I have read the parts of the book of particular interest to me (why the pseudo-chronology under Pilate, if the Talmud knows Pilate).
In whiletime, I have to recognize that Andrew Jordan writes very well! HIs case is surely the more honest case of
reductio ad Judaeum to my knowledge. It surely is a challenge to the historicist case that takes the following ridicolous form:
- Therefore Jesus existed under Pilate.
When Jordan writes:
The Talmud is often considered to be too old to provide any reliable information about the historical Jesus, but this relies on faulty logic, that “older equals better.” This is not necessarily the case, but is often assumed to be so. It also discredits oral tradition and cultures that have a strong oral history, such as the case was with the Jews of the 1st century CE
Jordan, A. .
Jesus the Nazarene: The Talmud and the Founder of Christianity (p.210, my bold)
...it is surely an intelligent way to confute the Christian apologetics by retorting against it the same claim "Oral tradition is important!", usually raised by the apologists against the mythicists.
As I had predicted, Jordan explains the pseudo-chronology under Pilate by appealing to a Paul considered historical (and lived under Pilate), just as, before Jordan, has been made by Stromholm and Ellegard:
Given that the Gospels are mostly not historical documents and meant to give a historical context to Paul’s gospel, I think it is more likely that they reveal traits about Jesus’ later followers in the first century CE. However, it is not impossible to see some traces of memories related to the historical Jesus the Nazarene
Jordan, A. .
Jesus the Nazarene: The Talmud and the Founder of Christianity (p.122, my bold)
Also for Jordan, as for all the mythicists, the Josephian dating of John the Baptist is pivotal for the pseudo-chronology under Pilate:
The memory of Jesus having a teacher is the origin of the stories of John the Baptist in the Gospels, which are reworked to fit the Gospel writers’ chronology. Mark, writing after 70 CE, knew that Jesus came “before” him. He sought to put the birth of Jesus seventy years before the destruction of the Temple.
(p. 59, my bold)
The claim that
70 - 40 = 30 CE hence 'Pilate' appears to be dubious to me. But since there are late talmudic sources that insist on the happenings of anomalous prodigia in the 30 CE in virtue of the same reason (i.e.: that 70 - 40 = 30), then there is no wonder that Jordan, rigorously faithful to his logic of
Reductio ad Judaeum, explains in the same way the fabrication of the pseudo-chronology under Pilate.
Important thing: the Talmud doesn't know Pilate. The only possible reference to him is really vanishing: the mention of "Pinehas".
Note of merit:
I don't know if I have to replace an enigma (Pilate) with another enigma (Janneus). I find the Amalgam Theory more persuasive against the only other two serious reconstructions: the Outer Space Theory and the Talmudic Theory (=the Jordan's view). But if someone has to persuade me that
really Paul lived before the 70 CE, then I have to concede that the Outer Space Theory and the Talmudic Theory are more persuasive than the Amalgam Theory (the latter makes sense only under the hypothesis of post-70 Origins).
Some criticisms:
- In the bibliography I don't see mention of Stromholm. The authenticity of the pauline epistles is given as a brute fact.
- Reference is given to the possibility of a lost Hebrew Gospel. Howard is mentioned. But not Bernard Dubourg. Very bad!