Gerd Lüdemann

Gerd Lüdemann (born 5 July 1946 in Visselhövede, Lower Saxony), is a German New Testament scholar and historian. He taught this subject from 1983 to 1999 at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Göttingen. Since 1999 he has taught there with a special status as Chair of History and Literature of Early Christianity. He is married with four children and seven grandchildren. After periods of teaching and research at McMaster University (1977–79) and Vanderbilt University (1979–82), he was appointed in 1983 to the Chair in New Testament Studies in the Theological Faculty of the University of Göttingen.

In 1999, Lüdemann published Der große Betrug: Und was Jesus wirklich sagte und tat (The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did), in which he argued that only about five per cent of the sayings attributed to Jesus are genuine and the historical evidence does not support the claims of traditional Christianity. Even though Lüdemann explicitly rejected the mission of the school which was the "preparation of the students seeking to become ministers of the Church", Lüdemann refused to step down even though he did not acknowledge or support the departments mission. As Lüdemann put it, 'the person of Jesus himself becomes insufficient as a foundation of faith once most of the New Testament statements about him have proved to be later interpretations by the community'.[1][2]

The Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony called for his dismissal from the Chair of New Testament Studies, not because of any "critical statements or claims of research", but rather because, by his own admission, he did not agree with their mission. His dismissal was rejected by the state government of Lower Saxony and as a result, a search for a new Chair of New Testament Studies was instituted, and Lüdemann was retained and reassigned to a new position in New Testament studies. [3] All his courses were thereafter "explicitly identified as 'outside of the programs of study required for the training of future ministers of the Church'." [3] Lüdemann complained and wrote "The Decline of Academic Theology at Göttingen" where he put the school on blast, complaining that 'most of my colleagues have long since left the principles of the Church behind them yet still seek to attach themselves to this tradition by symbolic interpretation and by other interpretative skills'.[1]

In 1997 and in 2002, he debated William Lane Craig over Jesus' resurrection.[4]