Steven is a great scientist. But as with many scientists, they are out of their depth when speaking of history. Largely because the manner in which both are studied is rather different. So let’s break this article down.
The first point that needs to be addressed is this idea that it’s not surprising that one prophet would survive. We have to be clear here that we aren’t talking about a prophet. Jesus was considered the Messiah, which is not equivalent to a prophet. Mixing up the two is a basic mistake here.
When speaking of the Messiah, the base idea is that they would be someone who freed the Jewish people. It was all about bringing God’s justice. That was the core idea about the Messiah, and from there, multiple other details were added by different sects.
It is true that there were a variety of Messianic-claimants during the time of Jesus. Our best source on this is Josephus, the Roman historian. What we see with all of these claimants is that once they were defeated, their followers dispersed (those still living), and it became clear they were just a so-called Messiah. For a potential Messiah to die before freeing the Jewish people meant that person wasn’t the Messiah. The fact that Jesus was still considered to be the Messiah was in fact surprising. Josephus himself seems surprised that this would be the case.
What has to be remembered though, is that most Jews rejected Jesus as being the Messiah, and since then, they have had a number of other Messianic claimants. A major reason for this is because for them, Jesus can’t be the Messiah because he died. So yes, any historian would tell you that it was surprising that Jesus would still be considered the Messiah even though he clearly failed.
Now let’s get to the sources that Steven picks out. This tells us a lot about the biases here. The pro side, written by Simon Gathercole, is done by an expert in the field. The other side is done by a non-expert in the field, who has had issues with Evangelical Christianity. This sort of thing would never pass if we were talking about science. If I cited a non-scientists as evidence that the science didn’t hold up, I’d rightfully be laughed out. If I held up Ken Ham as evidence that evolution is fake, Steven would clearly write me off, as he should. Yet, that’s really what Steven is doing here.
Now, we don’t really need to look at Gathercole, as Steven doesn’t really either. We will look at Tarico. The first statement given is that the more scholars study Jesus, the more confused our knowledge has become. That is patently false.
When it comes to Jesus, a core idea is accepted. He was an itinerant preacher. He had some sort of eschatological message. He was thought of as the Messiah and as a miracle worker (to be clear, not saying he did miracles, but people thought he did). He had disciples, who continued the mission after his death. He was killed by the Romans, having been crucified as a criminal according to Rome. The text of Josephus really actually sums all of this up nicely.
Moving on to Tarico’s claim about different pictures of Jesus. The idea that he was an Essene heretic was a fringe idea a century or more ago. That he was a zealot, which was a sect of Judaism, was a fringe idea a century or more ago. That he was a Roman sympathizer simply doesn’t appear in any mainstream scholarship.
What is debated are the outer details, much like the outer details of someone like Augustus are still debated in academia. Even a modern individual, like Harry Houdini, the outer details are still debated. This is common within historical circles. If everyone agreed on every detail, that would be unheard of.
Now, Steven is correct when he claims there were more than four gospels. But it’s not really important to know that. Most of these gospels were written by fringe sects long after the events. There’s a reason why scholars really land on the Gospels we have today. They were early and were widely accepted from the beginning. It’s really the same reasons why we accept some of the historical material on Augustus, while rejecting later material.
We could also talk about the formation of the canon, but what it really boiled down to was that these were the books that people used. They were the ones that the majority of Christians used. All of these works were rather early, and that’s why they were seen as important. A book that suddenly appears in the 3rd century, clearly written by a fringe element, isn’t generally going to be adopted. That’s pretty standard.
Going to the next section by Tarico, we see a massive misunderstanding. Yes, the four Gospels were originally circulated anonymously, but no scholar or expert in the field would state they are all just rehashing of Mark. We do have the idea of Markan priority, that Mark was the earliest, and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their sources. Matthew and Luke also used other works. The author of Luke specifically tells us this in his introduction. John doesn’t seem to really use Mark at all, and is mostly seen as an independent tradition.
So what’s the issue with works using other sources? Yeah, Matthew and Luke didn’t cite their sources, but we generally don’t see that in ancient text. But they are using older sources to inform their writings. Isn’t that what we would want? Isn’t that what we expect from historical works?
Sure, the Gospels have disagreements, on the outer details. But the core of the subject doesn’t really change. And this makes sense if we realize what we are dealing with. We aren’t dealing with a modern written society. We are looking at an oral society that used oral traditions. We can look at actual studies on oral traditions: Indigenous Oral History Manual is a great source as it deals with something that isn’t so distant in time, and was published recently. What this work shows is that oral history does prove to be accurate in its core. The core message it keeps does in fact remain rather intact. The small details do not change. And because of that, we have to be careful on how we proceed with that type of material.
Introduction to Community Oral History, which is a rather popular textbook, lays out what we can glean from oral history. Again, we get that a core message is rather accurate, while the details can be fuzzy. But we can work with that by using other tools. Such as, are there multiple independent attestations to that story. How do they relate? How do they agree or disagree?
The flaw here is that Tarico has no clue as to what the scholarly view of the relations of the Gospels are, and seems to reject oral tradition, or is completely unaware of it. They are making basic mistakes.
Steven follows this up to say that it’s not independent evidence, but that is simply wrong. Mark is an independent source. John is also independent. While Matthew and Luke use Mark, we also see multiple other sources within both, and Luke even tells us that he’s using other sources. We have the hypothesized Q Gospel, which is really just the material that exists in both Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark, which clearly was taken from another source. Then we have stuff that is only found in Matthew, and what’s only found in Luke. To dismiss all of that isn’t historical in any way.
We can then jump to the discussion of previous myths that Christianity could have adopted. This is where it’s clear Steven has not done his research. The myths he claimed existed never did. We can in fact trace them back to a book written in the late 1800s by Kersey Graves. The connections he mentions don’t exist in any record prior to that. And using Mithras here is just the clincher, as Mithras, part of a Roman mystery cult, didn’t start up until post Jesus. The issue that people make here is the confusion between Mithra from Persian mythology, and Mithras from Rome. Mithra was not miraculously conceived either, but emerged from a rock. What Steven has done here is ignored actual history and instead subscribed to a modern myth.
What’s clear from all of this is that Steven is out of his depth. He’s using a source that isn’t an expert in the field, and is more equivalent to someone like Ken Ham. The source makes basic mistakes. And Steven has fallen for a modern myth.
If his conclusion is that the evidence for Jesus is weak, it’s because he really hasn’t studied this subject, which is clear in this presentation. His bias clearly shows.