Questioning the Historicity of Jesus : Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse (Value Inquiry Book Series / Philosophy and Religion)

Lataster, Raphael

Brill（2019/07発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 494 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9789004397934
• DDC分類 232

Full Description

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 Using the logical tools of the analytic philosopher, Lataster finds that the relevant sources are unreliable as historical documents, and that the key method of those purporting that the Historical Jesus existed is to appeal to sources that do not exist.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.

Contents

 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