mountainman

Thanks switch89.


But the field of ancient history admits scientific knowledge, analysis and testing technologies in assessing the ancient historical evidence. Furthermore, the field of ancient history is obliged to address physical evidence and represents an investigative model - there are Popperian constraints in its hypotheses.



Biblical history is a subset of ancient history, but often the biblical historians lose sight of this fact. They may be called the "Insiders". The ancient historians may be called the "Outsiders". Anyone who wishes to talk about "Biblical History" must confront this simple reality.




Underlying the (hypothetical) reconstruction of the ancient historical truth much of course is UNKNOWN - there is uncertainty with all the sources and all the evidence. Mathematical probablity can be of service to the field of ancient history, if used appropropriately. All fields are of service to the field of ancient history. It is just plain false that any should be prohibited.

mountainman

IMO the idea is to apply Bayes theorem to ancient history, as an ancient historian, not as a "Biblical Historian". The origins of Christianity need to be studied OUTSIDE of the field of Biblical History, where they have been entombed for over 1600 years.


Here is a brief discussion on Bayes Theorem that uses a graphical model and is related to medical testing (which you seem to have experience in) and therefore may assist in understanding what Carrier is attempting to do.




In the field of New Testament studies students, teachers and researchers can do what they please within certain hegemonic guidelines, and I would also deny that Bayes Theorem is applicable in such a field. However, and this is the main point IMO that bears repeating, the field of NT studies is of necessity a SUBSET of the field of ancient history.

A researcher in the field of NT studies is perhaps quite incapable of asking the question are the gospels fiction books. Such questions cannot be asked from within the box of NT studies or "Biblical Studies". Such questions can only be asked from outside the box of these fields. Outside the box of these fields - including these fields as subsets of itself - is the field of ancient history. Such questions may be asked outside the square, and answered.

I see Carrier as following this path.






Similar comments have already been made.

Consider Schrodinger's Cat Jesus.

Schrodinger's Cat Jesus


Jesus is in an ossuary box which investigators open and look into.

In some experiments some investigators see an HISTORICAL Jesus.

In other experiments other investigators see a MYTHICAL Jesus.

In yet other experiments other investigators see a FICTIONAL Jesus.

In further experiments others dont see anything at all.

In one experiment an investigator had a mystical experience.




What then is Schrodinger's Cat Jesus?


Is Jesus a QUANTUM BEING capable of changing states?

And can we sell this technology to a world market?

Some conditional priors can be established in the negative sense.

Can people walk on water?
Can people ascend through cloudbanks?
Can people lie through their teeth?


etc


Do not yet discount Bayes theorem for a certain amount of assistance in clarifying the hypotheses that are capable of being made with respect to the thousands and thousands of evidence items to be taken into account when reviewing the quest for the historical (or otherwise) Jesus with respect to the field of ancient history.

Toto

Carrier's blog post

mountainman

Testing two hypotheses:

h = “Jesus was a historical person mythicized” and
~h = “Jesus was a mythical person historicized.”

David Deas

Subjective probability. Look it up.

When a biblical historian says the word "probably", it is subjective probability being referred to. Certainly not mathematical probability. Subjective probability essentially means 'in my expert opinion'.

It is simply not possible to assign a mathematical probability to the historicity of Jesus. Ancient historians, and especially biblical historians, do guesswork. There was never any serious question about that.

Toto

I think you mean that biblical historians do not assign a precise mathematical probability to their guesses. But they can be quite sure (to the point of dogmatism) that something is more probable than not, and that everyone else must agree.

Steven Carr

Yes, they can only assign subjective probabilities but people who disagree with them are similar to Holocaust deniers.

tanya

Thank you for your comment, aa5874, always appreciated.

Well, I could have erred, that's for sure!!!

Whether or not one isolates a single verse as a topic of investigation, is perhaps not quite as absolute, as you have indicated.

Prior to expressing that opinion, may I humbly inquire whether or not you have performed a search of any books which may have been written, precisely on only a single verse of the new testament?

I do not have, at the tip of my tongue, the title, but, I believe there is an entire book written about this particular verse, Mark 1:1. One verse.

However, whether or not, OTHER folks insist on reading many verses, or not, I myself, because of my own modest cranial capacity, restrict myself to but a single verse, for beyond that, I forget what I was just reading....

I would draw an analogy with music: I enjoy the simplicity of the American, minimalist composer Philip Glass, for example, Itaipu. I expect you would prefer more polyphonic melodies.

Apart from this banality, however, the example provided was intended only to serve as illustration of something which many of us face, in our own lives: cancer diagnosis.

To employ Bayes' theorem to offer an opinion about the probability of something, one needs to know some facts, i.e. some parameters which are undeniable. The radiological investigation is not a fact about the underlying pathology, but it is a method of suggesting with great confidence, how likely it is the person of interest has, or does not have, cancer. The confidence we have, in the radiological procedure is based upon thousands of investigations, over many decades. The method is imperfect, but has fairly good prognostic value.

When we turn to studies, not of cancer, but of ancient papyrus documents, we have no sure footing, no base upon which to support our weight, as we attempt to climb up a precarious scaffolding.

I gave the illustration of just a single verse, to show that even for this, relatively uncontroversial, and very short passage, there is a lack of agreement about what the text indicates.

We could not better identify which of the three versions represents the ORIGINAL ink flowing from the quill of "mark", if we examined dozens and dozens of other versions.

With cancer, the question ultimately is benignity or malignancy. With new testament studies, focused on the origins of Christianity, the question is one of authenticity.

Giving us scores and scores of other verses, doesn't convince anyone of the correct identification of the authentic, original version of Mark 1:1. It is also unhelpful to list thousands of manuscripts representing version A of Mark 1:1, and only ten copies of version B, and only two copies of version C. We still cannot conclude anything definitive about the authenticity of the three different versions, hence my skepticism of Carrier's approach. Bayes' theorem, to be demonstrated useful, requires CERTAINTY about something. What we have here is uncertainty, exclusively. We don't even know, for sure, what I.C. means, in the Codex Sinaiticus version of Mark 1:1. Does it mean Iesous Christus, or, does it mean Isis, or, as Stephan Huller professes, "yesh"? Was the original meaning, with Hebreic influence, purged, in the tiny handful of documents which we still have in our possession?

What will convince me that Bayes' theorem can be applied to new testament investigations, is not the text of a scholar, even one renowned, and as brilliant, as I am sure Carrier is, but rather, an example. I will go now, and read mountainman's link, which ought to explain the problem is some depth.

maryhelena

Neither of these two hypotheses has the potential to further the historicist/ahistoricist debate.

That position is a stalemate for the historicist/ahistoricist debate. For the ahistoricist/mythicists to avoid this stalemate they have to bring more to the table than simply the old arguments against the external historical sources. Once the historicists opt for a flesh and blood JC and ditch their failed efforts to provide historical evidence - the debate becomes a stalemate.

A way to avoid this stalemate is to shift focus away from Carrier's two JC hypotheses. The gospel JC figure is neither "a historical person mythicized" nor "a mythical person historicized". The gospel story is history mythicized. That's the road forward - history. Jewish history.

aa5874

As far as I know we are making assessments of written statements of antiquity. We are not involved in any radiological investigations.

It is a most simple exercise that has been blown completely out-of proportion.

One can easily understand Plutarch's "Romulus" written c 70 CE but will declare that the versions of gMark are somehow incomprehensible.

gMark or any book of the Canon can be easily understood like Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars", Tacitus Histories, Philo's "On Embassy to Gaius" or Josephus' Wars of the Jews.

One does NOT understand those books by reading the first sentence.