Are we still missing the elephant? C. S. Lewis’s ‘Fernseed and Elephants’ half a century on

Abstract

In his essay ‘Fernseed and Elephants’ C. S. Lewis was highly critical of the New Testament scholarship of the time (1959), especially scholarly scepticism about the historicity of the Gospels. This essay assesses his arguments, relating them to the changed situation in Gospels scholarship in the early twenty-first century. His critique of highly speculative historical reconstruction has stood the test of time better than his arguments about literary criticism and the Gospels.