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Encyclopedia > George Albert Wells

George Albert Wells (born 1926) is an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck College, but he is more widely known as a New Testament scholar. He is an advocate of a theory that Jesus is a mythical rather than a historical figure. 1926 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Birkbeck Birkbeck (sometimes still called Birkbeck College) is a College of the University of London. ... This 11th-century portrait is one of many images of Jesus in which a halo with a cross is used. ...


George Albert (usually "G.A.") 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. St Albans, St. ... Senate House, designed by Charles Holden home to the universitys central administration offices and its library The University of London is a federation of colleges which together constitute one of the worlds largest universities. ... Location within Switzerland The city of Bern, English traditionally Berne (Bernese German Bärn , German Bern , French Berne , Italian Berna , Romansh Berna ), is the Bundesstadt (capital) of Switzerland, and is the fourth most populous Swiss city (after Zürich, Geneva and Basel). ... Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. ... The lunar farside as seen from Apollo 11 Natural science is the study of the physical, nonhuman aspects of the Earth and the universe around us. ...

Contents


Work on early Christianity

Wells argues that the earliest extant Christian documents from the first century, most notably Paul's epistles, 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 mysterious figure that lived an obscure life in some indeterminate past. Wells believes 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. This 11th-century portrait is one of many images of Jesus in which a halo with a cross is used. ... IS may mean: Iceland (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code). ... For the computer game, see Myth (computer game). ...


In his last works, Wells has somewhat moderated his views, allowing for the possibility that certain elements of the Gospel traditions might be based on a historical figure from the first-century Palestine. 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. ... The term Pauline epistles refers to the thirteen or fourteen letters in the New Testament of the Christian Bible traditionally believed to have been written by the apostle Paul. ...


Currently Doherty's arguments have not made a very strong impression on the scholarly consensus [1] and Doherty's position stands in the tradition of historical revisionism. In addition, there are many religiously leaning historians which have been very favourable to the Christian claim of the resurrection, and subsequently do not believe it is plausible that Jesus is a myth (given the cultural conditions, time required for myth formation in the given cultural milieu, etc.). Scholars who have taken this position include: Thomas Arnold [2], A. N. Sherwin-White [3][4], and Michael Grant. [5][6][7]. Wells views, however, have been a major influence on some even more radical proponents of the "Christ is a myth" theory, most notably his former student Earl Doherty. In Parson Weems Fable (1939) Grant Wood takes a sly poke at a traditional hagiographical account of George Washington Historical revisionism is the reexamination of the accepted facts and interpretations of history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and less biased information. ... Earl Doherty, currently living in Canada, is the author of The Jesus Puzzle, a work published in 2000 by the Canadian Humanist Association arguing that Jesus never lived. ...


Books

German

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

  • Herder and After (1959)
  • The Plays of Grillparzer (1969)
  • Goethe and the Development of Science (1978).
  • The Origin of Language (1987)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced [gø tə]) (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) was a German writer, politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. ...

Early Christianity

  • The Jesus of the Early Christians (1971)
  • Did Jesus Exist? (1975)
  • The Historical Evidence for Jesus (1982)
  • The Jesus Legend (1996)
  • The Jesus Myth (1998)
  • Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony (2004)
  • Religious Postures
  • What's in a Name?
  • Belief and Make Believe
  • Who Was Jesus?

See also

The historical existence of Jesus, known by Christians as Jesus Christ (Jesus the Messiah) and by Muslims as Isa (عيسى), is accepted by the followers of two world religions, Christianity and Islam, on the basis of their respective scriptures - the Bible and the Quran. ... Dr. Timothy Freke is a scholar of Western religion and philosophy. ...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
Hussey line of DHB - aqw03.htm - Generated by Ancestral Quest (1441 words)
Ann Eliza Wells was born 21 Jul 1878 in Salmon Cove, Newfoundland.
Sarah Jerusha Wells was born 29 Aug 1880 in Salmon Cove, Newfoundland.
George Malcolm Hussey was born 25 Sep 1891 in Salmon Cove, Newfoundland.
  More results at FactBites »


 
 

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