Questioning the Historicity of Jesus

Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-39793-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 336, 494 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 914 g

Reihe: Value Inquiry Book Series / Philosophy and Religion

This volume moves beyond the mainstream scholarly scepticism over the Christ of Faith and considers if there is sufficient evidence to establish the existence of the more mundane Historical Jesus. Using the logical tools of the analytic philosopher, Lataster finds that the relevant sources are unreliable as historical documents, and that the key method of those purporting that the Historical Jesus existed is to appeal to sources that do not exist. Considering an ancient hypothesis suggesting that Jesus began as a celestial messiah that certain Second Temple Jews already believed in, and was later allegorised in the Gospels, Lataster discovers that it is more reasonable to at least be agnostic over Jesus’ historicity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lataster, Raphael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Historisch-Kritische Jesusforschung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1Which Jesus?

2A Debate among Atheists

3The Problem

4The Philosopher’s Probabilistic Approach

Part 1: The Case for Historicity

1Ehrman’s Dual Approach towards the Gospels

1A (Mostly) Wonderful Start

2The Gospels and the Folly of the Hypothetical Source

2Beyond the Gospels

1The Problem of Paul

3Casey’s Superfluous ‘Scholarship’

1Poisoning the Well

2‘Method’

3Why the Gospels Ought to Be Trusted, but Only When We Feel like It

4After the Case

5Even Worse than Ehrman: Offensive and Facetious

6Crossan’s Brief Attempt

Part 2: The Case for Agnosticism

4Inadequate Methods

1History Concerns What Probably Happened

2Criteria for Authenticity

3Faith and Inconsistency

4A Bayesian Alternative

5The Criteria vs. Bayes

5Inadequate Sources

1The Silence of the Primary Sources

2‘Other’ Christian Sources

3(Non-Christian) Extrabiblical Sources

4Josephus

5Tacitus

6Thallus (and Phlegon)

7Pliny, Suetonius, and Mara Bar Serapion

8The Talmud

9The Less Interesting Books of the New Testament

10The Canonical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts, and John

11Mark’s Burden

12The Genre of the Gospels

13Burridge’s Take on the Gospels’ Genre

14Mark’s Failure

6The Problem of Paul

1The Docetic/Marcionite Jesus

2The Earliest Witness’ Sources

3Paul’s Minimal, Unquotable Jesus

4Paul’s Cosmic Christ

5Philo’s Pre-Christian and Pre-Pauline ‘Celestial Jesus’

6The Evolution of Jesus

7Fictitious Founders

8The Revelation of/from Paul

9Agnosticism is Rational

Part 3: The Case for Mythicism

7Prior Probabilities

1The Problem

2The Hypothesis of Historicity

3The Hypothesis of Myth

4Background Knowledge (Christianity)

4.1Elements of Christian Origin

4.2Elements of Christian Religion

5Background Knowledge (Context)

5.1Elements of Political Context

5.2Elements of Religious and Philosophical Context

5.3Elements of Literary Context

6The Prior Probability

8Consequent Probabilities

1Primary Sources

2Extrabiblical Evidence

3The Evidence of Acts

4The Evidence of the Gospels

5The Evidence of the Epistles

9Calculations

1Carrier’s Calculations

2Alternative Calculations

3Devil’s Advocate

Conclusions

1The Glory of Agnosticism

2Mainstream Scholars Already Agree with Us

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Raphael Lataster, Ph.D. (2017), University of Sydney, is an associate lecturer at that university. He has published monographs and articles on God’s existence and Jesus’ existence, including The Case Against Theism (Springer, 2018).