No Robots

Mr. Kirby includes as "doctrinal Christians" those who merely affirm the historicity of Christ. By that definition, even atheist scholar William Arnal would be excluded for having written:

No one in mainstream New Testament scholarship denies that Jesus was a Jew. -The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism, and the Construction of Contemporary Identity / William Arnal. (p. 5)

Sauron

It's an easily-dismissed point; I'm not sure why Roger tried to make it, because it only exposes a deep vulnerability in his argument.


1. As I mentioned, there are buddhists studying islam, and christians studying buddhism. Non-members study the religion of others all the time. Not sure why that principle should be abandoned in this case, unless this is just another manifestation of the frequent christian attempt to gain a special exemption where no one else enjoys it;

2. Moreover, the thrust of the question is silly beyond belief. Non-christians don't have a vested interest in studying christianity? As if christianity hadn't affected a lot of people and influenced the course of history, even for non-believers?

Riverwind, both you and Roger got caught by your own biases, and failed to see these two obvious objections to Roger's lame comment. These two rebuttals would be immediately obvious to almost anyone who didn't have a sacred ox to protect. But both of you missed the gaping holes. Faith created a blind side in your logic.

Can there be any better evidence as to why faith acts to interfere with reasoned investigation?

dongiovanni1976x

Doctrinal Christians, as defined by Peter, are those individuals who have an a priori commitment to the truth of certain doctrines. Meaning they hold them to be true prior to any specific evidence or even in the face of contrary evidence. If you are committed to a certain belief and you are completely inflexible to the possibility that it may be wrong then you are not being scholarly.

Mr. Arnal is making a claim that “within the community of x there are no y”. Where x is “those within the mainstream New Testament scholarship” and where y is “those who deny Jesus was a Jew”. I am certain there are facts that back up this claim so he is not being doctrinal simply by asserting it. If however, Mr. Arnal held this belief as true even when it was demonstrated to the contrary then he would no longer be practicing scholarship but would simply be spouting a personal and unfounded belief- i.e. faith (belief based upon insufficient evidence).

No Robots

Who decides what is an a priori commitment, and what is a valid statement based on evidence? If I say there is no reasonable doubt that Christ was historical, and cite Arnal to back that up, is that an a priori commitment? And what if I say that the refusal to acknowledge Christ's historicity is an a priori commitment that it is held in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence?

dongiovanni1976x

Besides, IMHO, If you have a Jewish source identifying Jesus' brother being executed by Ananus in 62 CE (Ant. 20.9.1), GMark (an independent source from both Paul and Josephus) (6:3) corroborating that they were bothers, AND an eyewitness who met James (Jesus' brother, corroborated by Ant 20.9.1 & GMark 6:3) (Galatians 1:19) as well as a pagan source, Tacitus, stating that Jesus, or Christus, "from whom their (the Christians) name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius(reign 14-37 CE)," (Annals 15.44) (mind you Pilate was actually only a Prefect since Judea was not a Roman province at this time)

All this leads to fairly good historical evidence, as far as an historian of antiquity is concerned, that Jesus was a real person in history. But I do not hold this belief inflexibly I just happen to see why people would say that there is fairly good evidence for holding such a belief.

Apikorus

The prevailing scholarly hermeneutic, at least within universities, is the hermeneutic of suspicion. There can be no a priori commitment to any text. The same principles should apply to the study of the Hebrew Bible or New Testament as to the Iliad, Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, the Mahabharata, etc.

Those who are fettered by confessional stance may nevertheless produce works of great scholarship. They might even be inspired by their faith to pursue a particular model or hypothesis, and subsequently adduce strong evidence in its favor in a manner broadly recognized as highly scholarly.

However, it is natural that such scholars (e.g. N. T. Wright) are viewed with a degree of suspicion by those who are not similarly faithwise inclined. To take a somewhat extreme example, it is certainly possible that a Scientologist might obtain scholarly credentials -- perhaps a Ph.D. from Harvard, publications in peer-reviewed journals, etc. But one would naturally be suspicious were he to produce an allegedly scholarly work on the history of Scientology, or on the history of Psychiatry.

There is a canard one often runs across, whereby a Christian apologist attacks the hermeneutic of suspicion, or "naturalistic presupposition," as a priori denying the possibility of miracles, etc. Yet Christians themselves have no problems at all in denying miracles attributed to Asclepius, Visnu, et al. It seems fair to begin with a naturalist perspective and deny a priori any special religious claims in order to start everyone out on an equal footing. Then we work forward adducing evidence from texts, linguistics, history, archaeology, anthropology, historical geography, etc. If some religious "truths" cannot be justified in this manner, then here's how we divide what should be taught in religion classes and in history classes.

So my answer to Peter's question -- do doctrinal Christians have a place at the table? -- is the same answer I give to my kids: Yes, you are welcome at the table. But you must behave properly.

No Robots

I hold the historicity of Christ to be a valid working hypothesis that would require some extraordinary counter-indication for me to give up. Look, we persist with all kinds of hypotheses in science not because they are 100% proven, but because they are useful. In the matter of Christ's historicity, there is overwhelming favorable evidence AND there is a positive scientific benefit in accepting that evidence.

dongiovanni1976x

The two components here are a priori and commitment. As long as the belief is founded upon objective empirical evidence (either directly or indirectly) then it can never be said to be PRIOR to the evidecne on which it stands. If however the belief precedes the evidence then it fails the Kirby Litmus test for scholarship. (IMO) And the other important component is "commitment". If the person is so committed to the particular belief that it is never questionable or open to future analysis then the holder of said belief is likewise said to be lacking the attribute of scholarliness.

dongiovanni1976x

Hey I agree with you on this. My degrees are in history and philosophy but ancient history specifically, and as far as I am concerned the evidence for an historical Jesus is convincing. I think the sources I cited are sufficient for it to be held as a belief and to still be scholarly.

dongiovanni1976x

:notworthy: