Fortunately, there are criteria available to try to cull the factual from the fantastic. Many of the stories attributed to Jesus are inconsistent, illogical, and unsubstantiated. So how can we know what really happened? To the usual standards of
Multiple Attestation: Being noted in more than one independent source (confers increasing plausibility), Dissimilarity: When an entry is unlikely to have been added by zealous Christian wishing to embellish the image of Jesus (this too lends increased plausibility), and
Contextual credibility: Whether actions or words fit 1st century Palestine (lack of such credibility decreases plausibility),
I would add Miracles/dreams/angels (decreasing plausibility) Prophetic fulfillment (decreasing plausibility), and Lack of witness except the “Holy Spirit” (decreasing plausibility). These last three criteria are my own, for which I offer the following rationale:
Miracles/dreams/angels: No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. The understandable tendency of people to perpetuate myth must be let go of to find the truth of Jesus’ life. Miracles, that is, physical impossibilities, do not occur in this universe. There are phenomena (events in the cursus communis naturae) that we don’t yet understand, so perhaps Jesus knew some secret way to turn water into wine, but it is highly improbable. “Magic” is a skill that one can learn from Penn and Teller or David Copperfield. The “miracles” of “Jesus as wonder-worker” are likewise either reasonable (casting out demons is credible because demonic possession might be an entirely psychological phenomenon), exaggerations (probable in the case of the loaves and fishes), deceptions, or figments of the imagination (that is, stories inspired after the fact by the ‘Holy Spirit’). Jesus is like a Christmas tree, a noble pine burdened with all manner of legendary material added like tinsel to promote belief in him. Ought one not to consider Christian miracles as one considers the miracles of other faiths? Just as George Washington did not cut down an apple tree, nor is there an Easter bunny, nor does Santa Claus fly in a sleigh from the North Pole, nor is there a tooth fairy, these tales of impossible acts simply did not happen. Nor was Jesus alone in performing miracles; even Simon Magus was supposedly able to fly.
Prophetic fulfillment: This is another red flag for one seeking the real story. After Jesus’ sudden, shocking, and tragic demise, his followers frantically scoured the Old Testament for any reference they could find, or manufacture, referring to the Messiah and then created stories to write those references back into his life. Biblical sources were misinterpreted, taken out of context, or mistranslated to provide “proof” of Jesus’ Messianic role. Interestingly, Jesus didn’t even fulfill the basic requirement of the Messianic mission, that of freeing Israel from foreign domination, but followers were expecting a Messiah, so they stretched Isaiah 53 and created stories to fit all prophecies of the Messiah, and even invented a few (“He shall be called a Nazarene.”).
Witness of the Holy Spirit: Events to which no reliable human witness may be attributed are expected to be accepted on the grounds that the Holy Spirit inspired the evangelist. We may give no more credence to such stories than we do to Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, or the Iliad. The Holy Spirit here is merely another avatar of the poet’s Muse.
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