I think it is evidence of mythicism (at 60%)."concerning His Son, (who is come of the seed of David according to the flesh"
A modern analogy would be the following claim:
to come on the Moon.
When referred to men of XX-XXI century CE, then that claim may be true, but only for a particulat set of men (cfr the first man on the Moon).When referred to before that time, that claim is surely 100% false. The men didn't come on the Moon before that time.
But it is still possible that a man claimed (falsely) to be gone on the Moon before that time.
Now note the claim:
to be descendant of David.
May that claim be true when referred to a time when all the possible descendants of David (assuming he esisted) are all dead? Clearly not. In that case the possible use of the title is a negation of the factual truth.
Note that not even Herod, the King of Judaea, was honoured with the title 'descendant of David'. Because it was simply not true that Herod was davidic. But it is still possible that someone claimed (falsely) to be descendant of David, during the rule of Herod.
Therefore, even if Jesus existed, to call him ''descendant of David'' is equivalent to lie about him: a title that is shown to be empirically false (when it is given to a man of I CE) is not evidence of historicity.
Compare the following propositions:
1) In the year 1500 someone did come on the Moon. FALSE
2) In the 30 CE, someone was descendant of David. FALSE
3) In the year 1500 someone (was) claimed that he came on the Moon. ?
4) In the 30 CE, someone claimed (or was claimed) to be descendant of David. ?
From a false proposition:
''the man X in 30 CE is descendant of David''
it follows that the following implication is wrong:As well as the following implication:1) X in 30 CE is claimed to be descendant of David.
2) X existed in 30 CE.
1) X in 1500 CE (was) claimed that he came on the Moon.
2) X existed.
Think the possible effect under the condition that Paul wrote:
In this case, being the existence of that James already a confirmed fact (per Gal 1:19), it follows naturally that James is the carnal brother of Jesus. But this only because we already agree that the fact ''James existed in 30 CE'' is true....I saw only James the brother of the Lord according to the flesh...
With ''being descendant of David'' the case is diverse: one cannot NEVER be descendant of David in the real past of 30 CE, therefore if he is proclaimed ''descendant of David according to flesh'' then we can apply the Principle of Contamination of Stephen Law and conclude that the proposition ''someone was proclaimed something that he could never be: descendant of David'' may be true or false with equal probability.
But if I point out that not even Herod - one who had all the interest (and sufficient power) to proclaim himself ''descendant of David'' - claimed for himself that title, then the probability that a historical Jesus was proclaimed ''descendant of David'' is really little.
Taking again my Moon-analogy above, it would be as if we want both true the following two propositions:
1) in the year 1500 someone (was) claimed to be on the Moon.
2) in the year 1500 we know that only Giordano Bruno claimed that the Moon was inhabited by living beings.
), and that the ''Lord'' existed. Because we at least agree that Armstrong existed and that the existence of James + the construct ''according of flesh'' make the ''Lord'' more probably historical than not.
