George Albert Wells

George Albert Wells (born May 22, 1926), usually known as G. A. Wells, is an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck, University of London. He is best known as an advocate of the idea that Jesus is a largely mythical rather than a historical figure.

Wells is a former Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. He is married and lives in St. Albans, near London. He studied at the University of London and Bern, and holds degrees in German, philosophy, and natural science. He has taught German at London University since 1949, and has been Professor of German at Birkbeck College since 1968.

Work on early Christianity

Wells suggested that the earliest extant Christian documents from the first century, most notably the New Testament epistles by Paul and some other writers, show no familiarity with the Gospel tradition of Jesus as a preacher and miracle-worker who lived and died in the recent decades. Rather, they present him "as a basically supernatural personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the past".[1] Wells believed that the Jesus of these earliest Christians is not based on a historical character, but a pure myth, derived from the mystical speculations based on the Jewish Wisdom tradition. According to Wells, the Gospel tradition was a later stage of the development of the Jesus myth, which was given a concrete historical setting and subsequently embellished with more and more details.

Wells allows for the possibility that certain elements of the Gospel traditions might be based on a historical figure from the first-century Palestine: "[T]he Galilean and the Cynic elements ... may contain a core of reminiscences of an itinerant Cynic-type Galilean preacher (who, however, is certainly not to be identified with the Jesus of the earliest Christian documents)."[1] However, Wells insists that this line of first-century traditions is separate from the sacrificial Christ myth of Paul's epistles and other early documents, and that these two traditions have different origins. Wells concludes that the reconstruction of this historical figure from the extant literature would be a hopeless task.

In his book The Jesus Myth (1999), Wells departed from his earlier insistence that there was no historical figure at the basis the Jesus of the gospels, acknowledging the Q document as early historical evidence.[2] However, Wells still argues that Paul's Jesus was "a heavenly, pre-existent figure who had come to earth at some uncertain point in the past and lived an obscure life, perhaps one or two centuries before his own time."[3]

Reception

Co-author R. Joseph Hoffmann has called Wells "the most articulate contemporary defender of the non-historicity thesis."[4] Wells' claim of a mythical Jesus has received support from Earl Doherty, Robert M. Price and others.[5][6] The classical historian R. E. Witt, reviewing The Jesus of the Early Christians in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, offered some criticisms but concluded that "Hellenists should welcome the appearance of this challenging book.",[7] while Wells' conclusions have been criticized by biblical scholars and ecclesiastical historians such as W. H. C. Frend and Robert E. Van Voorst.[8][9] After reviewing criticisms from several authors, atheist philosopher Michael Martin said that although "Wells's thesis is controversial and not widely accepted," his "argument against the historicity of Jesus is sound".[10]

Books

German intellectual history

His major works in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German language thought and letters are

Early Christianity

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Wells, G. A. (September 1999). "Earliest Christianity". The New Humanist 114 (3): 13–18. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/earliest.html. 
  2. ^ Van Voorst, Robert E (2003). "Nonexistence Hypothesis". In Houlden, James Leslie. Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 660. ISBN 1-57607-856-6. "A final argument against the nonexistence hypothesis comes from Wells himself. In his most recent book, The Jesus Myth (1999), Wells has moved away from this hypothesis. He now accepts that there is some historical basis for the existence of Jesus, derived from the lost early 'gospel' 'Q' (the hypothetical source used by Matthew and Luke). Wells believes that it is early and reliable enough to show that Jesus probably did exist, although this Jesus was not the Christ that the later canonical Gospels portray. It remains to be seen what impact Wells's about-face will have on debate over the nonexistence hypothesis in popular circles." 
  3. ^ Doherty, Earl (1999). "Book and Article Reviews, The Case of the Jesus Myth: Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard". http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/BkrvEll.htm. Retrieved Jan 15, 2009. 
  4. ^ R. Joseph Hoffmann's foreword in "The Jesus Legend," xii
  5. ^ Price, Robert (Winter 1999/2000). "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?". Free Inquiry 20 (1). http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=price_20_1. Retrieved 2007-11-17. 
  6. ^ Flemming, Brain (July/August 2005). No god in the details. 120. The New Humanist. http://newhumanist.org.uk/901. Retrieved 2007-11-17. 
  7. ^ R. E. Witt, "Reviewed Work: 'The Jesus of the Early Christians' by G. A. Wells" The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 92 (1972), pp. 223-225.
  8. ^ Frend, W. H. C. (April 1972). "Review of 'The Jesus of the Early Christians.' by G. A. Wells". The English Historical Review 87 (343): 345–348. "Though Professor Wells has written a shrewd, challenging and entertaining book, his case fails." 
  9. ^ Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 14. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9. 
  10. ^ Martin, Michael (1991). The Case Against Christianity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 67. ISBN 0-87722-767-5. 

External links