Talk:George Albert Wells

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Does he really go by the full name? Where is he a professor? -- Zoe

(google) The answers to your questions are "Yes, although he's also referred to as G. A. Wells" and "University of London", respectively. And the answer to the question you didn't ask is "Emeritus Professor of German", which explains some of the titles in the bibliography but doesn't actually say anything useful about his qualifications on the subject of Jesus.

--Paul A

Contents 1 Removed POV and spurious paragraph 2 Wells is not known as a New Testament scholar. He is a German language scholar 3 Are there any notable people who have criticism of Well's work ? 4 False statement 5 Moved away from previous statements?

[edit] Removed POV and spurious paragraph

I replaced the last paragraph because the a) the subject of the article is not Doherty and b) the name Doherty has not been introduced in the article at all yet. Also, this paragraph is blatently POV. Let's stick with the facts. Well's claims have received little attention and practically no support among historians and theologians. The facts speak for themselves.

"Currently Doherty's arguments have not made a very strong impression on the scholarly consensus [1] and Doherty's position stands in the tradition of historical revisionism. In addition, there are many religiously leaning historians which have been very favourable to the Christian claim of the resurrection, and subsequently do not believe it is plausible that Jesus is a myth (given the cultural conditions, time required for myth formation in the given cultural milieu, etc.). Scholars who have taken this position include: Thomas Arnold [2], A. N. Sherwin-White [3][4], and Michael Grant. [5][6][7]. Wells views, however, have been a major influence on some even more radical proponents of the "Christ is a myth" theory, most notably his former student Earl Doherty."

[edit] Wells is not known as a New Testament scholar. He is a German language scholar

Wells is not known as a New Testament scholar. He is a scholar for the language of German. I altered this sentence: " George Albert Wells (born 1926) is an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck, University of London, but he is more widely known as a New Testament scholar." It now reads: George Albert Wells (born 1926) is an Emeritus Professor of German at Birkbeck, University of London, but he is more widely known for his writings regarding the position that Jesus is a mythical rather than a historical figure. ken 11:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)kdbuffalo

[edit] Are there any notable people who have criticism of Well's work ?

The only critic mentioned is by James Patrick Holding and he has (what really is more blog) web site. He has a Masters' Degree in Library Science which is fine but what he's published is self-published articles in a very narrow range of sites. He's not notable and reading the "reviews" you can see they are more ad hominem arguments than critique and I think it's inappropriate to use these given we're editing a WP:LIVING bio page in which the criteria for accepting edits is more tightly controlled. I move links to James Patrick Holding are removed. Ttiotsw 02:41, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this. Holding doesn't make a very good source here. If criticism of Wells' work is linked to, it should be from someone of the same scholarly status (ie., not someone's weblog).24.84.208.246 08:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Holding has no historical credentials (he worked in a prison) and his website is set up with appeals for donations. Hardly a serious source. NNtw22 05:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

On that criteria we should remove Wells from this site, as he also has 'no historical credentials'. I think the fact that no serious historians have engaged with Wells' output speaks volumes for the poverty of his arguments. As Holding was quoted by Amazon as, presumably, the only review they could find it seems to me that one amateur critiquing another is appropriate. Mercury543210 13:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Reset indent As no further discussion on this I have reinstated Craig W. Beard's criticism of Well's book. Mercury543210 23:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] False statement

... though no established Western theologian or historian supports it.

Established Western theologian - Dr.Robert Price

Established Western historian - Richard Carrier —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deathmunkee (talk • contribs) 18:46, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moved away from previous statements?

According to James Hannam, who reviewed Wells' presentation in 2003 said his views "are no longer quite so extreme as in the past and he can no longer be classified as a 'Jesus Mythologist'".[8]

I removed this claim because the source is a website set up for apologetics is not a WP:RS for a WP:BLP. A better source is needed for this to be added. NNtw22 05:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The suggestion that Wells' views have changed needs to be backed up from his own writings, or from a reliable independent source. (And I'm not sure that "Jesus Mythologist" is a widely used term anyway.) EALacey 09:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)