In the first post I wrote in this series, I mentioned many of the elements from Richard Carrier’s analysis of the Gospels, that show that they are quite obviously allegorical myth and fiction rather than any kind of actual historical account. Though I only mentioned a fraction of the elements explored within the Gospel According to Mark that are clear markers of myth, there were enough examples within that fraction alone to undeniably demonstrate it to be myth. In this post, I’ll be discussing Carrier’s analysis on The Gospel According to Matthew.
The first thing to note in The Gospel According to Matthew, is that Matthew quotes Mark’s Gospel in many places (often verbatim), and so scholars agree that Matthew used Mark’s Gospel as a source and essentially redacted it as needed to serve his own literary and theological aims. Thus, right off the bat, because Mark’s Gospel was demonstrated to be fiction/myth, the fact that Matthew is using it as a source means that Matthew’s source is just as likely to be fiction and myth. We’ll still survey the content in detail throughout this post, but the fact remains that copying myth and fiction from another source only produces more myth and fiction, and thus Matthew’s emulation of Mark’s fiction is a tell-tale sign of myth, as he appears to have had no actual independent sources from which to base his own position and arguments on. Additionally, just as we found in Mark’s Gospel, all of the magic and miracles performed in Matthew’s Gospel, e.g. Peter walking on the water, are obvious markers of myth and fiction (which goes without saying). The second thing to note is that just as we saw in Mark’s Gospel, Matthew’s Gospel also shows no signs of being any kind of researched history.
Most scholars also agree that Matthew redacted Mark’s Gospel in various ways, not only to fix and improve on it (from Matthew’s perspective anyway), but also to reverse its too-Gentile-friendly model of Christianity. Whereas Mark’s Gospel favored a brand of Christianity that was developed by Paul (in which Torah observance was optional), Matthew’s Gospel seems to emphasize the need to continue a Torah-observant Christianity, having Jesus insist that all converts remain or become practicing Jews in all other ways (including practicing circumcision, obedience to dietary and other Jewish laws, minus the temple cult rituals). Matthew also added certain narratives that weren’t found in Mark, such as the nativity (in fact, we don’t hear anything about Jesus’ youth or birth in Mark’s Gospel), which included the ridiculous claim that Jesus was born of a virgin (another obvious marker for myth that we’ve seen in countless other stories about demigods and mythic heroes). Matthew also made an absurd redaction to Mark’s “empty-tomb” narrative, as well as some other noteworthy redactions which will be discussed later in this post.
Often times, when Matthew tries to “fix” what Mark had written, Matthew just makes the story even more ridiculous than it already was. One example was in the story of Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem. Mark has him sit on a young donkey that he had his disciples fetch for him. Matthew changes the story so they fetch two donkeys for him, the young donkey and its mother, and then Jesus rides into Jerusalem on both donkeys (which is logistically impossible). The reason that Matthew does this seems to be that he wanted the story to more closely match a “literal” reading of the Old Testament (OT) prophecy that had originally inspired the detail in Mark. In fact, Matthew actually goes further than Mark and quotes the scripture (Zech. 9.9) that Mark clearly also used as his own source (yet which Mark didn’t mention explicitly). The Septuagint text regarding this prophecy reads “on an ass and a new foal” (meaning a very young baby donkey), and the original Hebrew reads “on an ass, on a young male ass, the child of a [female] ass”, which was most likely a poetic idiom for just “young male donkey”, but because Matthew took this literally, he has Jesus riding on two donkeys rather than just on a young donkey. Clearly Matthew did this so that he could make the connection to Zechariah more explicit and thus to create an instance of “prophecy” historicized. Matthew makes a few mistakes like this in his Gospel by either mistranslating OT texts or taking a literal interpretation when it’s not warranted, but in the most notable cases it seems that Matthew was trying to fulfill certain prophecies based on his own interpretation of OT scripture. There are quite a few cases, not only in these Gospels, but also throughout the rest of the NT where what we are seeing is clearly intentionally historicized prophecy rather than remembered history, and this is a significant marker of myth.
One unfortunate consequence of Matthew’s redactions is that he completely destroys Mark’s own beautiful and brilliantly crafted literary structure by moving certain events around, and adding and subtracting various elements throughout. However, Matthew also recycles some of the pieces of Mark’s Gospel to create some of his own large-scale literary structures. For example, after Matthew introduces Jesus’ ministry, he adds a five-fold division of sections by repeating five times the complete phrase “and it happened when Jesus had finished”. Each time the phrase is used, it ends an extended insertion of discourse that Matthew has added to the teachings found in Mark’s Gospel. Since Matthew’s main goal was to expand the teachings in Mark’s Gospel and make them more strict and firmly Jewish, his overall structure reflects this intention, using those five-time repeated phrases to alternate between various narratives and discourse. We see the following:
(Chapters)
1-4: Narrative (Intro – birth, baptism, and ministry)
5-7: Discourse (“Jesus’ demands upon Israel”)
– Ending with the key phrase at 7.28-29
8-9: Narrative (“Jesus’ deeds within and for Israel”)
10: Discourse (teaching the disciples how to do the same)
– Ending with the key phrase at 11.1
11-12: Narrative (“Israel’s negative response”)
13: Discourse (“explanation of Israel’s negative response”)
– Ending with the key phrase at 13.53
14-17: Narrative (“founding of the church”)
18: Discourse (“teaching for the church”)
– Ending with the key phrase at 19.1
19-22: Narrative (entering Judea and ending in Jerusalem)
23-25 Discourse (on “the future judgment and salvation”)
– Ending with the key phrase at 26.1
26-28: Narrative (Conclusion – betrayal, crucifixion, resurrection)
Unlike Mark, Matthew inserts these five special long discourse sections (the five “Great Discourses”) in his overall structure. Similar to Mark though, Matthew also crafted his Gospel into a large chiastic superstructure which looks like this:
A – Genealogy (summary of past times: 1.1-17)
B – Mary [1], an angel arrives, and the birth of Jesus (1.18-25)
C – Gifts of wealth at birth (magi), attempt to thwart birth (Herod) — (2.1-12)
D – Flight to Egypt, woe to the children, Jeremiah laments destruction of the first temple (2.13-21)
E – Judea avoided (2.22-23)
F – Baptism of Jesus (3.1-8.23)
G – Crossing the sea [twice] (8.24-11.1)
H – John’s ministry (11.2-19)
I – Rejection of Jesus (11.20-24)
J – Secrets revealed through Jesus (11.25-30)
K – Attack of Pharisees (12.1-13)
L – Pharisees determine to kill God’s servant (12.14-21)
K – Condemnation of Pharisees (12.22-45)
J – Secrets revealed through Jesus (13.1-52)
I – Rejection of Jesus (13.53-58)
H – John’s death (14.1-12)
G – Crossing the sea [twice] (14.13-16.12)
F – Transfiguration of Jesus (16.13-18.35)
E – Judea entered (19.1-20.34)
D – March to Jerusalem, woe to the children (24.19), Jesus predicts destruction of the second temple (21.1-27.56, 23-25)
C – Gift of wealth at death (Joseph of Arimathea), attempt to thwart resurrection (Sanhedrin and the guards) — (27.57-66)
B – Mary [2], an angel arrives, and the resurrection of Jesus (28.1-15)
A – Commission (summary of future times: 28.16-20)
However, there’s more to it than this, as within the overall structure there are several sub-structures that reinforce the larger one. For example, the F segments (the baptism of Jesus, and the transfiguration of Jesus) parallel each other in another common structure that looks like this:
A) Baptism Ministry – Preliminary setting: John’s witness (3.1-12)
B) Transfiguration Ministry – Preliminary setting: Peter’s witness (16.13-28)
A) Revelation of the Son (3.13-17)
B) Revelation of the Son (17.1-8, with a reference back to John at 17.9-13)
A) Satan resisted (4.1-11)
B) Satan cast out (17.14-23)
A) Removal to Capernaum (4.12-16)
B) Removal to Capernaum (17.24-27)
A) Recruiting of disciples (4.17-22) and beginning of ministry (4.23-25)
A) Sermon on the Mount (5.1-8.1, it is in part about forgiveness)
A) Faith and worship produce healing (8.2-17)
A) What disciples must give up (8.18-23)
B) Sermon on discipleship, faith, recruiting, and forgiveness (18)
Matthew also carefully crafted the crucifixion narrative specifically to be more elegantly chiastic than Mark’s version:
A – Passover and crucifixion (26.1-2)
B – Priests plot (26.3-5)
C – Jesus anointed for burial (26.6-13)
D – Preparations: Judas enlisted (26.14-16); Passover prepared (26.17-19)
E – Judas exposed (26.20-25)
F – Lord’s supper [a mock death] inaugurated (26.26-28)
G – Nazirite vow made (26.29)
H – Removal to Olivet (26.30)
I – Abandonment (26.31-35)
J – Jesus asks God not to be released (26.36-46)
K – Judas betrays Jesus (26.47-56)
L – Trial before Sanhedrin (26.57-68)
M – Denial of Peter (26.69-75)
L – Sanhedrin delivers Jesus to Pilate (27.1-2)
K – Judas hangs himself (27.3-10)
J – Pilate does not release Jesus (27.11-26)
I – Mockery (27.27-31)
H – Removal to Golgotha (27.32-33)
G – Nazirite vow fulfilled (27.34)
F – Crucifixion (27.35-44) and death (27.45-50)
E – Temple exposed (27.51)
D – Results: Jesus’ lordship confirmed (27.52-54); the least are faithful (27.55-56)
C – Jesus buried (27.57-61)
B – Priests plot (27.62-66)
A – Passover and resurrection (28.1-10)
Jesus had to be completely abandoned by men for his sacrifice to be effective (so he would be completely humbled: Phil. 2.7-8), and so Peter’s denial of Jesus is essential to the story (and thus becomes the centerpiece of Matthew’s literary structure). As we can see from the last four literary structures mentioned, this is quite clearly myth that Matthew is writing, for history just doesn’t work out as perfectly as these events are arranged. Furthermore, we know that Matthew changed the order of some of what was in Mark’s Gospel in order to get this to work, and so just as Mark created narrative material that was historically implausible (if not outright ridiculous) in order to get the literary structure to work, we see Matthew doing the same thing here. In both cases, as Carrier mentions, the obviously complex literary design has completely eclipsed any interest in historical truth. Another thing worth noting is that none of this can honestly have been orally transmitted. The level of detail and intricate structure (as in Mark’s Gospel) used can only realistically be crafted, preserved, and understood using a written text. Yet, what we are reading is written in a context that clearly implies these are all orally transmitted conversations taking place between Jesus and the disciples (who are supposedly illiterate no less, and couldn’t read nor write). So once again, these implausibilities and inconsistencies are another marker for myth.
Another supreme example worth noting is the famous “Sermon on the Mount”, an extremely well-crafted literary work that couldn’t possibly have come from an illiterate Galilean. Rather, scholars are quite certain that this originated in Greek, not the Hebrew or Aramaic that Jesus and the disciples would have spoken. Scholars know this because this sermon relies on the Greek Septuagint text of the Bible for all of its features and allusions. It shows an extensive reliance on the Greek text of both Leviticus and Deuteronomy especially, and notably in other Greek texts. To give an example, the part of the sermon which mentions turning the other cheek and other aspects of pacifism (Matt. 5.38-42) has been redacted from the Greek text of Isaiah (50.6-9), so is unlikely to be the words of Jesus (if he even existed). The sermon as a whole also has another complex literary structure that could only have come from a skilled writer, not some everyday speaker. Also, quite notably, it reflects certain interests that would have arisen after the apostles began preaching the Christian faith and organizing communities, as they were struggling to do so successfully. Looking at the elegant structure of the Sermon on the Mount, we can see another brilliant use of triadic structure (just as we saw in Mark’s Gospel):
– A. Introduction (crowds ascend the mountain: 4.23-5.1)
– B. The Nine (3 x 3) Blessings (5.3-12)
– C. Summary Statement (salt and light: 5.13-16)
– D. The Three Pillars Begun:
– [1] How to Obey the Torah (5.17-48)
– General Principles (5.17-20)
– [a] 1. Murder (5.21-26)
– 2. Adultery (5.27-30)
– 3. Divorce (5.31-32)
– [b] 1. Oaths (5.33-37)
– 2. Vengeance (5.38-42)
– 3. Loving Your Enemies (6.43-48)
– [2] How to Pay Cult to God (6.1-18)
– General Principles (6.1)
– 1. Almsgiving (6.2-4)
– 2. Prayer (6.5-15)
– [1] Not as the Hypocrites or the Gentiles (6.5-8)
– [2] The Lord’s Prayer (6.9-13) — central focus, thus everything centers on this
– 1. Introduction and Address (6.9a-b)
– 2. Three (3) “Thou” Petitions (6.9c-10) — God is thus at the (exact) – center of this structure.
– 3. Three (3) “We” Petitions (6.11-13)
– [3] On Forgiveness (6.14-15)
– 3. Fasting (6.16-18)
– [3] How to Deal with Society (6.19-7.12)
– [a] – General Principles (store up treasure in heaven: 6.19-21)
– 1. Eye Parable (6.22-23)
– 2. Value Parable (God before mammon: 6.24)
– 3. Encouragement (6.25-34)
– [b] – General Principles (do not judge: 7.1-2)
– 1. Eye Parable (7.3-5)
– 2. Value Parable (pearls before swine: 7.6)
– 3. Encouragement (7.7-11)
– D. The Three Pillars Concluded:
– C. Summary Statement (the Golden Rule: 7.12)
– B. The Three (3) Warnings (7.13-27)
– A. Conclusion (crowds descend the mountain: 7.28-8.1)
As we can see upon closer inspection, this is far too elegant and intricate to be a casual speech, and is quite obviously a written literary creation (and one that was carefully thought out and painstakingly arranged). It has also been pointed out that this sermon fits very well within known rabbinical debates over how Jews could still fulfill the Torah after the destruction of the Temple cult. As it happens, the general consensus among the rabbis was that good deeds now fulfilled that role (notably acts of love and mercy) — which is essentially also what the Sermon on the Mount says. Beyond that, the three classical pillars of Judaism that were famously mentioned by Semeon the Just (a rabbi of the Maccabean period), which were: the law, paying cult to God, and social behavior — were the three main points mentioned in the sermon on Matthew’s Gospel. So it seems that Matthew arranged his discourse to create a Christian interpretation of the three classical pillars of Judaism. Perhaps more telling of this being myth, is the fact that the contents of the sermon imply that the temple cult no longer exists when it was written. Nowhere does Jesus in this extremely long speech explain what to do about the temple sacrifice code in Leviticus or Deuteronomy, not even to reject it or avoid it, or that it was no longer needed. Rather, the speech simply assumes that’s no longer an issue. That is, it assumes the temple cult has already been destroyed, which means this speech was written after 70 CE (not during the supposed time of Jesus’ life, 30-35 CE). Thus, it doesn’t come from Jesus, but rather is another unmistakeable case of carefully crafted myth and fiction.
On top of all of these findings, Matthew also added many details that depict Jesus as a new Moses. For example, scholars have long recognized that Matthew’s Nativity Narrative is a rewrite of the nativity of Moses (drawing not only on Exodus, but also on its first-century expansion in the anonymous Biblical Antiquities), and Matthew has Jesus deliver his new commandments on a mountain (in the Sermon on the Mount) to emulate Moses delivering the commandments of God from Mount Sinai. In Matthew, Jesus’ Great Commission from a mountain is designed to echo in many respects Moses’ Great Commission before he ascended a mountain to die (Deuteronomy 31-34). Also, the five Great Discourses (delivered by Jesus) appear to serve as a replacement for the five books of the Pentateuch (which Jews originally believed were written by Moses). So we can see many examples like these of Matthew’s literary-historical revisionism. More examples include how Matthew expands Jesus’ forty day period in the wilderness and temptation by the Devil (an event in Mark that seems to be referencing the forty years of temptation in the wilderness of Moses and the Jews), where Jesus undergoes the same temptations as the Jews, but unlike them, Jesus passes every test (and quite conveniently so). So in this case, Jesus is thus seen as reversing the curse that was bestowed on the Jews when they failed to pass those very tests during their time in the wilderness. Listing some of those parallels again, we have:
Deut. 8.2 — Israel was in the wilderness for forty years.
Matt. 4.2 — Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days.
Exodus 16.2-8 — Israel was tempted by hunger and fed upon manna.
Matt. 4.2-4 — A hungry Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread.
Exodus 17.1-3 — Israel was tempted to put God to the test.
Matt. 4.6-7 — The same thing happens to Jesus.
Exodus 32 — Israel was lured into idolatry.
Matt. 4.8-10 — The devil confronts Jesus with the same temptations to worship something other than Israel’s God (Satan himself).
Matthew thus invented a narrative here, putting words in Jesus’ mouth, to create a literarily symbolic story involving obviously fictional events. This is exactly the same kind of literary invention that we saw employed in Mark’s Gospel, where events are created to serve an allegorical purpose and often stem from emulating a previous mythical event (as in the legend of Moses).
As with Mark’s Gospel, the disciples also behave in ways that are unrealistic, including Matthew’s recycling of the “dense lackey” behavior we saw before. For example, in Matt. 14:13-21 we read:
“Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”
Then just a few verses later (Matt. 15.32-36) we read:
“Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.” The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?” Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.”
So after the disciples just saw Jesus make enough food for the five-thousand people in Matt. 14, when they go to the four-thousand people in Matt. 15, the disciples wonder where they could possibly find “enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd”. Talk about short-term memory! It’s simply not believable that the disciples would be so dumb, that they’d not assume Jesus would simply perform the same miracle exactly as he did before. Jesus did it once before (and with 1000 more people), so the fact that they wouldn’t immediately assume that Jesus would simply repeat this miracle again, is far from realistic. It seems that Matthew is once again, employing Homer’s model of Odysseus’ fickle and stupid crew members (or the fickle and clueless Jews we read about in Exodus) that Mark employed in his Gospel. Matthew also repeats Mark’s use of the ridiculous way that the soon-to-be disciples begin following Jesus. Just as we saw in Mark’s Gospel, in Matthew’s Gospel, they simply drop what they’re doing, quit their jobs without question, and follow a man passing by (Jesus) whom they know nothing about, simply because he asked them with one terse statement. In real life, it would be extremely improbable to see people acting this gullible, care-free, and irresponsible, especially when it pertains to how they’re going to continue to make a living (having enough food to eat, etc.). However, in myth and (non-realist) fiction, these kinds of silly behaviors happen all the time, and often serve an allegorical purpose and/or serve as a way of helping to get the set of events to fit into the desired literary structure in just the right way.
An interesting historical anachronism mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel (as well as in Mark’s and Luke’s), and one that would be easy for most readers to miss, relates to the tomb narrative and resurrection, where it is mentioned that after the women arrive at the tomb, they see that the stone had been “rolled away”, leaving the tomb open.
However, it should be noted that more than 98% of Jewish tombs from this period (the Second Temple period, 100 BCE to 70 CE) were closed with square blocking stones, not round ones that could be rolled. To be clear, in every instance where the blocking stone for the tomb is mentioned as having been moved, it is specifically mentioned that it was rolled away (not merely slid away, such as what would be done with a square stone). In every instance, the Greek verb “kuliein” which always means “to roll”, was employed. These are the only uses of any form of this verb in the entire NT (Matt. 27.60, 28.2, Mark 15.46, 16.3-4, Luke 24.2). In fact, only four round stones were known prior to the Jewish War, and all of them were used to block entrances to elaborate tomb complexes of the extremely wealthy (such as Herod the Great and his ancestors). Round blocking stones didn’t become more common until after this period, and so this is yet another one of many hints that shows that Matthew is in fact writing his Gospel at least a decade or more after 70 CE (after the Second Temple period ended), despite the fact that he is trying to pass it off as having been written around 30-35 CE. Historical anachronisms like this one merely provide more confirmation that we aren’t reading actual history here.
The final points I wanted to mention concern other elements of the tomb and resurrection narratives. There are many implausibilities riddled throughout this story, some fairly implausible and others that are simply ridiculous. For example, in Matthew’s story, apart from the claim of the resurrection itself which is obviously fiction, after Jesus dies and is resurrected, “…The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many” (Matt. 27.52-53). Obviously had this actually happened, and many people in the city saw this, we’d expect someone (if not many people) to have recorded the event (including pagans and non-Christian Jews), and yet we find no such corroboration for said events.
Another interesting redaction that Matthew made of Mark’s Gospel involves the women at the tomb. In Mark’s Gospel (16.1-8), we read:
“When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Yet, in Matthew’s Gospel (28.2-10), we hear a completely different outcome:
“There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”
Whereas in Mark’s Gospel, the women were afraid, ran away, and didn’t tell anybody what had happened, in Matthew’s Gospel, quite the opposite occurs, and the women run off to go tell the disciples what they had seen. So we can see that Matthew intentionally changed what Mark had written, because the story that Mark wrote didn’t serve Matthew’s own literary or theological aims. In fact, in general Matthew expands and redacts Mark’s resurrection and empty tomb narrative, greatly exaggerating it and making it even more implausible than it already was. In Mark’s narrative, for example, there is simply a man sitting in the tomb dressed in a white robe, while in Matthew’s narrative, rather than a man sitting in the tomb, Matthew says that an angel came down from heaven, with an appearance like lightning and clothes white as snow, thus adding some hyperbole to make the miraculous nature of the story more explicit.
So looking at everything that’s been shown here, we can see that just as we saw in Mark, Matthew has several carefully crafted literary structures (including the use of triads and chiasmi) that are clearly written products (with many allegorical messages contained within) rather than actual historical events, speeches, discourses, etc. It’s simply implausible that history would ever work out conveniently enough to produce consecutive events that have such an obvious arranged structure, yet it is entirely expected to find exactly these kinds of structures in an intentional product of fiction and myth. We also can see numerous instances of other historical implausibilities, including some anachronisms, various episodes of unrealistic behavior, as well as obvious borrowing and redactions of other source texts including the Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint. Thus, just as with Mark’s Gospel, the principle of contamination prevents us from being able to discern between any possible historical events contained within this Gospel (if there are any), and those that are fiction and myth, because plausible fiction (notably in the peripheral elements of a fictional story) is often mixed in with the less plausible. So unfortunately, even if there were actual historical events contained within this Gospel (or Mark’s for that matter), we would have no way to identify them. Therefore, in the absence of any external corroboration (let alone that which is credible), all we can do is assume it is all fiction and/or myth, and since most of it demonstrably is anyway, this assumption is unavoidable unless we find new evidence to think otherwise. In the next post, I will be discussing elements of Carrier’s analysis with respect to The Gospel According to Luke.
The Open Mind 