Strauss' Life of Jesus (1835) was an epoch-making work which transformed the nature of biblical criticism. Providing a radical new approach that went straight to the heart of Christianity, it created an immediate sensation and Strauss (1808-74) became the centre of intense controversy. This, the first English translation, was by George Eliot and was her first published book. Strauss' interpretation of biblical events was a result of and a response to the attacks on orthodox Christianity brought by the Enlightenment. In the face of scepticism about such biblical events as miracles, his aim was to explain how Christians came to believe when there was no objective historical basis for their faith. Taking the resurrection as the key article of faith, his verdict was that religion was an expression of the human mind's ability to generate myths and interpret them as truths revealed by God. Influenced by Hegel and Schleiermacher, Strauss characterized Christianity as a stage in the evolution of pantheism that had reached its culmination in Hegelian philosophy. He thus created an entirely new atmosphere of scholarship on Christ's life and historical criticism of the Bible. The furore turned the Life of Jesus into a cause célébre and to German liberals Strauss became a symbol for the freedom of thought. Reprinting the English translation in its original and most important edition for the first time, these three volumes provide the reader with the key work of one of the world's most well-known and frank critics of Christianity. Author: David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74) German theologian, historian of religion and moralist. Translator: George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-80), author of Middlemarch, Silas Marner, etc. t—he first reprinting of this ground-breaking work in its most important edition —translated into English by George Eliot -her first published book and thus an important milestone in the history of women's literature —translated from the 4th edition, Strauss' preferred version
Authors
In 1808, David Friedrich Strauss was born. The German writer pioneered scholarship doubting the historicity of Jesus. Strauss became a Lutheran vicar in 1830, and studied theology under Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He was appointed to the Theological Seminary at the University at Tubingen. His book Life of Jesus (1835), dissecting the New Testament as largely mythical, was published to great acclaim, but lost him his teaching post. In 1836 he left the church. In his final book, The Old Faith and the New (1872), Strauss eschewed Christianity and the concept of immortality. British freethinking novelist George Eliot translated his first book into English. D. 1874. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David\_St... http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t... http://www.nndb.com/people/178/000097... http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/str...
Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She was born in 1819 at a farmstead in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, where her father was estate manager. Mary Ann, the youngest child and a favorite of her father's, received a good education for a young woman of her day. Influenced by a favorite governess, she became a religious evangelical as an adolescent. Her first published work was a religious poem. Through a family friend, she was exposed to Charles Hennell's "An Inquiry into the Origins of Christianity". Unable to believe, she conscientiously gave up religion and stopped attending church. Her father shunned her, sending the broken-hearted young dependent to live with a sister until she promised to reexamine her feelings. Her intellectual views did not, however, change. She translated Das Leben Jesu, a monumental task, without signing her name to the 1846 work. After her father's death in 1849, Mary Ann traveled, then accepted an unpaid position with The Westminster Review. Despite a heavy workload, she translated The Essence of Christianity, the only book ever published under her real name. That year, the shy, respectable writer scandalized British society by sending notices to friends announcing she had entered a free "union" with George Henry Lewes, editor of The Leader, who was unable to divorce his first wife. They lived harmoniously together for the next 24 years, but suffered social ostracism and financial hardship. She became salaried and began writing essays and reviews for The Westminster Review. Renaming herself "Marian" in private life and adopting the penname "George Eliot," she began her impressive fiction career, including: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), and Middlemarch (1871). Themes included her humanist vision and strong heroines. Her poem, "O May I Join the Choir Invisible" expressed her views about non supernatural immortality: "O may I join the choir invisible/ Of those immortal dead who live again/ In minds made better by their presence. . ." D. 1880. Her 1872 work Middlemarch has been described by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George\_E... http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic... http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t... http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian... http://www.biography.com/people/georg... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/d...
