Amaleq13

You may but you would be wrong.

It is entirely rational to recognize the incompatibility between the magical claims found in the Gospels and actual experience of the real world.

There is no "discomfort" on my part. There is only a recognition that what is being described simply doesn't happen and, based on what we know about the physical universe today, much of it simply cannot happen. The surface tension of liquid water is insufficient to support the weight of a man. Bread and fish do not magically multiply. A human being cannot survive for three days inside a whale. Humans that are brain dead for three days do not recover.

The reliability of science is not a cultural presumption, it is an objectively demonstrable fact and there is no cultural presumption that can make such claims credible.

TaylorC

Well said, this is almost exactly along the lines of the response I was planning. Undoubtedly, there are some things we might be told that are just so unusual that they warrant immediate skepticism. What is the difference between an ancient written source telling about the sacrifice of the son of god and a person coming up to you and saying they've seen a leprechaun who wants you to give all your money to the Irish Catholic/Protestant war relief fund? Why does one merit more of a skeptical reaction than the other for many people? I think this is the cultural presumption: we've gotten so used to religion as a part of our lives that we give it disproportionate plausibility.

gentleexit

I agree. It's been grandfathered in - given its own space. Look at Amazon for instance. There is no Church History or Christian history under History. You need to go into Religion to find such "history". In other words, this isn't "history", it's "church history".

But too much skepticism can warp too. Today, the leprechaun may not be credible but go back a couple of hundred years and ... Today, we automatically assume anyone with visions is mad or a con-man but then he was credible, maybe even to himself. We need to keep that in mind when writing of those times.

Often you read "sceptics" who automatically presume the apostles "made everything up". That they were out and out con-men. Equally, that all visions by emperors or holy men were pure self-serving fabrication. But that's projection, bias from our time when visions or putting store in dreams is abnormal, even crazy.

Writing History should never mean rejecting material science but it should mean bearing in mind changes in human perception and priority.

mountainman

Dear Gentleexit and TaylorC

Another issue relating to "Historical/Textual Standards and Criteria" with respect to the field of ancient history is the concept of "corroborative evidence from other fields". Texts and documents are continually being discovered, as are inscriptions, monuments, relics and other archaeological source material. Technological innovations are being introduced also, which commentators of only one generation ago, could not have commented upon. Some classic examples of course are:

1) scientific carbon dating technology, available to the field of ancient history only for a few decades if that.

2) the discovery and publication of the Nag Hammadi Codices, and gJudas

3) We could add the publications and analyses of the (non-christian) DS scrolls.

On the other hand, I am not convinced that human psychology has radically altered to match the advances in technology since antiquity. The planet still sees slavery in one form or another and still sees wars being conducted between nations for various political reasons. Changes in human perception and priority? Not at any great fundamental level IMO. The environment is filled with a different and more modern class of technological objects and services, but I do not see a corresponding evolution of man's inner environment. We still study words, phrases and literature corpi written by the authors of antiquity. Are we learning anything? How much of all this business is simply rhetoric? Ancient historians needs to drop the rhetoric, at the risk of repeating myself ...

2) the serious problems we all have to face because of the
current devaluation of the notion of evidence and of the
corresponding overappreciation of rhetoric and idealogy
as instruments for the analysis of the literary sources;

-- See above.

History means re-explaining things. Ordinarily, if nothing changes, prior explanations are entirely serviceable. But we do not seem to understand or realise the novelty of 2009 by the new data provided by these three scientific discoveries listed above (wrt "christian origins"). These represent a massive influx of primary evidence and/or critical assessment of the chronology of the evidence. For example the C14 dating citations now available with respect to the NT literature alone (IMO) is telling us our basic estimates of chronology might be wrong (by a matter of centuries).

Best wishes,


Pete

thedistillers

Anyway, even if some historians - for methodological purposes - treat old texts as true unless there is some reason to discredit them, it doesn't mean that old texts ARE indeed true unless there is some reason to discredit them.

Some mathematicians might assume the Riemann Hypothesis is true to work on new theorems, but it does not make the Riemann Hypothesis true.

*

When parts of a text contradict the observable reality, then it's extremely likely those parts are bogus. This has nothing to do with an "uncomfortable" feeling (I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean), but with a basic principle we ALL apply in every aspect of life. If some people claim they saw a pig flying, then we would rationally assume it's extremely likely they did not see a pig flying. Because it contradicts what we know about reality.

gentleexit

But if in the long-ago twilight, you "see" a pig flying and know of others who have seen similar things, are you a liar? Pigs don't fly. But there were times when many believed in such things and "saw" them, dreamt of them. And these visions and dreams drove much of life. You can't just dismiss it - do a "Jefferson" and cut out all the miracles to get to "the real story" - or attribute all of it to self-serving snake oil selling. That would be irrational.

TaylorC

I'm sorry, but this is just about one of the lamest attempts at rationalizing irrational beliefs that I've seen. No one's saying the bible was written by a bunch of intentional liars, but to claim that its contents are somehow more reliable because people during one time and culture believed in it - that's just plain stupid. At one point in history, the majority of people believed that blacks were an inferior race, closely linked to apes. Are you prepared to defend the validity of what they believed simply because it was the general consensus of the time, and many of those people doubtlessly thought they were right in their convictions?

TaylorC

Does anyone really dispute that people believed differently in ancient times? I don't think everyone who has visions is mad or a con-man, but there are a number of rational explanations that need to be ruled out before we give the benefit of a doubt to such extraordinary claims. However, even when there doesn't appear to be any rational explanation, we still need to keep in mind that our own lack of imagination doesn't mean that these people really have communicated with God or received a vision from God. All I've been saying is that it merits further study and close skepticism.

gentleexit

No one, really? Really no one?
Reliable against what measure? It's plain stupid to consider a time in its own terms? Just apply one frame of credibility, your own and presto, you're colorfully insightful? It's plain stupid to try to walk in ... Can you understand a time without examining its logic?
You don't "defend ... validity" when you consider a point of view. Why so defensive? Follow the logic of a time and you get close to it, as close as you can. But maybe that's ... how would you put it?

TaylorC

No one in this thread is claiming that, to my knowledge.

I'm all for considering a time in its own terms, but I think it's silly to suggest that we can't make judgments regarding past belief systems only because we now live in a different culture. Understand its logic, sure, but I don't buy the whole "true for that time" bullshit, except in a cultural sense.

I'm not disputing that a greater consideration of the context of the time period will lead to crucial understanding, but understanding a point of view and arguing for its truth value based on the number of people who once believed in it are two very distinct things. Maybe we're just misunderstanding each other...