Reading AC Grayling, Age of Genius, which page 155 in the chapter "the Short Way to Knowledge" discusses the effects of magickal thinking on people like Newton, and the effects of Hermes Trismegitus et al.
Grayling quotes Casaubon:
We should not then be surprised that in the first centuries of Christianity, when books with false titles were invented every day with complete licence, someone barely acquainted with our religion should attempt the same in the science of theology
(Grayling references Grafton Defenders of the Text Cambridge MA 1991 p153)
But isn't there a further question to ask?
Why do some texts have a veneer of truthiness about them? Isn't the hypothesis that the entire New Testament is invented from whole cloth a reasonable starting point? Is not any other starting point betraying some form of theological bias?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive wrote:
How precisely does using stuff with some patina prove that what it is in isn't fake? That is precisely what forgers do!
Because they used historical characters from that exact time period. Pilate, Caiaphas, John the Baptist, all within the lifetime the text were produced.
We do not have one source, we have multiple sources. Christianity did not have a single place of origin, it developed in multiple places in the Diaspora by multiple authors describing the same events telling slightly different versions of said same event.
Forgers is not a proper term anyway, as the authors had artistic freedom in their fiction and mythology using theology. There was plenty of that going on, but context is key and it does not discount the historicity of many characters.
Clive wrote:
Why do some texts have a veneer of truthiness about them?
Christianity is called a historical religion for a reason. Even though it is a pseudo history, it was still written in historical context to that exact time period.
The authors all trained to write in rhetorical prose using mythology they all believed in had quite the artistic freedom to build authority and build divinity in the Jesus character so they could compete against the Emperors divinity as "son of god" The goal of the NT text was to persuade readers or listeners that this new god was better then the corrupt politician, and they went into details as to why it was the better choice.
It is on that exact context that we see the authors TRUE motives, and it was not to build a character who existed in all of their lifetimes where a critic could say that was all made up crap and that never happened.
You would not take a fictional character and place him center stage at Passover in front of a half million people, if he never existed. And not one person EVER stated anything against such, not even the movements enemies that hired agents to hunt early sect members down to stop said movement.