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Accepting these distinctions, I maintain that the most that the generally accepted criteria for distinguishing authentic Jesus-material entitle one to claim is different from, and considerably less than, what those who attempt to apply them customarily suppose. Given the conclusion about our sources described above, such criteria may indeed be applied to yield sufficient reason not to deny that a particular unit of tradition is authentic, but they can not cannot possibly be applied to yield sufficient reason to assert that it is authentic.

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The moral is obvious: to apply the criterion of dissimilarity (or dual irreducibility) so as to claim that a unit of tradition is authentic Jesus-material is, in reality, to beg the question – -- the proof of this being that the only reason one can ever give for one's claim cannot possibly be sufficient to assert it, but, at most, sufficient not to deny it.

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