Brooke

No, I do not think that is the sole or main motivation. That said, there often seems to be an implicit assumption at play that is problematic: that conservative historiography (i.e. taking the sources seriously) necessarily correlates to conservative theology (i.e. taking the theological claims seriously). The point I am making is that one can have a high view of the historiography of the Gospel narrative while having a low view of the theological claims contained therein.

Brooke

This demonstrates exactly the assumption I am critiquing. My conclusions are taken on historiographic grounds (note that inconsistences between the Gospel accounts do not mean that the evangelists were unconcerned with depicting reality as it was, but simply that they had different ideas--often false or inaccurate ideas--about what that reality was), not theological. However, your statement suggests that there is either a theological agenda at play, or that my historiography will inevitably lead to a theological position. This suggests that, in fact, your radically mythic hermeneutic for reading the Gospels has a theological agenda itself, even if that theological agenda is atheist. My point stands in direct opposition to the above aphorism: one's historiography can vary independently of one's theology. History is not theology.

Incidentally, "myth" and history need not be opposed. Myth is perhaps better understood as a mode of interpreting reality. There are at least two categories of myth, really: myths that interpret history, and myths that invent history. I am quite convinced that much (most?) of the Gospel narratives are myth, in at least the former sense. For instance, I think it improbable that a religious movement would spring up around the worship of a criminal executed by the state if such an individual had not existed. The very scandal of a crucified Messiah, I would argue, points towards an event at the heart of this story. However, the salvation history and cosmic significance attached to this event is, I would also argue, purely mythical. I would not object to mythical readings per se (indeed, my M.A. thesis was effectively a reading of the Johannine doctrine of incarnation as a mythical interpretation of Jesus' life), but to all-or-nothing approach which says it is all is myth or all history is much too simplistic.

Brooke

This statement is true if and only one excludes the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, the Acts of the Apostles, Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the First, Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude, the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ and 1 Clement. Your statement should read "No extant non-Christian first century writings." I would argue that the very fact that of a religious movement devoted to the memory and worship of a criminal executed by the state is pretty solid evidence for the existence of said criminal executed by the state. If Jesus did not exist, if Jesus was not executed by the state, why did all these people risk ridicule (or worse) by remembering, following and worshipping an executed criminal.

Again, though, this is off-topic from the intention of this thread: the relationship between history (more precisely, perhaps, historiograph) and theology in readings of the Gospel narratives.

Brooke

Actually, much the opposite. My historiography is more conservative than most of my theologically conservative classmates and professors, as well as other scholars, etc. (I often joke about the fact that I, the atheist, see more history in the Gospels than does my supervisor, who is a Lutheran minister). So, I am usually fighting on both fronts: for a more conservative historiography, and against using the texts as warrants for contemporary theologies. If I were interested in appeasement, I would in fact have a less conservative historiography.

My historiography comes down to basically one principle: where there is smoke, there is fire. When you have a bunch of people saying that a guy named Jesus lived in Palestine c. 30 C.E. and was put to death by the powers-that-be in that time and place, good chance this happened. Likewise, when a bunch of people tell me that there was a traffic accident at Main and James, I am inclined to believe them. Smoke, fire. If one person says 3 people were killed and another says 4, I do not throw up my hands and say "There was no accident!" I say "I wonder what the exact details are." Inconsistency in detail is not really an argument against the occurence of an event, but rather a reflection of the quite ordinary human phenomenon of confusion over detail.

Brooke

It does, of course. The fact that I accept that much of the Gospels contains genuine historical reminiscence does not mean that I do not scrutinise that material.

That said, I do think that certain questions are better answered by taking the Gospel tradition as a whole rather than by focussing upon individual passages abstracted from their literary contexts (as historical Jesus studies tends to do). For instance, as I indicated in previous posts, I think that the very fact that a religious centred upon remembering his death as an executed criminal speaks powerfully to his existence.

Doug Shaver

Does your inclination to believe depend at all on whether the people telling you there was an accident are also telling you that they saw the accident?

There is no testimony to Jesus' existence from anyone who we have good reason to think had ever met the man or knew anybody who had met him. (And circular arguments don't count as good reasons, either.)

Gregg

But, Brooke, you actually do NOT have a "bunch of people" saying this. You have ONE person ... "Mark." Scholars agree that all the other gospels are based on Mark. Why? If the writers of the other gospels all knew about Jesus and his ministry, why didn't they sit down and pen their own, original version of the story? Why did they all copy and paste big sections of Mark? Even John isn't as "independent" as it appears at first glance. And why did they start writing about such a powerful event in their lives so long after Jesus' death?

You might say a "bunch of people" wrote about Jesus in the epistles, which were written much earlier than the gospels. Really? Show me where they talk about some man they remember, some detail of his earthly existence. Where was he born? Who were his parents? Who were his friends? Where did he live? What did he teach? Where was he crucified? Who crucified him? At best you can find maybe 1 or 2 verses that are easily explained as later interpolations, and a couple of others that can just as easily refer to a heavenly Christ with human qualities as to an actual man. I believe there's a reference to "brothers of the Lord" but the context clearly suggests this means spiritual brothers, not biological brothers. There are passages where you would expect to find references to Jesus and his teachings and they aren't there ... instead the "teachings" of the Christ are drawn from the Jewish scriptures. There are other passages where there is simply no room for Jesus and his ministry whatsoever! Paul and apostles like him had the Christ and his sacrifice/resurrection revealed to them via the Jewish scriptures (rather than witnessing it themselves or being told about it by other people), and now they are preaching the good news. No mention that the Christ himself had been the first to preach the good news on Earth, that the Christ's sacrifice for the salvation of the world had just recently occurred outside Jerusalem. Paul yearns to know Jesus' suffering and the power of his resurrection, yet he goes to Jerusalem and makes no mention of what it was like walking the same streets his Savior walked, of standing in the place where he died.

You would expect that we would find Jesus' basic story in the epistles, references to his teachings, and so on, which the Gospel writers then drew from in writing their stories. But there is nothing. Please don't use those excuses "everybody already knew the story, so there was no need to repeat it" or "Paul and the other letter writers just weren't interested in Jesus' earthly life." Was this not a growing faith? Would there have been no need whatsoever to explain, to justify to potential converts the reason for having faith that a man they had never seen, who was crucified as a rebel, was the Christ, God's agent of creation, pre-existent with the Father, and their assurance of eternal salvation? Never mind that Christians have not stopped talking about Jesus' life, or what they think they know about it from the gospels (and no other source) for almost 2,000 years. Why did people supposedly talk about Jesus' ministry, but then never wrote about what they talked about? Not one of them ... not a whisper ... until Mark some 40 or 50 years later!

I really encourage you to go to www.jesuspuzzle.org and read Doherty's thesis. It's fascinating stuff.

LGM

This already makes the assumption that the gospel accounts were written by authors who witnessed the "reality" of what they describe. I'm sure you're aware that NT scholars typically accept Mark as the earliest canonical gospel, and not surprisingly, it is also the least sophisticated of the gospels in terms of details and christology. We don't know who "mark" really was, and the author of mark never claims to be a witness to what he writes about, nor does the author ever state the sources of any of the information in his narratives. Thus, this is not a historical document by any stretch of the imagination. At best it is a collection hearsay, at worst it is a sacred fictional allegory written in the tradition of Jewish midrash, to give a new earthly existence to the mythical messianic savior, that evangelists like Paul never placed on earth in their "gospels".

Thus, starting from the assumption that any of the gospels are "history", is a bad one.

The entire NT is a conflation of various theological agendas at play from various evangelists. How would you easily seperate historical narrative from theological agenda?

Why is it "radical"? Why is it "atheist"? The Jew or Muslim could easily come to the same conclusions as Doherty while still believing in some version of the Abrahamic god.

And since the NT gospels, and the Book of Acts, are clearly theological in nature, and their authorship and sources are never clearly identified, they should not be taken seriously as "history", except by those who need, or want to follow "tradition".

Sorry. Historical fact, and historical fiction do stand opposed.

Really?

Please tell us which category the birth of Jesus and the birth of Achilles belong to.
Please tell me how you would discern what part of the Jesus birth narratives are "historical", beyond the meaningless claim that their lived an ancient man named Yeshua who was born.

Do you also think it impropable that the Mormons would exist if the golden plates of Nephi had not existed?

"points" towards what "event"?

And if things are simple, that's bad?

It seems you are arguing that the gospel accounts are "largely" mythical, but "point towards" some possible historical event.

That's great, but no one disputes that, other then NT biblical literalists.
No one is arguing that there wasn't a place called Jerusalem, that there was a temple there, that the Romans were an occupying force there, and that Herod Antipas was a political leader there, in the first century.

But beyond those well established historical facts, I would be interested in your methodolgy for determining what other parts of the synoptic gospels or John's gospel are "historical facts", and how you arrived at that conclusion.

This is a game that has been played at length by the "Historical Jesus" cottage industry, using various methodologies, and producing a wide range of "answers", all supported by scholarly exegesis of the same documents.

And to what end?

If you don't believe in the theology of the gospels, and the resurrection and divinity of Jesus, why does trying to figure out if he was really from Nazareth, or was really tried by Pilate and/or Herod, or was crucified and buried in a tomb, really matter? He's no more fascinating a character then the countless other zealots of the time. It's just his mythology is better preserved by a quirk of fate and some excellent franchising.

spin

Why didn't you respond to my comments directed towards you? Here it is again:

plus
How would you know?

I asked in my comments directed towards you to supply something a bit more tangible than this sort of comment.

Why fall over your assumptions in public? I don't have a mythic hermeneutic in operation. I am not an atheist.

If you would like to deal with historiography please do. If you would like yto deal with attempts at reclaiming history in the gospel narratives, please do. We know that history is not theology. But you need to get beyond that realisation.

They are not dealing with the same thing.

This may or may not be true. It depends on the myth. However, I'm not interested in myth, but history. This was where you came in.

History is about uncovering what happened in the past. Myth is about other things, such as why we do things, who we are, where we have come from. As I said, they are not dealing with the same thing.

And I don't see that the gospels are myth.

Could a religious movement start up around the worship of someone who died to save you?

Is how the figure died as important as the fact that you were saved by his actions? When one tries to rationalize a religion they can very often over-rationalize and miss out on its appeal.

I would argue that you are simply conjecturing about the trappings and missing the religion.

This may be the case, but it doesn't help you in any respect with your initial position.

Now that it's gone off half-cocked you might like to reload and try again.

We try to deal with the tangible here. If you want to say something, you normally provide why you say it, here as in sources that you are contemplating that lead you to your conclusions. This is what I tried to underline in what I posted previously.

Your opening post contained this information:
As you haven't been around long you won't know that we've been through such simple issues as the conflict between the dates supplied by Matthew and Luke as to the date of birth of their hero. You would be interested to know that Nazareth is nowhere near as central to the tradition as you seem to think. Even the date of 30 CE should be taken with a grain of salt, if we work on the notion that Jesus died at least a year after John the baptist and that Josephus supplies indications of a later death of John than 30 CE.

I personally lean toward the theory that we have caught the evolution of christianity rather late when we look at the gospels, though they bear traces of that evolution. This would mean that making historical conclusions based on the final form of the earliest versions of the texts we have is extremely difficult. Most of your conclusions I cite must be questioned if this is correct.


spin

Gregg

Ah, the ever popular "argument from embarrassment."

Isn't it interesting that in all the first century writings and clear up to, I think (not sure of the timeline) the middle to late 2nd century, when the gospels were coming into wider use (finally! took long enough for more Christians to be interested in the life of their savior!) there is NO DEFENSE of the practice of worshiping a criminal executed by the state as the Christ, the divine agent of creation, pre-existent with the Father, and the savior of the world, through whom all things were made and through whom the universe was reconciled to God, and so forth and so on, amen? Why is this, do you think? Did Paul and the other apostles have no need to explain to new converts (many who were also being courted by followers of "another Christ" who was NOT crucified--weird!) why a crucified criminal who didn't seem much different from thousands of other crucified criminals merited this special distinction? Visions? So what? Everybody had visions! He rose from the dead? Do you think claims like this were rare in the first century?

Yes, Paul defends the faith against those who regard the crucifixion as "folly" (again, other Christians who don't preach Christ crucified! Where are these people coming from?) but this is defending the crucifixion, not the person crucified. Nowhere does Paul seem put to task by people ridiculing him for worshiping an executed criminal as a god. Perhaps because he himself never made such a claim? Perhaps he never made such a claim because he was NOT worshipping any such thing?

Again, not until something like the mid-2nd century do we have Christians offering up defenses for worshiping a crucified man as a god. Coincidentally (?), this is around the same time the gospels are coming into wider use. So it would seem that up until this time most Christians made no claim that they were worshiping a crucified man as a god. Did they remain silent on this point, out of embarrassment, all this time? They certainly kept the secret well, then. People knew the Christians worshiped a crucified savior, this is what converts were told, yet for a hundred years or more Christians and their opponents alike politely left unsaid the fact that his being crucified would have made him a criminal.

Until that guy Mark broke the silence, let the cat out of the bag. Blast! Now we have to defend what for many is indefensible! So how do the Christians defend this at first? Well, one Christian actually says, more or less, "That's just a story, like your stories about your gods." Wow. No need for Christians to be embarrassed, Jesus wasn't really crucified by the Romans as a criminal ... it's just an allegory.

Because, at this point, most Christians still believed what the early Christians like Paul believed; that, according to an inspired reading of the Jewish scriptures, the Christ had descended into the lower heavens, taken on the "likeness" of flesh (mystically born of a woman, under the law, as required of the Messiah) where he was crucified by the archons, the demon rulers who controlled the world of matter and plagued mankind. Then he returned to life and reasserted divine authority over the Earth. And, like the adherents of the mystery cults, the Christian believer could "die" with Christ and be resurrected with him into eternal life.

No earthly ministry. No god being born of an actual human woman, becoming an actual human being, living a human life, preaching and teaching, dying a human death on an actual wooden cross at the hands of actual Jewish and Roman authorities. Hence no embarrassment, no need to defend against charges of worshiping a criminal. Not until the gospels came into wider use, and even then, some Christians said, "It's just an allegory." (Ignatius apparently believed some version of the gospel story, although we don't know if he'd actually read a gospel, but not all Christians did).

What also happens when the Gospels become central to the Christian faith, when people start seeing them as biographies, rather than allegories? Only THEN do issues start arising about Jesus' nature ... fully human or fully divine, or somehow both? Why no need to deal with these questions before? Because before, Christians hadn't believed that Jesus had actually been on Earth. The process by which Jesus had become "human" enough to suffer, bleed, and die had been a mystical one, taking place in a heavenly dimension. Bringing Jesus to Earth and making him a real person born to a real woman introduced new wrinkles that had to be ironed out.