Thanks so much for this comprehensive list of resources.

All the best at this time to you and your parents.

Sort of true. In that, they have to be quote mining to go so far back in the record to find anyone who agrees with them (where are all the recent authors on historical methods?). Garraghan is an important early codifier of historical method, but he predates the development of contemporary methodology and is writing more in a model of religious 19th century scientism. For example, he is totally a Christian apologist who thinks “whether God would allow it” is a real historical criterion; he defends wackadoo ideas about miracle claims; and he exhibits regular inconsistency in applying different standards to Christian sources than non-Christian sources.

I have a bibliography answering your question. The section in it on “Historical Methods” is in order of value from most to least (you’ll notice Garraghan bottoms the list). I most recommend Megill and Trachtenberg. I also strongly recommend Fischer, even though his focus is mostly on errors rather than solutions, but his errors catalogue is witty and educational.

In their chapter they recommend another “influential book” by Gilbert Garraghan’s called A Guide to Historical Method. Garraghan was a catholic priest and the work at best could be described as naive. For example Garraghan asserts in regards to anonymous documents that extrinsic testimony from some “reliable contemporary” or “quasi-contemporary authority” can validate authorship (a credible criteria in and of itself). But Garraghan then proceeds in listing Papias, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus as illustrations of this principle!!

This book recommendation is another example of the “marvellously incompetent” work of Evans.

Not being a historian could your recommend more recent books/articles that cover the topic of the assessment of historical sources?

Note that all three of those men you quote have also all said they believe the historicity of Jesus is probable. I mention that only to forestall anyone else thinking these quotes establish them as mythicists. They did admit to the plausibility of mythicism; but not to its probability. But even that, IMO, would be progress, if it became the consensus position (as Davies among them did explicitly argue for).

Oh dear no. That’s Christian apologetics, not objective scholarship. It was panned by nearly every expert critic who read it—who wasn’t themselves a Christian apologist. Nearly an entire volume of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus was devoted to exposing that book’s voluminous errors of fact and logic (volume 6, 2008). And many other examples of its being exposed can be adduced, e.g. Ken Olson’s review of Bauckham in the Review of Biblical Literature (December of 2008) and Robert Price’s survey in The Christian Delusion.

This is bizarre. You want me to conceal conclusions because it is rude to state the truth?

I cannot fathom any defense of such an intellectual pose.

If you have some evidence or ground to argue something could be true other than I conclude, that is the only intellectually respectable response here. To instead replace the truth with a kind of 19th century verbal trickery that elides the truth so as not to offend the flowery, delicate sensibilities of the elite is going backwards, not forwards, in the progress of thought and discourse.

Probably not.

I can’t say for sure, but if he didn’t read it even to prepare for a debate on it (despite being sent a copy well ahead), nor even after the debate before writing his response article later, I doubt he’d have read it since.

It seems clear the most standard response to On the Historicity of Jesus from academics of all stripes is to make up rationalizations and excuses for not having to read it, by just dismissing it out of hand, rather than actually reading and properly evaluating the peer reviewed literature of their own field, which it is. And that is an abrogation of professional responsibility that calls into question the value of any consensus in that field; as a consensus can only have value if it is informed.

Even when someone purports to read it, they ignore almost all of it, and get half of it wrong. Which is practically the same irresponsibility. It aims to support dogma, not a considered, revisable quest for the truth.

It’s a really good article. And your site altogether is full of gems. To anyone reading these comments, I recommend it!

Carrier-Evans debate (timestamp 1:00:15)

Yah that’s a pretty explicitly stated premise from Evans. Which, as your article demonstrates, is totally unsupported. I especially appreciate how you expose his fraudulent use of Gottschalk. It is scandalous that this kind of shoddy historical work is being pedaled, without critique, by the respected biblical scholarship establishment. I’m glad you are writing about this stuff to fill the void. Great piece.

There is no reason for you to say this. Your readers are clever enough to think this without your help, based on what you wrote just before it. But your readers, if professional, will probably keep their thoughts to themselves just in case they (or you) have overlooked something.

Writing this way, which is a habit of yours, makes you seem embittered and could turn professionals away. What is the good in that?

Sincerely.