Paul’s statement in Romans 1:3 that Jesus had “come of the seed of David according to flesh” is one of the most commonly cited pieces of evidence for Paul believing Jesus had been an actual man walking around Palestine (see Argument from the Epistles in “Historicity Big and Small: How Historians Try to Rescue Jesus”). But under peer review I found that this interpretation requires assumptions for which there is inadequate evidence (see On the Historicity of Jesus, Ch. 11.9; which I brief, clarify, and expand on in Jesus from Outer Space, Ch. 8; hereafter OHJ and JFOS, respectively). I have blogged about this before (see The Cosmic Seed of David and What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3?; see also the penultimate section of Doing the Math). But today I want to focus on the balls being dropped here: where historians are failing to understand the logic of even their own arguments in defense of “their” interpretation of this verse, and even more so the peer-reviewed rebuttal to those arguments—which most historians still arguing this, for some reason, refuse to even read. But today I will charitably assume there are historians who honestly read it, but still don’t get it. So take my hand. Let’s walk it through.

First: How Evidence Works

The first thing historians need to get straight is how evidence works. That is, what is it about “evidence” that actually makes it an argument for some conclusion (or against). By what logic does that even operate? Because often I see historians present facts, and call that evidence, when that’s not in fact what it is. Some fact A can only be evidence for some conclusion B if the existence of A is more likely if B is true than any other competing explanation of how A came to exist, the best of which explanations (whatever it is) we’ll call C. If A is just as likely to exist if B or C were true, if their “likelihoods” are the same, then it is logically necessarily the case that B and C are both equally likely on A. A is then not evidence. It may be “a fact,” as in it may exist, and be true. But if it doesn’t increase the probability of B over C, it is not evidence for B. Nor is it evidence for C, or against B, or against C. It simply has no evidentiary value at all. It proves nothing. (See Advice on Probabilistic Reasoning.)

For example, that Matthew wrote down a story about an angel descending from the sky and magically paralyzing armed guards is equally likely on the theory that he made it up as on the theory that it really happened. So the mere fact that the story exists is not “evidence” for it having happened. The lone fact of the story existing is just as likely on it not having happened. So the story does not increase the probability of it having happened. It therefore, by itself, has no evidentiary value. One can then go cull up some other evidence that, altogether, is more (or less) likely on either competing explanation of how that story came to exist, and then those facts (whatever they are) would be evidence for one or the other conclusion.

For example, it is unlikely that Mark would have composed his story of the empty tomb without this element had Matthew’s story existed then—because if it happened, the story of it would certainly have existed in Mark’s day (that would be the only way Matthew could have heard it), and it would be extremely unlikely that so sensational a story would be unknown to Mark’s entire Christian community. Notice I said unlikely. I didn’t say impossible. We are attending to relative probabilities here. And it is simply less probable that Mark would never have heard of it and never have included it, had this event ever actually happened. So that it appears suddenly as an addition by Matthew to Mark’s (otherwise-copied-almost-verbatim) story is evidence for Matthew having fabricated it and thus evidence against it being true. That doesn’t mean it is “conclusive” evidence. All I am pointing out is that the existence of Mark’s story is actually evidence, of some weight or other, for one conclusion over another regarding Matthew’s story. It is a fact, and it increases the probability of one theory over competing theories. That is what turns a fact into evidence.

And this is also how we test a claim by its prior probability, too. Because every prior probability is the output of a previous comparison of likelihoods, just like that one. For example, if A is twice as likely on B than on any alternative, then this makes B twice as likely as any alternative—and that can then be used as the prior probability that B is true when applying yet more evidence to the question. In the science of history, usually priors relate to evidence indirectly related to the specific claims being compared, so as to distinguish this argument (that one theory of the evidence starts out less probable than another) from the direct argument from evidence I just described (that some particular fact’s existence increases, or decreases, the probability of a theory). But in the logic of probability they operate the same way: background knowledge can reduce (or increase) the probability that a theory can explain any observation, much less any one specific observation, because it is evidence.

For example, given the improbability of the supernatural and the commonality of fabrication, the theory that Matthew’s story of flying death-ray angels “is true” suffers from a gross reduction in its prior probability—before we even consider the existence of the story itself. Whereas the theory that Matthew made it up, doesn’t. But this is still an argument from evidence: it’s just that the evidence in this case is indirect, consisting of all the background evidence humanity has accumulated about the nature of the world and what usually happens in it, wherein “flying angels paralyzing guards” is not any kind of thing really observed to happen in the world (not a single case has been reliably confirmed), whereas “people inventing stories about their heroes” not only is the kind of thing observed to happen in the world, but the Gospels (all forty plus of them we know about) do it routinely. So that’s entirely expected, in precisely the way “Matthew’s story is true” is not. (See Proving History, index, “Smell Test”; along with Naturalism Is Not an Axiom of the Sciences but a Conclusion of Them.)

And you can show this mathematically: given that all that background information exists, the probability that A would exist (a story about magical angels) if B (the story is true) is low, whereas the probability that A would exist if C (the story is made-up) is high. Because all that background knowledge makes B the least likely cause of facts like A, while making C the most likely cause. We would thus need evidence that A is the exception—some way to verify that, despite all such stories usually being false, this one just happens to be true. And that has to be some fact other than the mere existence of the story by itself; like, say, multiple, credibly-composed eyewitness testimonies, and abundant background facts establishing angelic intervention as an actual thing in the world.

Hence a “prior probability” challenge to a claim usually amounts to saying that that claim—the claim itself—contains some assumption that is too improbable to assume existed at the time. Like the theory that Jesus flew into the clouds using a helicopter: the story as we have it could be just as likely as on any other explanation (like that the story was made-up), but the theory can still be dismissed because access to helicopters was too improbable back then, whereas the competing explanation (making stuff up) was quite common back then. This follows the same mathematical logic as direct arguments from evidence, because we get the same result framed as a likelihood ratio: the probability that a first century helicopter ride would produce a story of flying into the clouds is actually quite low given our background knowledge about an ancient lack of access to helicopters, whereas the probability that mythmaking would produce such a story is effectively 100% because mythmaking was not rare but ubiquitous back then, and thoroughly in evidence in the very kind of texts containing this story.

This is still an appeal to evidence: actual facts (about what is and isn’t typical, or realistically possible, at the time) that increase or decrease the probability of one theory compared to all others. Evidence that does neither wouldn’t affect the prior probability either. So you need not just “facts,” but facts that are less likely (or more likely) on the theory being proposed—that theory being whatever explanation you are giving for that fact being as it is—and that means more (or less) likely than on any competing theory (and certainly the best competing theory). Otherwise, those facts aren’t evidence—for anything pertinent to resolving whether B or C is true.

That this is the ontologically actual and logically necessary definition of “evidence” (in such phrases as “this is evidence for/against that”) will suffice to understand what follows. But note as well that the weight of evidence—how much an item of evidence weighs for or against a conclusion, the “strength” of that evidence, how “powerful” it is, or whatever metaphor you meet with—is entirely measured by how much that evidence is more probable on B than on C. See Some Bayes for Beginners for a demonstration and explication of this point. Hence when you say evidence is “weak” or “strong” (or “weaker” or “stronger” than some other item or body of evidence), you are literally referring to this difference in probabilities—even if you do not realize it. This is the only way to make any argument “from evidence” logically valid and sound.

Evidence is thus always comparative: A can only be evidence for or against something relative to something else. No hypothesis can be argued for (or against) in isolation; you can only know a hypothesis is probable, by proving the most credible alternative hypotheses are improbable (see Advice on Probabilistic Reasoning and The Scary Truth about Critical Thinking). And that means: proving the evidence is improbable on that alternative hypothesis (but not, or at least not as much, on the hypothesis being defended). The rest is simply a matter of degrees (how much more or less probable the evidence is).

Apply the Principle

For A (the fact of the actual content of Romans 1:3) to be evidence for B (the historicity of Jesus), A has to be more likely to exist—it has to be more likely that Paul would write it, and that we’d still have it—on B than on any other explanation of how A would come to be written by Paul and subsequently preserved, all of which alternative explanations would be some form of C (the non-historicity of Jesus). In OHJ and JFOS I mention two alternative explanations of A: that Paul is speaking allegorically (as he is about birth in Galatians: see Yes, Galatians 4 Is Allegorical), which we’ll call C1; or that Paul is speaking cosmically (as he is about the “birth” of Adam at the beginning of the world, and our future resurrection bodies awaiting us in heaven), which we’ll call C2.

Paul even appears to place the creation of Adam in the heavens, by announcing his belief that the Garden of Eden is there, and not on Earth—as was then one common Jewish belief at the time (see Adam’s Burial in Outer Space). And the third century Church Father Origen (and many modern scholars) think Paul was also speaking cosmically when he says Jesus was crucified by “the archons of this aeon” (see OHJ, index, “archon”), even if it was through human agents. So speaking cosmically is definitely a thing Paul does (he says people went to outer space, that our new bodies are stored there, that Adam was formed by beings from there); as did other early texts (e.g. Hebrews 9 relates a cosmic model of the sacrifice of Jesus; the letters of Ignatius reference a cosmic model of Jesus appearing as a magical new star in the heavens: Ephesians 1.19). And speaking allegorically is also definitely a thing Paul does (he even explicitly says so; and references mysteries he has to speak of in figurative terms).

Hence there is no argument from prior probability that the historicist can appeal to here. Just like mythmaking in the Gospels, mystery-talk, allegorizing and cosmic meanings, are common in Paul and thus not like first century helicopters, but instead like mythmaking in the Gospels: an entirely expected mode of discourse for Paul. So we can’t say C1 or C2 are “improbable” modes of discourse in Romans 1:3. At most we can only say that we can’t tell if Paul is using either mode there; nor can we tell that he is not. We are at an impasse regarding prior assumptions there. B and C are equally likely on all prior considerations. So we can’t just “assume” he is being literal in Romans 1:3, that he is referring to ordinary biology there. We need evidence that he is, and that he is not speaking allegorically or cosmically, that this is not another “mystery” he often refers to. And that means some fact that is more likely to exist if he is being literal here than if he is not. So historians need to present facts, facts that are separate from Romans 1:3 by itself (though they can be facts about or within Romans 1:3), that are unlikely unless Paul is being literal there. I have yet to hear of any. And trust me: I looked. I spent six years on this.

Okay. So we can’t get B to be more probable than C on prior considerations. So what about the fact itself? Is it even likely that Paul would write what’s in Romans 1:3 if Jesus didn’t exist? Because sure, we can admit he could have an allegorical or cosmic meaning in mind (he doesn’t specify either way), but what are the odds he would bother? Why say “he came of the seed of David” if Jesus wasn’t born to a descendant of David in the normal way? Is it likely he’d do that, and that thing specifically? If we just arbitrarily leapt from “Jesus didn’t exist (theory), and Paul often spoke allegorically or cosmically (fact)” to “therefore, Paul would compose an allegorical or cosmic assertion specifically about Jesus coming from the seed of David” we’d be breaking Axiom 5 of any sound historical method: just assuming something that is merely possible is automatically thereby probable; it isn’t (Proving History, pp. 26-29). So there still needs to be an argument here; which means evidence has to be presented that makes this probable, and not merely possible. And evidence means some fact, other than the passage by itself, that is more likely to exist if the proposal is true than if it is false. And in this case the proposal is “it is probable that Paul would write this verse even if Jesus didn’t exist.”

So I found some; and presented it (OHJ, p. 576; JFOS, pp. 173-76). Principal (but not alone) among that evidence are two facts: (1) the Jews (Paul included) routinely expected the Messiah to fulfill prophecies in the Bible (especially ones explicitly about the Messiah, but even many more passages that were by then believed to do so: see OHJ, Chapter 4, Elements 3–9; and for Christians, as well, Elements 16–18) and (2) one such prophecy is of the Holy Prophet Nathan, related in 2 Samuel 7:12-14.

That prophecy was spoken by Nathan to David himself (emphasis mine):

When your days are done, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your sperm after you, which shall come from your belly, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build for me a house in my name, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.

So Nathan prophesied that a Son of God would come “from David’s belly” and sit a throne forever. This prophecy was falsified. No son “from David’s belly” (which would have meant at that time Solomon) sat a throne “forever.” Nor even did any royal line do so. That throne had been empty for quite some time by the time Jesus is supposed to have died for all our sins and risen from the dead. So reading the prophecy literally would rescue it from failure: Nathan means a son directly from David’s belly would in future sit an eternal throne, and that son would be the Son of God, ergo Jesus. Certainly there are other ways Jews could (and probably did) “fix” this prophecy and rescue Nathan from being a false prophet. But there are only two things relevant to the logic of what we are talking about today: (1) no one could market a Messiah who did not fulfill this prophecy and (2) reading the prophecy literally is the simplest way to take it (because that requires the fewest assumptions), so that someone took it that way cannot be regarded as improbable (because, all else being equal, more convoluted readings will be less probable).

Paul is almost certainly referencing this prophecy in Romans 1:3-4. Following the Septuagint (as he usually does), Paul uses the peculiar phrase “David’s sperm,” which is found in no other messianic prophecy in known scripture except for this very prophecy from Nathan (in the form of “your sperm,” but the “your” refers to David). The Nathan prophecy also links this to the resulting scion being The Son of God, just as Paul does in this very passage. And it refers to God “raising up” this scion (anastêsô), the very same word Paul uses in the same sentence (only now as a noun rather than the verb) to refer to the resurrection of this Son of God (anastaseôs). But you needn’t be totally convinced of this. The relevant fact is that it undeniably appears that Paul is (and thus could be) constructing this sentence out of that prophecy. There can otherwise be no doubt Paul would know that prophecy (as any educated messianic Jew like Paul would), and thus recognize its parallels and affinities with what he is writing in Romans 1. And so no argument can be made that it is improbable Paul is satisfying that prophecy with this line. All the evidence there is renders that probable, not the other way around.

So now we do the math. And I’ll speak of Paul here, even though this may be a line he derived from the original Apostles; because it doesn’t matter who specifically came up with it—their motives and reasoning, and background knowledge, will have been identical. What is the probability that Paul knows this prophecy? As near to 100% as makes all odds. What is the probability that Paul’s belief that Jesus is the Messiah compelled him to believe that Jesus must have fulfilled this prophecy? As near to 100% as makes all odds. Therefore, even if Jesus was never a man anyone met on Earth, what is the probability that Paul would imagine (and thus say) that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy? As near to 100% as makes all odds. It therefore is as certain as can be that we would have this fact (the content of Romans 1:3) even if Jesus didn’t exist. Therefore, we are not talking about it merely being “possible” that Paul would come up with a way to preach that Jesus satisfied Nathan’s prophecy. We are looking at an effective certainty that he would. The fact of Romans 1:3 is therefore as near to 100% expected whether Jesus existed or not. It is therefore logically impossible for this verse to be evidence for historicity.

Following the Logic

This is true even if Paul meant a biological descendancy in Romans 1:3. Because the point is not that we know with ~100% certainty that Paul meant this verse allegorically or cosmically. The point is that we don’t know whether he meant this verse allegorically or cosmically, or biologically. Because Paul would write this line no matter which it was. Jesus had to fulfill Nathan’s prophecy. So any celestial Jesus the Christians contrived also had to fulfill that prophecy. So that they would come up with a way to have Jesus fulfill that prophecy is ~100% expected. The verse therefore is indeterminate. It cannot be used to tell which sense Paul means. Because the verse is just as expected whether Jesus existed or not. If he didn’t, they’d still have written this verse, meaning it in any way they could; and if he did, they’d still have written this verse, meaning it in any way they could. Therefore the existence of the verse, by itself, cannot be evidence for historicity.

Nor can this verse be used as evidence against historicity. And here I think historians often stumble on the logic. There is a frequent failure to grasp the logical difference between a fact not being evidence for some conclusion B, and that same fact being evidence against B. These are not equivalent. Just because some fact A is not evidence for B, does not mean that fact is then evidence against B. In a case like this, fact A simply isn’t evidence of anything. It is just as likely to be Paul describing his belief that Jesus was born to a Davidic heir as it is to be Paul describing whatever cosmic or allegorical meaning that would have been constructed to make a cosmic Jesus fit the same bill. Because the probability that they’d have made him fit that bill is ~100% either way. So seeing this sentence from Paul doesn’t help us tell the difference. We would have needed some further explication from Paul, describing what exactly he meant (and ideally, why) before we could claim to know.

Because we already know for a fact Paul did this elsewhere. For instance, he “reinterprets” another “seed” prophecy in Scripture, one promising a certain salvation would come to “the seed of Abraham,” allegorically (Galatians 3:13-4:29). Thus Paul can get a verse about biology to mean something else. If Gentiles can “become” the “seed” of Abraham by baptism, then it’s just as plausible Paul imagined Jesus “became” the “seed” of David in some comparably allegorical way. Likewise, if Paul can imagine God just “making” a body for Adam and just “making” new resurrection bodies for us, describing this as “coming to be” with exactly the same word in Greek as he uses of Jesus in Romans 1, then it’s just as plausible Paul imagined Jesus “came to be” from the “seed” of David in a comparable way. Indeed, Paul uses for these events a word he never uses for human birth, which he instead always uses a different word for—a fact so clear to Medieval Christians they even tried doctoring Paul’s Epistles to switch the one word for the other, both here and in Galatians 4. They got it. We should get it too.

So these are not helicopters. These are ways of thinking that Paul conclusively demonstrates he was comfortable with and often resorted to. And likewise other messianic Jews: both cosmic and allegorical reinterpretations of Scripture are found all across the documents recovered from Qumran, and can even be found throughout the Talmud, and Jewish writings contemporary with Christian origins, such as the works of Philo of Alexandria. So there is nothing improbable about this. That leaves the only question: how probable is it that early Christians would use either of those methods of reinterpreting Scripture specifically to get their Jesus to fit Nathan’s prophecy? And the answer is, undeniably, ~100%. All messianic Jews needed their messiah to fit that prophecy. All of them. Not just some of them. So the likelihood of Romans 1:3 on C (myth) is ~100%. And the likelihood of Romans 1:3 on B (historicity) is ~100%. The likelihoods are the same. Therefore Romans 1:3 cannot be evidence for either C or B. And that’s that. There is no way to get around this—other than to reject how logic works.

This is why even balking at God storing David’s semen for the purpose of manufacturing a mortal body for the Messiah to die in not only illustrates the balker’s ignorance of what were actually normal ways of thinking among messianic peoples back then, but it also isn’t even logically relevant. It does not matter whether Paul conceived of Nathan’s prophecy being fulfilled that way. Because the probability that he would come up with some way regardless is ~100%. He simply had to. All Christians had to. There is zero chance they’d just say, “Well, our guy doesn’t fulfill that messianic prophecy, but he’s still our guy.” Nope. They would invent a way to make it work. Whether this cosmic interpretation, or some allegorical one like Paul comes up with to reinterpret other Scriptures. Just as, if we presume historicity, they must have fabricated a way for Jesus to be a biological heir to David—because the probability he really was, or that there even could have been by that time any reliable evidence he was, is effectively zero. Either way, they will always come up with something. So you can’t turn up your nose at one particular way and then escape the consequences of the inevitable. The probability it would be done is ~100%; so pooh-poohing specific ways of doing it doesn’t get you anywhere.

Ironically the only reason I think it’s more likely that a direct cosmic explanation is what they adopted is because that is practically patently obvious, requiring no additional assumptions. It’s literally what Nathan says. If you take that as a prophecy of the future, in the context of the Davidic throne long having vanished and God’s prophets never lying, Nathan simply outright says what God did. Yes, the original author of Nathan’s prophecy was of course speaking of Solomon, and falsely predicting the state of Israel would never collapse; but no messianic Jew in Paul’s day took the verse in that original sense anymore, because they couldn’t: that would be admitting Nathan was a false prophet and the Scriptures are not the Word of God. So some way of fulfilling that prophecy had to be invented. The simplest solve is simply what Nathan says: God took semen from David, and used it at a future time to form a mortal body for the eternal Son of God. And there is ample evidence of all the underlying metaphysical assumptions being commonplace at the time (God can do anything; including with sperm; and the Zoroastrians did exactly this same thing); so one simply cannot argue this is a helicopter. It’s a typical myth-construct of the era.

So, since this requires no more assumptions than those already widely embraced at the time, it’s inherently more likely than a convoluted allegory such as Paul develops for the “seed of Abraham.” But if you just can’t stomach the simple, obvious, literal solution to Nathan’s prophecy, you are then compelled to accept it was some convoluted allegory. Because the probability of coming up with some solution or other remains ~100%. Once Jesus visited Peter (or Paul) in a dream or vision and told him he was the Messiah, Peter (or Paul) had to contrive a way this “revealed being” satisfied prophecy in order to sell it, and himself to believe it. The only other way to go would be to declare the visitation a false spirit; and that simply isn’t how religious fanatics ever react to meeting their divine lords in their inspired revelations. So that is literally the least probable sequence of events.

No Way Out

So here we are: the probability of fact A on either theory, B or C, is the same. Paul is just as expected to say what’s in Romans 1:3 if Jesus didn’t exist than if he did. Because either way, whatever belief they formed, it had to be conformed to Nathan’s prophecy. And we know Jews, and Christians, and Paul all allowed allegorical fulfillments of prophecy and cosmic fulfillments of prophecy. So we cannot say Paul would be “unlikely” to have imagined prophecy fulfilled in either of those ways. He overtly interprets many prophecies in just such ways. So absent any specific evidence one way or the other, he’s just as likely to do that as anything more literal and mundane. Without evidence telling us which he is doing in Romans 1, we cannot claim any one way is more probable than any other.

Now here is where the historicist, writhing in agony at not being able to get around the logic bomb they just got thrashed with, gets sucker-punched…

Take a look at the Nativity narratives in Luke and Matthew: they also assume a cosmic, miraculous way of imparting David’s seed to Jesus. Exactly as I am proposing. They both explicitly tell us the Seed of David didn’t come from Joseph. It did not transfer by biology or descent. They are both telling us it had to come from the Holy Spirit. Which means it must have carried that seed over into Mary’s womb in some magical, cosmic sense (see Virgin Birth: It’s Pagan, Guys. Get Over It.). This is not some late apocrypha, either. This is half the earliest Gospels claiming this. So you cannot claim there is anything weird about it. The very Evangelists themselves indisputably imagined and applied my “cosmic seed” hypothesis to Jesus. Half of them fully embrace it. Of course, they merge it with a historical Jesus; which, indeed, could have been done to a real historical Jesus. But once you allow that God can move David’s seed around magically, and not through any line of descendants, you don’t need historicity anymore to explain how Jesus could have a body fashioned from it.

And yet, even if we had conclusive proof that Paul meant a cosmic seed hypothesis in Romans 1:3, just like Matthew and Luke did, that would still not be evidence Jesus didn’t exist. What it would mean, however, is that Romans 1 is no longer evidence for the existence of Jesus. And that is the only remaining relevance of this passage to the debate. It tells us nothing whatever about whether Jesus existed, or not.

Historians seem to have a hard time grasping basic logic, so I will repeat what I just said:

Even if we knew for certain that Paul meant Romans 1:3 in a cosmic sense (or allegorical sense; like, if he outright said so), this would not reduce the probability that Jesus existed at all. Because that’s already the sense adopted by the Gospels—well in conjunction with a purportedly historical Jesus. Rather, our knowing that about Romans 1:3 would only not increase the probability that Jesus existed. Because this notion is equally compatible with a nonhistorical Jesus.

Let’s go over that again:

Even if Romans 1:3 beyond dispute referred to a cosmic and not a biological seed transfer (just like the Gospels describe), all that would do is remove evidence for historicity; it would not evince mythicism. So this is not an argument for mythicism. It’s an argument, merely, that this passage doesn’t tell us anything about whether Jesus existed or not; that historicists simply, logically, can’t use it that way. It can have no effect on the probability that Jesus existed. And this is the case even when we know for sure that Paul is using nonliteral discourse in Romans 1:3; we of course don’t know that for sure. So the question moves to what the probability is that he is or isn’t. But all that can get us to, even at best, is still just the removal of evidence for Jesus’s historicity, not the adding of evidence against his historicity.

Where This Lands

So the next logical step is to ask:

How likely is it that this passage is, actually, a reference to biological insemination—or, instead, to allegorical or cosmic semination?

In OHJ I survey the evidence either way and come to the conclusion that, at best, we simply can’t tell. It’s 50/50 whether Paul meant Romans 1 literally (as biological descent) or cosmically or allegorically (whether Jesus existed or not). But, at worst, I conclude it’s slightly more likely that Paul would mean it literally. In fact I conclude that this fact A is twice as likely of Paul to have written if Jesus existed as otherwise. Which is rather generous considering there is no evidence at all that Paul meant it literally—rather than mysteriously, the same way the authors of the Gospels understood it, or Paul imagined when speaking of the “seed of Abraham.” So I’m being nice to historicity here. But nevertheless, that was my upper error margin all the same: I counted this passage as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

Let me repeat that because historians have a hard time reading or comprehending what I just said:

In my peer reviewed case for the non-existence of Jesus, I actually count Romans 1:3 as evidence for historicity.

One more time in case you missed it:

I actually count Romans 1:3 as evidence for historicity.

Please read that five more times. Then you get a cookie.

My final conclusion, that there is still only at best a 1 in 3 chance Jesus really existed, is in part because of this evidence: that probability is where I end up even when I count Romans 1:3 as evidence for Jesus existing. Because I do assign it a lower evidentiary weight than would otherwise be warranted if we didn’t have all this other evidence—of the existence of Nathan’s prophecy; of the need of every messianic Jew to get even a cosmic Jesus to satisfy that prophecy; of the verbal and conceptual links between Romans 1 and that prophecy; and of Paul’s frequent recourse to allegorical interpretations of Scripture (including Scriptures about “seeds,” even replacing biological ones with metaphorical) and cosmic interpretations of Scripture (including of celestial locations and events, warehouses of manufactured bodies, Adam’s body being formed from a celestial hand alone, Paul outright saying God manufactured a body for Jesus in Philippians 2, and so on). If we didn’t have all that evidence, then yes, Romans 1:3 would weigh much more for historicity than I conclude. Just like, if we had scientifically documented the regular activity of flying angels by now, we’d have to count Matthew’s story of one to be more likely to be true—in fact, exactly as much more likely as not having that evidence makes it less likely.

It is therefore logically necessary to allow the evidence we have, the removal of which would greatly increase the evidentiary value of Romans 1:3 for historicity, to greatly reduce its evidentiary value by exactly as much as it would have been increased without it. Thus, I come to the a fortiori conclusion (the conclusion as favorable to historicity as I can reasonably believe credible) that it is “only” twice as likely to be what Paul would write if Jesus existed than if he didn’t, and therefore Romans 1:3 makes the existence of Jesus twice as likely.

If you want to gainsay this—if you want to insist that Romans 1:3 should be stronger evidence for historicity than that—you need to make a case why. Why, even given all the facts about Nathan’s prophecy, its connection to Romans 1, the vagueness of Romans 1, how messianic Jews operated, Paul’s peculiar idiom of vocabulary and demonstrably diverse modes of discourse (even particularly about bodies and seeds), the Gospels’ cosmic notion of how Jesus is the Seed of David, Paul’s outright saying in Philippians that Jesus’s body was manufactured, and so on, why are we to be any more certain what Romans 1:3 means than this? And your case needs to be (1) logical (as in, your conclusion needs to actually follow from the premises; you can’t get there by non sequiturs) and (2) based on evidence (as in, facts that are more probable if Romans 1:3 were meant literally than if it wasn’t). So, let’s see that case. No more wingeing and harrumphing.