This is my final instalment of my series looking at Raphael Lataster’s article, Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories. Here, I will look at his conclusion and then give some final thoughts of my own.
None of the sources used to establish Jesus’ historicity or to provide authentic historical material regarding Jesus’ sayings and deeds are beyond scrutiny.
That is the first sentence of Lataster’s conclusion but what is he trying to say? The truth is that there is no source for the establishing the historicity of any figure that is beyond scrutiny. Lataster is not really saying anything of value here.
The Gospels are anonymous, demonstrate clear Evangelical intent, contain considerable ahistorical and mythical material, contradict each other, influence each other, and appear decades after Jesus’ lifetime.
Since the Gospels are our main source, I will comment here. I’m not sure exactly what he means by “Evangelical intent.” I think he is suggesting that they are evangelistic, in the sense of trying to get a religious message across, but he uses a term that is loaded with other baggage, either mistakenly or to cash on concerns about Evangelical Christians.
As for the ahistorical and mythical content, he has not demonstrated what is mythical and ahistorical. Of course he is assuming that anything that includes the supernatural is ahistorical, but that is more of an assertion than a reasoned argument.
Do the Gospels contradict each other and if so, is that evidence that they lack historical value? I have done quite a bit of research in how different texts from the same era as the New Testament describe the same events, whether Jewish or Roman. When we look at those texts, we see there is plenty of room for variation in details. The level of precision in terms of numbers or chronology was not the same in the first century as it is in the twenty-first century.
And decades after the events? We wish we that contemporary of material for more historical figures. That is much better than what we often have and is no sign of lack of historical value.
The problems with the sources used in historical Jesus research render the possibility of authenticating any aspect of Jesus extremely difficult, if not impossible.
This is simply not true. There is a very good reason why 99.9% of historians accept the Historical Jesus and it is not because of pressure from the Church. It is because we actually have very good evidence for Jesus.
There should be no issue, then, in noting that Jesus’ ahistoricity is an epistemic possibility, and therefore expressing some reservations over his historicity is reasonable.
What Lataster is saying here is similar to what we hear from many Mythicists. They asked the question: Is there any uncertainty or questions at all with the sources? If the existence of Jesus cannot be proven beyond a doubt (forget reasonable doubt), then we are better to reject Jesus completely. Only 99% certainty of Jesus’ existence might as well be 0% of Jesus existence as that final 1% is enough to dismantle the whole thing.
The final thing I want to say is about the quality of this journal article. I have peer reviewed journal articles before and if this article cake to me, I would have had many concerns. This is especially about the way he quotes scholars. He cites scholars as if they are in agreement with his thesis, when in fact they believe the exact opposite. It is ironic that approvingly quotes Bart Ehrman in an attempt to disprove the historicity of Jesus, when Ehrman has loudly spoken out against Mythicism.
Has Lataster proved his point? He has demonstrated that there are scholars that have some questions about the sources. He has even demonstrated that there are a few scholars that question the historicity of Jesus. Bt has he demonstrated why more scholars should doubt that Jesus existed? Not at all.
