Ted Hoffman

Non liquet is applicable only when two contrary positions are equally likely, or if we are ill-equipped to judge which is more likely (if our knowledge concerning its content, or a relevant matter, is deficient).

But, on the other hand, if we do know something about it; we are in a position to say more than simply non liquet or ignoramus.

Thus we say that the temple incident is non-historical. Scholars have visited the temple hypothesized the scene and deemed it improbable, we know Roman guards were posted to the temple during passover, we know that traders cannot flee from one unarmed man and leave behind bags of money and we have identified a passage from Nehemiah which has served as the hypotext for Mark. We have even nailed it down to clear linguistic links.

Non liquet simply has no place here.

Vorkosigan

Great guns! Will one of you please put up an argument! If you think there is an historical basis -- put the cards on the table. Parallel to the Elijah-Elisha narrative AT EVERY LEVEL does to = no historical core. And we're not talking about "parallel" but "literary dependence," which very much means NO HISTORICAL CORE. Until someone demonstrates that there is some reason to point to a historical core, we have no historical core. Please note that I am not asking anyone to demonstrate historicity. I am asking for reasons to think it might be historical. Five pages in and not a single positive reason given. Until someone gives that reason, there's no historical core there.

That simple.

Any time you want to demonstrate that with -- what we haven't seen yet, and what we're never going to see ever on this -- an actual argument. You know one that uses facts, evidence, logical frameworks, demonstrates knowledge of the topic. Not sour grapes grumping like 'Vork overreached himself." Show it, Vinnie. Show I overreached myself. Show why there is reason to suspect a historical core.

Just because I can't prove the IPU lives in my liquour cabinet doesn't mean she isn't there.

Watching historicism flail around at this has been the sole redeeming joy of this thread. Oh, and learning more about the Gospel of Mark.

We are now waiting, 5 pages in, for any argument that points to a historical core. I know I'll wait another 5, and another 5, and another 5.....

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

Me too. Amaleq too. Toto too. Carr too. Everyone here is waiting. Waiting, waiting for any argument that justifies belief that there is any historical core to the temple incident.

Without this, non liquet has no place in this discussion.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting....<yawn> Wake me up when vinnie or Rick do. <dozes off>.

Bede

It's here.

B

Ted Hoffman

<one eyelid flips open>
Its not there. What is there is a confused puddle called OT mangling. The writing-rules-for-dummies is a caricature you have constructed to mock liberal scholars like Crossan who have argued that parts of the PN may have been borrowed from elsewhere.

First of all, we do not appreciate the anything goes, pick-and-choose mindless guesswork that you peddle as a methodology. Nobody has used it, and you can't demonstrate it. You provide us with no reason to take it seriously.

Secondly, even if we did, it would not tell us what exactly is historical about the temple incident. If it does, show us here how it does.

Thirdly, allowance of anything means absence of rules. Your so-called rules practically allow anything so they cant be rules: they are the absence of rules.
At best, your rules can only apply if we consider NT authors to be unscrupulous, mindless writers, unable to undertaking any writing without the OT lens and pen, and recklessly spreading literary anarchy.

Fourth, NT elements that go against Judaism and the OT show us the authors weren't just echoing the OT throughout. Literary constructions like chiastic structures, intercalations and usage of parables indicate to us that the gospel authors lacked the tackiness and mindlessness they would require in order to conform to your rules.

Please list five historical events in the gospels.

This, alone, shows you how bogus the methodology is. Your approach is shallow, fails to deal with contextual issues like an author's setting and intended purpose and is at best, a caricature of the works of critical scholars.

This is why you can shove anything right through it: from timber to packets of milk. It has no rules, it has no structure and describes exactly nothing.

Questions serious people ask when examining texts like the Gospels:

1. Is the veracity of the story challenged by practical, textual and historical reasons?
2. Is there evidence of literary borrowing between an identified hypotext and hypertext (thematic, settingwise and sequence)?
3. Do you have clear linguistic (in terms of syntax) links between the two parallels?
4. Do we have reason to believe the author in question would have chosen to use the OT in writing their story?

You don't just use any name: the onomastic replacement must be able to sustain one on one mapping between the two texts. There must be clear hypertextual transvaluation. Its not anything goes.

Now, can someone please present any reason at all, why we should believe there is any historical core to the temple incident?

Waiting...Waiting...waiting...waiting...<dozes off>

Vorkosigan

This is not an argument, but an assertion ("may I suggest") that does not address the core issues here. Mark is not using parallels; he is exhibiting literary dependence on all three levels of basic structure, plot, and detail. At the level of detail, there is not a single item in the Temple Ruckus that is not either OT or Markan redaction. At the level of plot, the Temple Ruckus is accounted for by its presence in the Elijah-Elisha narrative. Since Jehu cleanses the Temple of the Priests of Ba'al, Jesus must cleanse the Temple as well. At the level of overall structure, Jesus is paralleling the E-E narrative; Brodie points out that even the variation in the length of the Markan narratives follows the EEN, as does its "spiraling structure" and its interest in Jerusalem.

In other words, we're not looking at "parallels." We're looking at literary construction at every level -- literary dependence. The EEN/OT/Markan creativity accounts for all the features of the Temple Ruckus. That is what you have not addressed, Bede.

And the assertion that the more changes are made, the more one must be dealing with a historical fact, is utterly unproven. Let's see some clear examples of that in historical writing, as well as some kind of argument (not assertion) that there is some historical kernel there.

Not only is this completely unsupported by argument or example, but as anyone who has ever read literature knows, when one fictional story depends on another, it frequently re-arranges, edits, and adjust the source to fit the exigencies of the story. For example, Star Wars is basically a rip-off of the Wizard of Oz, but Lucas made a number of adjustments in the story (Toto -- R2D2 -- arrives via purchase, the Scarecrow -- C3PO -- leaves with Dorothy -- Luke -- rather than Dorothy encountering her, and so on). The fact of "mangling" is a result of storytelling exigency and cannot be attributed to the presence of historical fact unless you have some other reason to imagine that we have fact here.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

You state that authors resort to the OT when they have a story to tell and explain that, when an author uses the OT, that "means he almost certainly has some unavoidable facts and he needs to be highly creative to get his story across in OT terms".

This is incoherent.

What do they do when they have no story to tell and no facts to avoid?

Rick Sumner

This is the only level that's really pertinent--the existence of parallel alone doesn't indicate anything one way or the other, which I believe is Vinnie's point.

I have no rebuttal, as I've noted, to the Elijah/Elisha usage. Perhaps Vinnie can think of one. The best I can come up with is that it was not Mark, but Jesus, who based himself on Elijah. This appears to be an ad hoc, and a fanciful one at that. How realistic is it to presume that Jesus would take that mimicry to such an extent?


This isn't quite incorrect, but it isn't quite apt either, and is the quintessential shifting of the burden of proof from the mythicist position.

The dialogue should run kinda like this:

1) Nothing said, no conclusion reached, no evidence tendered.

2) Gospels tendered. Applying standard methods, they are accepted prima facie as being what they appear to be--accounts of a man, doubtlessly embellished.

3) The mythicist provides grounds to doubt the prima facie case.

That's rather what prima facie means--accepted until grounds are presented to doubt.

In this instance, as I've noted, I'm persuaded that those grounds have been met. But the burden still rests with the dissenter when 1) The evidence is prima facie and 2) The affirmative conclusion is more widely held.

To use an example I cited elsewhere, the burden of proof was never on those who believed the earth was flat to show that the world was flat. Never. Proof in the opposite direction--that the world wasn't flat, it was round--had to be presented to counter evidence that was 1) Prima facie and 2) Widely held to be true. This is simply standard method.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Vinnie

I have already said, like Paula Fredriksen, I am unconvinced of historicity.

Or a historical core that became molded and paralleled by the OT parallel. This is your problem. You have no methodology for determining what was created solely from the OT and what had a historical core but was patterned after it. For all your talk of Jesus agnosticism and the lack of a serious methodology over the years, its quite dissapointing to see you reach and make silly leaps in logic like this.

Half of scholarship has the event multiply attested at the very least which means it pre-dates Mark (Mark and John).

I and some others seem to see a triple attestation in that Thomas #72 also shares it. That is really about it for historicity. But all three share the structure of destroy rebuld and "house" is also found.

You don't share this source stratification.

Crossan unconvincingly tries to throw in an embarrassment criterion in the temple incident himself (Who Killed Jesus), other scholars might try to use coherence in regards to the factual crucifixion of Jesus but Fredriksen has so convincingly rebutted this point.

Crossan thinks Jesus and JBap were both functional temple oppenents regardless of the saying.

It could also be questioned about all the temple accusations. As Crossan notes (HJ 356), Mark insists four times their accusations were false. Finally even a crucifixion comrade on the cross mentiones the destroying of the temple.

Mark 13-15 is also very important in that Mark may attmempt to separate Jesus' return from temple destruction. Crossan speaks of intensive damage control in Mark 13-15 which shows early Christians believed jesus said or did or did both in regard to the temple. Where did such an idea come from? The triply independently attested event in John, Mark and Thomas with structural similarities in a few aspects.

There is nothing to argue. I made all this stuff known in another thread here.

You engaged in a non sequitur fallacy. Plain and simple. For all your tired accusations of a baseless methodology, I notice your methodology for non-historicity is far worse than Meier's criteria for historicity. At least he uses his criteria in tandem.

The IPU is not a Jewish guy said to have caused a temple distrubance in three independent sources sharing 3 structural similarities, and a possible mistaken belief of Jesus about his return and the destruction of the temple based upon either what he said, did or both.

Silly skeptical leaps in logic are the reason I've only read about 33% of it.

...before non-historicity is actually demonstrated. Yes, we will be waiting a long, long time.

Vinnie

Vinnie

And despite all this--if not exxaggerated a little--- all it takes is multiple attestation to show Mark did not make it all up but worked a pre-existent core into this. Mark and Thomas or Mark and John or Mark Thomas and John.

Then again, Maybe Mark was depependent upon Thomas and created his elaborate OT parallel out of Thomas' much shorter saying.

Vinnie