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I very much appreciate the time and trouble Dr. Heuscher and Dr. Beit-Hallahmi have taken to write comments on my paper containing remarks on the psychology of Jesus, and I want to thank both of my colleagues as well as those who have directly contacted me about it.
I must say I had a lot of trouble recognizing my little paper in the splenetic letter of Dr. Beit-Hallahmi. A 10-page paper can hardly be called a “detailed biography,” nor was it a “psychobiography of the mythological figure of Jesus.” It contains no attempt to make a “diagnosis” of Jesus, nor do I say in the paper that historical information about Jesus is “nonexistent,” nor do I rely on any modern religious tracts or the rather obsolete study by Albert Schweitzer. As to whether my paper contains “numerous psychoanalytic speculations,” I suppose that depends on the definition of “numerous.”
I thought my paper relied on the highly respected contemporary historical study by Meier, the second volume of which has just now been published. I thought I made it clear that the historical information indicates that Jesus was an unknown skilled worker until about the age of thirty, when suddenly he turned his back on his family and blossomed into a highly charismatic and effective preacher. The central speculation of the paper was that the death of his father had a role in this. My psychoanalytic interest in this historical information is out of my interest in how