2021-08-17

BRUNO BAUER: Criticism of the Gospels and History of their Origin – in English

I promised myself long ago that if I ever found software capable of reading and translating Old German fonts then my first priority would be to translate Bruno Bauer’s Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs = Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin.

Now if you do know of an already existing English translation of those three volumes please do be kind enough to let me know so I don’t waste any more time on this project.

Till then, using Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs. Volume 1 as my source, here is the first installment of that first volume which contains Books 1 and 2. It’s mostly machine translated but still quite readable, I think. If you would like to suggest smoother translations of any passages do leave a comment or email me. Thanks again.

Where there are footnotes I have coloured the row to make it easier to follow the page order in table format.

I’ll be adding more over the coming months and probably years if I am to complete all 3 volumes (=7 books). So check back from time to time in case there are updates.

First Book: The Fourth Gospel

Second Book: The Birth and Childhood of Jesus

Third Book: The Original Prehistory

Fourth Book: Public Activity of Jesus

Fifth Book: The Conclusion and Completion of Jesus’ Public Ministry.

First Section: The Elijah Deeds of Jesus

Second Section: The Explicit Revelation of Jesus as the Messiah

Third section: Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem — pending, 4th Jan 2023

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Sons of God, Daughters of Men … and “Giants” — Why are they in the Bible? - 2023-02-03 02:46:15 GMT+0000
Demigods, Violence and Flood in Plato and Genesis — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus-Critias – 7c] - 2023-01-25 09:00:48 GMT+0000
Primeval History from Cain to Noah — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus-Critias – 7b] - 2023-01-23 07:12:28 GMT+0000

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"Note that I do not use the term ‘amateur’ pejoratively. . . . In fact, Godfrey is extremely well read and his librarian skills have brought many important academic works to my attention."

Raphael Lataster - August 2019
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
"I have found your website really valuable as an interpretive filter for Biblical scholarship, especially the origins of Christianity and historicity of Jesus issue. Your clarity of expression, fair comments and personal insights are much valued. I refer to your site frequently as yet more names and publications pop up requiring an academic critique and helpful recommendations for book purchases. So, please continue to delve deeply and share this intellectual sustenance with your grateful readers."

— Mary Booker, – February 2020 (personal email)
"Thanks for your very elaborate review! I realized that I hadn’t added your blog to our blogroll. This oversight has been corrected. Looking forward to more segments."

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-- Martin Lewadny, - March 2009
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

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"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

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— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017

Thomas Worthington on David Fitzgerald responds to Tim O’Neill’s review of Nailed: “Being a Christian while studying Christian claims is relevant as it tells others that you *believe the stories* a priori,…” Jan 30, 09:09
db on David Fitzgerald responds to Tim O’Neill’s review of Nailed: ““Ehrman is Agnostic, Pagels is Buddhist, Fredrickson is Jewish, Not sure about Riley, Rubenstein is Jewish, Aslan a Muslim. Many…” Jan 29, 14:47
Ken Kaplan on David Fitzgerald responds to Tim O’Neill’s review of Nailed: “Reverse the last sentence before the Shroud comment. O’Neill’s contention was attacking the Gospel accounts as history.” Jan 28, 17:58
Ken Kaplan on David Fitzgerald responds to Tim O’Neill’s review of Nailed: “I did not read the entire thing but I will comment on two points, 1) your assertion of predominance of…” Jan 28, 17:54
Russell Gmirkin on Demigods, Violence and Flood in Plato and Genesis — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus-Critias – 7c]: “The above left out the quotes I was responding to: It thus seems likely that this aggression against the Greeks…” Jan 25, 18:44
Russell Gmirkin on Demigods, Violence and Flood in Plato and Genesis — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus-Critias – 7c]: “<> Good nuanced discussion. There is a definite contrast between Timaeus, which portrayed the earthquake and flood as bringing about…” Jan 25, 18:42
John on Another Pointer Towards a Late Date for the Gospel of Mark?: “Used some of your ideas here in a blog post: https://secularfrontier.infidels.org/2023/01/corporate-sin-post-script-did-the-historical-jesus-know-john-the-baptist-my-last-blog-post-for-a-little-while/ . Thanks” Jan 24, 17:05
Philippe Wajdenbaum on The Ambiguity of the Serpent: Greek versus Biblical: “Dear Austendw, Many thanks for your detailed reply. We will probably not convince each other, but it is a worthy…” Jan 19, 19:39
Austendw on The Ambiguity of the Serpent: Greek versus Biblical: “Hi Philippe I had really hoped to just alert Neil to a different modern approach to the issue of the…” Jan 18, 20:01