- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Open Court Publishing Co ,U.S.; New edition edition (26 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0812695674
- ISBN-13: 978-0812695670
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,022,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
G.A. Wells has consistently taken a controversial position, arguing that very little is known about a historical figure named Jesus. In this new work, Professor Wells focuses on the New Testament book, Acts of the Apostles, and investigates how much - or how little - we really know about Peter and Paul, the only two apostles on which the New Testament gives much information. His conclusion is that Acts was written by someone who could not have known the real Paul, and that we have no reason to suppose Peter (according to church legend the first pope) ever visited Rome or had personally known Jesus. The earliest references to Peter reveal a pre-gospel Christianity which had not yet come to believe that Jesus had lived and died in the recent past as described in the gospels. What emerges from critical reading of the sources is that the real Peter and Paul were bitterly divided, but that later traditions tried to represent them as working harmoniously together, and presented Peter as a companion of the Jesus of the newly-composed gospels.
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First Sentence
The gospels included in the New Testament (NT) are widely agreed to have been written between A.D. 70 and 100. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The gospels included in the New Testament (NT) are widely agreed to have been written between A.D. 70 and 100. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Careful,
By
This review is from: Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony (Paperback)
I had a difficult time reading this book. I'd characterize the writing style as "choppy": it doesn't flow. All in all reading it made me dizzy. I'd suggest reading the exceptionally clear Robert M. Price (e.g. Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?) instead.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 41 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Skeptical, scholarly, and recommended,
By Midwest Book Review - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony (Paperback)
Knowledgeably written by G. A. Wells (Emeritus Professor of German, University of London), Can We Trust The New Testament? Thoughts On The Reliability Of Early Christian Testimony is a meticulous exploration of whether the testimony that traces back to the origin of Christianity is truly reliable. Examining the sharply antagonistic sects that divided early Christianity from its very beginnings, and using the power of logic to evenhandedly evaluate the New Testament, Can We Trust The New Testament? is a skeptical, scholarly, and recommended for Biblical Studies collections and reading lists for it's practicality and for the intellectual necessity of pointing out what few other references to Biblical times do with respect to the reliability of these basic formative texts that have shaped the Christian movement from the first century A.D. down to the present day.
28 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Careful,
By calmly - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony (Paperback)
I had a difficult time reading this book. I'd characterize the writing style as "choppy": it doesn't flow. All in all reading it made me dizzy. I'd suggest reading the exceptionally clear Robert M. Price (e.g. Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?) instead.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good addition to Wells' cumulative case against historicity of the Gospel Jesus,
By Robert Bumbalough - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony (Paperback)
This book is worth owning. While Wells is not employed as a religious apologist, nor does he use his scholarship as a launch pad for religious ax grinding. He is indeed a competent scholar and Professor in his field, and his more than 40 years of rigorous study of Christian origins, theology, and New Testament makes him an authoritative voice urging reason and rationality regarding the question of whether the NT canonical Gospel stories can be trusted as nominally historical. Taking note of the vast chasm in meaning between the preexistent cosmic Christ Jesus being of pure consciousness that somehow became a man in an unspecified time, place, and setting imagined by Paul versus the schizophrenically diverse redactional impressions of late first/early second century Hellenistic Jesus cults, Wells clearly identifies the facts that prove fatal to assigning trust to the NT as history. The silence of the genuine Pauline epistles of any detail of the Gospel Jesus stand with the equally resounding silence of the deutro-Paulines, the general epistles including those of Peter, James, John, Jude as well as that of the anonymous letter to the Hebrews. However, the canonical but pseudepigraphical forgeries, 1st, 2nd Timothy, and Titus, followed by the writings of Ignatius and 1st Clement (regardless of whoever actually did pen them) do show traces of the Gospel stories indicating a time span wherein the details of Gospel Jesus were propagated subsequent to Mark's invention of them. Throughout CWTTNT, Wells refers the reader to supporting arguments in his other books while deconstructing and demonstrating falsification of counter arguments offered by various religious scholars or apologists. Professor Wells also points out the misgivings of many Christian scholars regarding the complete dearth of evidence for historicity of the Gospel Jesus. This short book does answer the question titling it with an unqualified no. The faulty argument of other reviewers notwithstanding.
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