3. (a) What is a test by which to measure a man’s greatness? (b) Using such a test, who is the greatest man who ever lived?

³ Interestingly, historian H. G. Wells described his test for measuring a man’s greatness. Over 50 years ago, he wrote: “The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is ‘What did he leave to grow? Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him?’ By this test,” Wells concluded, “Jesus stands first.”

However, basing his conclusions solely on the historical evidence regarding Jesus’ existence as a man, Wells wrote: “It is interesting and significant that a historian, without any theological bias whatever, should find that he cannot portray the progress of humanity honestly without giving a foremost place to a penniless teacher from Nazareth. . . . A historian like myself, who does not even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man.”

Did Jesus Really Live?

5, 6. What do the historians H. G. Wells and Will Durant have to say regarding the historicity of Jesus?

⁵ But what if someone told you that Jesus never really lived, that he was, in effect, a myth, an invention of some first-century men? How would you answer this charge? While Wells acknowledges that “we do not know as much about [Jesus] as we would like to know,” he nevertheless observes: “The four Gospels . . . agree in giving us a picture of a very definite personality; they carry a conviction of reality. To assume that he never lived, that the accounts of his life are inventions, is more difficult and raises far more problems for the historian than to accept the essential elements of the Gospel stories as fact.”