Jesus: Mything in Action, Vol. I (The Complete Heretic's Guide to Western Religion Book 2) by David Fitzgerald

Author:David Fitzgerald [Fitzgerald, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

The Sources We Don’t Have

More absurdity abounds. Despite spending considerable portions of his pro-historicist book Did Jesus Exist? pointing out how problematic the evidence is for every aspect of Jesus’ life,[276] Bart Ehrman still manages somehow to insist there is enough evidence to make it “almost certain” that “at the very least one must say that he existed.”[277] But when virtually everything about a subject’s life is in question, why would it be unreasonable to question his existence as well?

Like other biblical scholars, Ehrman asserts that the gospel authors were interested in writing history, and had sources to rely on.[278] He doesn’t even feel the need to defend this position with any argument; it’s simply an assumption taken for granted. What are these sources lying behind the gospels?

Jesus Historians have postulated many: the hypothetical source “Q,” “M” (or “proto-Matthew”), “L” (or “proto-Luke”), oral traditions, Aramaic sources, and more…

There’s just one catch. Ehrman and company don’t know if these hypothetical sources ever even existed – let alone that they agree with what they argue. Besides accusing mythicists of this same tactic (though I know of no serious mythicists who do), Ehrman reprimands his fellow scholars for appealing to imaginary sources – but then turns around and commits the exact same offense himself![279]

If appealing to non-existent sources sounds completely unscholarly and deserving of ridicule, Raphael Lataster agrees with you, dubbing this bizarro-methodology Ehrman’s law: if your preferred theory is not well aligned to existing evidence, simply invent as much non-existent evidence as needed and furthermore, proclaim the unquestionable reliability of your imagined sources.[280]

Even (in)famous Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, Richard Swinbourne and others have happily embraced this non-method and cite never-never sources to prop up their arguments for the resurrection and other wildly implausible events from the life of the Jesus of Faith.[281] But it’s especially disturbing to see atheist New Testament scholars like the late Maurice Casey pulling the same cheap trick.[282]

Lataster points out we should be concerned if the case for Jesus’ historicity is so flimsy that even its most prestigious and respected proponents need to create the sources they would like to have, while simultaneously ignoring the sources that they actually have.[283]

So, bearing all these issues in mind, let’s look at those sources we actually do have…

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