Gamera

If you think fact and fiction are alternatives, you have made a category error.

Fiction is discourse, text, language. "Fact" (which I take you to mean events experienced by people) isn't. You shouldn't confuse discourse and life.

Historiography and fiction writing are both textual in nature. They aren't facts in themselves. We take these texts and interpret them and derive meaning. Some we take as history, and some as literature (and some a mix), the distinction being made on very complex grounds. They are all explicitly undeniably and without question discourse and not facts. Surely you should understand the difference between smoking a pipe and writing about smoking a pipe. The text about a pipe (as Magritte so witilly showed in one of his paintings) is NOT a pipe.

So the confusion is on your end.

Civil1z@tion

Here's the thing with Thucydides, he actually wrote his own book. Jesus didn't. We know Thucydides existed because otherwise his book wouldn't exist. His account of Pericles is contemporary of the man as opposed to Jesus who didn't get any written accounts of his life in a literate society until long after his death. Also with Pericles we have buildings he built and busts of him from his time by the Greek sculptor Kresilas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kresilas

With people like Socrates, Plato, Cyrus the Great, Julius Caesar, Ihmotep, and other famous ancients have far more compelling evidence for their existence (such as contemporary sources or archeology). Figures which don't have high levels of evidence tend to have their existence doubted. For instance Agamemnon may or may not have existed (though given the archelogical evidence for Troy and its destruction some guy had to have led whatever army destroyed it). Furthermore, no historian would put money on the existence of Romulous or Remus (legendary founders of Rome). Historical figures who have little evidence for their existence are not assumed to be real while Jesus gets another standard. The standard is the same and Jesus, though likely he existed, does not meet the same standards as other important figures. The standard Jesus is equal with is like that of Sigurth, also known in modern German as Siegfried, who was likely a frankish prince of the 5th century AD, but whose only evidence is poems written down (though orally older) well after his death. However, the simplest examination of the evidence of the context of Sigurth's time period is that he probably existed (though many of the stories about him are obviously bs). However, that doesn't mean that his existence is as likely as a contemporary of Sigurth, Attila the Hun.

aa5874

You have not explained "facts" yet.

What are "facts"?
Tendentious narratives?

So what are "facts"?

You simply cannot tell me what is historiography or fiction in the NT with respect to Jesus.

Gamera

Facts are things we experience. Since we weren't alive in first century Judea, we don't have a lot of facts on this matter (except archeology, which are present facts in whatever form they come down to us -- coins, buildings, etc).

Texts are never facts. They are discourse. The only thing factual about a text is the physical presence of the text in front of us and the ink on the page. You don't observe 1st century Judea through the magic window of some text by Josephus. You read a text. And you read it just like you read the comics or a novel or the newspaper.

Now we talk loosely about this and claim certain texts are "factual," meaning that we take the discourse to describe events that if we had been there would have more or less been experienced as the texts sets them forth. But that doesn't transform discourse into experience of past events, as if discouse were a magic time machine. It's just a way of talking about our relationship to texts and our relationship to the past. The stark undeniable physical certainty we have is: historiography is never the facts; it's just language.

We have categories of texts, some being deemed literature and other histories. We put them in these categories for complex reasons. I can certainly discuss why I think it is right to categorize the gospels more as history/biography than literature, and you can disagree. But what we can't do is establish the "facts" and then determine that this text is history and this text is literature, since in most cases what we know about antiquity comes for the most part from the very texts at issue. Thus, your question (telling fact from fiction in the gospels) is simply the wrong starting point, since it assume we have facts upon which we categorize texts, when it's a much more complex process.

aa5874

That is exactly what I am waiting for you to do. Just tell me what in the NT with respect to Jesus is history/biography.

Well based on this statement, you are now in agreement that you can't tell fact from fiction.

aa5874

See "Against Heresies" by Irenaeus, or "First Apology" and "Dialogue with Trypho" by Justin Martyr.

Gamera

That's simple enough and you didn't have to wait for me to do it. There is a pretty large literature on it, and you might want to start with Burridge, What Are the Gospels. It makes a pretty strong case that the gospels fit squarely into Graeco-Roman biography. A Marginal Jew and other similar studies helped fill out what is likely to have been the historical Jesus.

As to what is "historical" about Jesus, probably the period more or less when he lived, the fact that he was Jewish, the fact that he was some kind of religious teacher who preached love and concern for the poor and personal transformation through faith in God's love. The fact that he probably got into some kind of dispute with the religious authorities of the time. And the fact that that somehow led to his death, probably by official executed for some reason or other.

In short, the basics of the gospel story and the epistles, without the theology.

Only if you keep making the category errors I pointed out, which you seem intent on doing.

aa5874

I thought you claimed that "facts" are things we experience.

And earlier you claimed, "Texts are never facts."

And by the way, your posts appear to be tendentious narratives to me.

You have no facts about Jesus, just the ink on the page in front of you.

andrewcriddle

Where in those works do you find evidence that the people Justin and Irenaeus were arguing with questioned the existence of Jesus ?

(As distinct from holding views about Jesus that Justin and Irenaeus strongly disliked.)

Andrew Criddle

spin

When andrewcriddle supplies information it is to my experience always with references. Please follow the good example. You should want people to check your information, so they will consider it with due respect, so do quote your sources exactly, giving book, chapter and verse (or author, book and page, if modern). It's helpul, courteous and professional.


spin