BOUSSET, WILHELM. - Orientalist, b. 2 Sept. 1865 at Lübeck, 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 Schultz. In 1889 he became Privatdozent, in 1896 extraordinary professor of New Testament at Göttingen, and in 1916 ordinary professor at Giessen. At Göttingen, together with his friend Wilhelm Wrede and other professors such as Troeltsch, Eichhorn, and 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 acclaimed for his vast erudition and literary skill.
To put an end to the uncertainties in historical investigations into the life of Jesus within Protestant circles, he laid the foundation of religion not in history but in reason, i.e., in the ideas of the absolute being, eternity, the necessity of the soul, and divinity. On this basis he began to compare religions, especially Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity, attributing profound influence to Hellenistic ideas on primitive Christianity. His principal works include Jesu Predigt im Gegensatz zum Judentum (Göttingen 1892); Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Berlin 1903; 3rd ed. completed by H. Gressmann, 1926); and especially Kyrios Christos (Göttingen 1913, 3rd ed. by G. Krüger and R. Bultmann, 1921).