BOUSSET, WILHELM. - Orientalist, b. on 2 September 1865 at Lübeck, the son of a Protestant pastor of Huguenot origin; d. at Giessen on 8 March 1916. He studied at Erlangen, Giessen, and Göttingen; in the latter city he came under the influence of Professors Ritschl and Hermann Schulz. In 1889 he became Privatdozent, in 1896 extraordinary professor of the New Testament at Göttingen, and in 1916 ordinary professor at Giessen. At Göttingen, with his friend Wilhelm Wrede and 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 and most acclaimed representative, on account of his extensive learning and literary skill.
In order to put an end to the uncertainties in historical investigations into the life of Jesus in the Protestant sphere, he placed the foundation of religion not in history but in reason, that is, in the ideas of absolute being, eternity, the necessity of the soul, and divinity. On this basis he began to compare religions, especially Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity, attributing a profound influence to Hellenistic ideas upon primitive Christianity. His principal 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).