Is Christmas fake news?

[stopbush]

54. Wells from Wiki:

In his early work,[196] including Did Jesus Exist? (1975), Wells argued that the Gospels were written decades after Jesus's death by Christians who were theologically motivated, but had no personal knowledge of him. Therefore, he concluded that a rational person should believe the gospels only if they are independently confirmed.[197]

Later, Wells admitted that a historical Jesus figure did exist. His Jesus was a Galilean preacher, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.[198] However, he continued to insist that Biblical Jesus did not exist. He argued that stories such as the virgin birth, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the resurrection, should be regarded as legendary.[199][200][201]

Biblical scholar Robert Van Voorst said that with this argument Wells had performed an about-face.[202] However, scholars such as Earl Doherty,[203] Richard Carrier,[204] Paul Eddy, and Gregory Boyd[205] continue to regard Wells as a Christ myth theorist.

In his 2013 book Cutting Jesus Down to Size, Wells clarified that he believes the Gospels represent the fusion of two originally independent streams: a Galilean preaching tradition, and the supernatural personage of Paul's early epistles. However, he says that both figures owe much of their substance to ideas from the Jewish wisdom literature.[206]