Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ

by Alvar Ellegard

Arguing that Jesus had lived and died much earlier than reported in the Gospels, the author offers a compelling argument for re-examining the "historical Jesus" and placing him at an earlier era in Palestinian history.

Genres: History, Religion

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Mu-tien Chiou · Rating 5 out of 5]

- **Spoiler alert** After thoroughly reading this book, I decided to change my rating from 4-stars to 5-stars. In it, Ellegard challenges conventional wisdom on Christianity's origin, providing new insights based on the translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) completed in the 1990s.

However, his proposal does have significant weak points, which he fails to strongly argue. This may lead to the book being unfavorably received by scholars and curious lay Christian believers. The weak points are as follows:

1. There isn't much reason to date Hermas and 1 Clement before 70 AD, primarily because the relationship between 1 Clement's author and the historical Paul is distant. The epistle's stance towards the authentic Pauline 1 Corinthians, and its literary dependence on Pliny the Elder's 'Natural History' (circa 77 AD), both support the conventional dating of 96-125 AD (I stand for a more critical chronology of 140 AD, but let's spare that for now). Moreover, Hermas' knowledge of 1 Clement suggests a terminus post quem no earlier than that.

2. Arguing for a completely fabricated Jesus is also weak, despite Ellegard's belief that much of Jesus' historical life was merely legendary and "canonized" accounts, devoid of credible eyewitness memory. Despite this, there must have been a real Rabbi named Jesus around in the 30s AD. This would explain why so many different accounts of him and his disciples can center on and adhere to certain core facts. These facts are particularly associated with James, Peter-Cephas, Philip, and Thomas-Judas Thaddeus-Judas Iscariot—Simon Zealot-Bartholomew-Nathaniel-Zaccheaus-Matthew-Levi-Matthias, and Salome-Zebedee’s wife.

Upon conducting thorough research and comparing extra-biblical traditions in pre-Nicene Christianity, it's implausible to claim that Jesus Christ is merely a fantastical creation, reimagined from the "Teacher of Righteousness" prototype.

3. Considering the authenticity of Galatians (manuscript evidence suggests attempts were made to alter its content regarding Paul's autobiography, yet its early and widespread circulation thwarted this), we must deduce that Paul had to engage with the apostolic "pillars" in Jerusalem (Gal 1-2) and join their "Christophanic train" (1 Cor 15). This is because James, Peter, and John likely had a privileged relationship with Jesus, whose gospel he proclaimed. Manuscript evidence (P66) verifies the words of 1 Cor 15 as integral to the Pauline epistle as early as during Irenaeus' time.

These are the three main weaknesses in Ellegard's (1999) work, in addition to his flawed perception of the 4th Gospel. Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel (2002) provides an effective counterargument against this view. Despite these weaknesses, the rest of the book is largely convincing, or at the very least, worth considering. It aligns well with textual and historical evidence.

While the book is generally easy to read, its endnote is somewhat disorganized.

[Steven H · Rating 2 out of 5]

DID ANY OF THE 1ST CENTURY APOSTLES/DISCIPLES ACTUALLY KNOW ‘JESUS’?

Swedish author Alvar Ellegard wrote in the Introduction to this 1999 book, “I shall argue in this book for an entirely new perspective on the earliest history of Christianity. In Part I…. I argue that the earliest Christians, among them Paul, regarded Jesus as a great Jewish prophet and teacher of their movement---but one who lived in the distant past. To them, accordingly, he was not a contemporary, crucified before their eyes, but a historical figure, on a part with Old Testament prophets. His teaching, however, or rather what they believed to be his teaching, was very much in their thoughts. When Paul and his companions experienced ecstatic visions of Jesus as a heavenly figure, they inferred that Jesus had been ‘raised from the dead’ by God. They also thought Jesus’ appearance to them at this particular time, in the thirties of the first century AD, was a sign form heaven that the Last Day, God’s Final Judgment, was now at long last approaching. From now on, they started to regard Jesus not only as the founder of their movement, their prophet and teacher, but as their Saviour, the Messiah.’ (Pg. 1)

He continues, “That Paul himself… had never seen Jesus in the flesh… has always been taken for granted by the Church from early on. I now find that NONE of Paul’s contemporaries had, either. On the other hand, the Gospels’ picture of Jesus as a Palestinian wonderworkers and preacher is… a creation of the second century AD, when their Church ha-d to meet challenges caused by competing movements inside and outside their church. An important way to meet the new situation was to create a history for that church, a myth of its origin.” (Pg. 4)

He argues, “when Clement … turns from ‘ancient examples from the OT’ … and talks of ‘our own generation,’ he mentions Peter and Paul---whose death he refers to as recent events---but does not mention Jesus, who according to the Gospels must have been exactly contemporary with them.” (Pg. 43)

He summarizes, “The Jesus of the six early documents treated in this chapter was primarily a teacher and prophet, and an adviser on points of liturgy and worship. He was closely attached to the communities which in the first century, and earlier, were commonly referred to as the Saints, or the Church of God. they regarded him as a pre-existent interpreter of God’s words, and as a revealer of religious truths and mysteries, e.g., the promise of immortality. He and his followers… had been harassed by the established authorities among the Jews. The communities had no personal memories of him. He spoke to them through the voice of the Holy Ghost. In this respect he was like all other Old Testament prophets and teachers… the Saints came to look upon Jesus as having impersonated the Suffering Servant of Isaian 53, and his suffering and death came to be interpreted as a sacrificial act. Finally, the Saints’ eager expectation of the Last Judgment created a climate of religious fervor among them, where several apostles claimed that they had experienced visions of their long-dead prophet and founder. They took this as proof that Jesus had been resuscitated from the dead, which in turn they took as a sign that God was now preparing for the Last Judgment, in which the Saints would be saved, while all sinners would perish.” (Pg. 77-78)

He asserts, “the earliest writers do not provide any information about the earthly Jesus, simply because they do not know much about him. Now, it they do not know, they cannot have been Jesus’ companions and contemporaries. Yet Jesus was clearly a well-established and revered figure in the Churches of God. The only natural explanation, it seems to me, is that Jesus’ fame was of long-standing---an argument which further strengthens the conclusion I have drawn… that Jesus was by no means a near contemporary of these early Christians, but a figure belonging to the late second century.” (Pg. 141)

He suggests, “Paul’s virtually complete silence on the earthly Jesus had a very simple explanation: he was convinced that the figure that had appeared to him in his visions was a teacher and a prophet who had lived and died long since… Not one of the early writers gives any evidence of having seen Jesus in the flesh, or of having met anybody who had… the Jesus of the first Christian visionaries was, at least to many of the first Christians, the revered Teacher of Righteousness of the early Essene movement… the main question now is not whether the Teacher of Righteousness of the Essenes was in fact the figure… behind the Jesus of Paul and his contemporaries. That may now be regarded as settled. The main question … is why second-century Christians substituted another, fictional Jesus, and how they managed to convince their communities on this point…” (Pg. 157-158)

He concludes, ‘In this book I maintain that precisely the basic story of Jesus in the gospels has to be completely abandoned as an account of ‘what really happened.’… the Jesus figure of the Gospels and Acts differs radically from the Jesus figure of literally all first-century Christian writings. The earliest Christians… never saw or met the earthly Jesus… [But] though the earliest Christians had never experienced Jesus in the flesh, he was by no means unknown to them… he was the great prophet and founder of … a branch of the Essenes… ALL Christian writings which can be plausibly dated to the first century AD present this ‘spiritual’ picture of Jesus, Jesus raised to heaven… It is the earthly Jesus who is the main actor in the Gospel story. But this earthly Jesus is in the main a largely fictional creation of the Gospel writers… at one stroke Ignatius made Jesus a contemporary of Paul and his colleagues… My book is an attempt to show how and why this decisive change in the Christians’ view of Jesus came about.” (Pg. 257-258)

This book is somewhat an improvement over most ‘Jesus Myth’ books, but it is hardly more convincing.

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is yet another book, of many, on the quest of the historic Jesus. Some reviews cite Ellegard as a historian. He wasn’t. He was a linguist and taught English at the University of Gothenburg. Therefore anyone can write a book about Jesus. This is not a negative observation. One does not have to be a theologian or historian to come up with an alternative explanation of who Jesus is. I was impressed by the amount of research the author put into this book! Whether or not I believe his slant on Jesus, the historical and theological content is well worth the reading. It gets five stars, less than that for his conclusions, balances out to an ever four.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

fascinating, but its conclusions seem rather unlikely - not only because most scholars of early christianity reject the hypothesis

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was...fair. I think my view stems from the professor's approach. He is a historian (one of the reasons I snatched it up), but his presentation is muddled. He jumps from subject to subject with no real prepaved path. He continuously refers to later chapters (up to a dozen per page), which becomes annoying. His facts are very historically solid though, and thus he book is of great value. The problem is definitely in the presentation