The Life of Jesus Critically Examined: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, credited to David Friedrich Strauss, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Life of Jesus Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss, translated by George Eliot. Read by JoeD. Strauss was an early pioneer in the ongoing 'Quest of the Historical Jesus' held amongst New Testament scholars, and his Life of Jesus is one of the few landmarks in the field. The first edition of Strauss' book was published in Germany in 1835 when he was only 27 years old, and which by 1840 had gone through four editions. He focused his attention on battling two theological fronts which were current at the time - the traditional Orthodox who believed the miracles in the Gospels were to be taken as literal, yet supernatural, history; and the Rationalists, who believed that the Gospel miracles were all true but could be explained by natural and purely physical causes. Strauss rejected both camps and, in a scrupulous and detailed historical analysis of the Gospels, concluded that the Gospels are historically unreliable, not because the Evangelists were deceptive, but because they were preachers who wrote their Gospels as convictions of Faith in a mythological framework. Strauss further argued that anything that can be known of the Historical Jesus is hopelessly buried under accretions of legend and myth. The price that Strauss paid for publication was high – his Life of Jesus scandalized Europe, and caused a sensation rarely seen by philosophical or theological works. Dozens of books, mostly from Germany, were written in rebuttal. The Life of Jesus cost Strauss his post at Tübingen University, and ultimately his career. However, his argumentation proved too influential to be ignored. The school of Rationalism died in the 19th century, due in no small part to Strauss' criticism. The traditional Orthodox that Strauss criticized partly evolved into Fundamentalism in the early 20th century, and was in large part a reaction to the groundbreaking path started by Strauss and his revolutionary work. Medical missionary Albert Schweitzer described Strauss' Life of Jesus as, "one of the most perfect things in the whole range of learned literature. In over fourteen hundred pages he has not a superfluous phrase; his analysis descends to the minutest details, but he does not lose his way among them; his style is simple and picturesque, sometimes ironical, but always dignified and distinguished". (Introduction by JoeD)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Life of Jesus Critically Examined
• Author credits: David Friedrich Strauss
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 154
• Listed recording duration: 57:51:17

Catalogue topics

• religion
• philosophy
• criticism
• jesus

Opening tracks: first 24 of 154

1. 000 - Introduction by Professor Otto Pfleiderer, Latin prologue, Preface — 1:03:37
2. 001 - Introduction §1 Inevitable Rise of Different Modes of Explaning Sacred Histories — 4:22
3. 002 - Introduction §2 Different Explanations of Sacred Legends Among the Greeks — 3:06
4. 003 - Introduction §3 Allegorical Interpretations Among the Hebrews - Philo — 3:10
5. 004 - Introduction §4 Allegorical interpretations among the Christians - Origen — 8:15
6. 005 - Introduction §5 Transition to More Modern Times, Deists and Naturalists of the 17th and 18th Centuries, The Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist — 11:18
7. 006 - Introduction §6 Natural Mode of Explanation Adopted by the Rationalists. Eichhorn. Paulus — 18:19
8. 007 - Introduction §7 Moral Interpretation of Kant — 5:20
9. 008 - Introduction §8 Rise of the mythical mode of interpreting the sacred history, in reference first to the Old Testament — 21:33
10. 009 - Introduciton §9 The mythical mode of interpretation in reference to the New Testament — 8:23
11. 010 - Introduction §10 The notion of the mythus in its application to sacred histories not clearly apprehended by theologians — 17:31
12. 011 - Introduction §11 The application of the notion of the mythus too circumscribed — 9:10
13. 012 - Introduction §12 Opposition to the mythical view of the gospel history — 15:44
14. 013 - Introduction §13 The possibility of the existence of mythi in the New Testament considered in reference to the external evidences — 27:38
15. 014 - Introduction §14 The possibility of mythi in the New Testament considered on internal grounds — 47:49
16. 015 - Introduction §15 Definition of the evangelical mythus, and its distinctive characteristics — 5:06
17. 016 - Introduction §16 Criteria by which to distinguish the unhistorical in the Gospel narrative — 19:25
18. 017 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 1 - Annunciation and Birth of John the Baptist §17 Account given by Luke. Immediate, supernatural character of the representation — 20:41
19. 018 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 1 - Annunciation and Birth of John the Baptist §18 Natural explanation of the narrative — 15:17
20. 019 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 1 - Annunciation and Birth of John the Baptist §19 Mythical view of the narrative in its different stages — 14:20
21. 020 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 2 - Davidical Descent of Jesus, According to the Genealogical Tables of Matthew and Luke §20 The two genealogies of Jesus considered separately and irrespectively of one another — 18:58
22. 021 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 2 - Davidical Descent of Jesus, According to the Genealogical Tables of Matthew and Luke §21 Comparison of the two genealogies. Attempt to reconcile their contradictions — 18:54
23. 022 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 2 - Davidical Descent of Jesus, According to the Genealogical Tables of Matthew and Luke §22 The genealogies unhistorical — 6:24
24. 023 - Part 1 - History of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus, Chapter 3 - Announcement of the Conception of Jesus. Its Supernatural Character. Visit of Mary to Elizabeth §23 Sketch of the different canonical and apocryphal accounts — 10:26

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