mountainman

The hegemon is with those in possession of certain inside information.

LegionOnomaMoi

Here is your statement (emphasis added):
While I'd be the first to say that words are polysemous, that doesn't deprive them of meaning, even if it the lexicon of a given language is more "encyclopedic" than it is a series of "dictionary entries". Hegemony (as long as we aren't referring to ancient Greek) is a technical term, used in academic discussions of political, social, and cultural theory. I objected to Spin's usage of the term because it simply doesn't apply in general, let alone in the specific use he was relying on.

The point is that it doesn't matter if Avalos' description is completely accurate, as that wouldn't make historical Jesus studies a product of (or under the control of) a hegemony. If accurate, it would certainly be a serious problem for those who are interested in accuracy, history, etc., but it is one thing to say that NT studies, biblical studies, and historical Jesus studies are dominated by Christians or use historical methods and models which are invalid, or any number of other explanations as to why mythicist arguments are so rarely proposed or defended by any academics, and quite another to assert that the reason is hegemony.

The issue of what factors influence public and academic discussions/debates about the historical Jesus, and the interaction between these two realms, has nothing to do with the post I wrote which you called a "a deliberate misunderstanding of the issues and problems disguised as an intellectual discussion". I was not arguing there that biblical and related studies are approached no differently than, say, classical studies or Celtic studies, or that there are no issues resulting from the nature of the material studied, the background of those studying it, and the reaction from the public. I was simply defining the general use of a term.

If you wish to argue that hegemony is responsible for the state of biblical/NT/HJ studies, then you need to
1) Explain which model of hegemony you are using and
2) How it applies here

If you want to argue that these fields are somehow fundamentally flawed (whether because of underlying assumptions, methods, the response of the public, some combination, etc.) then that's one thing. But you can't simply throw out a bunch of statements about problems in the field and decide that this amounts to hegemony.

J-D

Then it seems to me that you are offering an explanation which may apply to people inside biblical studies departments clinging to their opinions, but not to people outside biblical studies departments.

LegionOnomaMoi

"The hegemon"? and "those"? Hegemon is singular, and refers to a leader/ruler.

I know you are getting this from a book of his essays. But your quote comes from a paper originally published in the journal The Biblical Archaeologist.

And as long as we're quote mining, how about his statement: "If I said there is no basic difference between writing biblical history and writing any other history, it is because I wanted to introduce what to my mind is the really serious problem of writing any history today. There is a widespread tendency both inside and outside the historical profession to treat historiography as another genre of fiction." Momigliano is absolutely not advocating leaving biblical studies to biblical scholars, and that's that. He writes "To conclude, I may well ask myself where a classical scholar can help biblical scholars most usefully" and says much earlier "I have never found the task of interpreting the Bible any more or less complex than that of intrepreting Livy or Herodotus."

So what's your point? The quote you refer to comes original from a paper published in a biblical studies journal. It concerns how classical studies can complement biblical studies. In other words, it is almost completely antithetical to your point.

Vorkosigan

<shrug> I expected no less from you.

J-D

I had no expectations of you whatever, so I'm not disappointed.

mountainman

Why does Momigliano refer to the Biblical Historians as the insiders and the ancient historians as the outsiders? You have yet to answer this simple question. Beware of Momigliano's use of heavy irony. He follows Gibbon in this.

Here's the quote in context:




Why does Momigliano refer to the Biblical Historians as the insiders and the ancient historians as the outsiders? Are the Biblical Historians the insiders because they think that they are closer to the effulgent hegemony of the historical jesus?

More to the point, the item (2) above (that I have bolded) summarises the problems that have in recent years been identified in the field of Biblical History (including, for example, "The Criterion of Embarrassment" and other illogical criteria).

LegionOnomaMoi

Because of context: he's noting that this isn't his area of expertise. One reason you missed the full implication of his opening is the fact that you read it in a volume with various papers he wrote. Originally, it was published in a biblical studies journal, and specifically in a volume in which the main articles were written by specialists in other fields and concerned how these fields contribute, might contribute, or perhaps could contribute to biblical scholarship. In fact, the front cover of the volume (Vol. 45 No. 4) has the subtitle "Bible, Archeology, and History: Sauer, Miller, Rainey, and Momigliano on reconstructing biblical history". The main focus of that particular volume was the input of particular individuals (of which Momigliaono was only one) and the relevency of their fields to biblical studies, as well as their thoughts (from the perspective of their fields) on the subject.

So, given the context of his paper (the particular journal it was published in and the focus of the main articles of that journal) his remark makes perfect sense, and is comparable to the opening remarks of the other three main authors. It is not, as you imply, some comment about the "insider", exclusive realm of biblical studies. It's simply a polite opening to an article, written among three others of the same type, which discusses a particular field which overlaps with the field of the journal the article was published in.

The paper itself, as well as the three papers beside it and the focus of that issue of the journal itself, all undermine exactly what you are claiming.


No, it's not in context. Because "Chapter 1" is just where this article was reprinted. It was written in 1982, and the context is an issue in a biblical studies journal in which the focus was getting experts in related fields to comment on the relevance of their fields on reconstructing biblical history.





He doesn't. Ever. At all. Look at point three he made in your quote. Look at the title of the article (or, for you, the chapter). He's stating that he is an outsider because he is a classicist, but (and this is the point of his paper) that due to the overlapping nature of these fields, there are areas in which classical scholars can contribute to biblical studies.


Only, as Momigliano specifically notes (see his item 1), he's talking about the problems inherent in studying history in general. He says this explicitly again later in the article. You've read quite a bit into your quote which Momigliano isn't saying.

mountainman

This cannot be the case since his closing remark is this:

Let me admit from the start that I am rather impervious to
any claim that sacred history poses problems which are not
those of profane history.

LM you need to road test your irony detection meter.
It could be broken.





He appears to state this rather explicitly.

Principles of Historical research need not be different
from criteria of common sense. And common sense teaches
us that outsiders must not tell insiders what they should
do. I shall therefore not discuss directly what biblical
scholars are doing. They are the insiders.

You've attempted to ignore quite a bit of what Momigliano does say.

LegionOnomaMoi

Why on earth do you call that his "closing remark?" It's in the middle of a paragraph, on the first page of his article (and only the third paragraph). It's not even a concluding thought. He continues the paragraph with "As a man trained from early days to read the Bible in Hebrew, Livy in Latin, and Herodotus in Greek, I have never found the task of interpreting the Bible any more or less complex than that of interpreting Livy or Herodotus." There is nothing anywhere in his article to indicate that he believes that biblical scholars have no idea what they are doing or that they are a "closed group" (if that were true, he'd hardly be writing an article in a biblical studies journal). First, at end of a somewhat lengthy discussion of problems historians face with evidence (which are, according to him, "basically the same in Roman as in Hebrew history"), he writes "Biblical scholars are used to such problem." After the bulk of his article (which is, after all, how he believes biblical studies could be helped by classical studies, as the interdisciplinary approach to biblical studies is the focus of the journal issue he is writing in), he concludes by noting an area in which classical historians have been helped, or could use the help of biblical scholars: "classical historians have been slow in understanding what Persia meant to the Greeks. But we are now beginning to make some progress. This is my favorite field for exchange of information between classical and biblical historians.


Or, you simply didn't realize that "chapter one" was never intended to be a chapter, wasn't written as a chapter, and never checked the context in which it was published: as an article in an issue of a biblical studies journal which focused on the interaction between biblical studies and other fields by having four experts from four different related fields write about what their field can contribute to biblical studies.

As you lacked that context, you assumed that this:




was the "explicit" statement you claim it is. And if you didn't realize that the essay wasn't written as "chapter one" in your book, but included in a biblical studies journal in which the ENTIRE POINT was to talk about other fields and biblical studies, then naturally you might get the wrong impression. However, it WAS just such an article: He wasn't writing "chapter one" of anything, and thus stating politely at the beginning that (as he was going to in some sense critique biblical studies) he was doing so as one whose focus lay elsewhere. He opens by this remark, gets into how the two fields share so much, then offers what he thinks classical studies can bring to the table, and his actual "closing remark" is an area in which he sees classical studies as benefiting from biblical studies.



No, I just read the article in the actual place it originally appeared, and for which it was originally intended. What you did is see it as chapter one in your book, and miss the fact that originally it was intended for something entirely different.