Chapter 25 Critiqued:

• Doherty wrote: “We can assume that most, perhaps all, of the philosopher-apologists had encountered the Gospel story and its figure of Jesus of Nazareth. But with the exception of Justin, they had chosen not to integrate him into their own faith, not to identify this reputed historical founder-teacher with their divine Logos and Son of God, not to regard him as the source of Christian teachings” (TJP:283). 
• Doherty wrote: “As a final note, we might ask: where are the writers (for we might expect there to be some) who openly and in unmistakable words reject the figure of Jesus, with no possibility of ambiguity? Until we realize that no such document would ever have reached us through 2000 years of Christian censorship” (TJP:292).
• Here, Doherty acknowledges that there is no source from the ancient world that denied or attacked the idea that Jesus was an historical figure.
• Although Doherty makes the assertion that the Christians censored any and all documents that may have attacked the idea that Jesus was an historical figure, Doherty provided no evidence for this assertion.
• Doherty continued by writing: “In any case, all of these documents, given the poor state of communication and availability of materials in the ancient world, would hardly have been accessible to someone who might think of undertaking such a task” (TJP:292).
• It is fascinating that Doherty made this argument considering he relies so heavily on the argument that, what Doherty deems, no genuine ancient document, and Doherty does not consider the gospels to be reliable, mentions Jesus as being a historical figure.
• One could simply turn the tables on Doherty by arguing that “no genuine early ancient document in the fist century C.E. mentions a historical Jesus given the poor state of communication and availability of materials in the ancient world.”
• This is another example Doherty’s usage of double standards.