The Life of Jesus Critically Examined

of its apostolic authority. But suppose the same arguments with which they assailed Matthew might be used against their favorite evangelist, John? What if it could be shown that his narrative is in no respect more probable, but, on the contrary, more improbable, than that of Matthew? In that case, must not the critical verdict that those theologians had given against Matthew—so triumphantly and without regard to its consequences—apply equally to John, and thereby overthrow the only remaining pillar of apostolic authority for the Gospel tradition?

This logical consequence, which was at the time deemed an unheard-of innovation (notwithstanding the opinions of a few individual critics like Vogel and Bretschneider), Strauss had the courage to draw. By that act, he cast off the fetters by which the examination of the Gospels had until then been bound and secured a free field for a thorough-going criticism of them. Since the external evidence of the authorship of the Gospels is not of a kind or a date such as to compel us to consider the tradition of their apostolic origin established, and as the subject matter of all the Gospels alike is not free from historical improbability, there is nothing, Strauss argued, to prevent our complete abandonment of the historicity of their miraculous narratives (though the Rationalists continue to maintain it), or our treating them as religious legends or myths, similar to those which, as was admitted, the Old Testament contained. The novelty in the work of Strauss was not the application of the principle of “myth” to Biblical narratives; others had already made use of it in the case of the Old, and to some extent in the case of the New Testament. The originality lay in the uncompromising