Clivedurdle

Hang on a second.


Who is deciding what is and what is not a magical act here?

Why is Josephus's view of physical symbols of a spiritual reality not magical thinking?

Which brings me to why do historians believe that Jesus was historical may be directly related to their continual general cultural training in believing six impossible things before breakfast,- like fully god fully man - and where they do come across magical thinking, the continuing dis and mis information campaign about what is and what is not magical thinking as above. Xianity is continually asserted not to involve magical thinking.

This is not a yes that is magic no that is not magic, but a question of two types of magical thinking.

This is such a minefield most people normally do not touch it with a barge pole, and detailed understanding of magical thinking is not a common place in university education.

Amaleq13

I don't know if Crossan would argue that but he isn't doing so here as far as I can see. You need to read the entire sentence rather than snip out one phrase from it and then read that sentence in the context of the entire passage.

Clivedurdle

From what you wrote it might be Josephus who made the distinction - it is unclear, and there is a third magical scenario - sacrifice - to confuse matters.

But we now must not accept at face value assertions by anyone about what is magical and is not magical - washing away of sins is obviously magical, especially as it is preceded with exorcism and accompanied by incantation.

Look at this religion - you must be born again - for example. Full baptism as a petit mort.

It is now the search for the historical baptism - there has to be a "pure" (also magical thinking) core to baptism, before it was corrupted with priests and holy water and ritual.

Banzaibee

My background is in Near Eastern Archaeology, with a specialism in Ancient Greek ceramics and Roman agriculture (go figure), and I have worked with this archeological material for 15 years. Credibility junk out of the way.

In archaeology you make a "case", in exactly the same way you make a case with forensics, the two disciplines are almost interchangeable. In archaeological terms, literary evidence is largely fluff, and is treated as such.

We find physical evidence and go from there. The evidence for many of the events in the life of any person simply leaves no evidence. What is the archaeological evidence for the sermon on the mount? There isn't any. A bunch of people standing, does not give any indication why they were standing.

Even events that might leave physical evidence are actually incredibly difficult to interpret. The crucifixion would be 3 post holes. Ouch.

Take something as well studied as Ur or Troy. How do you know it is Troy? Did you excavate a sign saying, "welcome to Troy, twined with Athens, drive carefully" or "5 miles to Ur" and 5 miles down the road you find ruins with "Ur" sign posts everywhere. No, you do not. Troy had several layers of settlement and burning, which one was Troy? Again, you have to be careful. We think it is Troy, but if you can prove otherwise, it isn't Troy.

So when someone discusses a historical figure you are in deep trouble archaeologically speaking. Does the "historical Jesus” exist in the archaeological record? Apart from medieval fakes including the forest of bits of the true cross, the odd dried up jug of milk of the virgin, and one of the three or four spears that pierced the poor fella's side, not as yet. Not one iota of verified physical evidence exists.

It is an act of belief even for historians.

Solitary Man

Welcome, Banzaibee. I'm glad you compared archaeological identifications to historical forensics. They are similar! In each case you have traces, and in both cases you propose an hypothesis which answers the data. Sometimes, the hypothesis fits the data perfectly, sometimes it fits it as close as we can get it. Sometimes it fuzzy. I've seen it a few times where it's absolutely wrong, both in archaeology and in historical studies.

But I think you're wrong about labeling the literary stuff as "fluff". As you said, Ur has no signs that says, "This is Ur." Even if it did, it could be wrong - as all literary texts could be wrong. But without the literary record, how would you know that its Ur? Quite plainly, you wouldn't. The archaeological record tells us certain things which happened, and the literary record fills in some gaps. This is how it works. You know that.

So, in actuality, calling Ur Ur is in itself "an act of faith", if and only if you believe it to be so, if you have faith in it. I don't. I simply think that given the evidence, that city being Ur satisfies all the data. But what is the data? The data is the literary texts. Without the literary texts, would we really know what Ur is? Just like Catal Hoyuk. We have no idea what Catal Hoyuk really was. I still see crackpot mother goddess theories coming from the place. Perhaps it was a capital of some alliance of Anatolian cities. Likely? Not with the evidence we have. But since we don't have any corresponding information on the reason for Catal Hoyuk, we'll never have definitive answers, only hypothetical guesses.

Now, I totally agree that discussing an historical figure archaeologically is problematic. We have very, very few direct evidence for any given person. We have thousands of times more names than evidence for them. Does that mean these people never existed? Of course not. That would be an absurd position. Are the only people who ever existed are the ones for which we have positive identified records archaeologically speaking? To believe that is itself an act of faith, an assumption unfounded by basic deductive logic and empirical research. Quite simply, do people suddenly exist when we find their remains, since they apparently never existed before we found those remains? Did Ur not exist before it was discovered?

The logical loopholes that literary-deniers have is astounding. Denying the validity of all ancient texts is no more a valid position than affirming the historical veracity of all ancient documents. The texts are there - they are archaeological data. They themselves must be explained, and so must the information they carry. To suggest otherwise is to engage in fallacious and illogical archaeological work, not uncommon in this day of that pseudo-philosophy "post-modernism".

simongc

I have heard Bill O'Reilly say on Fox News say that his belief in Jesus comes thru faith, nothing else

No Robots

What we are involved with here is not the physical remnants of archaeology, but literary remnants. Nevertheless, many of the same procedures apply to both, particularly with regard to knowledge of what is possible in a particular time and place. The Gospels are a literary artifact. They are Jewish. They describe a particularly striking Jewish man. This is manifest fact, just as are archaeological remains. Was the man so described an actual historical figure? Is Schlieman's city really Troy? The fact is that the literary remnants present us with a man. Now, this man, how does he compare with other literary figures? Certainly he is as well known as any. Certainly his historical impact is greater than any other. Are we to believe that the single most potent personality in history is nothing more than a fictional character? And who dreamed up, then, this character? Clearly the literary remnants are of a low sort. How could such lowly, anonymous litterateurs have created a character that so completely outshines all other literary creations?

I would encourage you to apply the same rigour to these literary documents that you would apply to an archaeological site, namely, that you investigate what they are on the basis of what is possible. Remember, Sherlock, that once the impossible has been ruled out, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

MrTunaFace

And atheists don't???

Solitary Man

Which is why Bill O'Reilly is not an historian of any sort.

Solitary Man

Crock of shit if I ever heard one. But that's what you get when you trust an ophthalmologist and a novelist for detective work.