"And here is where Aslan's theory must finally give up. Few contemporary scholars - whether Christian, Jewish or non-religious - doubt that the New Testament sources (known as Mark, Q, L and Paul) were written independently of each other: in other words, the authors of these texts did not have access to the writings of the others. Just as few specialists would dispute that all four of these sources portray the message of Jesus as involving a radical ethic of non-violence, inclusivity and love. The source known as Q, dating from around the 50s AD, even contains a story of Jesus' compassion toward a Roman soldier and his scolding of Israel for not having the faith of this pagan overlord."
That just points up the disagreement of contemporary scholarship with past scholarship, not the latter's necessary shortcomings. It may be accepted by many today that Q and L must have existed and been used, but they don't exist and never have, except in the imaginations of their contemporary creators. For an "historian" to call them "sources" on a level with the Synoptics, John, and apocryphal and pseudepigraphical gospels just shows how contemporary scholarship has declined intellectually. We have evidence which we can examine in manuscript, but Q and L are not among them.
"War is the father of everything," but the history of those wars is written by the winners, and our contemporaries are vying to write their own no less than past characters who have met on the field. Time will tell who wins, but not necessarily who is right. At least Polybius was aware of his bias in favor of Rome and stated it, but John Dickson only imagines "the even-handed sifting of evidence that characterizes historical enquiry." Otherwise he would not caricature Jesus as a preacher of "inclusivity" when some of the evidence quite clearly shows a different Jesus who excluded the Gentiles from his missionary activities and warned that the way to life is hard and that few will find it. The Christian normally suspends judgment and never resolves such a dilemma, but the historian is forced to make a choice and explain it.
Bias is inherent in the species. Good historians are aware of it. John Dickson is not.
