Jehanne

Professor Sheehan seems to be acknowledging the core of the Gospels – that Jesus was crucified and that his disciples were grieved and perhaps traumatized by the event!

Amaleq13

Correct but the triplicate form suggests they are, as they stand, a literary creation rather than a historical record. Perhaps this creation reflects a historical event but it seems just as likely that Peter is being depicted in this way to speak to the doubts of the author's audience. How did you come to conclude this is history?


Where is John described as witnessing the crucifixion? The unidentified "beloved disciple" is placed there but only in the fourth version of the story in which the author also depicts this figure in a uniquely central position. It seems quite possible that this figure is a literary invention by the author. How did you determine that the depiction of the figure is historically reliable and that he can be reliably identified as "John"? I agree that it is not impossible that Mary might have witnessed the crucifixion.

Nothing supernatural but the sudden appearance of this character is interesting and, given the varying depictions of his identity/relationship to Jesus, it is not unwarranted to suspect that he might be a literary invention. How did you conclude that he is a historical figure and that the depiction of him offering his own tomb historically reliable?

The evidence you claim to rely upon does claim that the disappearance was supernatural and goes to great lengths to establish that this is the only possible explanation. That the accounts differ, including one (Paul's) where no empty tomb is mentioned, suggests we might be dealing with a literary invention. How did you determine the empty tomb is a historically reliable fact?

Vorkosigan

The context is supernatural. They are placed within the context of a supernatural prophecy and after a time specified not only by Jesus in his supernatural prediction, but also by the parable in Mark 13. The literary nature of this denial (it is not only doubly predicted but also doubled in Pilate's three offerings of Jesus to the crowd), its supernatural aspects, and the lack of an apologetic in later literature, and the lack of mention of it entirely, indicate that it is a fiction from the hand of Mark. The scene also displays other signals of Markan creation, including some great irony (a guy named "Rock" collapses) and of course, it fufills the fourfold typology of the gospel that Mark laid out in the Parable of the Sower.

Vorkosigan

Toto

Chili's digression has been split off here

Bede

Let me say that Mark, a writer who can't get his plurals right, who doesn't know where to use the aorist, whose style involves endless clumsy double descriptions and who makes many obvious mistakes certainly did not come up with all this clever literary creation business. I can't argue about this stuff as it is all just blind assertion backed up by total fantasy. You could deconstruct Jeffery Archer or the Da Vinci Code to the same effect. I admit that believing the resurrection requires some faith, but believing Mark was a literary genius is pure gullibility.

But actually that wasn't my point about Sheehan or even Family Man. Family Man just slipped up and I corrected him. Vork and A13 have moved onto an entirely different point - the literary creation chimera.

What Sheeham does is reject most of the passion story, which he is entitled to do though hopefully not for reasons as wrong headed as Vork's. But he then makes up something completely different for which he has no evidence at all. It is this last point that I object to. Sceptics can disbelieve what they like. It will make them bad at history but they won't be hypocrits. But they cannot then invent their own story to take over. They have to settle for agnosticism. Hence Sheehan's mistake and why his theories are of no consequence.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Jehanne

Forensic psychologists do such “reconstructions� all the time, assessing a deceased person’s psychological and mental state. Are you saying that there are no plausible naturalistic, psychological explanations for Peter and Paul’s behavior, and consequently, the behavior of those who followed them?

Amaleq13

I don't consider any of the examples I mentioned to qualify as "clever". In fact, the indications of literary creation are fairly obvious and require only a modicum of critical consideration. Your position, OTOH, appears to accept what is written without any degree of critical consideration whatsoever. To my knowledge, that is not how alleged historical records are examined by professional historians. It seems to me that Sheehan's speculations are implicitly based on the obviously questionable nature of the Gospel claims.

I'm not sure what this refers to but it can't be my observations since they are simply common sense observations suggesting that it would be unwise to assume these Gospel claims to be historical without additional argument/evidence. Sheehan's speculation seems entirely reasonable given the obviously questionable nature of these claims and an absence of any good reason to assume they are historically reliable.

I would think you could do the same with any literary creation. Shouldn't these have been examples of recognized historical records?

That is a straw man since the examples discussed so far do not require an assumption of "literary genius". What does appear to require gullibility, or at least faith, is the uncritical acceptance you seem to suggest.

Family Man

And supernatural claims are always evaluated to be unhistorical. I've never seen it otherwise.

Strictly true, but historically trivial, and a very uncharitable criticism. None of these establishes Jesus's resurrection as being a historical fact, and all of them are questionable as historical facts (i.e. if we reject these as true, no major historical fact falls into question. The apostles could be traumatized without actually witnessing a resurrection, for example). Acknowledging these changes Sheehan's argument not a whit.

Jehanne

It is popular in Catholic theological circles to say that the Church worships the “Christ of Faith� and not the “Jesus of History�. But, cannot we say that about an almost limitless set of “supernatural� claims? (As an atheist in high school, I used to reply to those evangelical Christians who “challenged� me with “Why not believe?� with “Why not be a Mormon, or a Jehovah’s Witness?�) And, is not the central theme of Professor Sheehan's article that there is so little historical fact in the New Testament on which to base any firm conclusions that it is better to construct a scientific hypotheses on what is known from the realms of psychology, neurology and general historical knowledge of the period?

Given the known rate of epilepsy in the human population across time and space (between 0.5 and 1.5%), it is probable that the disciple’s “visions� were a product of their own brains and that such individuals were predisposed to being drawn to Jesus in the first place due to their neurological illnesses. According to the (Weak) Law of Large Numbers in statistics, an improbable naturalistic event is to be preferred over any “supernatural� interpretation, because, according to statistical theory, not only can improbable events occur, they must occur given enough opportunities, which were plentiful among the superstitious peoples of first-century Israel and Palestine.

Vorkosigan

How are they "wrongheaded?"

Vorkosigan