Barrie Wilson

Barrie A. Wilson is Professor, Humanities and Religious Studies, York University, Toronto, where he has taught since 1974. Throughout the 1990s he was Chair, Religious Studies, Atkinson College, York University. He previously taught Ancient Philosophy and Logic at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri from 1969 to 1974.

Wilson was born in Montreal in November 1940 and attended Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Quebec, majoring in Philosophy and Psychology, graduating with a B.A. magna cum laude. He completed an M.A. in Philosophy at Columbia University, New York City, and took courses at Union Theological Seminary and the Episcopal Church's General Theological Seminary, both in New York City. He earned a degree in Biblical Studies (S.T.B.) from the Anglican Church’s Trinity College, University of Toronto, studying with Dr. Frank Beare, a noted Biblical scholar and Dr. Eugene Fairweather, an Anglican historian of early Christianity and Dr. Norman Pittenger, a well-regarded Episcopalian process theologian.

Wilson completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto in 1975. His dissertation was on Biblical Hermeneutics, the logic of textual interpretation, and evidence for making sense of texts.

As a historian Wilson is interested in evidence-based reasoning about biblical texts. As he writes on his website, "My passion has been the new historical puzzles and 'disconnects' created by recent explorations into the foundations of early Christianity."

In 2008 Wilson published How Jesus Became Christian (New York: St. Martin's Press; Toronto, Random House; London, Orion Publishing Group). Wilson advanced “the Jesus Cover-Up” hypothesis, claiming that the theology of Paul of Tarsus covered over the teachings of Jesus and those of his first followers, the Jesus Movement led by Jesus' brother James. Wilson shows in detail how Paul's theology differs from them in terms of "origin, teaching and practices".

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