Ernest Renan

Life of Jesus Ernest Renan

The publication of Life of Jesus, took Renan to the top of intellectual success while inciting such strong criticism that forced him to resign his chair of Hebrew at the Collège de France. In his Life of Jesus, Renan denies the divinity of Jesus, while exalting him as a gifted, exemplary, and spiritual human. Renan's ideas -skepticism, nationalism, colonialism, racism, and positivism- are indispensable for anyone who wants to get the truth of the historical Jesus. Faith, grace, revelation, and miracles are anathema to his brand of positivism; they only exist because "Man makes holy what he believes."