The Three-Headed "Jesus" Problem

[Randy Carson]

I'd like to comment on a few of the points made in the following article:

Weighing up the evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’
Raphael Lataster
http://theconversation.com/weighing-up-t...esus-35319

Lataster begins his examination of the evidence for the historical Jesus with the following statement:

The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith.

These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify.

Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein.

First, Lataster claims that there are "a lack of early sources", then in the very next paragraph he makes reference to "These early sources". Well, which is it? Are there early sources or not? Perhaps Lataster did not mean to imply that there are NO early sources and simply expressed himself poorly, because he goes on to examine the very sources which, in his exuberance, he initially claimed we lack.

Second, Lataster does not specify how he defines "early". Given the general consensus of scholars that ALL of the NT was completed before end of the first century, it is undeniable that we have a wealth of information about Jesus that is FAR earlier than the extant materials about any other figures of the ancient world - people about whom there is little real debate among historians.

Third, the silence of the NT concerning the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 suggests that it is not only plausible but highly probable that all of the NT (save gJohn) was completed before that date.

Finally, there is little doubt that 1 Corinthians 15 contains a proto-creed of the early Church which can be dated to Paul's visit to Jerusalem in AD 35!

I discussed the dating of the NT in my thread "The Historical Reliability of the New Testament" in post #65.

Lataster's assertion that we do not have "early sources" gets his entire argument off to a bad start which continues to go downhill as the article progresses.

The methods traditionally used to tease out rare nuggets of truth from the Gospels are dubious.

As we are about to see, Lataster's own "teasing out" of what he claims to be truths about the Gospels are not merely dubious, they are flatly absurd.

The criterion of embarrassment says that if a section would be embarrassing for the author, it is more likely authentic. Unfortunately, given the diverse nature of Christianity and Judaism back then (things have not changed all that much), and the anonymity of the authors, it is impossible to determine what truly would be embarrassing or counter-intuitive, let alone if that might not serve some evangelistic purpose.

As I have explained here, there is little reason to doubt that the Gospels were written by the men whose names have been traditionally associated with them, and while this is a convenient truth for Christians, what is worse for Lataster is that it does not actually matter who the authors were; the arguments supporting Christianity can be made from what is known from these anonymous texts AS well as from non-canonical sources. Consequently, Lataster's effort to undermine the credibility of the gospels by asserting that the authorship of them is unknown is simply a smoke screen.  

The criterion of Aramaic context is similarly unhelpful. Jesus and his closest followers were surely not the only Aramaic-speakers in first-century Judea.

Thanks for that, but why would this matter? If anything, Lataster's statement of the obvious merely serves to buttress many arguments in favor of the Catholic Church which was founded by Jesus.

The criterion of multiple independent attestation can also hardly be used properly here, given that the sources clearly are not independent.

A laughable assertion that could be dismantled by citing theist OR atheist scholars alike. If the gospels were written in collusion, then why do they appear to have the contradictions that skeptics are so fond of pointing out? But if they do contain these contradictions, then this argues for authorship by sources who did not work jointly to produce the four accounts. Sorry, but you can't have it both ways, Mr. Lataster.

Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus”.

Aside from the fact that Lataster clearly ignores 1 Corinthians 15 which I cited earlier, it can be stated that Paul's letters are not generally intended as instructional materials for new believers; Paul's primary purpose in writing was to provide guidance to existing churches in Ephesus, Galatia and Corinth, etc. or to individuals such as Timothy or Titus. Again and again in these letters, Paul encourages his audience to recall what he had preached to them in person during his personal visits. Paul's primary focus is on the theology of salvation; he does not refer to the events of Jesus' life or to the content of Jesus' sermons with great frequency. Could it be that this obvious omission of the life and times of Jesus was a direct result of the fact that Paul's travelling companion was none other than Luke, the author of the gospel that bears his name? Indeed, since Paul even cites Luke's gospel in one of his epistles, it seems reasonable that he left the accounting of the historical events to Luke while he himself focused on theological and ecclesiological matters.

Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).

In citing Galatians, Lataster again overlooks 1 Corinthians 15 in which Paul clearly states,

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas (or Peter), and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Linguistic scholars note that there are distinct differences in the Greek grammar and word choices in this proto-creed that are not found in other epistles. Additionally, the style of this passage is formulaic and similar to the way that students learned their lessons from their teachers through rote memorizaion. In other words, Paul, the leading student of the great Jewish teacher, Gamaliel, learned his lessons well from Peter, James and John during his visit with them in Jerusalem ca. AD 35, and he passed them on this core gospel message to the Corinthians.

Also important are the sources we don’t have. There are no existing eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus. All we have are later descriptions of Jesus’ life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased.

Little can be gleaned from the few non-Biblical and non-Christian sources, with only Roman scholar Josephus and historian Tacitus having any reasonable claim to be writing about Jesus within 100 years of his life.

Aside from the contradictory comments contained in these few sentences (since the existence of Josephus and Tacitus refutes the "no contemporary accounts" claim), little traction can be gain from Lataster's argument from silence. Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin deals with the question of why there are not more "contemporary" writings about Jesus effectively in a blog post entitled, "The Procurator and the Peasant".

As Ehrman, O'Neill and others have noted, Josephus and Tacitus provide us with additional, independent, enemy attestation to the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

For these reasons, it is obvious that Lataster is no more credible than any other conspiracy theorist and that he can be ranked on par with deniers of the holocaust. In other words, he can be ignored.