Dr. Goodacre has done an absolutely marvelous job on this issue of the evidence for Jesus. He is dead on:
I love this joke, and I like the lesson that Beard draws from it. And it reminds us once again, as if we needed it, that doing ancient history is not like doing modern history. The vast majority of ordinary punters made no impact on the archaeological record from antiquity. Their impact, their “existence”, if you like, can only be measured in so far as they influenced the memories of those who told their stories, and only in so far as those embellished, interpreted, creative memories ultimately found their way into the texts that managed to survive.
Oh, and Q doesn’t exist. Only if we count the existence in the mind of hopeful scholars, but Plato wasn’t correct about everything after all….
Anyway, read the post. Good stuff.
I am, in my book project, about to get started on how I hope my work turns the Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre hypothesis into a law. It is difficult because I tend to agree with Dr. Goodacre so, the judge is still alive, if you know what I mean.
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
Connect
Thanks for your kind words, Joel!