Hermann Samuel Reimarus
Hermann Samuel Reimarus (22 December 1694,
Hamburg – 1 March 1768, Hamburg), was a German
philosopher and writer of the
Enlightenment who is remembered for his
Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a
knowledge of God and ethics from a study of nature and our own internal reality, thus eliminating the need for religions based on revelation. He denied the
supernatural origin of
Christianity, and was the first influential critic to investigate the
historical Jesus. According to Reimarus, Jesus was a mortal Jewish prophet, and the apostles founded Christianity as a religion separate from Jesus’ own ministry.
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