== criterion of embarrassment == 

 "Jesus' betrayal by Judas, one of his own disciples, is multiply attested in early documents, by the criterion of embarrassment it is unlikely that early Christians would fabricate such a story and as such is assumed to be historically accurate." 

 I've seen criticism of the principle that argues that embarrassing material about people who were later universally revered as saints sometimes goes back to factional polemic in earlier periods. I've seen the depiction of the disciples in Mark and Peter's denial of Jesus explained as such. I believe Eisenman argues that the story of the betrayal by Judas goes back to older attempts to diminish the authority of the relatives of Jesus who for a while had great influence in the Jerusalem church. Under this hypothesis the character of Judas the disciple was invented to eliminate the authority of Judas, whose name could not be erased completely. By turning him into an evil character and removing him from the role as a brother of Jesus most of the desired result could still be achieved. Similar speculation has been offered (by Baur among others) about earlier criticism of Paul being masked as criticism of Simon Magus. I'll try to find a RS (Eisenman is not the only person to offer such explanations).