Defending the MYTH THEORY - Part 8: Evaluation of Premise (A)

 WHERE WE ARE

In Part 4 of this series I showed that Kreeft's Objection #3 against the Myth Theory FAILS because the argument constituting that objection is INVALID and ILLOGICAL.  Specifically, the final inference from premise (B) to the conclusion (C) is INVALID.  

Then I began to argue that Kreeft's Objection #3 also FAILS because all three premises given in support of premise (B) are  DUBIOUS:

1. The Gospels (i.e. the four Gospels in the New Testament) portray Jesus as (a) a divine person, (b) claiming to be divine, (c) performing miracles, and (d) rising from the dead.

A. IF the authors of the Gospels invented the following four elements in their accounts of the life and death of Jesus: portraying Jesus as (a) a divine person, (b) claiming to be divine, (c) performing miracles, and (d) rising from the dead, THEN we would find evidence of an earlier account of the life and death of Jesus that did NOT include those four elements.

 2. There is no evidence whatever of an earlier account (prior to the Gospels) of the life and death of Jesus that did NOT portray Jesus as (a) a divine person, (b) claiming to be divine, (c) performing miracles, and (d) rising from the dead.

Therefore:

B. It is NOT the case that the authors of the Gospels invented the following elements in their accounts of the life and death of Jesus: portraying Jesus as (a) a divine person, (b) claiming to be divine, (c) performing miracles, and (d) rising from the dead.

In Part 4 of this series, I argued that we can set aside fifteen of Kreeft's twenty-one points about "Scriptural Data" that supports the claim that Jesus was viewed as being God and that Jesus claimed to be God. 

In Part 5 of this series, I showed that three of Kreeft's six remaining points FAIL (point #6, point #7, and point #21), and that another point depends on point #2 (if point #2 FAILS, then so does point #18).  So, Kreeft's case for premise (1) at that point rested upon only two points of his original twenty-one points (point #2 and point  #12):

2. The title "Son of God" ("Son of" implies "of the same nature as.")...

12. Rightly worshiped...

In Part 6 of this series, I showed that Kreeft's point #2 (about Jesus being or claiming to be the "son of God") FAILS to provide solid and adequate support for premise (1), and so does point #18.

In Part 7 of this series, I showed that Kreeft's final remaining point (Point #12 about Jesus being rightly worshiped) FAILS to adequately support premise (1). Thus, I concluded that Kreeft's twenty-one points of "Scriptural Data" about the deity of Jesus FAILS to provide solid and adequate support for premise (1), and that premise (1) is therefore DUBIOUS.

It is now time to consider and evaluate premise (A) of Kreeft's argument for Objection #3 against the Myth Theory.

PREMISE (A) OF THE ARGUMENT FOR OBJECTION #3

Here, once again, is premise (A) in the argument for Objection #3 against the Myth Theory:

A. IF the authors of the Gospels invented the following four elements in their accounts of the life and death of Jesus: portraying Jesus as (a) a divine person, (b) claiming to be divine, (c) performing miracles, and (d) rising from the dead, THEN we would find evidence of an earlier account of the life and death of Jesus that did NOT include those four elements.

PREMISE (A) IS DUBIOUS

This premise ignores some possibilities that each has a significant chance of being the case, so this premise is UNCERTAIN.

First of all, the Gospel of Mark was the first of the NT Gospels to be written (about 70 CE), and Matthew and Luke used Mark as a primary source of information about the life, ministry, and death of Jesus.  Mark has Jesus performing miracles and rising from the dead.  So, if "the authors of the Gospels invented" those two elements, they were invented by the author of Mark and borrowed by the authors of Matthew and Luke.

If Mark invented stories about the performing of miracles by Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, then there is a good chance that there were oral traditions about the life, ministry, and death of Jesus that Mark drew upon, and those stories did not contain stories about Jesus performing miracles and did not contain stories about Jesus rising from the dead. 

However, WHY would we expect those oral traditions to be preserved in some other Gospel or writings about Jesus?  The primary audience for writings about Jesus would be the followers of Jesus or converts to the new Christian faith.  If the Gospel of Mark became popular among the followers of Jesus, and if it was one of the first books written about Jesus, then stories about Jesus performing miracles and rising from the dead would likely just be added to the previously existing oral traditions.  

There is no reason to suppose that oral traditions circulating prior to the Gospel of Mark would be written down into a book that we could now compare with the Gospel of Mark.  So, even if there were various stories circulating about Jesus in oral traditions prior to the Gospel of Mark, and those stories did NOT include stories about Jesus performing miracles or rising from the dead, there is a good chance that those stories would not be written down into a book that could then be compared with the stories found in the Gospel of Mark.

Furthermore, even if someone did write down a full collection of stories from the oral traditions about Jesus that existed prior to the Gospel of Mark (stories that did not portray Jesus performing miracles or rising from the dead), there is no reason to suppose that this book would survive and be copied and circulated for centuries, particularly if the "enhanced" stories about Jesus found in Mark became popular and widespread among the followers of Jesus.  The audience for the non-enhanced stories about Jesus would be likely to diminish and vanish, and so would the demand for new copies of the book(s) containing only those non-enhanced stories.

So, there is a good chance that IF the authors of the Gospels invented the stories about Jesus performing miracles and stories about Jesus rising from the dead, those earlier oral traditions about Jesus (that did NOT include such stories) were not written down into a book containing only those non-enhanced stories, and IF earlier oral traditions about Jesus that did NOT include such stories were written down into a book, there is a good chance that that copies of that book would NOT survive to the present day.  Therefore, there is a significant chance that premise (A) is FALSE, and thus premise (A) is DUBIOUS.