was almost as shocking as his Life of Jesus. Even his friends were surprised by his views on Christianity and his interest in modern science. Nietzsche strongly criticized this work. Strauss added a special "Afterword" to the fourth edition of the book in 1873. Soon after, he became ill and died in Ludwigsburg on February 8, 1874.
Impact and Ideas
Many scholars have discussed Strauss's work. Some said his mind was very good at analyzing and criticizing things. They felt he lacked deep religious feeling or historical understanding.
Strauss's main idea was that the Jesus described in the Gospels, apart from a very basic life story, was created by the early Christians' expectations of a Messiah. He believed that the stories were not based on real events.
However, his work was very important. Albert Schweitzer, a famous scholar, said that Strauss's arguments "killed off" many old ways of explaining the Bible. He even said there were two main periods in the study of the historical Jesus: "the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss."
According to Peter C. Hodgson and James C. Livingston, David Strauss was the first to seriously ask questions about Jesus's historical life. He opened the door to separating Jesus as a historical person from Christian faith. Strauss argued that Christian traditions are largely mythical. He believed there was not enough clear evidence to truly reconstruct a historical image of Jesus that would support Christian faith. By raising these critical questions, Strauss became a very important figure in theology.
Marcus Borg noted that while the specific details of Strauss's arguments might not be used today, his main ideas have become common in biblical studies. For example, the idea that many Gospel stories are mythical, and that "myth" does not simply mean "falsehood," is now a standard tool for scholars. What was once very controversial is now widely accepted.
One of Strauss's controversial ideas was about the Virgin Birth. He thought this story was added to Jesus's life as a legend to honor him, similar to how other great figures were honored in ancient times. Strauss believed it would have been a greater honor for Jesus to simply recognize Joseph as his father.
People also said that Strauss's books were popular not just because of his arguments, but also because he wrote in a clear and engaging way.
Works
Most of Strauss's works were published in a collected edition of 12 volumes by Eduard Zeller. His selected letters were published in 1895.
See also
In Spanish: David Friedrich Strauss para niños
- Adam Karl August von Eschenmayer — his work Der Ischariotismus unserer Täge criticized Strauss
- "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer" — Nietzsche's critique of Strauss
- Young Hegelians
