spin

I'm pleased you can recognize a few of the names, Millard. (I threw in a few extra names for you to miss. Well done.)

But you avoided my question. I'll restate it: how did you decide what the "most significant movement" in the field of historiography in the "past 50 years" was: what puts those who have impressed you above the rest, or which writers don't you like and why? For yours not to have merely been an empty piece of rhetoric, you must be able to justify your claim.

<wave>


spin

mountainman

Just as well, since the notion itself is utterly rediculous.
Assessment of historicity requires the field of history, and
its standard contributory subfields, nothing more.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Gamera

Well, but you are directing your criticism toward the theology schools, so it is appropriate to query what you know about them.

Gamera

That's easy enough. Nobody writes history like Elton anymore, or if they do, most historians realize they are hopelessly naive.

Since Foucault (and really his intellectual predecessor Bachelard), the idea that history presents a coherent objective narrative subject to dispassionate transcription has been thoroughly discredited.

Now that doesn't mean people still don't write naive histories. They do. But even a brief review of a bibliography of works on historiagraphy or the curriculum of university history departments show that postmodernism has utterly occupied the field.

So, I would call that the most influential movement in historiography over the past 50 years, though you are welcome to defend whatever moribund dinosaur you want.

mountainman

My criticism is directed at the notion of historicity for Jesus and the rest of the Christian Party before Constantine elected them "the elect" c.325 CE. Christian theological schools assume the historical jesus as a postulate which is not able to be refuted, since it is a "given" according to their authority. Knowing this much about them, is enough to question the relevance of their teachings with respect to historicity and history. They are in the business of the HJ. It is a business, an old business with an imperial fraud at its basis.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

spin

So all the non-your-guys guys of the "past 50 years" that you've polled in your quest for the "most significant movement in the field of history" turns out to be one -- a potted misrepresentation of Geoffrey Elton. Impressive, don't you think?

You're quick to run to judgment with such pronouncements. Linguistics has always said amongst other things that the teller shapes the tale in telling -- that's why Chinese whispers is always successful --, while the social psychologist tells you the society shapes the teller. This is no reflection on the aim of the historian to attempt to tell it as it happened, merely on the outcome. Most historians put the emphasis on "attempt", readily aware of the problem and seeing themselves in history -- for there have been many historians before often dealing with exactly the same basic materials and there will be many afterwards. What changes, naturally, is the approach. Nothing has been "thoroughly discredited", except for believers in one thing or another.

Can you cite some non-naive histories not written by your centerfold girls?

Postmodernism has always been loud. (That's not a criticism, just an explanation for the manifestation.)

Crass oversimplifications will only content the surface scratcher in you. Judging by your expressed knowledge of historians, you've shown little knowledge of the historiography of the past 50 years. You have the starry eyed eagerness of a boy with his first book on the civil war, pouring over the uniforms of the soldiers. There's a bit more to the war than that. You aren't exactly being a successful point man for postmodernism with your boys' own version.


spin

aa5874

Well, can you explain your statement: As far as I know, there are no external non-apologetic source to corroborate any event with respect to Jesus of Nazareth, his disciples or any of the Pauls. No external source extant writings have mentioned the effects of Jesus of Nazareth on the culture or architecture of Judaea. Philo and Josephus, Jewish writers of the 1st century, in all of their extant writings did not record any followers of Jesus, doctrine of Jesus or miracles of any of his followers, not even anecdotally.

The date of writing and the circulation of the books of the NT are still ambiguous. The earliest date and the actual date of writing have not been reconciled. And further the NT is a chronological nightmare, where many of the events are either implausible, fictitious, incoherent or without any details to date their occurence.

For example, the crucifixion of Jesus although mentioned by every author of the NT, a crucial piece of information is missing, i.e, the day, month and year of the crucifixion is completely missing and in fact all critical details about Jesus is missing.

There is no evidence for Jesus, the disciples or the "Pauls" in the 1st century or any century, just like there is no evidence whatsoever for Achilles or Apollo, even though authors of antiquity did mention Achilles and Apollo.

Doug Shaver

What is to explain? There is nothing there about Jesus Christ.

I am affirming that there existed a religion whose adherents believed in an entity called Jesus Christ, but I am affirming nothing about that the nature of that entity or its reality.

aa5874

But, where's your evidence for this affirmation that a religion whose aherents believed in an entity called Jesus Christ existed in the 1st century? You have not explained anything other than providing baseless conjectures.

You know that there is no known extant credible non-apologetic information about any Jesus Christ of Nazareth, his adherents or any "Pauls" in the 1st century.

Affirmation based on imagination is not evidence.

eliotsj

It seems to me that Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, etc. are sufficient evidence to confirm the existence of early Christianity, if not Jesus himself.