The discussion now shifts towards analyzing the criterions that are highly esteemed by those studying the life of Jesus. The first valid criterion, and perhaps the most effective, is language and environment. This principle states “material is more likely to be deemed historical if it is compatible with the language and environment of the period it describes rather than the period of the source itself.” In terms of the life of Jesus, the context of the material should match that of Galilee/Judea rather than the Roman influence in which the Gospels were written under. The language and environment of a region during a specific period in time is so unique and distinctive to other regions of similar or dissimilar time periods. What separates this criterion from the rest is that most of the other criteria are prone to interpretation and judgment of scholars. Rather here, the language and environment criterion does not require such a thorough analysis process. For example, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus defined the boundaries of divorce. In summary, this scripture states that both a husband and a wife have the right to divorce. However, under Jewish law, this was not the case so it does not fit the language aspect of the criterion and is suspect to anachronism. This example is straight forward, and clearly …show more content…
For example, the parable of the mustard seed is found in both Mark 4:30-32 and Q 13:18-19 . Since the parable is found in two sources that are independent of each other, it is deemed historical. However, it is important to note that an element should not be judged unauthentic simply because it is only cited once. The historicity of such event would be further verified by other criteria. Multiple attestation works well to account for matters that have such widespread support that almost no scholar would question