rlogan

Hi all. Having a good row here I see.

Methodology is the core here and I don't see a strong organized methodology emerging from the discussion (for HJ research).

Vork keeps pounding home the lack of ourside sources, and Toto has summarized well that we find no internal consistency in the gospels/epistles.

I forgot who pointed out that the NT is not "one source" and should be used as multiple "attestations". I would respond that the NT is a result of a winnowing process with, among other things, political motivations. So these have in part been selected for that very fact and do not stand as independent attestations or a comprehensive list of "witnesses".

With respect to the OP I am unsure it is fair to say Doherty or skeptics in general take the view OT prophesy references demonstrate myth.

IMHO the gospel accounts reference OT prophesy for the independent purpose of "validating" Jesus as the Messiah whether he was real or not. Taken alone, it is inconclusive one way or the other. But it should be taken in the context of lack of positive verification, and in context of fatal mistakes such as the virgin birth story resulting from incorrect translation.

Now, I brashly suggest something on methodology, but it is not meant to be comprehensive or exclusive:

The first priority is esablishing a list of verified NT scriptural material from outside sources. This could be archaeological or contemporaneous non-christian writings. The focus is on outside vector positive attestation.

The second step is a negation principle - using outside material to negate the impossible within the NT. Sorry for questioning the virgin birth, but as an example it will do. Negate virgin birth stories. No slaughter of the innocents appears in non-Christian writings. Too ghastly and pervasive to escape notice. Negate.

Then we have something a little more manageable to work with - some positively attested material (however slim) and then the remaining non - negated material.

What remains is then compared internally for consistency.

As an excercise I would be very interested in what is left. Internally consistent non-negated or positively verified scripture. What is there?

This would be only one approach. But I think it would be valuable.

Cheers...

Layman

A couple more examples occured to me:

7. Paul

In his own letters, Paul describes events from his own life in OT themes and/or language.

First, his conversion.

"But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus."

Gal. 1:15-17.

Paul is drawing on two Old Testament verses here: Isa. 49:1, 6 and Jer. 1:5.

"Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me.... He says, 'It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.'"

Isa. 49:1, 6.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."

Jer. 1:5

After noting Paul's use of "mother's womb", being "called", to the "nations", Jerome Murphy O'Connor notes that the similarities "cannot be coincidental. As in the case of his two great predecessors, Paul saw his conversion as the working out of a plan devised much earlier by God." Paul: A Critical Life, at 80.

Second, his escape from Damascus.

"In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and so escaped his hands."

2 Cor. 11:32-33.

Paul is drawing on Joshua 2:15 and 1 Sam. 19:12.

"So the men said to her, "Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the LORD gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.' Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall."

Josh. 2:14-15.

"As they went up the slope to the city, they found young women going out to draw water and said to them, 'Is the seer here?' They answered them and said, "He is; see, he is ahead of you. Hurry now, for he has come into the city today, for the people have a sacrifice on the high place today."

1 Sam. 9:11-12.

Vorkosigan

No, they were completely shredded. The lack of theoretical basis is only the first of the objections. Crossan also notes that they are subjective, incoherent, and have other problems as well. Many other scholars have noted that they assume what they are trying to prove, for example, the coherence criteria.

And of course, as we noted here a while back, the use of such criteria assumes that we are looking at history, which is what we are trying to prove. By themselves Meier's criteria are worthless. If you doubt that, pick any large body of fiction, like the Darkover series. Can they prove it a fiction? No. What you need is some set of metacriteria that tell you whether you are working with history or not.

These are interesting questions. But even if you determined them with 100% accuracy, you still have no idea whether or what the historical content might be. No methodology exists for doing that.

No, the larger problem is determining what is history in a morass of fiction-construction. Your approach avoids that problem. Determining the order of composition and relationships between the texts is entirely orthagonal to the problem of historicity. As Crossan notes, when you get to the earliest texts, all you have is the earliest texts. You don't have history. As we say around here, the earliest version of a fiction is.....still a fiction.

My bad. I should have said that Sanders is the same as everyone else -- without valid methodolgy.

Vorkosigan

NOGO

Reinterpreting events in view of the OT may be an activity that Jews did engange in.

Are you saying, however, that there is no other activity possible.

For example looking into the OT to understand what the future will hold. Haven't Jews and Christians been reading the bible in order to find clues as to when the messiah would come?

And is it not this particular subject which concerns Paul so completely?

Paul is waiting for the messiah within his lifetime. He is not interpreting past events according to the OT he is trying to convince himself and others that he has found God's plans for humanity in the OT. Otherwise he would quote Jesus. He doesn't! Not once!

Why interpret historical events based on the OT when God himself came to earth to deliver the message.

This is the essential element which all your example lack.

Layman

Since I have offered verses where Paul (as well as the author of the Gospel of Luke/Acts) himself interprets past events according to the OT, including his own conversion, call to the Gentiles, and escape from Damascus, your "point" has already been refuted.

Vorkosigan

This "refutation" has two major problems. First, the gospel fantasies are not "interpreted" but invented from the OT. Big difference. Second, whatever you call them, your position offers no content analysis -- evidence to show that a particular event in the life of Jesus actually occurred, and was not simply called into being by particular theological and political readings. We're on three years now and you have offered no methodology for doing so. Unsuprising, that, since NT scholars don't have one either.

Vorkosigan

Layman

Your post has nothing to do with this thread or my most recent post.

spin

If we take the core of what NOGO said, "Paul is not interpreting past events according to the OT he is trying to convince... that he has found God's plans for humanity in the OT", then, Layman, has your offered verses actually got anything to do with NOGO's distinction? They don't seem to lean one way or the other.


spin

Layman

You'll have to explain yourself here. The point is relatively easy. Use of OT language to describe events doesn't mean those events are created from the OT itself.

spin

I was not addressing your problem. I don't think one can conclude that events were made up out of OT material, though I think such a procedure could just as easily explain the data we have as any other hypothesis.

Returning to NOGO,

"Paul is not interpreting past events according to the OT he is trying to convince... that he has found God's plans for humanity in the OT"

and rewording the intrusive rhetoric we might have:

"Paul is not interpreting past events according to the OT, he is arguing that he has found God's plans for humanity in the OT"

Hopefully the distinction he makes is not simply dealt with by offering OT verses. It seems that NOGO's statement relies on there being OT verses to support NOGO and Paul.


spin