26 Cf. John Drane, Introducing the New Testament(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), chapter 12; Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1977); Robert M. Grant, An Historical Introduction to the New Testament(London: Collins, 1963); Henri Daniel-Rops in Daniel-Rops, ed., Sources; Archibald Hunter, Introducing the New Testament(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957).
Gospels follows from the earlier dating of the Gospels, especially if we can show that the writers were those who were either eyewitnesses or still in a position to know the truthfulness of their report.^27 The result of our overview is that the early Christian writings are far different from those envisioned by Wells.
Michael Martin
One of the only scholars to follow G.A. Wells in his thesis about the historical Jesus is philosopher Michael Martin, who makes the claim that we are justified in questioning any but the barest data concerning the historical Jesus.^28 Martin agrees with the thesis of G.A. Wells that in the earliest layer of Christian teaching, “Jesus is not placed in a historical context and the biographical details of his life are left unspecified.” Rather, most of the well-known particulars such as those in the Gospels were not proclaimed until the end of the first century or later.^29 Therefore, Martin writes, “a strong prima facie case challenging the historicity of Jesus can be constructed.”^30
In an intriguing move, however, Martin not only acknowledges the lack of scholarly support for Wells’ thesis, but he even opts not to employ it in the main portion of his book, since it “is controversial and not widely accepted.”^31 While such a maneuver can be made for other reasons, Martin’s decision does raise an interesting question: is there a possibility that he is perhaps less convinced of Wells’ thesis than he is willing to acknowledge? Perhaps he, too, is aware of some of the serious problems with the entire proposal.
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