Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 07-30-2007, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

If you think of a policeman writing a report on a car accident, it is fairly difficult for what he writes not to have passed through an oral stage first.

Forget Police and similar for a moment. There is a huge amount of written material that never had an alleged oral stage. Novelists, playwrights...

And why assume oral tradition is based on reality - Scheherezade anyone?

Even if it did have an oral stage it might have been someone witnessing a play and writing it down!

What is this assumption all the time of historical core? That has to be proven first! Just because the vast majority of scholars are thought to assume that does not make them correct - and some of the quotes above are of people not assuming historical thingy oral tradition writing it down.

Cheerful Charlie · 07-30-2007, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ynquirer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

Exactly. It is a usual stunt for law professors when lecturing future lawyers about eyewitness reliability to stage a 'crime' in the class room, a purse snatching or some such. Immediately the professor has everybody write down what they "saw". the carefully staged 'crime' is then examined step by step and people often don't get much right. An object lesson in just how hard it is for an eyewitness to get details right.

The policeman has to sort through this, and more than a few people have been sent to prison and later exhonerated based on bad eyewitness testimony. Police biases and even bigotry has colored reports and sent people to prison.

Its common for such cases to languish in the legal system for years and for the eyewitnesses to later tell very different stories from the day they told a policeman what they "saw". Even rape victims get it wrong, as proven by DNA evidence. Some eyewitness testimony changes under pressure from prosecutors.

There is a rather large literature on these sorts of problems with legal eyewitness testimony and reportage of same.

Different eyewitnesses produce different accounts of the same fact, don't they? Such differences in a murder, for instance, may be conducive to convicting an innocent, right? There is, however, a kernel of facts in which all witnesses agree, say, that there have been a murder, or a death at any rate. That is frequently useless for a court to rule the case, but is perhaps enough for the historian to write a narrative.

What happened in Washington this week? You will get a different version from Bill O'Lielly, Lush Rimjob and the New York Times or Roger Moore. The Blogs will offer even more different versions.

CC

Cheerful Charlie · 07-30-2007, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

If you think of a policeman writing a report on a car accident, it is fairly difficult for what he writes not to have passed through an oral stage first.

Ah.

Now imagine that same policeman trying to recall from memory the same car crash 70 years later, and writing an accurate report.

And now imagine that the eyewitnesses are dead, so the policeman has to interview the families of the eyewitnesses, to hear second-hand whatever they might have said about it.

There's quite a gulf of time and believability between your example of a policeman, and what we're dealing with here. But as usual, Roger, your amour for manuscripts blinds you to the obvious flaw in your analogy.

Now, imagine these second hand witnesses have fervent beliefs and agendas that color their judgment. You could go to alt.religion.scientology over past years and witness exchanges between true Scientology believers that still believed in Elron Hubbard and those who knew him and later realized he was a fraud. Worse yet were those who knew him for years and figured out he was a fraud and those who did not know him but claim these ex-believers are biased and not trustworthy. I can imagine the same thing decades after Christ died between true believers and Jews who repeated what they knew of Jesus, they don't remember the miracles and resurrection, and tall tales. He was just one of many messiah-wannabes who came to a bad end.

CC

Chris Weimer · 07-30-2007, 12:02 PM

The very notion that nothing can be accurately secured for the record essentially equates the entire world history as being myth. I wonder when history starts for Sauron - in the modern age of recording devices?

Cheerful Charlie · 07-30-2007, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ynquirer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

Exactly. It is a usual stunt for law professors when lecturing future lawyers about eyewitness reliability to stage a 'crime' in the class room, a purse snatching or some such. Immediately the professor has everybody write down what they "saw". the carefully staged 'crime' is then examined step by step and people often don't get much right. An object lesson in just how hard it is for an eyewitness to get details right.

The policeman has to sort through this, and more than a few people have been sent to prison and later exhonerated based on bad eyewitness testimony. Police biases and even bigotry has colored reports and sent people to prison.

Its common for such cases to languish in the legal system for years and for the eyewitnesses to later tell very different stories from the day they told a policeman what they "saw". Even rape victims get it wrong, as proven by DNA evidence. Some eyewitness testimony changes under pressure from prosecutors.

There is a rather large literature on these sorts of problems with legal eyewitness testimony and reportage of same.

Different eyewitnesses produce different accounts of the same fact, don't they? Such differences in a murder, for instance, may be conducive to convicting an innocent, right? There is, however, a kernel of facts in which all witnesses agree, say, that there have been a murder, or a death at any rate. That is frequently useless for a court to rule the case, but is perhaps enough for the historian to write a narrative.

In the end, you may have a body and 4 different stories, all contradictory.

And sometimes you don't. Witness tales like Pope Joan or Prester John.

Where then does the resurrection of Jesus fit, which category? Dead body and four contradictory obvious non-eyewitness based on hearsay? Or a false tale widely agreed on by non-eyewitnesses.

CC

Chris Weimer · 07-30-2007, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheerful Charlie

In the end, you may have a body and 4 different stories, all contradictory.

And sometimes you don't. Witness tales like Pope Joan or Prester John.

Where then does the resurrection of Jesus fit, which category? Dead body and four contradictory obvious non-eyewitness based on hearsay? Or a false tale widely agreed on by non-eyewitnesses.

Because, of course, these two are the only scenarios which we can envision ancient cultures having.

Toto · 07-30-2007, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Weimer

Have you ever interviewed a WWII veteran?

Ronald Regan "remembered" things happening that actually happened in a movie.

Chris Weimer · 07-30-2007, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Weimer

Have you ever interviewed a WWII veteran?

Ronald Regan "remembered" things happening that actually happened in a movie.

So once again, do we invalidate all of history?

aa5874 · 07-30-2007, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Weimer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sauron

Now imagine that same policeman trying to recall from memory the same car crash 70 years later, and writing an accurate report.

And now imagine that the eyewitnesses are dead, so the policeman has to interview the families of the eyewitnesses, to hear second-hand whatever they might have said about it.

There's quite a gulf of time and believability between your example of a policeman, and what we're dealing with here. But as usual, Roger, your amour for manuscripts blinds you to the obvious flaw in your analogy.

All that shows is that there will be errors. That says nothing of the core of the story.

Have you ever interviewed a WWII veteran?

Have you ever interviewed the son of a friend of the grandson of a WWII veteran to find out about a specific event during WWII that is not mentioned by any historian or WWII veteran?

The problem with the Gospel accounts is that they are not even eyewitness accounts, so the analogy of actual eyewitnesses describing what they have seen in a different way is not all applicable to the Gospels stories.

Toto · 07-30-2007, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Weimer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Ronald Regan "remembered" things happening that actually happened in a movie.

So once again, do we invalidate all of history?

If history is based on as flimsy a foundation as Reagan's memory, it should be invalidated. Luckily we have a better basis for history in the form of archeology and more credible witnesses.

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07-30-2007, 12:02 PM	#54
Chris Weimer Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: none Posts: 9,879	The very notion that nothing can be accurately secured for the record essentially equates the entire world history as being myth. I wonder when history starts for Sauron - in the modern age of recording devices?

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