Is the Third Quest Over? Yes, but Not the Postmortem

The Third Quest seems to have ended, but the postmortem continues. Important positive results remain, such as insistence that Jesus be interpreted as a Jew in an early first-century context. For this reason scholars remain keenly interested in the results of archaeology and the ongoing publication and analysis of related primary texts. Other matters are very much in debate, such as assessment of the primary sources (the NT Gospels), the role of memory, the role of oral tradition, and whether we can speak of “authenticity” and, if so, what that means. The present essay assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Third Quest and proposes ways a Fourth Quest might build on it. As an experiment to this end this paper will consider what can be known of the “Christology/eschatology” of fifth century C.E. Fiskis of Crete, who called himself Moses and promised the Jewish people of the Diaspora reconquest of the land of Israel.