ABSTRACT
For any theological student of Kierkegaard’s generation David Friedrich Strauss was an unavoidable phenomenon. The book by which he was to be chiefly-often solely-remembered, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, was published in its first and second editions in 1835 and 1836 respectively, right in the middle of Kierkegaard’s time as a theology student. This work, developing a thorough-going and consistent application of contemporary biblical scholarship with the help of some inspiration from Hegelianism, both established Strauss as a figure of European stature and, at the same time, effectively destroyed his career as a theologian. The whole affair epitomized what has since come to be a recurrent crisis within the life of the Christian Church, as scholarly theological thinking finds itself being drawn to challenge what are widely regarded as central elements of Christian faith and ethics. Kierkegaard himself saw a parallel with the affair of the Hegelian Danish priest Adolph Peter Adler (1812-69). Although the circumstances were rather different, in that Adler came to public attention when a nocturnal appearance of Jesus led him to renounce Hegelianism, both cases do illustrate the extreme tensions of the cohabitation of modern scholarly enquiry and traditional ecclesiastical faith.1
