Vorkosigan

Not really. Embarrassment can't prove historicity, Ben, unless you have already established that the text is history.

Of course I know this, Ben. I love Tolkien and have written on this very fact. But imagine a future world where Tolkien is a religion and Frodo = Jesus. That is the world we live in now. In that world, scholars argue that the failure of Frodo must have been historical because otherwise the early Church would never have reported it.

In other words, we know Tolkien is fiction. But we don't know whether the Gospels are, and hence, embarrassment simply assumes what one is trying to prove.

Right on! Subjectivity is another strike against the criterion. Additionally, the "early Church" is often thought to be "embarrassed" by certain events. Can a corporate entity be "embarrassed" in that sense?

Yes, that is why I rejected that criterion in application to Mark. The appearance of the story there implies that the writer was not embarrassed by it, at least on the surface.

The whole criterion simply needs to be junked. It's gone horribly wrong.

Michael

Loren Rosson III

Not to get too sidetracked here, but I want to emphasize that the example of Frodo Baggins doesn't support Michael's case against the criterion of embarrassment. Frodo doesn't fail embarrassingly. In the view of the author, he fails most appropriately. Frodo had no more chance of willfully destroying the Ring than Aragorn did of winning a military victory against Sauron. Tolkien's heroes are tragic failures because they are intentionally not salvific Christian figures, but pagan heroes, noble, heroic, but ultimately hopeless against the power of evil.

Frodo's failure was embarassing to Frodo, but not to others -- and certainly not to the author of the story, which is what matters in using embarassment as a criterion.

Of course, Tolkien knew he was writing fiction, and there's no history in Lord of the Rings anyway. A criterion of embarassment would be used in this case not to determine whether or not "Frodo actually failed", but that given his failure in the context of a mythic pre-history which Tolkien intended to point towards Christianity without encompassing it, was he a pagan or Christian hero? The answer should be obvious. He was a pagan hero, a heroic but hopeless failure, and that's how Tolkien wanted him.

Michael says, “imagine a world where Tolkien is a religion and Frodo=Jesus�. The fact is that no one has made a religion out of Tolkien’s novel. That’s an indication right from the start that this analogy simply doesn’t apply. If, hypothetically, The Lord of the Rings ever were to become used as a basis for religious beliefs, then, obviously, Frodo would not equal Jesus. And that would be no more embarassing to its adherents than Ragnarok was embarassing to the Norse, where the forces of evil win at Armageddon. In the context of these myths, it is salvific redemptive figures (if anything) who become “embarassing�, for offering delusions and false hopes. But that’s not the world-view of the early Jews and Chrisitans.

Not to beat a dead horse, but (as Ben notes), I've written much on this, and if anyone is interested in what Tolkien intended in writing his epic, see the following links:

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...s-failure.html

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...ailure-ii.html

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...-apostacy.html

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...-of-rings.html

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...istianity.html

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2005...d-tolkien.html

Roger Pearse

When a topic of controversy is concerned, I'm not sure I agree. On such matters academics tend to reflect the consensus of those who control appointments in their era.

I seem to remember reading a paper on Lucian (Holst, "Lucian and the Germans") which came to the conclusion that the German academic consensus on his works between around 1870 and 1945 was based entirely on one seminal article, and that article had passages verbally identical with a rant in an anti-semitic rag earlier that year by Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

This isn't to say academics are bad people. It's merely to observe that the humanities doesn't seem to have control mechanisms to prevent this happening.

That I do agree with.

Nor me. The data in the historical record did not come into being by such a method. The manner in which the theory arose, and the things that lead people to advance it, are sufficient to disqualify it as a serious theory.

But I think the real reason that it has no champions in academia is mainly historical and societal. But I would still ask what piece of evidence, specifically, requires the MJ theory rather than the HJ? None to my knowledge.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Just as a postscript, I went and looked at a few comments in the emails linked in the original post. I came across this gem:

Not unreasonable.

Um. It is true that Jesus was a Jew; I agree that evidence of things which don't fit Jewishness -- as it was in not-very-orthodox Galillee -- must be of interest, and may be queried. But ...

Is this criterion different, for practical purposes, from demanding that every story must be confirmed by some surviving other source in early Judaism?

If so, this does not, on the face of it, make good sense. How many texts outside the NT will pass this test?

Of course it would be nice if they did. But do we discard all history based on a single source? If so, do we not lose all history of Britain after 396?

Well, it is certainly the case that awkwardness can be evidence of lack of tampering in the historical record. It can also arise from lack of skill in composition, and a hundred other ways. But again...

Is this saying that if those taught by the apostles, who knew them personally, lived in the oral tradition, and may have known the gospel writers, if they support something it can't be true? It sounds very like it to me. If not, won't it come to the same thing in practical terms?

It's depressing to me to read this stuff. There is a reason why I can't take NT studies seriously as an academic subject, and this is it.

I agree we need to descope bias, and I think our bias has to be first! We need to account for the bias in our sources in an objective way if we can. But once we reach the stage of writing history as above, IMHO history is dead and only rhetoric remains.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

If you are concerned that the gospels are being wrongly categorized as historical or semi-historical (instead of as, say, Greek romances), then attacking the criterion of embarrassment on that account is a non sequitur unless embarrassment is being used to determine whether the gospels belong to an historical genre in the first place. But then I would like to know whom you have in mind.

I think most scholars regard the gospels as at least trying to give history before they apply the criterion. Once we think a work is trying to present historical fact, then it seems legitimate to read that work against itself (as with the embarrassment criterion) to see which parts of it can lay claim to being historical.

I think so. Firestone Tires, as a corporate entity, was probably embarrassed at the tire recall scandal a few years ago, and anybody speaking on behalf of Firestone probably shared in that embarrassment, and could probably be trusted when admitting that model such-and-such was prone to blow out for no good reason.

But of course we would always have to be on the lookout for the rogue employee, the iconoclast, the malcontent within the system. Perhaps you think Mark fits that profile.

It has gone wrong if it is being used to demonstrate genre. But, again, I would wonder whom you have in mind.

Ben.

Amaleq13

How is that not circular reasoning?

Is that how scholars regard other religious texts prior to applying criteria?

Unless the author identifies something as embarrassing to him, you are simply projecting your own assumptions about what you think "should" have been embarrassing to him.

Arguments that the authors of Matthew and Luke are embarrassed by Mark's baptism scene are founded on the assumption that they copied from Mark but felt compelled to change the story. It is not founded on subjective scholarly imaginings of what "should" have embarrassed those authors. There is nothing similar to suggest embarrassment on the part of Mark's author so there is nothing to suggest he was compelled by history to write the scene in the way he did.

The criterion only offers a possible explanation for subsequent changes to a known account. It does absolutely nothing to establish or even suggest the historicity of the original version of the story.

mata leao

circumstantial, cause and effect, reputation,"influence", etc are evidential archetypes and certainly have a place at the professional historical table. It is logical to conclude from the totality of evidence that Jesus was an historical figure.

hallq

Mmmm... most religious texts do seem to be *trying* to give a history. Its a question of how well they do this.

The basic mythicist reasoning here baffles me. There seems to be a distinction between religious and historical texts, and if "religious" texts are not backed up by "historical" ones, any argument for the historical worth of "religious" texts is condemned as circular. Why not extend a similar argument to all ancient history: we have no evidence for the historical value of texts about Alexander the Great outside of those texts, ergo, any argument for the historicity of these texts must be circular.

I'm all for skepticism when supposed histories report miracles. To automatically classify such texst as being of no historical value makes no sense to me, though.

Amaleq13

No, most religious texts are trying to express theological concepts and some can record historical events as a byproduct of this primary consideration.

You are confusing questioning the basis for identifying historically reliable information in the Gospel stories and mythicism. If recording history was not the primary intent of the author, then historical accuracy must be understood as secondary at best and it is only reasonable to expect external support especially with regard to claims that are theologically significant.

No, circular reasoning occurs when one assumes a given text contains reliable history before applying criteria intended to establish reliable historicity.

Historians certainly take into account whether a given claim from non-religious ancient texts is unique and without external support.

Even casual research will show that this is simply not true.

Nobody here is doing this so it is a straw man.

Ben C Smith

How is it? I am afraid I do not understand the objection. To come to a conclusion about the genre of a work without using embarrassment (that is, using other methods or criteria entirely), then to apply embarrassment to the work because of our decision on genre... what trace of circularity is there in that?

The criterion of embarrassment, as I understand it (!), is not meant to prove that a given text is a work of history. It is meant to be applied to texts already thought to contain history.

Religious text is not a genre. There is religious history, and there is religious fiction. And religious poetry. And religious music. And religious recipe books.

And each kind requires its own methodology, does it not?

Correct. And that is why I am, as I stated in my other post, rootedly opposed to using what we think is embarrassing as any kind of guide whatsoever. The embarrassment must come from the author, usually in the form of what is conceded and how that concession is handled.

I agree completely.

I myself pointed this out in my first post on this thread. Again, I agree completely.

Again a point that I made in my first post on this thread.

You keep restating my own established position as if trying to prove that position to me. Is it possible that you are confusing me with someone else?

Ben.