Book excerpt: Strauss's Life of Jesus (1835) was an epoch-making work which transformed the nature of biblical criticism. Providing a radical new approach that went straight to the heart of Christianity, it created an immediate sensation and Straus (1808-74) became the centre of intense controversy. This, the first English translation, was by George Eliot and was her first published book. Strauss's interpretation of biblical events was a result of an a response to the attacks on orthodox Christianity brought by the Enlightenment. In the face of skepticism about such biblical events as miracles, his aim was to explain how Christians came to believe when there was no objective historical basis for their faith. Taking the resurrection as the key article of faith, his verdict was that religion was an expression of the human mind's ability to generate myths and interpret them as truths revealed by God. Influenced by Hegel and Schleiermacher, Strauss characterized Christianity as a stage in the evolution of pantheism that had reached its culmination in Hegelian philosophy. He thus created an entirely new atmosphere of scholarship on Christ's life and historical criticism of the Bible. The furore turned the Life of Jesus into a cause celebre and to German liberals Strauss became a symbol for the freedom of thought. Reprinting the English translation in its original and most important edition for the first time, these three volumes provide the reader with the key work of one of the world's most well-known and frank critics of Christianity.