Criterion of embarrassment

The criterion of embarrassment is a critical analysis of historical accounts in which accounts embarrassing to the author are presumed to be true because the author would have no reason to invent an embarrassing account about themselves. Some Biblical scholars have used this criterion in assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.

The criterion of embarrassment is one point listed in the Criteria of Authenticity used by academics which also lists: the criterion of dissimilarity, criterion of language and environment, criterion of coherence, and the criterion of multiple attestation.

The criterion of embarrassment is a long-standing tool of New Testament research. The phrase was used by John P. Meier in his book A Marginal Jew; he attributed it to Edward Schillebeeckx, who does not appear to have actually used the term. The earliest usage of the approach was possibly by Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899).

The assumption of the criterion of embarrassment is that the early church would hardly have gone out of its way to create or falsify historical material that embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the Gospel tradition. This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the criterion of discontinuity and the criterion of multiple attestation, along with the historical method.

The crucifixion of Jesus is an example of an event that meets the criterion of embarrassment. This method of execution was considered the most shameful and degrading in the Roman world, and advocates of the criterion claim this method of execution is therefore the least likely to have been invented by the followers of Jesus.

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