Such an act can be neither verified (nor falsified) on the basis of empirical data, by facts established by historical investigation. His death as redepmtive event was not an act visible to the disinterested observer. All such mythological acts lie outside the purview of the empirical sciences and hence of the historian. — Robert W. Funk [Honest to Jesus (San Fransisco: Polebridge Press, 1996), p. 51.]