I conclude, from part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, considering the latest, of a never ending, round of pop-research on the issue of the historical Jesus and Jesus mythicism, namely Michael Paulkovich and Raphael Lataster.
I personally chronicled 205 texts that reference Jesus written pre 70 AD to 200-250 AD, see Historical Jesus – two centuries worth of citations
With regards to Tacitus, Lataster simply invents something that has never occurred to Tacitean scholars when he merely asserts that “the phrase in the middle of” the key text of Tacitus “could also be a later Christian interpolation.” Apparently, his approach is to consider reference to Jesus after reference to Jesus and simply tell us, without manuscript evidence, that it “could” be an interpolation.
But sometimes Christians interpolate and sometimes they deleted. Lataster speculates that Paul must have written other letters that exclusively taught a cosmic/celestial Christ but these have not been preserved because Christians must have destroyed them (and then he criticized Bart Ehrman for relying on non-existing texts).
Thus, following his “logic”: when there is a reference to Jesus then Christians conspired by interpolating it and when there is no reference to Jesus then Christians conspired to remove it. This is more implausible than the activities of Tom Cruise in the movie Mission Impossible. Christians somehow gained access to any, every and all texts (and copies of texts) and added, deleted and destroyed at will.
This is the exact claim he makes of the missing, historically key, portion of Tacitus (not bothering to note that other portions have also been lost). Lataster mentions that Robert Drews “theorises…pious fraud” and simply goes with it.
His tendency to be vague and generic is not just in your interview but within his book he claim that “many scholars…dismiss this [key Tacitus] passage” as hearsay but does not name or cite a single one; except for Ehrman who he claims is contradicting himself anyhow.
Lataster also says that Hector Avalos points out that since many of the relevant texts we possess date from the medieval times this allows much time for such editing. He does not present evidence such as, for example, citing early versus latter manuscripts and showing how they differ. Rather, Lataster merely repeats Avalos’ conspiracy theory.
Thus, Lataster is basically not only a revisionist historian but a conspiracy theorist. This means that he knows the evidence is there but merely seeks clever manners whereby to explain the evidence away.Of the criterion of embarrassment Lataster writes that it may be that “the author purposely provides an embarrassing example to make a point (perhaps on humility, or separation from the ego), or to provide a feeling of authenticity and credibility, avoiding suspicion over constant positive assertions.”
This is merely more conspiracy theorizing. He seems to suppose that an author foresaw that someone would invent the criterion of embarrassment and then wove embarrassment into the text since someday, such as two millennia later, someone would say, “Hey, this is an embarrassing statement so it must be true. Oh wait, perhaps the author did that on purpose to get me to conclude that it is true when it is not. Ah, but if that is the case then the author would have known that I would have known that she was playing a trick on me and would not have done it or would have done it in order to get me to be confused enough to end up thinking that it was true even though it is false so if it seems to be true it must be false and if it seems to be false it must be true…or, something.”
Interestingly, he complains, as it were, that the gospels do not include the author’s names. However, based on such flights of imaginative theorizing: if they were signed then he would surely claim that someone merely interpolated the name of an Apostle merely to make it appear as if it was written by such a one—or maybe, Christians deleted the author’s names since they were not signed by an Apostle (or Mark who was Peter’s scribe).
He entertains the “possibility” that “the Gospel writer intentionally places such importance on women, to demonstrate just how different this new religion is…” this denotes quite a different criterion of embarrassment as it is just embarrassing that he would promulgate such conspiracy theories and be celebrated for doing so.
The picture that comes across so very clearly is that anything that may favor that Jesus exists is theorized away—via perhaps, maybes, possibilities, could haves, etc.—to the effect that all signs pointing to the reliability of the New Testament and other historical records which verify Jesus must have been written in the way that they were to get us to think that Jesus exists. Of course, that would be the point of writing about the fact that He exists but for Lataster the fact that he can find so many authors writing about the fact that He exists counts against His existence—go figure.
In a somewhat elitist manner, considering the standards de jour to be the tops, he claims that ancient history should be held to modern standards and “If that means historians can say nothing of the ancient world with certainty, then so be it!” Apparently, the only reliable history is that which Lataster literally invents on the spot via his conspiracy theorizing: his flights of imagination as to what occurred outweigh historical documentation.
Consider, for example, Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon which occurred in 49 BC and about which Richard Carrier wrote the following; into which I inserted dates of birth (keeping in mind that it takes a few years after one’s birth to begin writing histories) “we have the story of the ‘Rubicon Crossing’ in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age: Suetonius [born circa 69 AD], Appian [born circa 95 AD], Cassius Dio [born circa 2nd century AD], Plutarch [born circa 45 AD].” Clearly, not only were these not eyewitnesses but they wrote of the event decades if not over a century later yet, that is a-okay with Carrier and why not, it is called history.
In fact, with regards to the eruption of Vesuvius we only have records from one contemporary who does not even note that towns were destroyed.
Lastly, Lataster wrote, “I just want to know if particular religious claims are true” in which case, I cannot wait to read his book on whether Muhammad existed.
Lastly, note that with regards to Jesus mythicizing, Lataster references that the Jesus story is much like that of Romulus, etc. So we are apparently to believe that the texts which refer to Jesus are not historically reliable but the texts that reference Romulus, etc. are? When is the timespan of Romulus, etc. to the time of the first record of them? What is the timespan from the supposed lifetime to the fist manuscript? How many manuscripts are there? How do they compare? Etc., etc., etc. Lataster does not seem to get around to these details.
No, Lataster obviously does not believe that Romulus, etc. actually existed or if they did where that which thy are claimed to have been. Yet, he accepts the records of them as accurately recording the beliefs of the time.