Steven Carr

Bauckham has responded at http://www.christilling.de/blog/2006...sponds-ii.html

and an eye-opener it is for me too!

Basically, he is saying he just made it all up, because he couldn't think of any other explanation as to why Mark writes the name Jairus, and so does Luke, but Matthew doesn't.

He implicitly agrees he has no evidence for his hypothesis, but he believes it anyway.

Just a shocking reminder that there is no methodology to Historical Jesus studies.

There is nothing there!

There is nothing to learn from these people. Ask them for supporting evidence and they go all silent.

I'm really stunned.

Ben C Smith

Good for Bauckham. He is absolutely right here. And he called his piece a suggestion from the start, a fact that appears to have been utterly lost on you until I pointed it out earlier in this thread.

How wide the divide.

Ben.

Steven Carr

Very wide. I am not used to people putting forward unfounded suggestions , without anything to back them up and claiming that this represents a methodology.

As somebody who studied science, I am used to suggestions being tested, not backed up with a string of from-the-top-of-your-head ad hoc hypotheses.

It is all really, really bad.

Just read Bauckham for how he makes assertions about what 'must have been', and how he presumes what happened, rather than use facts and evidence.

'‘In the cases of Jairus, whose name is dropped by Matthew, and Bartimaeus, whose name is dropped by both Matthew and Luke, we encounter once again the phenomenon of a character who must have been named by Mark because he was well-known in the early Christian movement but whose name was dropped by one or both of the later Synoptic evangelists, presumably because at the time at which they wrote or in the part of the Christian movement with which they were most familiar this figure was not well-known’

Where did all that come from? It's all just made-up!

Ben C Smith

He is allowed to make it up, as an hypothesis, if he calls it what it is, a suggestion. Right?

Ben.

neilgodfrey

How might Matthew have known they really were saints if the names meant nothing to him or any of his audience?

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

Steven Carr

There is an interesting article at http://dunelm.wordpress.com/2006/12/...hard-bauckham/ which shows that you say any old rubbish, provided you maintain a historical Jesus.

Observant readers will notice that the raising of Lazarus is in John , but not in Mark.

Why?

Bauckham states that this is because Mark was written 40-50 AD, and he did not dare mention the name Lazarus, because that would put Lazarus in great danger.

This is NT scholarship and methodology. Make up anything you want.

Ben C Smith

From that page:

Those in the room weren’t that keen on his proposal. Jimmy Dunn, Francis Watson, and Bill Telford all challenged different pieces of it.

Is this not how it is supposed to work?

Ben.

Steven Carr

Am I allowed to do the same?

One interesting argument comes from page 259 of Bauckham's book 'Gospel Women (or via: amazon.co.uk)'.

Bauckham argues that the story of the women visiting the tomb must be credible because women were considered unreliable witnessses in the 1st century AD.

Bauckham writes 'The role of the women must have been already so well established in the tradition that no Gospel writer could simply supress it...'

Bauckham says 'The Gospel writers have reduced and played down the role of the women'

Poor Gospel writers. They would have loved to cut out all the stories of Jesus appearing to women after the resurrection (like Paul did), but journalistic honesty compelled them to leave them in.


Matthew , of course, supresses the stories of the disciples visiting the empty tomb. By Bauckham's logic, the stories of the disciples visiting the empty tomb was not well established.

Ben C Smith

Of course. But preferably in the spirit of inquiry. Your tone implies that the article should never have been written.

Ben.

Steven Carr

Nothing wrong with it being written.

But it should never have passed peer-review.

There is no methodology. Only ad hoc hypothesis, wheeled out whenever it suits and dropped whenever they do not suit.

Take Bauckham's rule that something which was 'already so well established in the tradition that no Gospel writer could simply supress it'.


He wheels it out to show that the Gospellers could not suppress the stories of the women visiting the empty tomb, but forgets all about his 'rule' when talking about Matthew suppressing the stories of the disciples visiting the tomb.

There is no methodology. Only 'NT scholarship'.