PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

I've been thinking about the Criterion of Embarrassment. As long as it is reformulated to simply state that authors or producers make changes to works when they find embarrassing elements in them, I think it can be useful. It is only promoting the idea that it can be used to authenticate a text as historical that it misses the mark.

In this blog, Baptism: The Origin Tale of How John and Jesus Got Their Superpowers I talk about the Baptism tale being an Origin tale. I suggest that the tale was originally told about John, but there was something within the tale that the authors/editors found embarrassing, so they changed the hero character to Jesus and reduced John to a helper character, someone who helps the hero to obtain his powers in classical myth/folk tales.

What did they find embarrassing in the first Baptism Myth with John as the Baptized Hero? My guess is that John had originally failed his tests in the Wilderness. In the original story, after giving in to Satan three times, now enhanced with the Holy Spirit, John went back into the Wilderness and passed his Temptation/Initiation Test with flying colors. Unfortunately, the writers/editors decided that his original failure should be erased and a new character with a blank slate should pass the Temptation Test. That new character was named Jesus.

Of course as the text stands now, we do not know what John the Baptist was doing in the Wilderness before the Baptisms started or how he hit upon the idea for Baptism. However, considering the importance of Baptism, it is hard to believe that there was no Origin Story about it that did not involve him.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

Once you ASSUME that you know the ORIGINAL Baptism story then there is NO NEED to APPLY the CoE.

Consider the following.

1. A text is discovered but its veracity or historical value is UNCERTAIN.

2. The text contains embarrassing material.

The CoE is ineffective in scenarios where the veracity or historical facts of a text are UNCERTAIN.

The CoE proves NOTHING except that it CANNOT prove anything.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I agree it can't prove anything. It can suggest alternative or more likely possibilities.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

Are you therefore claiming that SUGGESTIONS are PROOFS?

IF NOT, then I am right. The CoE PROVES NOTHING except that it CANNOT PROVE anything.

Now, if the VERACITY of a TEXT is UNCERTAIN then there are really TWO FUNDAMENTAL possibilities. The TEXT is either FUNDAMENTALLY TRUE or FALSE.

I did not use the CoE because it could NOT suggest another LOGICAL alternative.

rlogan

Hi Jay. Hansum man!

Well clearly it is an origin story. I can't think about any of this without the framework of the author combing the Hebrew Bible for his Jesus material, and Isaiah of course weighs so heavily throughout.

In terms of JBapt, you have Isaiah 40:3-5 most prominently with the voice in the wilderness heralding the Lord and the Mouth of the Lord speaking - that's the over-arching prophecy quote-mine.

But in validating JBapt you have 2 Kings 1:8 with Elijah wearing a hair garment and leather belt. In Isaiah 20:2 and some other HB passages you have the herald needing to be poor and sandal-less without even a sack-cloth, and there's one I remember but haven't looked up for this post that talks about fine clothes being found in the King's palace but not what a prophet would wear.

Some of the apologetic sites have these all cross-referenced as proof of Jesus' divinity but what it actually shows is where the material came from in writing Mark and then later in even greater detail Matthew.

Basically a whole lotta validation goin' on. Through HB passages.

So it seems to me anything one does has to recognize this framework of HB prophecy.

I've never seen the criterion of embarassment used this way with the apologists who on the one hand proudly point out how Jesus' whole passion sequence comes straight out of Isaiah prophecy, but on the other hand pretend it is so embarassing to fulfill prophecy about being the son of God like this that it wouldn't be told unless it were true.

That of course is rubbish.

But the way you have used it is interesting. I must confess the batman and superman myth examples are out of my league.

I'll tell you where I think I have seen it. In the original ending of Mark being changed. Because at first you had to explain why nobody had ever heard of the miracle of Jesus' resurrection. So the women told no-one because they were afraid.

But as Christianity gains traction and becomes widespread, now you no longer need to explain why nobody ever heard of it before Mark. Now you need the big miralces, the embellishments of Matthew, and the new ending on Mark where Jesus appears in front of numerous people, casting out demons and all.

That fits your model.

Juststeve

Jay:

You and I simply have a different idea about how the criteria of embarrassment works. I understand it to be nothing more than a rejoinder to the assertion that a particular detail in a story about a possibly historical personage is fictional. In the case of Jesus I would not expect someone who is trying to portray Jesus as the sinless son of God to make up a story about him being baptized by one who preached baptism for the remission of sin.

I do not take the criteria to prove anything. I do take it as a bit of evidence that the baptism is more likely to be historical than just made up.

There is of course a converse situation. What do we make of the stories about Jesus that are just to convenient? His birth in Bethlehem in Matthew and Luke for example. Are we to believe either story or both, if both is even possible? I would say no because the birth in Bethlehem fits too nicely into the theory being developed and is improbable on other grounds as well.

Steve

aa5874

The CoE is a total waste of time. It is worthless.

You have MERELY ASSUMED that the Gospels contain history WITHOUT any external corroboration.

In the NT, Jesus was NOT a mere MAN but the offspring of a HOLY GHOST and the Creator of heaven and earth.

Unless you can find an EXTERNAL credible source of Antiquity for a human Jewish Messiah then you might as well dump the CoE in a GARBAGE BAG.

bacht

Despite the fact that Paul doesn't mention John the Baptist, he does acknowledge the existence of Christian baptism in his time.

We have glimpses of baptizing Jewish Christians in the extra-NT literature.

Maybe Mark wanted to condense the origins of baptism into one person without acknowledging its pre-Christian roots.

The embarassment factor might be the Jewish source of this new savior cult. If Mark wrote during the reigns of Trajan or Hadrian there was certainly anti-Jewish sentiment in the air. If he wrote during or after the bar-Kochba revolt he might have been commenting on the foolishness of the Jews, an early supercessionist attitude.

PhilosopherJay

Hi rlogan,

Good catch about Elijah's clothes being the same as Jbt's. This suggests that the original tale might have been about Elijah. Perhaps there was an earlier layer to the Baptism tale with Elijah as the lead character. It is possible the tale went through three main morphs, 1) Baptism and Elijah, 2) Baptism and John, 3) Baptism, John and Jesus.

In 1945, Henry Hathaway directed "House of 92nd Street" which showed the modern scientific methods that the FBI used to catch Nazi Spies at the beginning of World War II. In 1950, we have John Sturges directing "Mystery Street" which shows a Boston Police Detective (Ricardo Montalbaum) using the modern scientific forensic investigation methods of a Harvard Professor to solve a murder case. These were the first real motion picture investigation/police procedurals that led to the many popular CSI type investigative procedural dramas now on television.

If one saw "Public Enemies" (2009), it appears that police and the FBI actually used rather brutal methods (literally beating confessions out of people) to catch criminals in the 1930's. Perhaps, it was the embarrassment of these uses of brutal methods that led to the use of more scientific techniques in subsequent decades.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

bacht

Jesus' siblings could have been an embarassing issue. In Mark he has a normal family, but once the miraculous birth stories are added we have to wonder about his brothers and sisters. They are mentioned only in the 1st ch of Acts, then they disappear.