From: markc@hydra.maths.unsw.EDU.AU ()
Subject: Re: CHRIST WAS JUST A MAN !!!!
Keywords: CHRIST
Organization: school of Mathematics UNSW
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 06:52:33 GMT

Jon Biddell writes:

>Now that I have your attention, here is an article that appeared in the "
>Extra" column of the Sydney Sun-Herald on Sunday August 31.

>------------------

>The word according to A.N. Wilson.

>Novelist A.N. Wilson will bublish next month his controversial biography of 
>Jesus of Nazareth.

>Wilson has concluded that Jesus was not born of a virgin, was not raised 
>from the dead and had no plans to launch an organised religion called 
>Christianity.

>"Jesus would have hated Christianity," said Wilson, who is the biographer of 
>Anglican theologian, the late C.S. Lewis.
B
>
>"He wasn't a Christian. But for St. Paul we would never have heard of Jesus"

>The idea of the Trinity, for example, would be laughable to Jesus, who was a 
>monotheistic Jew."

>"The idea that he wanted us to worship him would have horrified him."

>Wilson's work is likely to cause the same ructions as Sydney University 
>theologian Barbara Thering's book JESUS THE MAN, which rendered a new 
>meaning to the Gospels and Christ's life.

>But the Right Reverend John Taylor, the Bishop of St. Albans, is awaiting 
>the Wilson revelations with devotional calm.

>"These books don't disturb the Church", he explained. "They come and go, 
>make their authors a few thousand pounds and disappear into history - unlike 
>the New Testament."

----------------------------------------------

>I love John Taylor's response !!...  

>Anyone care to comment ???

   
Certainly. 

What A.N. Wilson has written is in fact hardly new. I have had long debates 
with Callum and Greg Restall on essentially this topic. Over the last one
hundred years and more, a vast amount of ink has been spilt on historical
scrutiny of the gospels. The bishop is wrong when he says that these authors
come and go. Strauss wrote his famous "Life of Christ" a hundred years ago,
and concluded the same thing Wilson has. There is a very good, inexpensive 
book by Ian Wilson, not to be confused with AN WIlson, called Jesus the evidence". It is a good starting place for thos who wish to examine this  topic.
I am sure Greg Restall will happily provide some other texts from the opposite perspective. Ian Wilson is a practicisng Catholic, who was flayed by the 
church when the tv series on which this was based came out. 
The book presnts what is essentially mainstream New Testament scholarship.
A few of the conclusions are 1) Jesus never claimed to be god;
2) Jesus never intended a religion to be founded in his name;
3) the authors of the NT were often unknown in antiquity and their identities
were essentially given by tradition
4) The apostle MAthew could not have written the gospel ascribed to him,
at least in the form we have it
5) The two epistles of Peter could not have been written by the apostle Peter
and whoever wrote the letters to Timothy and Titus was not the person who
wrote the letters to the Romans, Galatians and Corinthians (indisputably
St Paul)

Of course people will dispute these claims, although it is hard to see
how the one about Mathew could be wrong, but What AN Wilson is claiming
is scarcely radical. I doubt that most new testament scholars would raise
an eyebrow about it. After all, they have been saying the same things for
over one hundred years. 

If anybody is interested I will supply some  references to this
topic which are not intended as popular works the way  Jesus The Evidence "
is.                                                                   

Mark C.