Per my analysis (link), none of his arguments “from the Greek” are actually even relevant to anything I have actually argued. It’s basically legerdemain; he is counting on you not knowing the things he says about the Greek are irrelevant to my case. I give some examples; but most are self-evident once you compare what he says, with what is actually argued in my book.

Update: I just completed my analysis of that today: On Jonathan McLatchie’s Objections to Jesus Mythicism.

He’s right on the logic but wrong on the premises. It is true that it would be fallacious to argue “the Gospels merely do not resemble history books of the time, therefore they are full of lies,” as there were many genres for communicating true facts that weren’t “histories” (like epistles and speeches). But no one argues this. He’s thus attacking a straw man. Meanwhile, every one of his premises is actually false.

The authors of the Gospels necessarily had completed advanced Greek composition, the ancient equivalent of graduate school, the highest level of literacy then achievable. It was impossible to compose stories in Greek the way they do otherwise. So they were most likely wealthy elites, or at least well-to-do members of the upper middle class (like Galen or Lucian, to pick folks most analogous) or the functional equivalent (e.g. thoroughly educated slaves, most likely at the time of writing freedmen, who were among the most significant influencers in the Roman Empire). They were not “partially literate.” (This is covered in a few chapters in Keith Hopkins’ book Sociological Studies in Roman History).

What’s more important is not the authors’ social status and skillset, but their audience and intentions. Which you can discern from the structure and content of what they write, and what we know of the elite skills taught in the schools they attended, and the literary practices of their entire class. What we find is that fake history and mythography was an elite genre, routinely used by everyone; and the Gospels’ content and structure matches examples of that genre and not at all any examples of real history written at the time (regardless of genre). So we can tell their intentions were not even to tell the truth.

As to their audience, we have a startling reveal on that point from Origen (whose remarks parallel what Plutarch says of the sacred literature of other religions at the time, like Osiris cult): they are written to save, not to tell literal truths; those of more literate education can thus glean from the Gospels allegorical meanings, but the hoi polloi need to believe the stories are historically true and so we need to let them keep believing that, lest they not be saved. And yet even Origen had become dogmatically committed to defending the historical truth of even the most absurd tales in the Gospels, exhibiting in himself the same fear (that if they are not true, he has been conned, and his faith is in vain; which is conversely the Gospels’ aim: to fabricate a history that renders their ideological claims true). In alignment with Origen’s fleeting admission, however, there is nothing in the Gospels that even looks like someone trying to preserve true events. It all looks quite the contrary: fantastical narratives designed to convey lessons and ideological points, wherein “what really happened” not only has no use, it more typically gets in the way.

See, for example, my articles Establishing the Biblical Literalism of Early Christians and Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles. And likewise relevant is how Eusebius, a high literary elite, routinely fabricates and lies in constructing even what he presents as a researched history, all to influence and control an ideological narrative and preserve faith. This isn’t even what the Gospels do (Luke-Acts comes closest, but has many hallmarks of being only a pretense at that, e.g. Luke will write a preface that resembles real histories of his day, yet omit everything from it a real history would include, like the names and titles of his sources and why he trusted them). Yet even Eusebius the historian was doing it (see for example How To Fabricate History: The Example of Eusebius on Alexandrian Christianity).

So Hinman’s conclusion does not follow from the actual facts.

Joseph Hinman wrote:

The Gospel writers do not write like modern historians, nor do they write like ancient elite patricians. Since those are the only two groups blessed as academic historians what the gospel writers write is not history, if it is not history then it is a lie. There’s another obvious possibility that he’s merely pretending doesn’t exist but obviously it does. That is partially literate people who were not historians but who nevertheless wrote about true events. He wants us to forget that possibility and to think it is not possible.

In general I think he is making a fair point that one doesn’t have to be a Historian or even be attempting to write history for their writings to considered historical. We can obviously think of countless examples of that.

So what do you think of his attempts to excuse the Gospels (specifically) for not meeting historical requirements based on that specific argument?

Can you be more specific? What in that article requires any rebuttal? At a glance it looks like lazy low-brow apologetics. So can you point to any argument in it that (a) actually responds to something I said in the lecture it’s supposed to be responding to and (b) you yourself can’t immediately rebut as obviously fallacious or factually false? In other words, what do you need me for here? Help me out.

Perhaps another one for you to review and respond to.

Thank you. I appreciate expert notes like this in my blog comments. Super helpful.

Giuseppe: To be sure, the Hebrew word you’ve used (מלט) is a root meaning “rescue” or “escape” (depending on the form), but it is incorrect. The root is with mem (not peh). It is not PaLaT. What you’ve written is MaLaT. I don’t know of a root פלט that means anything like that. There is a root with those letters that means “to emit, to discharge.” The root you typed takes forms in the piel (מלט millet), meaning “he rescued, helped escape” and niphal (נמלט nimlaat), “he escaped.” Neither of these sounds anything like “Pilate.”

Jason (Hebrew Teacher)

Alas, such speculations can’t be proved.

Because yes, such coincidences are too commonplace. When you allow an entire language’s vocabulary (hundreds of thousands of words; millions when including conjugations and declensions and compounds) and any required retrofitting of its phonetics to get a match you want, and yet with someone we know actually existed exactly when the religion did indeed begin (it is not as if Pilate is being invented or placed in the wrong historical context), hence for whom we have no need of further explanation for his inclusion in the story (any more than for Caiaphas or Herod or John the Baptist), then the odds of random accidental connections approaches 100% (see Everything You Need to Know about Coincidences).

You need more evidence than just an incidental match. Mark often invents characters using such a nominal logic (Barabbas, Bartimaeus, Jairus, Joseph of Aritmathea), so we have precedent. But we can show in each of those cases the name is multiply, and not trivially, apposite, or even (as well) highly uncommon (not common words or names, or people we already know really were there at the time and really would involve themselves in these things as depicted, so there is nothing “unusual” about their being placed in the story where they are).

No such arguments are effective for Pilate and any commonplace Hebrew word. The comparison there is incidental, singular, and trivial; and the man is already known to have really existed and operated as police authority in that place and time.

It’s similar to saying “Pontius” means river and his actions brought us the “River of Life.” That’s just a coincidence. There is no evidence of anything intentional. And this illustrates how easy it is to find trivial linguistic matches, when you allow literally any link of any significance at all to count. With millions of possibilities that would produce some trivial connection, many such matches by accident are inevitable. This is called the Multiple Comparisons Fallacy.

Do you agree that this coincidence is too much impossible to be a true coincidence, and that therefore the argument is sufficient, alone, to confute the claim that precisely a historical Pilate crucified a historical Jesus ?

Thanks in advance for any answer,
Giuseppe