avi

In my opinion, the evidence suggests contrarily, that John baptised in lieu of circumcision.

What is the Jewish rationale for circumcision--to exorcise sins committed by a few day's old male infant?

avi

spamandham

I assume multiple examples were already used in the devlopment of the CoE, else it's pure quackery.

Toto

The Jewish rationale is that circumcision is part of the covenant with YHWH. The idea of sin is not involved.

Toto

The criterion was not developed empirically. No one has surveyed folklore to check putatively embarrassing reports against actual historicity.

There are very few examples, and they are all hedged with qualifications and doubts. The usual exampes are the baptism, the crucifixion, and the failed prophecy that Jesus would return within a generation.

If there is an obviously unhistorical incident that is at least as embarrassing as these, such as the infancy gospels, there is a ready explanation for why that is an exception to the rule. See Criterion_of_embarrassment.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

It seems to me the proposition that a change in a text due to embarrassment by the producers of the text would generally or usually be a movement from historical truth to fiction is unsustainable.

After the burning of Giordano Bruno, the Catholic Church issued text for over 250 years denying that they knew what had become of Bruno. Finally, Church officials, embarrassed by their lies, released text showing the entire trial, torture and murder of Bruno by the Church. This is an example of embarrassment leading to a textual change from fiction to historical fact.

When the movie King Kong came out in 1933, there were scenes of Kong eating people. After the Hays movie Code went into full effect in 1935, these scenes were considered embarrassingly brutal and were cut from the film. By the 1990's the Hay Code itself was considered embarrassing and on newer DVD versions these scenes are included. Yet with or without eating people, King Kong remains an entirely fictional character. This is a case of fiction remaining fiction despite changes from embarrassment.

In March, 2010, among many changes that the fundamentalist conservative Texas School board made to history books was that the inauguration speech of racist Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of American must be taught alongside the inauguration speech of Abraham Lincoln. Many citizens of Texas were embarrassed by these changes where children are now being taught openly racist ideology by the State of Texas. This is a case of an anti-racist history being changed to a racist history.

It is apparent that the COE simply cannot be used to determine history from fiction. Changes in text due to embarrassment or non-embarrassment may change text from fictional to historical and historical to fictional, or may change text from one history to another and one fiction to another.

While changes due to embarrassment can help to understand text, as presently used by Biblical scholars, the COE is embarrassing.

Warmly,


Philosopher Jay

GakuseiDon

I think the John the Baptist baptizing Jesus is a good example. If you don't think the CoE can be applied there, then of course it isn't an example of the CoE for you.

GakuseiDon

I don't understand. Does the CoE apply to fictional or propaganda works? If not, how can it fail? Surely the failure is on the part of the person trying to use the CoE in situations where people have agreed it shouldn't be used?

Do you apply the criterion of multiple attestation to one work, and then say it fails? No, that would be ridiculous.

GakuseiDon

I've given an example earlier, from the Wiki article I linked to earlier. I've highlighted what the article says about limitations. AFAICS none of the examples given on this board comply to the use of the criterion as given below:

The essence of the criterion of embarrassment is that the Early Church would hardly have gone out of its way to "create" or "falsify" historical material that only embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would naturally be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the Gospel tradition, and often such progressive suppression or softening can be traced through the Gospels.

This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the criterion of discontinuity and the criterion of multiple attestation, along with the historical method.

The Baptism of Jesus fits the criterion of embarrassment. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see Adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin but sin none the less). The Gospel of Matthew attempts to explain this dynamic by omitting the words "for the forgiveness of sin" and adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you.". The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain away and then suppress a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.

The Crucifixion of Jesus is another example of an event that meets the criterion of embarrassment. This method of execution was considered the most shameful and degrading in the Roman world, and therefore it is the least likely to have been invented by the followers of Jesus.

Limitations

The criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria. One built-in limitation to the criterion of embarrassment is that clear-cut cases of such embarrassment are few and far between. A full portrait of Jesus could never be based on so little data.

Another limitation stems from the fact that what we today might consider an embarrassment to the early Church was not necessarily an embarrassment in its own eyes.

Also, embarrassing details may be included as an alternative to an even more embarrassing account of the same event. As a purely hypothetical example, Saint Peter's denial of Jesus could have been a substitution for an even greater misdeed of Peter.

A good example of the latter is found in the stories of the Infancy Gospels. In one account, a very young Jesus is said to use his supernatural powers first to strike dead, and then revive, a playmate who had accidentally bumped into him. If this tradition had been accepted as worthy of inclusion at some key juncture in the formation of the Christian Bible (and hence integrated in one way or another among the Canonical Gospels), arguably many modern Christians would find it quite embarrassing—especially, strict believers in biblical inerrancy; but apparently, as is strongly suggested by the mere existence of this early non-canonical pericope, it must not have been embarrassing to at least some early Christians.

Toto

This is just inane. Is all truth relative? Does the historical Jesus exist for you but not for me?

Toto

The CoE is intended to be applied to works that may contain a mixture of fiction, legend, and historical fact. If it cannot distinguish between fiction and history, it fails.

Multiple attestation requires multiple sources. The Criterion of Embarrassment does not require that you start out knowing if the source is history, fiction, or a comic book. It assumes that the source may contain some legend or fiction, and some history, and claims to be able to extract the history.

This is very basic. I think you have stopped paying attention again.