Haran

There really isn't much need to support it. The history does that on its own. Exclusively, the 4 gospels were accepted as canonical from almost the beginning by tradition. This is found in church fathers statements, quotes, and the earliest canon lists.

The "Orthodox" against the world is something dreamed up by Bart Ehrman and his predecessor....I forget his name, but I'm sure you remember it...Bauer...I don't remember at the moment.

The "Orthodox", in my opinion based on the history I've read and understand, were the recipients of the traditions handed down by the origianl apostles...one of the groups had to be if there was real history behind it all... I happen to believe that the Orthodox preserved the best historical traditions, overall, to the apostles and the history of Jesus.

With respect to later biblical interpretations, the "Orthodox" and the other groups backed up their positions with biblical scriptures. I find the thinking of the "Orthodox" to usually be the more sound and rational interpretations.

It is subjective, but so is anything that you or anyone else may happen to believe about it all.

Haran

First of all, I don't lend much credence to Carrier's historical analyses. Second, I believe he is mistaken. Professional historians are certainly skeptical of their sources, but to say that they do not give them any benefit of the doubt I find to be completely erroneous. They would reject the history of the world. There is little if anything that they could understand about ancient people, places, and events because much of the historical texts are only preserved in medieval copies of ancient historical texts. In order to write history books, they either lend some credence to the accounts found in these late copies of ancient history, or they rewrite history from their own, likely mistaken and certainly subjective, views.

The Bishop

No indeed. But historical investigation of Gospel reliability, in the main is not quite as naive as that of "Evangelical Apologists" and it's disingenuous to claim that it is.

Well, I'm not finding any particular criticism of serious NT scholarship as being contrary to that position. Indeed no serious historical argument is based on a single source or piece of evidence. This doesn't apply to NT scholarship, since there are several sources. Not only are there several individual documents which are consistent on many areas of detail, there are actually a plethora of copies of those documents which are centuries older than many other historical sources for the same period.

I certainly don't read the Gospels as unvarnished truth, or even more than a skeleton of truth on which a great deal of mythologising has taken place, but when all four gospels state that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, I'm inclined to believe them. When all four gospels by and large agree on the principal personnel involved in the Jesus story, from the names of his closest followers (some of whom are likely to have been alive in the period the Gospels were being written) to the Roman and Jewish authorities in Jerusalem at the time, I'm inclined to accept what they say. When all four Gospels state that Jesus was tried and crucified, I think it's likely that that's what happened to him.

People have come back at some of my previous posts with "What about the virgin birth then, do you believe that? Or the Resurrection?" Well, the v.b. is not described in all the Gospels, and in the two which it is, the stories are totally different. The Resurrection is inconsistent not only between all four gospels but also with its first description by Paul. I don't have to reject those tales on the rational grounds that they are impossible, I have perfectly valid historical reasons for rejecting them also.

dog-on

In response to The Bishop, you seem to discount the fact that all these writings are arguing a similar theological point of view. Do you mean to imply that the writings were each created in a vacuum with no possibility that the authors were influenced by the prevailing theological sentiments of the time, common stories and, not least of all, by each other?

Haran

"Evangelical Apologists" as naive and disingenuous is a myth. Apologists are simply explaining their faith-based views of history. It is no more disingenuous than others here who spout supposed history from their own faith-based views of history.

Apologist does not equate to "disingenuous" nor does it equte to "dishonest". These are smears and ad hominems used to poison the well and discredit those who honestly believe in the truth of the bible and are honestly seeking the history they believe to be behind it.

Personally, I find many of the views expressed by the multitudes here could be considered quite naive and disingenuous (and even at times dishonest) because taking all the threads in this forum saved over time nearly every portion of the Bible would be rejected as forgery, fake, or exaggeration (and all of this based on these people's faith in their own views - which, I might add, are rarely even based on the historical texts they deny).

Amaleq13

Haran,

Thank you for at least responding to my question though that was a rather long-winded and convoluted way to admit that you do not know of any exceptions.

Haran

Heh...you're welcome. My post was rather short, so I don't really understnad the "long-winded and convoluted" part, but if you really think what you wrote, then I'm not sure you understood my post very well. It seems that you have faith in the historical positions of Bart Ehrman and Bauer? that all early Christianities were equal and that "Orthodoxy" simply won out. I do not have faith in this viewpoint and find it wrong-headed.

Amaleq13

As your response takes the place of a single, two-letter reply, I think the description is apt.

I understand that you offered no example of the early church fathers applying rational thought to the evidence in order to differentiate between authentic and inauthentic texts and I assume that you would have offered such an example if you knew of one.

This is a total non sequitur. I base my conclusion about the method/process by which the early church fathers reached their decisions on my familiarity with how they, themselves, described it. Serapion, for example, rejected the Gospel of Peter because it appeared to him to support heretical beliefs.

Gamera

The problem with this analysis is its naivety. No modern historian would assume anybody doesn't have an axe to grind.

So what you've done is bracket off "history", which you assume is written by people without agendas, from "christian history" which you assume is written by people with an agenda. This is hopelessly naive since Foucault utterly changed the nature of historical analysis. Everybody has an axe to grind, and all of history is the history of ground axes.

So your whole premise of "true" history vs. falsified history by people with agendas makes no sense from the start. Instead of going down the road of motivations, modern historians assume agendas and so seek other means to verify the historicity of claims in texts.

Gamera

Well, any post-structural history will deny a coherent narrative to history, and will assume that we generate narratives about the past for our own political and institutional purposes. History is a series of discontinuities in postmodern thought, which discourse attempts to assimilate into a narrative that privileges whoever is making the discourse.

Thus, a secular historian will construct a narrative in which Christian scholars and their institutions generate falsified or redacted texts for their own purposes, which are generally seen as political and power oriented.

A Christain scholar might construct a narrative whereby the texts accurate reflect the historicity of Jesus.

Both are narrative made by us, and there is no there there except for the narrative.