Martin Kähler (6 January 1835 – 7 September 1912) was a German theologian. He is best known for his short work, published in 1892, ''Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus'' (The so-called historical Jesus and the historic, biblical Christ). Kähler was born in Neuhausen near Königsberg and died in Freudenstadt. He had a profound impact upon the famous Protestant theologian,

Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologi ...

. According to Kähler, the quest for the historical Jesus ("The Life-of-Jesus research") is challenged by there existing no historical biographies of the life of Jesus. The

gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

serve as our only sources, and they are limited in scope, leaving many unanswered questions. One must resist the urge to speculate too much about the life of Jesus, as some historical analogies and psychoanalyses do. He concludes that we do not need to know all the details about Jesus' life. All we really need to know is that Jesus died for the sins of the world. It is through him that we are redeemed. Preoccupation with tenuous details about Jesus' life distracts from that which really matters about Jesus - his redeeming death and his subsequent resurrection. Kähler's works were partly edited by his grandson,

Ernst Kähler Ernst Kähler (1914–1991) was a German Protestant theologian and Church historian. He was the grandson of theologian Martin Kähler (1835–1912). Kähler studied in Tübingen, Göttingen, Halle and Basel. He was drafted into military servi ...

(1914–1991).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kahler, Martin 1835 births 1912 deaths People from Kaliningrad Oblast German Lutheran theologians People from the Province of Prussia 19th-century German writers 20th-century German writers 19th-century German Protestant theologians 19th-century German male writers 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers 19th-century Lutherans