S.C.Carlson

The problem with the claim that some ancient evidence is "hearsay" presumes incorrectly that most ancient evidence isn't. In fact, except for certain circumstantial (e.g., non-inscriptional archaeological) evidence, almost all of the evidence historians use is technically hearsay. In fact, it is usually not just simple hearsay, but hearsay within hearsay within hearsay within etc.

To this end, critical historians have developed techniques to deal with this hearsay. The hearsay of manuscript scribes is handled by textual criticism. The hearsay in the use of written sources is handled by source and redaction criticism. The hearsay in the use of oral sources is handled by form and tradition criticism, etc.

I suppose that courts of law tend to look skeptically at the panoply of "criticisms" that the historians come up with, but the stakes are lower in ancient history: no one is going to be losing their life, liberty, or property (at least immediately) based on what the academy concludes about what happened 2000 years ago.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

The second part of the statement doesn't change matters. The condition of "any chance of being viable" is so trivial to meet (e.g. 1 in a million of being viable), that the weight of your claim has to reside in the "hearsay" portion. However, non-circumstantial ancient evidence is by and large hearsay, so your claim essentially is semantically empty.

Stephen

Gregg

I'm not shifting any goalposts. I'm trying to demonstrate that it's hardly inconceivable that ancient people could have imagined such things. The Similitudes are only one piece of the puzzle.

Look. In Ascension of Isaiah, the Book of Enoch and the Similitudes of Enoch, the Sethian Gnostic literature, various apocalypses, and so on, we have these elements:

Levels of heaven
Indications that the lower levels of heaven are progressively more "earth-like" than the higher levels
Beings taking on the "likeness" of flesh
Fallen angels whose heavenly abode is torn with envy and strife
Fallen angels who have given forbidden knowledge to humankind
Fallen angels who have had sex with human women and produced abominations
Various divine intermediaries
Battles in heaven
An intermediary with various names who descends through the levels of heaven, putting on disguises so he is not recognized, rescuing the righteous from Sheol, then reappearing among the fallen angels in glory, dismaying and overcoming them
References to an Elect One, a Son of Man, a son of the Most High
Prophesied defeat and punishment of the powerful and the sinners and the wicked and the lifting up of the righteous


There is no strong indication in most of this literature that God's elect one has to come to Earth, in the sense of being born as a human being and living a human life, to accomplish his task. He can simply come to Earth on the clouds, taking a form of power and majesty, sort out the righteousness from the sinners and cast the latter into the pit or wherever, and so on (the three versions of IoA are by no means clear on this, particularly if Chapter 11 is taken as a post-gospel addition). And, of course, Christianity teaches a "second" coming in which Jesus does exactly this.

Then, in Isaiah, the Psalms, etc., we have a "suffering servant," references to one who is "pierced for their transgressions," "they pierced my hands and feet," etc.

In Paul and the epistles talking about Christ through scripture references and often using language reminiscent of visionary and apocalyptic literature.

Then we have various cults carrying on ancient beliefs in descending gods and gods who have died and returned to life, and in which the initiate can share in this process. While believers in these cults may have thought their gods died "on Earth" sometime in the distant past, rather than in some tiimeless, upper spiritual realm, we know that Hellenistic philosophers of the time thought differently.

Finally, we have Rome ruling much of the ancient world and executing enemies of the state through the dramatic method of crucifixion. While "hanging on a tree" in the Jewish scriptures does not refer to crucifixion, apparently not everyone at that time was really particular. In Acts, for example, the writer uses "hanging on a tree" to describe the crucifixion. If he can use this scripture passage, which really refers to actually hanging a dead person by a rope from a tree, to describe an Earthly crucifixion, there's no reason believers in a heavenly sacrifice couldn't do the same--putting "hanging on a tree" and "they pierced my hands and feet" together and envisioning the Christ being crucified--especially since that wasn't an uncommon sight at the time. We know, of course, that not everybody added the element of death/resurrection to their Christ-belief, since Paul has to deal with those who believe in a Christ, but not a crucified one.

It's when you put all this together that you start to wonder, why would you need an actual crucifixion to kick-start all this? Sure, real crucifixions could have fed into the belief developing among some that the Christ had undergone suffering or even death, followed by resurrection and ascension. But that's very different from holding that an actual historical man was the incarnation of the Elect One, the Son of Man. Putting the whole shebang in the heavens; the descent, the suffering and death, the rescuing from Sheol, the resurrection and defeat of the fallen angels, the reascension; makes more sense. An actual historical man seems very out of place in the midst of all these vividly imagined heavenly locales, entities, and activities.

Is this speculation? Sure. But it's hardly baseless speculation. And it's certainly no more speculative than historicism, with its various explanations for why people responded to Jesus in so many different ways, why nobody before Mark shows any interest in the Christ's earthly life and career, why Jesus almost immediately came to be regarded as the incarnate Son of Man, yet apparently lived such an obscure life that no historians of the time noticed it, and so on.

spamandham

I must have missed all this somewhere in Doherty's writings. I came away from reading his material thinking his position was that Paul was a mystic.

At any rate, I don't see how an earlier dating of Mark changes anything from a mythicist perspective, except for some of the more outlandish positions, such as Eusebius invented Christianity, which would probably be unaffected by anything but C12 dating.

Gregg

I didn't really catch that in G'Don's post. I think he's mixing up some statements of Earl's. I think he's correct that Earl believes Paul thought Jesus was a divine being who descended to the world of matter but not entirely to Earth, and so on. But he seems to be confusing this with other statements Earl makes, for example the Greeks philosophers regarding ancient Greek myths as allegories of timeless spiritual processes, or of "Mark" being an allegorical account of the Christ's heavenly activities. Those things don't really have anything to do with Paul's beliefs, they're about the nature of the gospels, which is a separate issue.

Ben C Smith

And there it is. You say that belief in a material world that is not the earth, a world into which a savior god can descend to die, is common among certain ancient groups. I ask which groups these are, and for evidence that they believed such a thing. You say that the evidence is right in front of my face, and proceed to give me a lengthy quotation from a text that has nothing to do with a material world that is not the earth. I point this inconvenient little fact out, and you say that it is not inconceivable that ancient people could have imagined such things.

I asked for evidence. You produced speculation.

Ben.

Gamera

Somebody doesn't understand hearsay. Any writing is per se hearsay, unless the author is in court. It doesn't matter that the writing claims the author experienced firsthand the matters attested to in the writing. Since the author isn't there to be cross examined, it is hearsay.

The critical issue in hearsay is the presence of the person making the declaration as to the truth of a matter, so that he can be cross examined.

Needless to say, Thucydides isn't around to be cross examine. If we could cross examine him, his claim that he was an eyewitness might fall apart.

Try, try again, spin, after actually reading the rule.

http://12.170.132.252/default2.asp?s...d=%7C%7C%7C%7C

hearsay rule
n. the basic rule that testimony or documents which quote persons not in court are not admissible. Because the person who supposedly knew the facts is not in court to state his/her exact words, the trier of fact cannot judge the demeanor and credibility of the alleged first-hand witness, and the other party's lawyer cannot cross-examine (ask questions of) him or her.

So, spin, to circle back to your claim that the evidence in the topic thread is "hearsay", the response is, so what. 99.99% of all history is hearsay, but nobody cares since we aren't in a court of law, we're in the court of empiricism.

By the way most states have a hearsay exemption for "ancient documents," mooting your point from the start.

Gamera

"By and large" hardly covers it. You're being too generous to spin (and that is remarkable).

Any written text is per se hearsay, unless there is an exception. Since by definition most of our knowledge of history comes from written texts whose authors are dead, 99.99% of history is hearsay.

spin

I'm glad that you've stopped the knee-jerking on hearsay and wish you would deal with your real problem. (I happily demur to you on hearsay to the extent that you unhelpfully reduce basically all texts to the category)

You are trying to negotiate the use of certain texts as history. You have changed the subject off the texts themselves and onto their transmission. That's fine as a fudge, but that gives you no access to history at all.

What I said last time was:

It's interesting that you went off half-cocked without considering the second half of what you cite -- [You don't use hearsay evidence] when you can't give the data any chance of being viable. It was said for a reason, Gamera. Consider it. And take your foot to the doctor.

Staunch the bleeding and try to consider that second part. (You should understand the significance of the statement even though you might not be happy legally with it. If you want to proffer a document in court there are a number of things you are required to do to allow the admission of the document. What I have been asking from you for some time is to supply criteria to allow one to submit such documents.)

As you should see, I didn't complain about hearsay per se, but I said you need to provide criteria that will justify its use. You have refused to do so for several posts. If you are trying to maintain a dialogue, this sidetrack on hearsay is really a waste of your and my time.

When you said, "Try, try again", you were apparently just playing terminology games, rather than dealing with the issue of what is fodder for history. And, yes, ultimately all documents are fodder for history of some kind or other, even hamburger wrappers and coloring books, but without some criteria for submitting a document, you wade about in a sea of random data. And so far, this has been your fate.

What's it to be then, Gamera? Would you like to submit some criteria for what makes a document relevant to be considered in specific historical research?


spin

Gamera

You raised the "hearsay objection" in the context of Iranaeus. I would never be so foolish. I wouldn't worry about hearsay in ANY historical texts, since (a) they are all hearsay, and (b) history isn't a court of law, where the rule applies.

If you start throwing around evidentiary rules you don't understand and misapply, you have to expect somebody will call you on them, and I have.