Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 09:2 (Oct 2011)
Article: The Heart Of Christianity: An Apologetic Critiquing The Jesus Myth Theory
Author: Tim Snyder

The Heart Of Christianity: An Apologetic Critiquing The Jesus Myth Theory

Tim Snyder

Patrick Henry College

Purcellville, Virginia USA

Introduction And Approach

If there is one thing Christianity cannot do without, it is Jesus Christ. It is precisely this truth that renders George Albert Wells’ thesis a serious threat to the Christian faith. He does not philosophize about the existence of God or postulate about the origins of the universe; instead, he attacks the throat of the Christian apologetic—the historicity of Jesus Christ. Wells does not simply relegate Jesus to the status of a wise teacher or herald him a prophet. He denies that the Jesus of the Bible ever existed.

This paper will exposit and critique Wells’ defense of the Jesus myth thesis bearing two principles in mind. First, the exposition will attempt to express Wells’ view in the most even-handed way possible. This is in light of Wells’ complaints of misrepresentation by the majority of Christian apologists.1 Second, both the exposition and critique sections will focus on the Wellian division of Paul’s epistles and the gospel narratives, address particularly damning internal criticisms leveled at the biblical text, and briefly exposit a primary source defense of the Christian faith. Wells consistently relies on German higher critics (such as Conzelmann) to inform his interpretation of the evidence for the New Testament documents. Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, commenting on his debate against Wells, describes him as someone who,

. . . Has gorged himself on an indigestible diet of radical German critical scholarship and its English-language counterparts (in the latter category, he especially enjoys liberal Roman Catholic New Testament scholars Raymond E. Brown and Joseph A. Fitzmyer). Instead of attempting to look at the primary records of Jesus, he gazes at them through the colored glasses of the documentary, form, and redaction critics -- and the Bultmannian and post-Bultmannian efforts to apply existential anti-objectivism to the study of Christian origins.2

Debates utilizing higher critical techniques can go round-and-round, parsing sentences ad infinitum. At any rate, it is Wells’ division of the Pauline epistles and the gospel accounts upon which his case most easily falls, followed closely by his mismanagement of important biblical texts. And, of course, it is the primary documents that are the most pertinent source material when discussing the historicity of Jesus, not higher criticism. After all, it is primary source documents that make the claim in the first place.

Biographical Information

George Albert (G.A.) We...