Toto

We've had long discussions on the Josephan passage on John the Baptist. (recent thread) Frank Zindler argues that it is not historical, pointing out that "Macherus, the castle I already mentioned" was in a territory outside of Herod's jurisdiction.

(NT scholars do not have a criterion for "internal consistency of document." Why is this?)

Toto

I do not think it is possible to arrive at certainty about actual history from the ancient period, and I am very suspicious of those who insist on certainty.

Huon

So, a passage of Josephus can be taken as "historical" by some people, and "not historical" by some others ? And it is not possible to come to a conclusion ?

Toto

A passage in Josephus might be his own genuine attempt to write history; it might be his polemical attempt to spin history; it might be a lie by Josephus; it might be a later interpolation by someone with a different agenda.

To decide which it is, we use all of the resources we have, but often cannot decide.

I don't think that anyone has tried to apply the criteria of embarrassment to intepreting Josephus.

S.C.Carlson

I think that "pre-conditions" in CS would generally correspond to "premises" in historical criticism if they are explicit and "assumptions" if they are implicit.

When I was studying CS in the mid-1980s, there was quite a bit of interest in making a lot of the programmer's assumptions more explicit (i.e. to a later maintainer who didn't design or code the routine). Thus, we had people like Bertrand Meyer developing languages like Eiffel which provided language-based support for making the pre-conditions more explicit and easier to remember using (as if using C's assert() is too hard to do).

I'm not sure what "post-processing" should correspond to. Historical criticism is more syllogistic than algorithmic.

Stephen

spin

What exactly is "spin history"?


ipsn

Yuri Kuchinsky

IMHO no special methodology is required for biblical studies. The usual critical historical methodology, as widely employed in all branches of historical scholarship, should be sufficient.

The only difference between the biblical history and the other kinds of history is that, in Bible studies, there's a lot more politics involved... But it's not like politics is completely uninvolved in the other branches of history...

Regards,

Yuri.

Toto

In the US, to "spin" something is to shape artful arguments that emphasize one's preferred point of view, without actually lying. Spin defined by Wikipedia indicates that it is a pejorative, but I think in common usage it is just a recognition that perception can be as important as reality, and shaping the news is an art form.

spin

Oh, how egocentric of me: I read "spin" as a type of history! You know, my type of history: "spin history". :Cheeky:

npis

neilgodfrey

I may be missing some main point here, but here are my thoughts for what they are worth (and I am sure they could be expressed much more succinctly and simply with a clearer head than mine at the moment) …..

Methodologies need to be evaluated for their usefulness in relation to the materials they are applied to, the ease with which they it can be used, and ability to produce widely desired outcomes.

To take the first of these: The raw materials of a historian are not “facts� but “sources�, or source data. Data only becomes meaningful information after we massage it with a range of complex analytical processes. At the base of these processes are variable values that will determine the perceptions we bring to it and questions we ask of it; the comparisons we bring to it and the classifications we impose on it; and so on. Information only becomes knowledge (or “historical facts�) through another set of analytical processes that involve even more variable and complex processes. These processes of information and knowledge creation are the subject of theories of knowledge rather than methodologies.

So historians can “know� that Roman legions were recruited outside Italy in the second century even though there is no source document that anywhere directly tells us this but a royal stele boasting a particular conquest can be pure baloney. We can “know� from the mass of sources available why the Russian peasants rebelled in 1917 but libraries of personal documents can still leave us utterly incapable of “knowing� why any particular individual took to the streets. One can sometimes find more “historical truth or fact� in a fictional novel than in an official public speech or document. I can believe it is raining outside when just one colleague tells me it is but a hundred documents saying “Jesus was crucified� can remain the subject of legitimate puzzlement and debate from different avenues of enquiry.

The third area of evaluation of a methodology, its ability to produce widely agreed outcomes, is of course contingent upon the values and limitations underlying those desired outcomes and so no evaluation of the methodology can be an absolutely independent arbiter of its worth. These agreed and desirable outcomes also are the result of choices based on specific values, interests, skills and knowledge.

In short, in the field of early Christian studies the nature of our source data, and especially the limited quantity of it, and the ways we produce information and knowledge from it, mean that historical constructions will always be the subject of theories of history and knowledge. Methodologies will always be limited and inconclusive tools subsumed under the broader task. The qualitative and quantitative limitations of our source data limit the use of the normal methodologies of archaeology and history.

I don’t know how it could be possible to construct a valid methodology that was capable of answering the problem of paucity of data. One can construct a mathematical “formula� for an expression of degrees of certainty but these seem to me to be more tricks of illusion than the necessarily theoretical tools of historical and literary enquiry.