Too Much Confidence, Too Little Evidence

Worth noting in this regard is a well-known comment by C.S. Lewis. In his famous essay, "Fern-seed and Elephants," Lewis reflects upon the times when his own literary works had been subjected to redaction-critical assessments by his contemporary reviewers, that is, times when reviewers attempted speculatively to reconstruct the genesis and development of his works. Lewis responds,

"My impression is that in the whole of my experience not one of these guesses has on any one point been right; that the method shows a record of one hundred per cent failure. You would expect that by mere chance they would hit as often as they miss. But it is my impression that they do no such thing. I can't remember a single hit....What I can say with certainty is that they are usually wrong. And yet they would often sound - if you didn't know the truth - extremely convincing."

This is enough to render the enterprise of speculating on the redactional motives and moves of the Gospel authors and the redactional histories of their writings suspect. But Lewis goes on to note that his reviewers had advantages that contemporary New Testament scholars do not have with regard to the biblical texts. For example, Lewis's reviewers shared the same culture and language as Lewis, something that is not true of critics of the New Testament. This strongly suggests that speculations about the redactional histories of ancient texts have far less likelihood of being correct than the speculations about Lewis's writings proffered by contemporary reviewers. And this cannot help but call the whole enterprise into question.

Yet, remarkably enough, the more extreme redaction critics, and especially those who employ redaction criticism in defense of the legendary-Jesus thesis, typically exhibit very little tentativeness in presenting their speculative reconstructions. Furthermore, it appears that often the rhetoric of confidence is rooted less in inevitable conclusions drawn from the literary evidence than in the simple fact that the speculations are inherently unfalsifiable. As Lewis himself notes - with no small tinge of sarcasm - "remember, the Biblical critics, whatever reconstructions they devise, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter there will be more pressing matters to discuss." (Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, The Jesus Legend [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007], p. 400)