American novelist Vardis Fisher (it’s not coincidental that the name of this blog is a partial acronym of this name, and an “autobiographical” character in one of his novels) included at the back of his novel Jesus Came Again: A Parable, a discussion of the scholarly views of his day on the historicity of Jesus.
He writes, in 1956 (with my formatting):
Was Jesus of Nazareth a historic person? We do not know, and unless documents turn up of which we have no knowledge we cannot hope ever to know.
Montefoire . . . says petulantly: “If eccentric scholars like to argue that Jesus never existed, let them do so.”
And Klausner, another Jew, says it is “unreasonable to question” it.
But says Schmiedel: “the view that Jesus never really lived has gained in ever-growing number of supporters. It is no use to ignore it, or to frame resolutions against it.”
Weigell: “Many of the most erudite critics are convinced that no such person ever lived.”
Among those so convinced [that no such person ever lived], some of them internationally known scholars, are Continue reading “1950s Scholarship on the Historicity of Jesus – Vardis Fisher’s summary”