James Still

You've explained yourself very well Brian, thanks for addressing it right up front. (I brought it up because debates too often get sidetracked over such things when they should stick to the arguments.)

Hi Kosh

I would agree that an argument like this should not be settled by vote, but what I will point out, is that when offering authoritative sources for the historicity of Jesus, the qualifications of the authority will have some bearing on the question. For example, the divide between mythers and non-mythers is not the same as that which exists between atheists and theists. On this question, the overwhelming majority of scholars of any theistic persuasion agrees that Jesus did exist.

For my part, I am going to rely as much as is possible on the non-Christian (or at least non-orthodox Christian) authorities, if only to demonstrate that there is no vast conspiracy to silence dissenting opinions about the historical Jesus. When I offer the opinion of orthodox scholars, then I will also attempt to demonstrate that the opinions being offered by these individuals is in no significant way outside of the mainstream of scholarly thought.

In all cases, of course, the most important thing will be the evidence that is being offered, but I do hope that the readers will give careful consideration to an expert opinion when he or she tells us that they find this piece of evidence to be very compelling in the overall argument.

I agree, and this is what I will do. At the same time, I will also be encouraging the readers of the debate to pick up many of these books and read them for themselves. I believe that the more informed one becomes about the study of history in general, and the historical Jesus in particular, the better. I would certainly hope that no one will make up their minds for the historicity of Jesus based only on my arguments (or that of any other individual). As much as each is able, I hope that everyone will find themselves motivated by this debate to dig into this subject in more depth.

Knowledge is always a good thing, and in order to form an opinion on this (or any other important) question, it is always better to have more information, and from as many sources as is possible.

Brian (Nomad)

I find it interesting to see how people construct their arguments in this kind of debate. Right now, there is a risk that it becomes a match between who can wheel out the most, and the best accredited, scholars who happen to agree with any particular point one wants to make. Brian/Nomad’s insistence on literal quotes, complete with page numbers and all, shows this nicely.

I want to contrast this with the scientific literature in, say, natural sciences. In my field, Earth Science, authors do of course build on previous work using references. However, these are seldom, if ever, in the form of quotations, nor does it matter very much what the credentials of the quoted authors are, as long as the references come from the peer-reviewed literature. Titles are not used.

The point of references in such papers is to provide background, supporting data and previous work relating to one’s own research – it is emphatically not to try and show how many others agree with your particular point. References are required because no-one can present and analyse the vast amount of data relating to any particular issue on his own- their purpose is not to shore up your credibility by presenting someone else who agrees with you.

The focus of a paper should be the data and the interpretations, placed in the context of other, accepted work. If one's argument can't stand on its own data, you don't have one.

To stay on topic rather than engaging in a ‘reference war’, I suggest that, unless totally non-controversial, references to non-peer reviewed publications are simply out of bounds. As far as peer-reviewed literature is concerned, refrain from presenting literal quotes, but instead briefly summarise the referred author’s position and his arguments, and give the only title of the paper, which journal or proceedings it was published in, and year of publication.

If, at the end of the day, the data are insufficient and contradictory, and don’t really allow a clear conclusion one way or the other, than so be it. Trying to hide such an unfortunate fact behind a barrage of quotations from others who have pushed it beyond the resolution may be good apologetics, but it sure is bad science.

And this remark would of course apply equally well to both sides.

fG

The problem is that we have no idea where Doherty is getting his data and interpretations. If you can't check the validity of his data, then you can only take him at his word. Unfortunately, I believe many things he says to be generalizations and exaggerations. How can you find out whether they are or not without reading the sources that lead him to his conclusions? This is simply the way the scholars work.

Ish

Hello fG

While I do understand your concerns, I assure you that it is not my intent to merely appeal to various authorities, weilding their opinions like a club, and then declare victory over Earl.

At the same time, I am going to insist that when statements are made, and authorities are appealed to in support of those statements, that we have some sources to cross check and verify. This strikes me as being very prudent, since anyone can say something like "scholars believe X" or "a majority of scholars say Y". With no way to check out such a claim, how can we know how strong the argument really is.

I am going to be especially insistent on this point since in a number of cases where Earl has actually said things like this, he has seriously overstated his case, or actually been wrong. To me this leaves his research methods open to serious scepticism, and I think it is best that we have some sources to back him up.

As I mentioned on the Interpolations in Scripture thread, comparing the work of the sciences of history (textual criticism, anthropology, archeology, sociology and the like) to that of the natural sciences is not helpful. When we are talking about the study of human beings (especially ones from a different era and culture), results cannot be expected to be as hard and fast as they are when we study nature.

Thus, I accept that experts in the fields of historical and human studies are going to differ in their findings. It would be extremely odd if they did not. But I do give a great deal of credibilty to the opinions of experts trained in this field, and believe that their arguments, methods, and conclusions must be given special weight when discussing the study of history.

What I will say is that no one should make their decisions based solely on how many experts agree on a point. Clearly all of them could be wrong. But if the overwhelming majority of experts from all of the relevant fields agree on a point, I do think that is worth noting, and should give us a pretty good idea of what evidence (that may not be clear to the layman) actually says. I think we should also be very sceptical of anyone that says all, or most of the experts that disagree with our position do so because of some hidden bias or pressures.

I agree that we should focus on the arguments themselves, more than on the qualifications of the expert himself. Noting obvious biases from these experts should also be a part of the equation. But that said, if a variety of experts from numerous fields, and competing interests, and opposing ideologies or theologies agree on a point, that should be given considerable weight.

Thus, for example, if a trained classical historian who happens to be a sceptic and an atheist agrees with a Christian theologian and textual critic, then we should give extra weight to such conclusions and arguments. And the more experts from a variety of fields and theological prejudices that agree, the more powerful the argument will become, especially if that argument is reasonable and supported by the available evidence.

I would add to this that if I or Earl offers an opinion that is based only on our own beliefs, that this be seriously questioned by the readers. If I cannot produce a single support for my assertions, then it should not be given much weight, and the same is true of Earl.

For my part I will probably offer substantial quotations, if only to demonstrate that I am not "spinning" the position being offered. The temptation to do this is great, and by giving primary evidence (together with sources and references that can be easily checked), I hope that the confidence the reader has in my presentation (and that I am being fair in that presentation) will go up considerably. If someone is unwilling or reluctant to offer such primary evidence, then I think a very large red flag should go off in the mind of any objective reader of the post.

I hope this clarifies how I hope that the debate, arguments, and supports will be presented and evaluated.

Peace,

Brian (Nomad)

Brian,

Thanks for responding to my suggestions on how to handle references. I hope that this sub-discussion doesn’t eat up too much of your time, to the detriment of the actual debate with ED itself!

I understand that you want to fall back, when you think it necessary, on the support of experts in the field. There is in itself nothing wrong with that, but in the case of this particular discussion topic I fear that there may be some unusual risks involved in this.

You say:
But we must keep in mind that this particular topic goes straight to the heart of the Christian believer. Such a person has simply no choice but to accept the historicity of Jesus, on the penalty of giving up his beliefs and worldview. This is a very unusual situation for a debater to be in. (In fact, one might wonder if there is any point in debating this issue with a Christian at all!) However, given the fact that you are engaged in this how do we mitigate this undeniable risk that you have virtually no room to manoeuvre? I would say that the best way would be to go straight to the data itself, bypassing ‘scholarly opinion’ because, yes, the risk of hidden pressures and biases does exist and is actually quite high.

I do accept that there may also very well be a risk in the opposite position, since a die-hard anti-Christian might see the mythification of Jesus as a ‘quick-win’ solution for the debunking of Christianity. However, a less militant sceptic may in principle be willing to accept the historicity of Jesus without fearing that he gives too much ground (I think this is nicely demonstrated by the majority of the non-Chritstian responses to my little poll, which appeared quite moderate). For the sake of evenness I would say, let’s assume symmetry in the positions, and therefore minimise the argument from authority as much as possible from both sides.

I do see your point about common ‘expert opinions’ from both sides of the fence. Maybe this points to an unconventional way around the problem: You limit yourself to references from non-Christian sources, and Earl Doherty limits himself to references from Christian sources - any suggestion of bias would then be ridiculous.

Too drastic ?

fG


[This message has been edited by faded_Glory (edited May 10, 2001).]

Thank you, faded_Glory, for your fine posts emphasizing the importance of evidence rather than consensus. Indeed, if the "winner" in this "game" is determined by who can produce more knowledgeable people to support his views, then Brian will annihilate Earl, and Earl knows this. To take an example from your initial post, Brian, it's all well and good to learn the results of Raymond Brown's poll, but it's much more useful to know WHY these people date the pastorals between 80 and 100 CE.

Earl can certainly do better with his references. But I do hope, Brian, that in subsequent posts to Earl, you will keep your promise of focusing more on arguments concerning HJ and less on citations, credentials, motives and phrasing. I'll offer a few more comments.

Keep in mind when claiming what most scholars say, that you and Earl probably have different ideas of what constitutes a scholar, or at least a critical scholar.

You describe this, among other things, as "astonishing" in light of the disputed Josephus passages. Yet, the English is perfectly correct and anyone reading will know exactly what he means. You spent over half a buffer (on my monitor) on a matter which boils down to you and Earl having different interpretations of the word "clear".

You've certainly written a good deal on this matter. Maybe Earl's right, maybe not. One way to find out is to simply present a stronger case for HJ, forcing us all to conclude that it is Earl who is suffering from problems with bias and denial.

Finally, I'm afraid I found your discussion on Earl's Greek inappropriate and unprofessional. I'm no more qualified than you to evaluate the translations, and wonder about them as well. On the other hand, is it not true that bible translations are (1) largely designed for readability, and (2) done under the assumption that the authors had an HJ in mind?

If I were in your place, rather than spending hundreds of words sounding a red alert that the man MIGHT be biased and unqualified, I would just quickly say I'm unsure, not yet convinced about his translations and admit I'm unqualified to judge them. If it were important enough to me, I would try to track down someone who IS qualified. You wrote "On this thread I will ask Earl to provide sources and independent translations of the Greek." Well, there's no harm in asking, but if you have doubts about a translation, it's your job moreso than Earl's to find another source.

I don't want to sound like I have only complaints about your post! No, there were plenty of interesting points as well, and I'm happy you're taking the time for this discussion. Take care

Bill

There are a couple of problems with your statement, and the assumptions that underlay it fG. First, you presuppose that the only people that are going to care about the question of the historicity of Jesus will be Christians. This is simply not the case, and as can be shown, atheists, agnostics and non-Christians experts alike all agree on this question. So, to use a previous analogy, it is axiomatic that only Christian fundamentalists and literalists believe in Young Earth Creationism. On this basis it is reasonable to argue that such people are hopelessly compromised by their biases and a priori assumptions to consider the evidence in a non-biased manner. In the case of arguing the historicity of Jesus, however, all of the experts, including those that would have at least some motivation to disbelieve in the existence of Jesus (like atheists, and militant anti-Christians) accept, based on the evidence, that he did exist.

Quite simply, what you are seeing from the mythers like Earl is an example of what historians call “reading history backwards” (gonna cite E.P. Sanders for that one, but he may not have been the first to coin the phrase). Like the fundamentalist Christian, the myther starts with a theory. In his case, it is that Jesus is a mythological construct, and no historical person ever lived and did the things attributed to him. In the case of the fundamentalist, he will insist that the Bible is literally true in everything (except where he says that it is not literal, but that is a separate problem), and then insist that no contradictions exist at all. Both will then read the Bible and all other evidence with these blinders on, and resort to the most contorted feats of logic in order to squeeze every bit of evidence into the mold needed to support their claims. For those of us that watch such mental gymnastics in action, the results are almost embarrassing, and the obviousness of the tortured reasoning becomes apparent very quickly.

Watch for the following clues in order to see a person doing what I have just described above:

1) Do they say that they alone are right, and everyone that disagrees with them is too biased to form a reasonable opinion on the matter?
2) Does this person reject the right of the experts in the field to speak authoritatively on the subjects in question, or even deny that there is anything like a science or field of expertise being employed? If they do this, do they have any support from scholars agreeing that the science really isn’t a science, and no one can really have any confidence in the studies done by experts in the field? If they do not have any support from any experts on this question, do they then resort to unprovable claims of conspiracies, and unspoken biases, peer pressures and group think?
3) Does this person refuse to use neutral sources in offering the definitions of words and terms used in the discussion? Is this especially true of the technical terms that are used by the experts in the field? For example, will this person refuse to use a dictionary, claiming it is biased? Or any and all scientific text book, claiming that the authors have an agenda, and cannot offer the alternative because it will jeopardize their world view? Or worse yet, do they deny that commonly accepted sciences are sciences at all? In the end, check and see if the person is offering arguments based on definitions that they themselves have had to manufacture.

If you see any of the above behaviour taking place, very loud alarm bells should be going off in your head. Is it possible for one (or an extremely small minority) of individuals to be right, and the rest of the world is wrong? Yes. Is this typically the case, however? I certainly hope not, because if it is, then how are we to judge which conspiracy theories are legitimate and worthy of investigation, and which are not? If none of them are expected to produce independent evidence to support their claims, then must we give all of them equal credence?

Let me ask you this fG. When an atheist debates the existence of God, is he in the situation where losing the debate means that he must admit that his world view is wrong? In other words, if I use your line of reasoning here, we must wonder if it is possible to have a debate with anyone that believes powerfully in anything. Once again I would suggest that we examine the belief, and see if and what specific biases one must hold in order to believe it. Does one have to be a Christian in order to believe that Jesus really existed? Of course not. So questioning the motivations and willingness to examine the evidence of the Christian here is not helpful here. The only alternative would then be to declare it an impossibility to have a constructive debate on the existence of God with a committed atheist (or a committed theist).

I hope that people will be content to evaluate my arguments and evidence independent of what they believe my motivations to be.

What evidence do you have that the “hidden pressures and biases” exist? Do you not see that by calling them “hidden” in the first place, the well is effectively poisoned? Further, in denying that anyone can have true expertise on the evidence, methods and study of history, don’t we simply declare history to be ultimately unknowable? If that is the case, then I would agree that debate is pointless. But I reject this idea completely, and since Earl seems willing to talk about history, and even assumes that we can know some things about it with at least some level of confidence, I see no way out of taking a look at what the experts in the study of history have to say.

If I may, do you consider a definition or argument offered by one side or the other, that cannot be supported by any experts to be an appeal to authority? I do. To me this is a straight line appeal to the authority of the debater himself, and where I come from, this is not considered to be acceptable. And if this particular definition or argument runs counter to the definitions and arguments put forward by every expert in the field, would you consider it to be acceptable? If your answer here is yes, then I think I am going to start another thread, because this is going to present HUGE problems in the examination of any history.

I am going to limit myself as much as is possible to the use of non-Christian sources, or at least what most people would consider to be non-traditional Christian sources. As for Earl, he is free to use any sources he wishes, of course, but one of my principle goals here is to show that in many key instances, the only source that he does have, is himself. In these cases, I hope people will expect more. I would ask no less of myself.

On the other hand, if presenting arguments and evidence that comes entirely from myself is thought to be acceptable, I may have to rethink my entire debating strategy here. I will say this, however, if I am allowed to say anything I want, and call it reasonable until someone disproves it, then that will make my job MUCH easier here.

My advice? Don’t let Earl or me off too easy when we present evidence.

Brian (Nomad)

As I said to fG, the only line I am going to draw on the presentation of evidence is when Earl wishes to appeal strictly to his own authority in translating the Greek of the Bible. Allow me to give you an example:

If you have ever debated a Mormon, they will tell you that the Bible is inerrant “only to the extent and degree that it has been properly translated”. By this, they mean that we must first accept Joseph Smith’s translation of the King James Bible. Naturally, anyone can see that this is sheer nonsense. Not only was Smith NOT an expert in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, but he felt perfectly free to offer completely new and highly idiosyncratic translations of these languages in order to fit his theological needs. He claimed that all translations of the Bible offered since the death of the first apostles was faulty and biased, so in order to get at the real meaning of what the authors meant, he had to take it upon himself to retranslate and clarify the Bible, and he had to be trusted to do this alone.

Does any of this sound familiar?

To make many of his theories work, and to give the supporting evidence he needs, Earl must retranslate the Greek in such a fashion that it says what he needs it to say. To buy that kind of argument is credulous in the extreme, and I would be astounded if anyone agreed that Earl could, or even should, be allowed to do this.

Actually, I am willing to listen to his definition of what a true scholar happens to be, and may well agree with him. If, however, he denies that textual critics are scholars, then we will definitely have a problem, and the discussion will be side tracked significantly as we address that point.

Here will be the problem though Bill. If Earl is allowed to say that the Greek that is translated as “X” by everyone except himself, actually means “Y”, then who can say who is right? It is guaranteed that the great majority of the readers of our debate will not know Koine Greek. So if these same people then say that Earl’s translation seems plausible (even though the experts in the field say that he is not), who are we to believe? To be honest, I did not expect Earl to object to his being asked to use a dictionary to support his definitions. This was definitely a first for me.

I am wondering if you see the double standard here. Would you suspect Earl’s translations to be biased to support his own arguments? I certainly do. And if he cannot produce evidence that anyone else reads the Greek the way he does, you think we should still accept his definitions for what reasons?

As to your second point, if the Greek DOES show that Jesus really did exist (or at least that those, like Paul, that wrote about him believed he existed here on earth), what conclusion do you think the great majority of readers of the Greek would think? I would say that it is very reasonable to say that they believe that Jesus really existed based on the evidence found in the original text. At the same time, if someone comes along, and tells you that the text does not say that at all, and HIS translation proves it (even as he refuses to give you his level of expertise and qualifications to translate the language), why would you believe him?

I am unqualified to judge Earl’s translations. That is why I am willing to check them against ANY source he wishes to offer that is not Earl Doherty. If he cannot produce such a source, then how in the world can we determine that he is giving us a good translation?

And by this are you saying that the person who is making the new claim and translation is right until proven wrong? Why does the burden of proof shift from him to the sceptic?

Peace,

Brian (Nomad)

Toto

Will do, Brian. Whenever I have gotten around to checking your sources, they haven't supported you. Too bad I can't be a full time fact checker.

I think you spent a lot of time attacking someone who is not Earl Doherty. Doherty plays the scholarly game according to its rules, which anyone can see by reading his material. He tells you exactly what he bases his opinion on, and it does not depend on hidden conspiracies or denying a proper role for expert opinion.

I am still intrigued by Doherty's thesis, but not sure if he has overstated his case. I think I will probably get more out of Richard Carrier's upcoming review of Doherty's book than I will out of the sparring match here.