gstafleu

Ah, I see. A misunderstanding: I do not rule out historicism as a matter of course. Let's take Malachi's example of the significance/etiology of the virgin birth: in Helenistic culture at the time virgin birth was a sign of divinity (for the moment never mind if this is correct or not). That is historically researchable and is thus, I submit, a form of historicism. In this case not historicism of a physical Jesus but historicism of the origins of one of his attributes.

My point then is: given that it is clear that Jesus is a religious figure, more attention should be paid to the historical derivation and contemporary religious meaning of attributes like the virgin birth. In fact primary attention should be given to it. Why? Well, let us assume for a moment that Malachi's reasoning is correct. Wouldn't we then be a step ahead in any attempt to determine the historicity of the Jesus figure itself? We would then already know that there had been other mythical virgin-born figures, and we would know why people thought it a good idea to apply this attribute to Jesus. Wouldn't we then have established some useful reasonable doubt about the historicity of Jesus himself?

By gathering more etiology like this proposed one for the virgin birth, we get a better understanding of what the text talks about. It is not that establishing the yes/no about an HJ is totally useless (that was a bit of a 2x4 approach on my part). But it seems to be taking up a lot of time that could more valuably be spent on etiology.

As I hope I have made clear, I'm not after "imaginings." Malachi's etiology of the virgin birth is researchable with standard historical methodology. So I don't think your characterisation of what I propose as "imaginings" is fair (perhaps because I didn't make myself clear enough). And would "reading the text" lead to Malachi's proposition?

Gerard Stafleu

Peter Kirby

A reading of the text focuses on the meanings of the text rather than the origins of it. Insofar as Malachi is talking about what the text means, yes. Insofar as Malachi is talking about the historical chain of events that led up to the creation of the text, no.

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Peter Kirby

gstafleu

But don't you need to know that historical chain in order to understand what the text means?

Gerard

Peter Kirby

That is the dictum of historical-critical method. This is not historical-critical method.

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Peter Kirby