The Historical Evidence for Jesus

by George Albert Wells

In this thoroughly researched study, G.A. Wells has squarely faced the question of whether a man named Jesus lived, preached, healed, and died in Palestine during the early years of the first century of the Christian era - or indeed, at any time.Building on the biblical studies of Christian theologians, Dr. Wells soberly demonstrates that we have no reliable eyewitnesses to the events depicted in the New Testament. He publicizes a fact known to theological scholars but little-known in the average Christian that the order of books of the New Testament is not an accurate chronological arrangement. Indeed, Paul, who never saw Jesus, wrote his epistles to early Christian congregations before the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John were written.It may come as a great surprise to Christians and other monotheists, to agnostics, atheists, and humanists alike, that "the earliest references to the historical Jesus are so vague that it is not necessary to hold that he ever existed; the rise of Christianity can, from the undoubtedly historical antecedents, be explained quite well without him; and reasons can be given to show why, from about A.D. 80 or 90, Christians began to suppose that he had lived in Palestine about fifty years earlier."The Historical Evidence for Jesus is not a frontal attack on Christians per se; rather it is an easily understood but scholarly examination of the evidence for many long-accepted notions about the "biography" of the man called Jesus. This book takes up and quotes extensively from the Epistles and the Gospels of the New Testament, thus letting the evidence speak for itself in words familiar to every Bible reader. For example, Wells closely compares what Paul said about Jesus with what the author of Matthew, who lived later, wrote of him. Then he explains why these discrepancies apparently exist. Startling indeed is his proof that "earlier writers sometimes make statements which positively exclude the idea that Jesus worked miracles, delivered certain teachings, or suffered under Pilate."There is also interesting material on the topics of Jesus' supposed family, the so-called Shroud of Turin, and the myth-making that even today surrounds the figure of Jesus. Dr. Wells does not, however, attempt to demolish belief in God or the ethical precepts held by Christians. His presentation is always fair and couched in moderate tones.

Genres: Atheism

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

George Albert Wells (born May 22, 1926), usually known as G. A. Wells, is an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck, University of London. After writing books about famous European intellectuals, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Franz Grillparzer, he turned to the study of the historicity of Jesus, starting with his book The Jesus of the Early Christians in 1971. He is best known as an advocate of the thesis that Jesus is essentially a mythical rather than a historical figure, a theory that was pioneered by German biblical scholars such as Bruno Bauer and Arthur Drews.

Since the late 1990s, Wells has said that the hypothetical Q document, which is proposed as a source used in some of the gospels, may "contain a core of reminiscences" of an itinerant Galilean miracle-worker/Cynic-sage type preacher. This new stance has been interpreted as Wells changing his position to accept the existence of a historical Jesus. In 2003 Wells stated that he now disagrees with Robert M. Price on the information about Jesus being "all mythical". Wells believes that the Jesus of the gospels is obtained by attributing the supernatural traits of the Pauline epistles to the human preacher of Q.

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.

Reviews

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wells looks at the historical evidence for Jesus and finds it sorely lacking. Interesting but a little dry!

[Russell Ince · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read and reviewed E.P. Sanders’ The Historical Figure of Jesus, a work which focuses not so much on the question of the historicity of Jesus rather than on the question of what can be known of him via the gospels when his historicity is assumed, I turned to the more sceptical G.A. Wells and his work The Historical Evidence for Jesus which is a continuation of Wells’ earlier established 3 point thesis:

Our earliest sources for Jesus are so vague that he may not have existed

Christianity could have emerged without him

It was only from ca. AD 80-90 that Christians began to believe that
Jesus had lived in Palestine some 50 years prior

As a Jesus agnostic beginning with no assumptions nor predilections I have no problem with the idea that Jesus did or did not exist so long as the evidence of the New Testament can be successfully demonstrated to establish this or that position. Whilst I think Wells’ work is imperfect I was impressed by it. Wells argues convincingly that there is a problem with the gospel Jesus and his conspicuous absence from the Pauline corpus but is less compelling in his case for the non-existence of the man altogether. Indeed, it seems that Wells himself abandons this position during the course of his own book.

For my part, although contextual credibility and academic consensus are not in and of themselves proof, I do recognise two points: firstly, the eminent plausibility that a preacher of the apocalyptic variety (as imagined by Schweitzer and his modern successors such as Bart Ehrman and E.P. Sanders) could well have been present in 1st century Palestine and, secondly, the overwhelming consensus amongst scholars that Jesus did exist. On the first point, let it be said that plausibility is not tantamount to probability, many things are plausible but this does not guarantee their actual existence. On the second point it should be noted that, if the last few hundred years of New Testament scholarship has taught us anything, it’s that we should be wary of academic consensus. From Markan priority to the pseudonymous authorship of many of the books of the canon and even the history of the church itself, we have good reason to be cautious here.

After now having read authors such as Sanders, Ehrman and Wells, it seems that one’s ultimate opinion on the historicity question rests upon the way one chooses to resolve two key questions: firstly, do the Pauline epistles and the other early epistles reveal the ignorance of these authors regarding a contemporary or near-contemporary historical Jesus as depicted in the gospels? Secondly, how does one infer the process by which the gospels came to be written. These two problems seem to lie at the heart of the matter. Furthermore, in order to resolve these problems one must choose to interpret the evidence in a particular way and this interpretation will itself be informed by one’s prior assumptions, sentiments and inclinations.

Given these considerations, I have chosen to remain an agnostic with regards to the historicity question, although I do agree with Wells that the gospel Jesus seems largely if not entirely absent from the earlier Christian documents. The better explanation for this fact would be Jesus’ non-existence altogether, rather than the idea that Paul and the other early writers were ignorant of him or had little interest in his words and deeds. Given that history is a scale of probabilities, and that the former explanation is more probable than the latter, I lean towards the notion that Jesus did not exist.