Does the New Testament story of Jesus contain any elements of historical truth, or is it pure legend? The author presents the "mythicist" view. He contends that the accounts of Jesus in the four canonical gospels not only contradict each other, but also contradict the earliest Christian documents.

Does the New Testament story of Jesus contain any elements of historical truth, or is it pure legend? In The Jesus Myth, Professor G.A. Wells presents an up-to-date, radical, and well-reasoned argument, drawing upon his grasp of the wide-ranging evidence. Professor Wells has become known as the foremost contemporary exponent of the purely legendary or 'mythicist' theory, but he has recently come to accept that there is a historical basis for one strand of the composite picture of Jesus: that deriving from the lost gospel, known as 'Q'.