Joseph Wheless
American lawyer (1868–1950)
Joseph Wheless (November 13, 1868 – September 19, 1950) was an American lawyer who wrote promoting the Jesus myth theory during the early years of the 20th century.
Biography
Joseph Wheless was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 13, 1868, son of Joseph Wheless Sr. (1830–1899), grandson of Aquilla Wheless. His mother Myra McCall, died when he was young, and his brothers and sisters were by his father's second wife. Wheless was raised Southern Methodist but later questioned the verity of the scriptures, studying their sources in detail. As a lawyer he defended American free-thinking and atheist organizations, was instructor in military jurisprudence at the University of Arkansas and held the rank of major in the department of the Judge Advocate General.
Also self-taught, Wheless was a successful lawyer and a very outspoken Jesus-was-a-myth writer. He studied for the bar while articled in his uncle's firm. Wheless served as counsel for several American free-thinking organizations and defended many cases involving issues of atheism. A specialist in South American law, he was also for some time an instructor in military jurisprudence at the University of Arkansas and a major in the Judge Advocate General's Department.
“Joseph Wheless” enters the record as american lawyer (1868–1950). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Joseph, Wheless and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6287894. VIAF identifies the subject as 14361972. The Library of Congress control number is no96022495. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1868, 1950, 1830 and 1899.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Wheless” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.