Vorkosigan

No doubt it would seem so, if you believe in Virgin Births, Resurrections, and Fairy Sky Daddies.

As I said, methodological naturalism is the assumption of all scholarship, not metaphysical naturalism. You want to do scholarship, you give up your preconceptions about the supernatural. That simple.

Right. That's why we use methodological naturalism.

Don't worry about it, Tercel. Like I said, you don't understand scholarship. I hear things like this all the time from people whose pet supernatural belief is threatened by reality. This sort of justificatory speech is useful for dealing with the cognitive dissonance that scholarly methodologies evoke in the believer.

The fact is that methodological naturalism is an assumption of the method. A violation could easily occur, and then the assumptions would have to change. Only we know that no one has ever observed a violation of this exploratory stance.

No, the only investigations considered scholarly are those using the assumptions of methodological naturalism. All others fall under some other rubric. This is the foundational assumption of modern science and modern scholarship, and has been hugely successful.

How about (3) unbiased scholarship requires giving up deeply held nonsensical assumptions about the nature of reality.

You can believe that if you like, but it is unlikely that real scholars will take you very seriously. In all the scholarly fields in which I regularly interact, no one but creedally committed NT scholars ever makes the suggestions you do.

No problem them. Please demolish them. I note that when I point to methodology and evidence, you shift the ground to personal attacks.

Don't worry about it Tercel. We've already established you don't really understand scholarship, so I can understand why you take this position.

You know, Tercel, who do you think you are talking to here? Stuff I write and edit is published regularly in academic journals. I do a side business preparing academic articles for publication, and writing up research for people here who don't speak English. I have done probably 100 papers in the last five-six years -- and not a single one ever adopted the position of "methodological agnosticism" -- whatever that might be (it really means -- please accept the possibility of my superstition being true). Of the rejections, not a single one was because the assumption of methodological naturalism was being used. I have helped write and edit papers in nursing, transportation, computer science, history, chemistry, medicine, marketing, sociology, and TESOL, among others. In addition to the academic writing, I also translate and edit publications for III, the local government consulting firm for the technology industry, and occasionally do books and other serious works. No scholar I have ever worked with has ever made any claim like yours. I don't think you really grasp just how air-headed you sound.

Yes, we do. There are reams of important information in non-Roman sources. That's why we go to them. That's what real scholars do, Tercel. They build up a picture from several different vectors. No historian would ignore valuable sources on Rome from other cultures.

Gosh, I dunno. For a more complete view of the evidence, which a good scholar strives for?

Fantasy? I am not the one who believes in Virgin Births, Talking Donkeys, and eternal life, here, Tercel. There are no good outside vectors on Jesus. This distressing problem is why NT scholars fight so hard to hold onto Josephus.

Don't worry about it, Tercel. I'll be busy working on my scholarly publications (three in the pipeline under my own name, finally, all using methodological naturalism -- somehow I don't think they'll be rejected because I didn't adopt your view) and various other projects while you are off in your fantasy world.

Vorkosigan

Toto

Pertinent post from Ken Olson replying to an apologist on CrossTalk

Tercel

Toto,

What Olson has missed is that ther is an important difference between ancient Greek claims and Christians ones: People are interested in the truth or otherwise of Christian claims, everyone is happy to assume that the Greek ones are false.

Since everyone is happy to agree that there weren't miraculous events performed by the Greek Gods in the life of Alexander the Great, the modern historical reconstructions of his life that deliberately omit the miraculous are acceptable to all as neutral scholarship, because the scholars are not making any contentious assumptions. The scholars are beginning on common ground that is agreed to by all.

When, however, a person starts out with the assumption that the central claims of Christianity are false, they are making a contentious claim. And many conclusions they might derive from "research" based on this presupposition (eg that the gospels are fiction), are entirely worthless: Ending with the conclusion that something is false because you've begun with the conclusion it is false is not scholarship but silliness, perhaps even deception.

lpetrich

Actually, a fair amount of Biblical scholarship involves treating the Bible like any other ancient book, without any special pleading in its favor.

It's like the argument that the early theologian Origen had made -- if you believe the stories of Romulus and Remus, the siege of Troy, etc., why believe those stories and not those of the Bible?

Only flipped around.

Consider that these gentlemen had supposedly had gods as their biological fathers:
Pythagoras (Apollo)
Plato (Apollo)
Alexander the Great (Zeus)
Augustus Caesar (Mercury)
as well as numerous legendary figures like
Hercules (Zeus)
Romulus (Mars)
Theseus (Zeus)
...

Why reject those stories and not the similar stories in the Bible about how Jesus Christ had had the Biblical God as his biological father?

Why reject the stories of divine intervention in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and not those in the Bible?

Why deny the existence of the Olympian gods and not that of the Bible?

...

Vinnie

"""""""Yes, there was no oral tradition at all. At least, there is no evidence for one. """"""

The movable gospel pericopes and all the pregospel sources evident in them, and the sayings source(s) behind the double tradition and the saying source(s) behind GThomas.

See sections 2b and all of section 3 on the Gospel of Mark study I have started:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/mark.html

The material underneath Mark and all these other sources points directly to an oral stage. Even Papias demonstrates knowledge of the oral era. Problem is we do not know much about it. The Gospel of Mark, written ca 70C.E. shows evidence of it.

For Jesus disciples you state:

""""There is no evidence that Jesus had followers in his own lifetime, outside fictions.""""""

This is not demonstrating your point at all. Contemporary, primary source data is not required. A first or second generation source is sufficient to demnonstate the existence of Jesus--which is by no means extraordinary.

Second there are no contemporary references to John the baptist. Double standards?

And you assert the Gospels are fiction.

First, Josephus has lots of purposefully false statements (claims to be Pharisee, baptists minsitry) and presumable, many theological ones as well and has mentions and appeals to the supernatural if I am not mistaken. Is he dismissable as mere fiction as well?

Certainly the passion narrative strongly reeks of fiction but there is still a tiny detectable core there and evidence of ongoing "passion prophecy" (see Crossan, who killed Jesus! EXCELLENT work!) which one must strain to argue stated with a non-existent figure.

Secondly, many of the pericopes are not easily dismissable as mere fiction. Yes, many have been reworked to fit current needs and thrown into a theological framework but there is garbled history in many of them (e.g. the divorce statement..see section 5b of Mark paper) and sources detactable behind a fair amount of Marcan material.

Finally, I note Thomas, the synoptic sayings source, Mark, the traditions about the Twelve, Traditions behind Acts (NOT a 2d century text!) and so forth all argue towards Jesus having followers.

Peter is attested independently in Thomas and Mark (Multiple Attestation of Source and Form!) explicitly in the context of a follower of the HJ. We may have special L and a few other sources mentioning Peter independently as well (John, Acts and so on).

Paul provides contemporary primary source data that Peter was a live actual person and was a pillar. As was James and this should also authenticate many of Jesus other followers. I can list the attestation for all of Jesus' followers if need be.

The fact that we have a first stratum source which proves (eyewitness--contemporary primary source data) all these figures so strongly multiply attested in the second stratum and on is sufficient.

You also appeal to Robin Hood again. This has been refuted more times here than asking why Christians didn't worship the place Jesus was crucified.

Robin Hood has nothing remotely like the source attestation as Jesus. If it does please list how the source material for Robin Hood and Jesus is similar enough to be compared in such ways.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Hi Vinnie!

I'll get back to you on Friday. My schedule is killing me right now. Very sorry. Maybe we should use your post to start a new thread on historical sources.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Its special pleading on the part of Christians. Affirming the virgin birth on historical grounds is a laughing stock. This was a fault of Brown. Not that he called it certain or anything. For the most part he remained neutral on the question of historicity but seemed to lean slightly in its favor IIRC. He was too supportive of the canon here on this in Birth of the Mesiah.

Two late, contradictory sources mention this yet no other stream of Christian thought I am aware of in the entire first century evinces any knowledge of a special virginal conception. Several run directly against it (Jesus' brothers rejecting him in John and the "can anything good come from Nazareth" (which is debatable) and also GMArk and Bethelehem certainly was the creative choice (which is why two evangelists got Jesus there through contradictory means) and all those other alleged divine births.

Truth be told, if we want to find historical nuggets in the INs we should be content to call Jesus was a mamzer (see Bruce Chilton's Rabbi Jesus).

Vinnie

Vinnie

Michael, I'll start up a new thread with it before Friday. Take all the time you need though

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

So much confusion.....so little time. Methodological naturalism says you can't use the supernatural to explain events. Period. It says nothing about the value of the material in the gospels, other than the supernatural material. It does mean that scholars must formulate explanations that do not involve the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth actually occurring.

As for your principle of "contentious" and "not contentious" claims, that's the least scholarly nonsense I have ever heard. What you are claiming is that when a supernatural belief has no defenders, it can be declared false. What a bizarre epistemological position, determining truth by head count. The whole idea of methodological naturalism is that is applies to all evidence equally. What you really object to is that it places YHWH on the same level as Zeus and Odin: useless as an explanatory factor.

Vorkosigan

Gregg

Doherty responds:

Well, I would say your poster is helping make my case, in that there was no single "Christianity" in existence until the latter part of the 2nd century, when everything congealed around a literalist view of the Gospel story and most of the previous expressions of a very broad movement came on board. Mainstream scholars who study the apologists of the 2nd century have tended to claim that such circles had come to adopt a Platonic interpretation of Christ (even, for most of them, without mentioning his name or incarnation!), moving away from Paul's interests. But there is no clear indication that such apologists owed anything at all to Paul, or could even be said to have grown out of the cult he represented. Rather, they were all branches of the same great tree, so it's really not an "out" to simply dismiss someone like Tatian as "not a Christian." The common element in them all is the idea of a "Son", an aspect/emanation of God who served some kind of intermediary role. Most of them use the term "Logos" for this entity, and thus we can call them followers of a "Logos religion". Paul didn't use that term, but his was a Logos religion without the name, as many acknowledge, except that his circle had added an element the later apologists didn't share, namely that the Son had been sacrificed.

Even if most of those apologists didn't use the terms "Jesus" and/or "Christ" this is not a problem for MJers, because they still believed in a mythical Son/Intermediary/Revealer/Agent of Creation/etc., like Paul, which places them all in the same general camp. The Pauline sacrificial Christ is only one expression of the mythical Son phenomenon, and it is the totality of that phenomenon which the mythicist position--certainly my own--addresses. The orthodox Christianity we've known for almost 19 centuries was a synthesis of various elements of that broad phenomenon.

Still, "Christianity" could be considered an identifiable entity in the second century. Consider:

1. Justin Martyr, when he converted to Christianity, saw things (he recounts the experience in the early chapters of Trypho) in the same terms as the other non-incarnationist apologists: no sacrifice of Christ, no career on earth. When later he introduces the Gospel story, he doesn't characterize this as moving to a different religion. He sees it, and presents it, as the same one; it's just that his own interpretation of it has evolved, under the influence of early Gospel accounts.

2. Tatian's discussion of the "stories" of his sect is most likely a reference to some early Gospels, and he seems to see this as part of the general religion he belongs to, though he regards them as "mythologountas" (told legends, etc.) Minucius Felix is further out on the fringe, mentioning neither Jesus nor Christ nor Logos, yet he calls his religion "Christian" so there must have been a Son of some sort lurking in the background. He disparages the ideas of some related circle who hold beliefs about a crucified man and his cross. From the text, we can tell that the pagans he is countering linked those beliefs in their own minds with the writer's religion. Tatian's pagans also seem to have associated the stories Tatian refers to with his religion, as does Tatian himself ("we too tell stories"). Christian commentators of the latter 2nd century and beyond made no distinction between the apologists' religion and supposedly "Christian" ones, so any significant distinction was lost on them as well. The point is, all these Christian writers and the general public seem to have lumped all these expressions (at least by the mid 2nd century) under the same heading.

3. When the apologists defend their "Christian" (Logos) religion to the Greeks, there is no suggestion that they have to make a distinction with some other Christian religion existing side by side. If the picture presented in the Gospels and Acts was historical, the pagan world could not fail to be familiar with at least some of it in association with Christianity, and the apologists could hardly ignore that, or claim to be a party to some kind of separate "not Christian" religion. If it was historical, *that* would be the dominant version in everyone's mind, so that no "Christian" apologist could present a defence of his faith which would leave out Jesus of Nazareth and the incarnation of the Logos entirely.

Where was the Pauline-type cult during all this time? Well, the apologists, including Justin, don't seem to have moved in ecclesiastical circles (except perhaps Theophilus). They seem to be at home in the religio-philosophical halls of the time. But the cult was going strong, probably rubbing shoulders with other "Christ-ers" in major urban centers. We see it throughout the first half of the 2nd century, in Ignatius, Barnabus, Polycarp, the Apology of Aristides, Diognetus, and so on. At the same time, a more distinctive and a rival category of religious belief involving salvation and savior figures was developing alongside, namely Gnosticism; and the two eventually found a certain amount of common ground when some of the latter reinterpreted their saviors in terms of the Christian Jesus, illustrating the attracting power of the Gospel character.

I love that phrase of John Dillon (The Middle Platonists) who described the first century scene as "a seething mass of sects and salvation cults". I'm reminded of the image of the miner's sifting pan, with all sorts of gravel and ground rock and such filling the pan, and as the miner agitates it certain ingredients are sifted out. Christianity as we know it is the product of centuries of agitation in a sifter, and the separated "dross" was not only discarded and buried, it was reinterpreted in ways that obscured its original nature