G. A. Wells
| George Albert Wells | |
|---|---|
| Born |
22 May 1926 London |
| Died | 23 January 2017 (aged 90) |
| Occupation | Professor of German, London University |
| Known for | Atheism and rationalism |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of London, Bern University |
| Influences | Bruno Bauer, Paul-Louis Couchoud, Arthur Drews, Ludwig Feuerbach, Albert Kalthoff, Albert Schweitzer, William Benjamin Smith, David Strauss, William Wrede |
| Academic work | |
| Sub discipline | Historical criticism |
| Main interests | Non-historicity of Jesus, origins of Christianity |
| Notable works |
The Jesus of the Early Christians, Did Jesus Exist?, The Historical Evidence for Jesus, Who Was Jesus?, Belief & Make-Believe, The Jesus Legend, The Jesus Myth, Can We Trust the New Testament?, Cutting Jesus Down to Size |
| Notable ideas | Jesus is a composite from two sources: Hebrew wisdom and Galilean miracle-worker/cynic-sage preacher |
| Influenced | Earl Doherty, Alvar Ellegård, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Michael Martin |
George Albert Wells (22 May 1926–23 January 2017), usually known as G. A. Wells, was a 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 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 disagreed 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 was Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. He was married and lived in St. Albans, near London. He studied at the University of London and Bern, and holds degrees in German, philosophy, and natural science. He taught German at London University from 1949, and was Professor of German at Birkbeck College from 1968.
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