Download or read book Jesus Legend written by George and published by Open Court. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Jesus Legend, G. A. Wells shows how the story of Jesus developed through telling and re-telling, from an early version in the letters of Paul (who does not mention Jesus in connection with any specific time or place) to the more elaborate and detailed picture later presented in the gospels. Wells discusses the earliest pagan and Jewish references to Jesus, the dating of the various New Testament documents and the contradictions among them, the authorship of documents as indicated by stylometric analysis, the influence of antisemitism in early Christianity, and the various stratagems resorted to by apologists to deflect historical criticism.