Customer Reviews

The Jesus Legend

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Once you have read one of Professor Well's books you have read them all. They are like a Symphony in which every movement is a variation of the same theme. That being said, each is a good reads.
The author knows the details of the Gospels better than 99% of most preachers. He also knows the historical setting, the language and cultural landscape. While I may or may not agree that a historical person existed from whom a religion emanated, I will agree that there is no evidence (besides the Bible) that a "God" lived in Palestine, rose from the dead and ascended to his new home in the clouds.

Wells has made the same arguments numerous times - Paul wrote before the Gospels and knew nothing of a historical Jesus, the Gospels began the biography of the Messiah and each succeeding Gospel not only grew more elaborate but started further in the past. Mark opened with the Baptism of the adult man, Mathew and Luke at the birth and John at the beginning of time ("In the Beginning was the Word..."). There are no verifiable historical documents on this person which seems strange if folks were raised from the dead or made to walk or 5,000 people were fed from a small lunch.

I should add that Wells is extremely fair and even empathetic to his scholastic foes. He is always respectful, never crude or angry. He even allows them to speak in their own words before demolishing their argument. Get one of the books and enjoy.

I'll open with the caveat that it is clear that this book is prime intellectual material; however, if you don't know the whos, wheres, and why nots of Christianity and Judaism, including the complete biblical vocabulary, then this might not be the book for you. I purchased The Jesus Legend hoping to learn an objective lesson about the life and times of Jesus and the creation of the church. Unfortunately for me, and I would assume anyone without a substantial grounding in theology and the history of Christianity, it quickly becomes obscure. Don't try to read it on an airplane without a dictionary, for example. Furthermore, the author spends a great deal of time defending his earlier works and counter attacking his critics, so it isn't a good first entry into an understanding of the historical Jesus. I would appreciate any emailed suggestions from other interested secular surfers on what that book might be.

Professor Wells exposes quite persuasively the sham made by some catholic and protestant Bible comentators in order to hide the historical unreliability of the New Testament and their characters. People tend to believe that something which everybody is familiar with has to be true, but even at the end of last century people and scholars satirized Darwin because of his unbiblical version of the creation of man - well, nowadays, people don't think still that Adam and Eve were real historical characters. Scholars of every scientific field have shown the Bible to be innacurate in several ways, including in History, yet the christian Churches still resist to give up some pieces of our History which were written exclusively on the Bible and that have no sort of consistency whatsoever. I think that the historical pursuit of thr real Jesus or the legend that was built around a purely mythical Christ will have a meaning so great in the field of History, as the discoveries of Galileo and Darwin had in the field of Science. Wells builds his argument about how the legend of Jesus developed by trying to see the implications of the theological evolution seen if we put the early epistles of Paul, the sayings attributed to the Q gospel, the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John in their correct chronological order (as I have ordered them). Then we can see how the notion of the existence of Jesus Christ changed in this short period of 50 or 60 years: from a supernatural risen Christ with no specific historical existence in Paul and a kind of Cynic teacher in Q appeared several inconsistent stories about a Son of God cruxified by Pilate. The writers of the gospels weren't ancient historians as many people believe - their writings reflected the problems of their small community and the theological goals of their leaders: for every problem which aroused a christian prophet built a saying of Jesus or a miracle made by him which supported his own point of view on the issue. And so appeared so many contradictory sayings of Jesus with no specific chronogical order or geographical background in the gospels. If we believe that the gospels show us the real teachings of Jesus, then we had to say that Jesus at the very same time was: a Jewish who obeyed the Law, an anti-Semitic leader, a miracle-worker who acted for the crouds and at the same time a man who tried to act anonimous (but how can a great miracle-worker who acts for the crouds be anonimous?). Also, the writers of the gospels show us a group of 12 incredibly stupid apostles and don't date the Passion at the same time. Many of the events described in the New Testament appear to be things just build to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies. Yet, I think that there were several things forgotten by Wells: the inconsistent dating made by the gospels of Jesus supernatural birth and the inconsistency of the Passion events in the Roman world background: Pilate was a cruel man and wouldn't defend a man accused of social disorder; also, Pilate wouldn't deliver Jesus to Antipas, the lord of Galilea, because he had no kind of power in Jerusalem. Also, Wells should have given some further discussion of the thesis made around the Dead Sea Scrolls and the book can, perhaps, confuse a reader somewhat less informed in this matter because of its many citations of other scholars and the several critics made to their books. Wells finishes his book criticizing the distortion of the Scriptures made by christian Bible commentators for support of their conservative ethics: they only pick up some epic phrases, get rid of some complicated sayings by explaing that they're only methaphorical or with no significant meaning and convince others of a great, uniformal moral written on the Bible. Yet, there is no uniformal moral on the many books of the Bible, because they were written by several different people, in many different backgrounds and in the course of many centuries. However, we have to resist this view of the great morals given by the Bible, because the teachings of Jesus and the Jewish prophets are not as pacific as they say: in the Old Testament God says to Moses to kill all the homossexuals, the worshippers of idols, the adulterous and maim the criminals, then God tells David to massacre every living person of the unjewish population in the land of Israel - including women and children; finally, Jesus prohibits the divorce between christians and says he is the only way to God and that the Jews will all be condemned to Hell - some epistles even say that everyone who doesn't worship Jesus Christ is a son of the Devil. Clearly, the precepts of the equality of all men in God's eyes were only meant to christian believers and not to unbelievers (who are described as the assassins of Christ and sons of the Devil). I believe that most people never read one piece of the Bible, because if people did so they wouldn't still think that Jesus was a peaceful man and that the Bible teaches only good things which can be applied in our real lives.

Carlos madeira 20th of July of 1999

Wells challenges us with his title of the "Legend" of Jesus. Having obtained our attention, he proceeds with the skill of an historical surgeon. Having laid out his sharp instruments of arguement, he then cleanly cuts into the body of historical reference. Like a conjuror, he performs his magic with flourish and we are left with the bare bones. Being left with the skeleton of a figure left me deprived of seeing the musculature. While I enjoyed the book very much, I was however left with the feeling that I had taken apart the mechanism of my expensive watch - and was no nearer comprehending Time! This book should be read alongside the revelatory and compulsive "The Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years" by Richard G. Patton. Both these authors appear to be in harmony with their view of the human being that we refer to as Jesus, but Patton not only shows us the musculature of body, he even makes it breathe! Wells has done us all a great service in objectifying how the Jesus we have been presented with by the 'establishment' has been manipulated and can be proven to be so. Well worth reading.

Packed with scholarly support for his position, Wells' latest book is not only the best of his other books on the same subject, but also confronts and refutes the various objections made to his theory by conservative scholars and apologists. Time and again, Wells shows how their objections either fail to take all of the relevant evidence into account or miss the point altogether. Anyone interested in investigating the truth about the historical evidence for Jesus should buy the book.

I have long come to the conclusion that the virgin birth and various miracles were myths, as were probably the claim that the Jews were responsible for the crucifixion. Crucifixition was a Roman punishment for rebels. And I assumed that the early Church had a reason to diminish Roman culpability. I assumed that the historical Jesus was a teacher who lived about 04 BC to about 33AD.
Wells's book has opened my eyes that the historical Jesus has no more historical reality than King Arthur!
The key to this realization was first the evidence of the dating of the books of the New Testament.The ordering of the books in the Bible suggests that the 4 gospels are the earliest works. Of course, this is rubbish. The earliest documents in the NT are some of the letters of Paul. The picture of Jesus in these documents bears no relationship to the image of Jesus in the gospels. For Paul, Jesus did not live in the recent past; he lived a life of obscurity; there is no mention of Pilate.
Wells gives a good account of the Wisdom literature, which bears many resemblances to the Jesus legend. He explains that the origins of the Jesus legend probably lie in the crucifixions of pious Jews about 200 BPE. Later, because the rule of Pilate in Israel was associated with great brutality, it was assumed that this "Jesus" must have been crucified under Pilate.
Given the probable dates of other NT texts, we can see the accretion of dogma in later texts to strengthen both the legend of Jesus and the early Church.
I had previously read "The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstein and Silberman, which makes a convincig case that the so-called "historical" books of the Old Testament were written about 750 BC in the context of the particular historical circumstances of the Kingdom of Josiah.
It was a shock to me to dicover that the Jesus of the Gospels is almost entirely legendary.
I have given this book 4 rather than 5 stars because it is not an easy read (I had read the whole bible twice by the time I was 14 so I found it easier than many). A large part of the book is devoted to refuting critics.
John

Once you have read one of Professor Well's books you have read them all. They are like a Symphony in which every movement is a variation of the same theme. That being said, each is a good reads.

The author knows the details of the Gospels better than 99% of most preachers. He also knows the historical setting, the language and cultural landscape. While I may or may not agree that a historical person existed from whom a religion emanated, I will agree that there is no evidence (besides the Bible) that a "God" lived in Palestine, rose from the dead and ascended to his new home in the clouds.

Wells has made the same arguments numerous times - Paul wrote before the Gospels and knew nothing of a historical Jesus, the Gospels began the biography of the Messiah and each succeeding Gospel not only grew more elaborate but harkened back further in time. Mark started at the Baptism, Mathew and Luke at the birth and John at the beginning of time. There are no valid historical documents on this person which seems strange if folks were raised from the dead or made to walk or 5,000 people were fed from a small lunch.

I should add that Wells is extremely fair and even empathetic to his scholastic foes. He is always respectful, never crude or angry. He even allows them to speak in their own words before demolishing their argument. Get one of the books and enjoy.

Once you have read one of Professor Well's books you have read them all. They are like a Symphony in which every movement is a variation of the same theme. That being said, each is a good reads.

The author knows the details of the Gospels better than 99% of most preachers. He also knows the historical setting, the language and cultural landscape. While I may or may not agree that a historical person existed from whom a religion emanated, I will agree that there is no evidence (besides the Bible) that a "God" lived in Palestine, rose from the dead and ascended to his new home in the clouds.

Wells has made the same arguments numerous times - Paul wrote before the Gospels and knew nothing of a historical Jesus, the Gospels began the biography of the Messiah and each succeeding Gospel not only grew more elaborate but harkened back further in time. Mark started at the Baptism, Mathew and Luke at the birth and John at the beginning of time. There are no valid historical documents on this person which seems strange if folks were raised from the dead or made to walk or 5,000 people were fed from a small lunch.

I should add that Wells is extremely fair and even empathetic to his scholastic foes. He is always respectful, never crude or angry. He even allows them to speak in their own words before demolishing their argument. Get one of the books and enjoy.

I'm surprised how many positive reviews this book has gotten. It is actually a terrible book. Wells makes a number of outrageous claims in this books:

*He claims that Jesus lived in the second century B.C. (that's right, "before Christ").
*He argues that the Apostle Paul didn't think Jesus was a real human being, against passages like Rom 1:3; Gal 1:19; 4:4 and everything else we know of earliest Christian beliefs.
*Following many of Burton Mack's views on Q (which have been severely critiqued by scholars like Christopher Tuckett and James M. Robinson) he claims that Jesus was something of a Cynic sage who talked a lot about nature and that sort of thing and who tried to be a stick in the eye of society; the ideas we find in Mark, the other Gospels and Paul about Jesus' miracles, the resurrection and eschatological beliefs about a final resurrection, judgment and all the rest were added by later communities of Christians who really didn't know much about the real historical Jesus.
*He claims Mark was written toward the end of the first century, I think around 90 AD.

And these are just a few of radical positions Wells espouses in this book. His views are indeed radical and few reputable scholars would follow him. Wells is obviously intelligent and a good writer but seriously prejudiced against Christianity. Also, he is a controversialist and therefore not to be viewed as reliable.

If you want to understand the origins of Christianity there are better books to read, such as "Fabricating Jesus" by Craig Evans, "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" by Richard Bauckham, "Reinventing Jesus" by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, or "Jesus and the Victory of God" by N.T. Wright. But really if you're interested in "finding out the real truth" about Christian origins, don't be lame and think you'll come to any worthwhile conclusions after reading a book or two, especially one like this one from Wells which has an obvious slant. If you're interested in in studying the historical Jesus I recommend immersing yourself in the primary sources. Read the New Testament first of all. Learn Greek. Study the early Church Fathers. Read contemporary works of the early centuries BC and AD, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pseudepigrapha, the Greek and Latin Classics, etc. It's a tough road but well worth it. Books like Wells' are for people who are looking for reasons to slam Christianity. People who are not well versed in the subject matter discussed in Wells' book will easily fall for his misinformation, half-truths and rhetorical slants. It's very sad.

There is now another book by the same title ("The Jesus Legend") written by Eddy and Boyd. It deals with many of Wells' arguments and will hopefully lead people to more reasonable conclusions in their studies about the historical Jesus.

This is addressed to all believers in JC. The matter with JC isn't so much whether or not a mere mortal human being existed at some point in the distant past. The claim made by the believers is that Jesus Christ was not at all a mere human being, but that he was son of a god, that he possessed supernatural abilities, and that he is really alive in some form even today. Is it not a bit silly that the believers implore all to believe in the reality of JC by appealing to so-called historical evidence while all that's required for all to believe in JC (or God, the Almighty) is for the real Jesus Christ or God to materialize berfore each one of the unbelievers and thus put the matter to rest? If it is so utterly important for God that we believe in him, then why doesn't he produce a very current living evidence by appearing brfore us? May the real God or Jesus Christ rise and introduce himaself? Look, it isn't much for an almighty god to do this favor - please come forward and introduce yourself and show us that you are indeed an almighty god! Why would you want to hide yourself from our senses and yet want us to believe in you by looking at unverifiable historical documents purporting the exeistence a god or JC?