Gamera

This statement is virtually unintelligible by modern standards of historiography. EVERY account is a biased account. There is no such thing as an unbiased account. The fact that an account is biased and has an agenda (which is why somebody writes a history in the first place) does not mean it is fiction. It means it's a text, and all texts are biased narratives.

Nope, I like any modern historian assume ALL texts are biased and have an agenda. You seem blissfully unaware of the entire impact of postmodernism on historical studies. You might want to read The Postmodern Condition (Theory & History of Literature) by Jean-Francois Lyotard, G. Bennington, and B. Massumi (Paperback - Aug 9, 1984) or anything by Hayden White


I think it fair for historians to simply bracket off religious claims in the gospels, just as they bracket off Augustus' claim that he was a god. That's really not the issue in the realm of determining Jesus' historicity.

At best, that's history writing in any age.

Yep, they did. But their claims are consistent with the claims purportedly made by Jesus in the gospels, which suggests that Jesus made those claims and wasn't just an itenerant preacher who got divine PR after his death.

Yep, that's history writing at its best. There is no such thing as history writing without an agenda. What does that have to do with the historicity of the subjects of histories?

Gamera

I think there's a big difference and I think it's a distinction modern historians keep in mind.

Whether the battle of Marathon took place in 490 BCE or 491 BCE is an historical question theoretically subject to verification more or less. Thus an historical text claiming the battle took place on one date or another can be more or less accurate. Similarly the size of Darius' military is theoretically verifiable, so we can evaluate Herodotus' account for factual accuracy.

But that's not the same as the historicity of Miltiades, whom I beleive is only mentioned by Heroditus, as a leading Athenian leader of the battle. It's possible Herodotus made up the character of Miltiades to promote his particular agenda and needed him as a narrative element. By the standards used to evaluate Jesus' historicity (i.e., lack of references outside of the gospel and lack of archeological support), one would conclude he was a fiction. But of course, I doubt you do. I don't. That's because the standard makes no sense, and is merely arrayed against Jesus because the Detractors have a particular historical agenda. I don't mind that. I just ask for consistency. Efface Jesus from history, and you need to efface Socrates and Pericles and poor fightin' Miltiades too.

So the issue of Miltiades' historicity is not so much accuracy, but what the genre of Herodotus' writing was. Was he writing what we call history, or mythmaking, or being entertaining, or running for office on the Mitiades' platform?

And that's the difference

Koyaanisqatsi

Utter nonsense.



Not when one is discussing the historical accuracy of a given book and that book is written by cult members about their cult leaders and the fantastical claims about those cult leaders, which includes conversations the authors could not have possibly overheard as if they were there; then you have nothing more than mythology at best, if not blatant fiction.

There is a significant difference between, "Gather round as I tell you the TRUE tales of the...." fill in the blank and "Roman reports from 30 C.E. detail a radical movement lead by a charismatic Rabbi seditionist..." etc.

The Gospels are not and simply cannot be considered as anything other than cult mythologies. Period.

If you disagree then every single work of fiction that does not explicitly state at the beginning, "This is a work of fiction" must also be considered "historically accurate" works of non-fiction, which is, of course, preposterous.

You include a conversation between a god and a devil that you, as the author, could not possibly have actually heard, or between the son of a god and his father god that likewise you were not there to actually hear and you are axiomatically writing a fictionalized account of something that at best you were told by somebody else happened.

:huh:

At best that could only attest to the hearsay claim that something extraordinary happened; the details of which could not possibly be known.

So if an author ignores this and includes details they could not possibly have personally witnessed, then they are writing fiction. Period.

The argument isn't that an author is a human being and therefore his or her foibles and political slants are an irrelevant factor in any historical publication; the argument is that these authors are in no way historians, but snake oil salesmen, desperately trying to sell their mythological nonsense as if it were incontrivertible truth.

Again, you write conversations you couldn't possibly have actually heard as if you did hear them and/or as if the words spoken were "the truth" and you are a fiction writer; you write about fantastical, "miraculous" events as if those events (a) unquestionably happened and (b) prove something divine about the individual alleged to have commited those actions and you are writing mythology at best.

I don't give a shit if I swear up and down that I saw a UFO, if I write about conversations between two aliens that I did not meet and could not possibly have known what they were saying to each other, then I am writing fiction. If I then try to convince you that I actually experienced it and the conversation was planted into my head by one of the aliens, then I'm writing mythology.

Unless I have some sort of corroborative proof/evidence, of course.

:huh:

Gamera

Great reply
What does this mean. Every writer of history (every WRITER) has an agenda and is biased. Historians make choices about what is important, what isn't, what is edited out, what is altered. The idea that there are "unbiased" historians is so naive it's laughable.

Please name an unbiased historian for us, so we can put him on a pedestal.



No there isn't, except that the "historical" texts are simply better at fooling you into thinking that they aren't biased. That's exactly the point of what they are trying to do. And you have fallen for it, apparently.

Genrewise, they are biographies, and follow the classic-period biographical texts to a T. You simply don't know what you are talking about.

Cite for us a "cult mythology" genre text from the classic period please.


It's a good start to see what the audience thought it was, since the audience and the authors are dead.

No, I include that in the theological claims of the texts, which cannot be verified and aren't intended to be.

What's wrong with hearsay. It's the basis of about 99.999999% of all historical texts. You're confusing a legal doctrine about evidence admissible in a courtroom with historical discourse. That's a pretty big confusion. I honestly doubt you really know what the hearsay rule is (and it not just the fact that somebody said something to somebody else) By the way I'm a lawyer.

You seem to think that texts from the classic period are simple. They aren't. They are complex. Tacitus mixes history with phantastical natural histories with encomia to values he uphold. Is Tacitus not an historian?

I know that's your argument, but it fails, since the point is ALL historians are snake oil salesmen. It comes with having an agenda. This isn't a "foible"; it's an epistomological certainty that makes historiography utterly problematic. Read Hayden White.

Just estimating I suspect 99.999% of Herodotus' reported conversations could not have been heard. So you've just delegitimized the father of history.

So Tacitus writes mythology when he discusses the Phoenix. Are all his texts therefore suspect?
Yeah, like numerous texts that tell basically the same story, and a religious movement that overwhelms Europe in a few centuries, all pretty much in accord with the narratives of those texts.

Koyaanisqatsi

Oh, for fuck's sake, Gamera, you know damn well what it means. It means that the authors of the gospel stories are deliberately making shit up, that's what it means. They are cult leaders/members writing the stories/mythologies their cult members are simply told to believe are unquestionably true events and the punishment for disbelief is eternal damnation.

They are in no way objective, disciplined academicians intent on sifting out historical fact from ignorant fiction; they are the modern day equivalent of David Koresh followers (at best) deliberately attempting to brain wash their children into believing that David Koresh was either the son of or the incarnation of a magical fairy god king like being who was the "One True God" among, presumably, hundreds of other "false" gods (whatever the hell that means).

That is not just "biased" that is the ultimate definition of the term.

If he claimed they were actual conversations and the manner in which he knew they were was that they were "god breathed" or otherwise divinely inspired and that people's eternal souls lay in the balance for not believing the words were true, then yes I have.

Now please, by all means, trumpet your fallacy and ignore the facts.

We're done.

Gamera

But that's the point. How do you determine that when they have plenty of historical accuracy in the texts, just like any other historical text. And when other historical texts of the time have plenty of made up and inaccurate stuff. You're just frustrated because you can only assume your conclusion.

Needless to say, the only choices are not unbiased historians and David Koresh. The notion that Tacitus was unbiased is just silly and hardly worthy of a reply. You simply are unaware of any research into historiography for the past 50 years.

.

I'd say you are. You haven't read any literature on the theory of historiography written in the past 50 years have you. White? Lyotard? Foucault?

Nope, not one.

Roller

The problem I have with Gospels is what I see as systematic editing. Ehrman would call it "Orthodox Corruption of Scripture." Are copies of what we have from other historians liberally edited to promulgate someone's agenda?

Gamera

We never know, that's part of the problemata of historical texts. Clearly Herodotus' texts are also a pastiche. Who knows what Imperial editors got to Josephus?

What we can say is that historical texts are alway agenda-ized, inconsistent, if not pastiches. They are never History with a capital H.

The point is, your qualms, while relevant, apply to what we mean by historiography in general, not just to the gospels.

Roller

We are, at least somewhat, sure what editors did to the Gospels. Is there similar evidence to other historical sources? Please note that I'm not a mythicist. I consider some of the Jesus core sayings (those that pass the criterion of dissimilarity, contextual credibility, and independent attestation) as plausible. There is no problem that a living person is behind those. However, the miraculous stuff does not pass any of the criteria (historically). Now, I don't think for a second that Livy spoke to Romulus but that does not necessarily eliminate everything else he says. Similarly, while I don't believe for a second that Jesus was resurrected, I have no problem believing that a person like Jesus son of Joseph existed. It fits the 1st century apocalyptic context of Judea. But you can't go beyond that. Much of gospels is clearly myth building around (likely) a historical person.

spin

What exactly do you mean by "historical" texts? Do they include works such as Judith, the Satyricon, Lucian's "True History", Revelation, Acts? What makes a text historical in your mind?

How did you come to that conclusion? How do you think these would-be biographers worked to get the birth narratives, the temptation, the prayers in Gethsemane, etc? Do these sizable passages belong to your idea of a biography? What are your exemplars of the genre of biography with which you can compare your would-be biography of Jesus?

From what data did you derive this probability?

If we overlook the no true scotsman stupidity, what do you mean by "fictive" (remembering that I usually take to task the wanton use of this term and its relatives on this forum)?

Do you think declaiming this will make it any more so than before you said it? When you use "clearly" there is the implication that the reader can see where your point comes from, but you haven't give anything to support the use of this "clearly".

You have established no trajectory whatsoever, historical or not. First you must show a progression before you can derive a trajectory. You have done none of the relevant moves to date events or relate texts to established historical data to use as a yardstick to build a trajectory.


spin