The Life of Jesus: For the People. Volume I

1879

Truby King Collection BT 301 SW586 1879

London: Williams and Norgate

Truby King’s copy of David Strauss’ The Life of Jesus is marked up, including the underlining of the sentence: ‘He who would banish priests from the Church must first banish miracles from religion’. The passages so marked reflect a somewhat pragmatic approach by King towards religion and religiousness; he was once called a ‘scientific pastor’ (Matthew Philip). Acutely aware of diagnoses such as ‘religious madness’ and ‘religious insanity’, he wrote: ‘Education in parenthood offers the main hope for the reduction of insanity.’ Translated into English by George Eliot (Marian Evans), The Life of Jesus caused so much controversy that the Earl of Shaftesbury called it ‘the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell.’