The last two decades or so have witnessed an unforeseen explosion of scholarly interest in the quest for the historical Jesus. The vestigial skepticism of the No Quest period and the halting steps of the New Quest have largely given way to renewed enthusiasm with regard to the historical recovery of Jesus. It is in this light that scholars have begun to talk about a new "renaissance" in Jesus research and the emergence of a Third Quest. (1) The results of this recent push, however, have been anything but uniform. Jesus of Nazareth has been variously tagged as a Galilean holy man, (2) an eschatological prophet, (3) an occultic magician, (4) an innovative rabbi, (5) a trance-inducing psychotherapist, (6) a political revolutionary, (7) an Essene teacher, (8) a proto-liberation theologian, (9) and a hellenized Cynic sage. (10) The purpose of this article is to explore the last of these recently suggested models: that of Jesus as most closely akin to a Cynic philosopher. Here Jesus is largely cast as a thoroughly hellenized, noneschatological, contra-cultural quipster. (11) To begin with, a few words will be spent on those philosophical hound-dogs of old, the ancient Cynics. Next, I shall trace the rise, development, and context of the Cynic Jesus thesis. Finally, I shall offer a summary critique. I. A Word on Ancient Cynicism
