Product Description

Professor Wells argues that there was no historical Jesus, and in thus arguing he deals with the many recent writers who have interpreted the historical Jesus as some kind of political figure in the struggle against Rome, and calls in evidence the many contemporary theologians who agree with some of his arguments about early Christianity. The question at issue is what all the evidence adds up to. Does it establish that Jesus did or did not exist? Professor Wells concludes that the latter is the more likely hypothesis. This challenge to received thinking by both Christians and non-Christians is supported by much documentary evidence, and Professor Wells carefully examines all the relevant problems and answers all the relevant questions. He deliberately avoids polemic and speculation, and sticks so far as possible to the known facts and to rational inferences from the facts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #928561 in Books
• Published on: 1987-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Customer Reviews

A much needed book in a landscape full of speculation
New Testament scholars, quick to dismiss evangelical leanings toward belief that the Gospels are verbatim accounts by eyewitnesses, should think again if they think they have silenced their critics.

Wells has shown that questioning a few assumptions can lead to vastly different conclusions. The assumption he questions is that the general framework of the gospel accounts is based in fact. His different conclusion is that the Jesus that Christians know and love is mostly or all a legendary character.

Basically, taking Paul's earliest writings (which predate the gospels), Wells examines the growth of a tradition which added more and more on to the idea of Jesus, which is how myths work.

Scholars have turned their nose up to this theory, citing that Wells is not accepted in scholarly circles and that he is just a German professor, instead of providing some reasons that Wells's inference from the known data CAN'T work.

Read and enjoy. Crossan, eat your heart out.

compelling
Fascinating book. The chapters on synoptic gospel-to-gospel inconsistencies, gospel editing from church fathers with an obvious agenda, and the similarities of the Jesus story to those of pagan gods were particularly compelling. This book convinced me that agnosticism is a very reasonable stance.

A dangerous mistake
The author stresses the silence of Paul and first century documents about the earthly life of Jesus, which is a fact.
But when he studies the origin of the gospels he considers its sources to be oral tradition, even if it doesn't come from eye witnesses.
This is a contradiction.
If there was an oral tradition, how could there have been Paul's silence?
The book was written in 1975. Modern scholars forward more consistent explanations.
There was no oral tradition about Jesus. The gospels were written based on the Old Testament, on myths of ancient civilizations and Luke and Mathew on a gospel known as Q (source) collecting hellenizing sayings in circulation and then attributed to Jesus.
I did expect much more from this book.