spin

Recently someone cited an article by Bruce Chilton. The article contained a citation of Norman Perrin’s advice that "an assertion about Jesus in the Gospels cannot be evaluated in historical terms until we have evaluated the history of the traditions of which that assertion is a part."

This is one mighty tough morsel to chew. One cannot simply assert historicity, but needs to know something about the history of the traditions. How do you get there?


spin

dog-on

When all else fails, make something up.

Ben C Smith

That may be your method, but what are those of us interested in history to do?

Ben.

Roger Pearse

A good question - it sounds hard to measure. It sounds to me as if the author is asserting the priority over source criticism over data. This, of course, is to prefer speculation to hard evidence; and source criticism seems to be regarded as rather a spent force these days.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

dog-on

Ben, it works in all fields, though it seems to be scholarly in disciplines related to religion and politics.

spin

First, as this simply doesn't parse, I'll assume you had an editing moment (I have a lot of them) and wanted to say, "asserting the priority of source criticism over data." And what it sounds like to you seems to be totally the opposite of what the original speaker was on about.

It's interesting that you say this last statement. The quote is being used as something of value by Bruce Chilton rather recently, citing the fact that Robert Funk would use the quote, which originated from Norman Perrin, all highly reputed scholars in the field, suggesting your evaluation is rather amateur and without understanding.

You should take more time to consider things and you will make fewer knee-jerk comments like this. You have simply not understood the import of the statement, for it represents the sort of dialectic a scholar nowadays is required to make with the materials they want to use as sources. You should know a lot more about the content than what the text literally says. Perrin is signaling the sort of thing one needs to have some grasp of when trying to eke history out of the gospels.


spin

spamandham

Oh but it's so much more fun to pretend that ancient writers were modern super-journalists with access to high qulity information, and motivation to present history as it actually happened.

Clivedurdle

But they were better than super journalists! - it is God's Word, the Literal Truth! How dare you introduce relativity and context and cultural position! Post modernist rubbish!

Roger Pearse

Thank you for sharing your opinions. You will find the view I mentioned discussed at some length in Richard W. Burgess, "Studies in Eusebian and post-Eusebian Chronography".

All the best,

Roger Pearse

gstafleu

I'm trying to figure out what the quote means. For example, we have the assertion that Jesus changed water into wine, and ask ourselves: how historical is this? Let's say it is known (I'm making this up for the sake of discussion) that in those days the odd and sundry miracle workers who plied the sands always at one point or another changed water into wine. We also know how--Pen&Teller-wise--they did that. Wouldn't knowing this bit of "the history of the traditions of which that assertion is a part" help us in determining that Jesus' act probably also was a bit of sleight of hand?

Moreover, if we knew that rather than the miracle workers actually performing the trick, this was just a bit of spin (sorry) by the biographers, would that then not help us determine that Jesus' changing probably was not historical?

If that is what it is about I don't see the difficulty.

Gerard Stafleu