Submitted 1st July 2014
Dear Letters Editor,
Modern historical research techniques show M Lineage is incorrect (“Jesus lived”, The Advertiser, yesterday).
Serious research of history is conducted using the Bayesian Method. It’s as relevant to researching history as the Science Method is to scientific discovery. It filters out myth, supposition and fraud.
The Bayesian Method (BM) has now been applied to the historicity of Jesus. Two recent books by Dr Raphael Lataster and another by Prof Richard Carrier discount any reliable evidence for one Jesus of Nazareth.
More Biblical scholars are discovering the same results; those who are more interested in historical fact rather than myth and fiction.
According to BM research there were several preachers by the common name of Jesus during the turmoil and repression in Roman Occupied Judea, and many cults clamoured for political or religious recognition.
The chroniclers M Lineage mentions — Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny — referred to several Jesus preachers but none from Nazareth. As for Josephus, his reference to the Biblical Jesus is a known forgery.
To the first Council of Nicea, the early Christian cult had 325 years to write, rewrite and edit their selected history. None of it contains irrefutable evidence of a supernatural Christian Messiah, and the myth has been embellished ever since.
Brian Morris
Director, Plain Reason