BOUSSET, WILHELM. - Orientalist, b. Sept. 2, 1865 in Lübeck, to a Protestant pastor of Huguenot origin, d. in Giessen on March 8, 1916. He studied at Erlangen, Giessen and Göttingen; in this city he came under the influence of the professors Ritschl and Hermann Schulz. In 1889 he was a Privatdozent, in 1896 extraordinary professor for the New Testament at Göttingen, in 1916 full professor at Giessen. At Göttingen, together with his friend Wilhelm Wrede and with other professors, Troeltsch, Eichhorn, Gunkel, he founded the so-called school of the history of religions (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule), of which he became the most radical representative and the most applauded for his vast erudition and his literary art.
In order to put an end to the uncertainties in historical investigations into the life of Jesus in the Protestant field, he placed the foundation of religion not in history but in reason, that is, in the ideas of the absolute being, of eternity, of the necessity of the soul and of the divinity. On this basis he began to compare religions, especially Judaism, Gnosticism and Christianity, attributing a profound influence to Hellenistic ideas on early Christianity. His main works: Jasz Predigt im Gegensatz zum Judentum (Göttingen 1892); Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Berlin 1903; 3rd ed. completed by H. Gressmann, 1926); above all Kyrios Christos (Göttingen 1913, 3rd ed. by G. Krüger and R. Bultmann, 1921).
Bibliography
Arduino Kleinhans