Editing Bruno Bauer (section)

== Views on Christian origins ==
Bauer wrote a criticism of the [[New Testament]]. [[David Strauss]], in his ''Life of Jesus'', had accounted for the Gospel narratives as half-conscious products of the mythic instinct in the early Christian communities. Bauer challenged Strauss' notion that a community could produce such a marvelously connected narrative as the first Gospel. Rather, he believed only a single writer could be responsible for the first Gospel. 

Bauer was one of the architects of the theory of [[Marcan Priority]] which remains the predominant approach to Gospel writings among scholars today, i.e., that the [[Gospel of Mark]] was the first Gospel written and the other Gospels merely added on to Mark's Gospel.  Bauer promoted the other two major architects of this theory, namely, [[Christian Hermann Weisse]] ''Die evangelische Geschichte, kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet'' (''The Gospel History, Critically and Philosophically Reviewed'', 1838) and [[Christian Gottlob Wilke]] (Der Urevangelist oder exegetisch kritische Untersuchung über das Verwandtschaftsverhältniß der drei ersten Evangelien (The First Evangelist, Exegetical Critical Study on the Relationship of the First Three Gospels, 1838). 

For Bauer, our current [[Gospel of Mark]] was completed in the reign of [[Hadrian]] (117–138 CE), although its prototype, the 'Ur-Marcus' (identifiable within the [[Gospel of Mark]] by critical analysis), was begun before the time of Josephus and the Roman–Jewish Wars (66-70 CE).  

In 1906 [[Albert Schweitzer]] wrote that Bauer originally sought "to save the honor of Jesus and to restore His Person from the state of inanity to which the apologists had reduced it...to bring Him into a living relation with history."  However, he eventually came to believe that the Gospel was largely fiction and "regarded the Gospel of Mark not only as the first narrator, but even as the creator of the Gospel, thus making Christianity largely the invention of the single original evangelist" ([[Otto Pfleiderer]]).<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last=Schweitzer |first=Albert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YvX9ngEACAAJ&q=The+quest+for+the+historical+Jesus+Schweitzer |title=The Quest of the Historical Jesus |date=1906 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=978-0-8006-3288-5 |language=en}}</ref>

Although Bauer investigated the 'Ur-Marcus', it was his remarks on the current version of the [[Gospel of Mark]] that captured popular attention. In particular, some key themes in the [[Gospel of Mark]] appeared to be literary. 

The [[Messianic Secret]] theme, for example, in which Jesus continually performed wonders and told witnesses never to tell anybody, seemed to Bauer to be an example of fiction. If so, Bauer wrote, the redactor who added that theme was probably the final redactor of our current version of the [[Gospel of Mark]]. In 1901, [[Wilhelm Wrede]] confirmed this in his own book, ''Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien'' (English: ''The Messianic Secret'', 1901).

For some influential theologians in the [[Tübingen School]], several [[Pauline epistles]] were regarded as forgeries of the 2nd century. Bauer radicalized that position by suggesting that '''all''' Pauline epistles were forgeries written in the West in antagonism to the [[Paul of Tarsus|Paul]] of ''The Acts''. Bauer observed a preponderance of the Greco-Roman element over the Jewish element in Christian writings, and he added a wealth of historical background to support his theory. However, modern scholars such as [[E. P. Sanders]] and [[John P. Meier]] have disputed the theory and attempted to demonstrate a mainly Jewish historical background. Other authors, such as [[Rudolf Bultmann]], agreed that a Greco-Roman element was dominant.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

According to Schweitzer, Bauer took the position that the writer of [[Mark the Evangelist|Mark]]'s gospel was "an Italian, at home both in Rome and Alexandria"; [[Matthew the Evangelist|Matthew]]'s gospel was written by "a Roman, nourished by the spirit of [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]"; and Christianity is essentially "[[Stoicism]] triumphant in a Jewish garb" (ibid, Schweitzer).

Bauer added a deep review of European literature in the 1st century. In his estimation, many key themes of the New Testament (especially those that are opposed to themes in the Old Testament), can be found with relative ease in Greco-Roman literature that flourished during the 1st century. Such a position was also maintained by some Jewish scholars.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

Bauer's final book, ''Christ and the Caesars'' (1879) offers an analysis that shows common keywords in the texts of 1st-century writers like Seneca the Stoic and The New Testament. While that had been perceived even in ancient times, the ancient explanation was that Seneca was a secret Christian. Bauer was the first to attempt to demonstrate carefully that some New Testament writers freely borrowed from Seneca. One modern explanation is that common cultures share common thought forms and common patterns of speech, and similarities do not necessarily indicate borrowing.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

In ''Christ and the Caesars'', Bauer argued that [[Judaism]] entered Rome during the era of the [[Maccabees]] and increased in population and influence in Rome since then. He cited literature from the 1st century to strengthen his case that Jewish influence in Rome was far greater than historians had yet reported. The imperial throne was influenced by the Jewish religious genius, he said, citing Herod's relation with the Caesar family, as well as the famous relationship between [[Josephus]] and the Flavians, [[Vespasian]] and [[Titus]]. Also, a poem by [[Horace]] relates his greeting his Roman friend on a Saturday on his way to the local Synagogue.

According to Bauer, [[Julius Caesar]] sought to interpret his own life as an Oriental miracle story, and Augustus Caesar completed that job by commissioning [[Virgil]] to write his ''Aeneid'', making Caesar into the Son of Venus and a relative of the Trojans, thereby justifying the Roman conquest of Greece and insinuating Rome into a much older history.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

By contrast, said Bauer, [[Vespasian]] was far more fortunate since he had [[Josephus]] himself to link his reign with an Oriental miracle. Josephus had prophesied that Vespasian would become Emperor of Rome and thus ruler of the world. Since that actually came true, it smoothly insinuated Rome into Jewish history. After this, the Roman conquest of Judea would take on new historical dimensions.

According to [[Albert Schweitzer]], Bauer's criticisms of the New Testament provided the most interesting questions about the historical Jesus that he had seen.<ref>Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus - 1906 - Adam and Charles Black, on p.159, Schweitzer explicitly states, "Bauer's 'Criticism of the Gospel History' is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now coming to recognize, after half a century, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found."</ref>

The second-last chapter of his ''Quest'' suggests that Schweitzer's own theology was partly based on Bauer's writings. The title of that chapter is "Thoroughgoing Skepticism and Eschatology" in which Schweitzer clashes head-on with [[Wilhelm Wrede]], who had recently (in 1905) proposed the theory of a [[Messianic Secret]]. Wrede's theory claimed that Jesus's continual commands to his followers to "say nothing to anybody" after each miracle was performed could be explained only as a literary invention of this Gospel writer. (That is, Wrede was the thoroughgoing sceptic, and Schweitzer was the thoroughgoing eschatologist.) Schweitzer began by showing that Wrede had merely copied the idea from Bauer. Then, he listed another forty brilliant criticisms from Bauer (pp.&nbsp;334–335) and disagreed with some of them (such as the so-called [[Messianic Secret]]) and considered others indispensable for any modern theology of the Gospel.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

That line of criticism has value in emphasizing the importance of studying the influence of the environment in the formation of the Christian Scriptures. Bauer was a man of restless creativity, interdisciplinary activity and independent judgment. Many reviewers have charged that Bauer's judgment was ill-balanced. Because of the controversial nature of his work as a social theorist, theologian and historian, Bauer was banned from public teaching by a Prussian monarch. After many years of similar censorship, Bauer came to resign himself to his place as a freelance critic, rather than an official teacher.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

[[Douglas Moggach]] published ''The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer'' in 2003. It is the most comprehensive overview of Bauer's life and works in English to date. Bauer's biography has now obtained more kindly reviews, even by opponents. In his own day, his opponents often respected him since he was not afraid of taking a line on principle. The topic of Bauer's personal religious views or lack thereof is a continuing debate in contemporary scholarship about Bauer.

One modern writer, Paul Trejo, has made the case that Bauer remained a radical theologian who only criticized specific ''types'' of Christianity and that Bauer maintained a Hegelian interpretation of Christianity throughout his life. According to Trejo, Bauer's allegedly radical book ''Christianity Exposed'' (1843) was actually mild, setting only one large sect of Christianity against another.{{sfn|Trejo|2002}}

Trejo also wrote that Bauer's ''Trumpet of the Last Judgment against Hegel the Atheist and Antichrist'' was merely a comedy, actually a prank, in which Bauer pretended to be a right-wing cleric attacking Hegel.{{sfn|Trejo|2002|p=16}} The prank worked, wrote Trejo, and Bauer had a great laugh at the expense of anti-Hegelian clerics. Bauer was a legitimate Christian of the Hegelian school, wrote Trejo, who opposed only the "ingenuous" or ''literalist type'' of Christianity.