Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ [Paperback]

Alvar Ellegard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002

It is commonly believed that the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels contains elements of fiction and myth, but in this ground-breaking and controversial book, Alvar Ellegard argues that even those ideas agreed to be the basic facts about the life of Jesus are fictional: Jesus was not born in the time of Augustus Caesar (27B.C. - 14A.D.). He was not baptized by John. He was not sentenced to death by Pilate. And he never roamed Palestine as a wandering preacher and miracle worker. In fact, none of Jesus' supposed contemporaries ever saw him in the flesh but only through visions, as the Christ raised by God to heaven.

This closely researched and argued study takes the reader through the earliest Christian writings, including Paul's Letters and various other biblical and non-biblical texts, and presents the provocative argument that not one of these writers had ever met Jesus or refer to anyone who had. Indeed, Ellegard postulates, even the earliest Christians describe Jesus as a great Jewish prophet and teacher, who had already become a figure of mythology-not a contemporary crucified before their eyes, but a historical figure, on a par with the Old Testament prophets. Readers will surely be fascinated by this purely historical, non-theological approach to Christianity's origins.

"Deserves a serious look not just for its ingenuity but also for the questions it raises." (The Cleveland Plain Dealer)

"The reading is close, full of references in the main text as well as in endnotes...anyone interested in the argument will easily grasp and just as easily devour it." (Booklist)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

These two books offer an enormous contrast. While Fredriksen provides a balanced, carefully reasoned, scholarly study of the historical Jesus, Ellegard's conclusions can only be described as preposterous. Ellegard (formerly dean, Univ. of G?teburg, Sweden) is clearly familiar with some mainline biblical scholarship, but he always opts for the minority view and stretches it beyond reason. For example, he believes that the Gospels were written in the second century C.E. and traces the origin of Christianity to "a group of pious Jews called the Essenes" (the Dead Sea Scrolls group). Then, based on this highly questionable and twisted "evidence," he leaps to several unjustified conclusions: that Jesus lived long before he was supposed to have and that his disciples had only "ecstatic visions" of him and never knew him in the flesh. The Gospel writers, he suggests, then mistook their visions for real events and created fictitious accounts of Jesus' life. Fredriksen (scripture, Boston Univ.), on the other hand, explores the conundrum of a well-established historical fact--namely, that Jesus was executed by the Roman prefect Pilate as a political insurrectionist while his followers were not. She concludes that it was the volatile mix of excited pilgrims in Jerusalem for Passover and their acclaim of Jesus at a time when Pilate was especially interested in keeping the peace that led to his death. Her balanced, well-written work could serve as a kind of introduction to the content and methodology scholars use in the study of the historical Jesus and is highly recommended for any library. Ellegard's work would only be useful as an example of the false conclusions that result when questionable opinion is stretched beyond reasonable limits.
-David Bourquin, California State Univ., San Bernardino
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Deserves a serious look not just for its ingenuity but also for the questions it raises. -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585672521
• ISBN-13: 978-1585672523
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,709,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A fresh look at some familiar material, December 13, 1999

By 

Jake Jones "JJ" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ (Hardcover)

Alvar Ellegard's book, "JESUS, One Hundred Years before Christ" provides a fresh look at some familiar material. For those who are not familiar, the thesis is that Jesus did not live in Paul's recent past, and that the Gospels are creative fabrications. Professor G.A. Wells has published several excellent books on this subject. Professor Kamil Salabi has written a strange book entitled, "Conspiracy in Jerusalem: The Secret Origins of Jesus". Salabi's unconvincing ideas (that Jesus and Isa of the Koran were two different people)have been resurrected in recent books by Douglas Lockhart. Earl Doherty's website is even stronger. He maintains that Jesus did not exist at all, but developed from a "Theology of the Son". Check that site out! The argument rests on several premises. First is the argument from silence. Because Paul does not mention many biographical detail's of Jesus' life, the details had not yet been invented. This includes an "explaining away" of Pauline verses that indicate otherwise. This effort is aided by limiting the number of epistles genuinely written by Paul. The Gospels and Acts are then dated unusually late, pushing the dates of composition well into the second century. Dean Ellegard's contribution is to date several non-Canonical sources as unusually early. These include "1 Clement", "The Pator of Hermas", "The Teachings of the Apostles", and "Barnabas". These works are dated as early as Paul's epistles, rather than the late second century dates that are more commonly assigned. The point is that these books have few if any biographical details of Jesus' life. Alvar Ellegard then rounds it all out, by identifying the Essene Teacher of Righteousness as the distant historical origin of Jesus.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Original research. Worth a close read., April 3, 2004

By 

Shachar Link (Douglaston, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ (Paperback)

I've read several books representing "minority" views on the historical Jesus, and this one seems the most thought-out to me. The others are "The Jesus Mysteries" and "Jesus Christ, Sun of God," both of which are interesting, but more speculative than Ellegard's. Ellegard acknowledges when he is being speculative, but also sets forth in welcome detail the evidence for his ideas. He is deeply aware of counterarguments and deals with them at every turn. His linguistic analysis, while not conclusive (can any evidence about the historical Jesus be conclusive?), is quite convincing in my (amateur) opinion. Perhaps the most fruitful line of study would be some combination of Ellegard's thesis with the "purely mythical Jesus" thesis. Has anyone pursued that?

In any case, if you want solid arguments raising serious doubts about the existence of the 1st century Jesus, and a well-considered and careful hypothesis as to who Paul was actually referring to, Ellegard deserves serious consideration.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read G.R.S. Mead's work first!, May 24, 2006

By 

Leonard J. Raham (East Hampton, CT. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ (Hardcover)

The author opens up this work: "I shall argue in this book for an entirely new perspective on the earliest history of Christianity." Hardly! As I write this, I have another book before my eyes - written in 1903, no less - entitled "Did Jesus Live in 100 B.C.?" by the Theosophical Society scholar G.R.S. Mead.

One would think that a former Dean of a University, in the process of presenting his thesis proposing the origins of Christianity a hundred years earlier than traditionally perpetuated, would have taken into consideration the work of a predecessor! Yet there is not even so much a mention of Mead in his bibliography, nor even so much a passing consideration of the intriguing material from Jewish and patristic sources covered by Mead in his classic work (such as the hostile gospel "Toldoth Jeschu", elements of which Mead traces to Tertullian and others), which Ellegard could have employed to his advantage. Such blaring omissions by Ellegard are most puzzling and disappointing, to say the least.

Comparitively speaking, back in 1900 Mead didn't have the advantage of material that scholars do today (the Dead Sea scrolls, the Nag Hammadi Library, etc.) - but he certainly made the most of what little he had to work with at the time.

A consideration of the hypothesis set forth by Ellegard can never be complete without a review of G.R.S. Mead's volume and the material which he covered, which can be read online at the Gnostic Society library. A copy can also be ordered from Amazon.