REPUTATIONAL CONSTRUCT OF JESUS IN CELSUS' ALETHES LOGOS

This article builds upon the theoretical framework for the study of negative reputations developed by the prominent American sociologist Gary Alan Fine and conceptualizes the portrayal of Jesus in his work True Doctrine as a deliberate construct of negative reputation. Celsus is seen as a reputational entrepreneur portraying Christians and their doctrine as an unconvincing, illogical, and ri-diculous superstition for the weak-minded. Since the reputations of individuals and groups interact, it is rational that he has also targeted the inventor of this doctrine, Jesus, to prove the falsity of Christian doctrine. He measures the nar-ratives of Jesus' birth, public ministry, teaching, arrest, and execution against the values and ideals of contemporary Greek culture on divinity, magic, class, and social status and depicts Jesus as an insignificant "wicked sorcerer" who died disgracefully, being abandoned and betrayed by his own followers.