Conclusion
Conclusion
Although in our investigation of the criteria for authenticity we have not discovered any that can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a certain teaching or action of Jesus is authentic (the criterion of dissimilarity, however, comes close to this), all the positive criteria, when satisfied, help increase the probability that the passage being investigated is authentic. In the instances when the passage being investigated satisfies several criteria, the probability of its being authentic increased dramatically, and each individual criterion acts as a strand to form a braided cord of positive arguments witnessing to its authenticity. While absolute certainty is not possible,32 those passages in the Gospels that fulfill these criteria do change the burden of proof. The burden of proof now clearly shifts from the need to prove a passage's authenticity to the need to prove its inauthenticity. Furthermore, if sufficient examples of the Gospel traditions can be shown to be authentic and the Gospel portrayal of Jesus in general can in numerous places be demonstrated as reliable, then the Gospel material as a whole should be assumed to be “innocent (authentic) unless proven guilty (inauthentic).”
A major presupposition that dominates the thinking of radical Gospel scholars and is seldom acknowledged, however, predetermines the conclusion of any investigation of a Gospel tradition dealing with certain acts of Jesus. As a result these actions, even if they were to satisfy all the positive criteria for authenticity, are assumed inauthentic. This presupposition has furthermore nothing to do with the investigation of the Gospel material. For many biblical scholars, careful historical research, i.e., “the historical critical method,” assumes a closed universe, in which miracles cannot happen. Consequently, before any miracle story is investigated, the conclusion as to its historicity has already been made. The stories are inauthentic; they are myths. Miracles do not happen! It is evident that for followers of this understanding of the historical critical method, the criteria for authenticity, while useful with respect to the teachings of Jesus, are useless for investigating any of the traditions of Jesus' miracles in the Gospels. The criteria are worthless because of a predetermined presupposition that precludes the possibility of miracles. All such accounts must be “myths,” and criteria for investigating what happened in history cannot be used with respect to fictional accounts.
For those who maintain that the universe is open to the God who created it and therefore that miracles are possible, the criteria for authenticity are useful in establishing continuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith found in the Gospels. By use of the various criteria, the probability of numerous sayings and nonmiraculous actions of Jesus being authentic can be demonstrated. Similarly, by various criteria, especially the criteria of multiple attestation and Aramaic and Palestinian environmental phenomena (Mark 1:40–45 [esp. v. 44]; 5:35–43 [esp. v. 41]), the authenticity of the miracles stories is strongly attested. Together they give strong support to the overall reliability of the portrayal of Jesus found in the Gospels.