dog-on

Agreed, but it is also fallacious to say, for certain, that Russel's teapot has ceased it's solar orbit...

And based on the evidence, how would any argument not be speculative?




Ben, I don' really even know what to say to this... :huh:

Ben C Smith

Why is that?

Ben.

dog-on

Ummm, because the speculation of these "scholars" does not evidence make.

Ben C Smith

Have you read them? If so, what did you think? If not, how do you know what their evidence is, or whether they are merely speculating?

Do you know what I think? I think you are limiting the term evidence in such a way as to exclude certain kinds. I also think that, on the same grounds, one could say that we possess no evidence, that it is mere speculation, that Mark was written before Matthew.

Ben.

dog-on

You consider things like Theissen's hypothesis to be evidence?

Let's see... I will parse Mark's passion to extract what I believe could be pre-existing materials using pointers like the fact that certain people are not named because it is likely that Mark didn't want to embarrass them.

Then I will call that evidence.

I also said that I accepted certain conditions for the sake of the discussion.


In reality, I believe that Marcion is primary. That Paul has been highly edited and that the current gospels are much later, probably written in final form after Martyr and prior or concurrent to Ireneaus.

I just don't have any actual evidence to support that...

Doug Shaver

It depends on what she means by the unprovability of a historical claim. There is a sense in which no assertion about the past can be proven.

But I assume she means that, using the ordinary criteria of historiography, the evidence for Jesus is simply inconclusive. And I'm inclined to agree with that. In the sense of "know" that is usually relevant to such things, I would not claim to know either that Jesus existed or that he did not.

But we don't have to know something to be justified in believing it. That doesn't make it a statement of faith. It could be that, but it doesn't have to be.

I believe that Jesus did not exist. I don't know that, but I don't believe it on faith, either. I believe it based on my judgment of what the evidence suggests to me is most likely to be the fact of the matter. I think reasonable people can believe he did exist based on their own judgment of the evidence.

What I think is not at all justified is a belief by either historicists or ahistoricists that their position is the only one that a reasonable person can hold.

Ben C Smith

No, a hypothesis and evidence are not the same thing. His hypothesis uses internal evidence from the text of Mark and from history.

Have you read his book, or are you recapping a website summary (perhaps ECW)?

This is called internal evidence, and it depends, as always, on several converging factors. Your reduction of the issue to protective anonymity is either disingenuous or underinformed.

Of course.

Interesting. But I think you are shortchanging yourself. There is evidence relevant to your position (some of it even interpretable as for it), both from internal considerations (the reconstruction of Marcionite works using patristic data) and from external considerations (what the fathers had to say about Marcion). Whether the evidence that can be interpreted as for your position is convincing is, of course, quite another matter.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

IIUC what April DeConick is saying amounts to this. (I may be wrong I find some of what she has said on her blog unclear.)

Claim 1/ One can reasonably solidly demonstrate an early widespread and quite detailed tradition about a historical Jesus among early Christians ie well before the fall of Jerusalem.
Claim 2 The problematic features of this early tradition as history eg the use of topoi from the Old Testament are not solid reasons for radical skepticism about the historicity of the tradition because such features would be expected whether or not the tradition had a historical basis.
Claim 3 In the absence of proper controls and genuinely independent corroboration it is quite possible that the tradition has no historical basis. Hence one cannot prove there was a historical Jesus. However one should proceed on the basis that there was rather than, without solid grounds, be radically skeptical towards a widespread contemporary tradition.

IF I'm right about what April DeConick is saying then claims 1 and 2 are presented as objective scholarly claims. They may be controversial claims but that is another matter. Claim 3 is more subjective but not I suspect out of line with the normal practices of Historians of the Ancient World.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

'However one should proceed on the basis that there was rather than, without solid grounds, be radically skeptical towards a widespread contemporary tradition.'

Earl Doherty has 'solid grounds'....

How does one proceed on that basis?

Perhaps by launching a quest to find this historical Jesus.

And if this fails, then you can always launch a second quest for the historical Jesus.

And if this fails, then you can always launch a third quest for the historical Jesus.

And if that should fail, you can then declare that there is a historical Jesus, and projects to examine the truth of that claim should be abandoned.


ANDREW
(I may be wrong I find some of what she has said on her blog unclear.)

CARR
So do I. She seems to say that the results of both 'sides' can be 'deconstructed'.

I'm not sure how she actually differs from a mythicist. How does she know that her historical Jesus was a singular person, and not an amalgam of several people/ideas?

Toto

Does she claim this? What would the basis be for claiming a tradition that existed before 70 CE (as opposed to a tradition from a later time concerning Jesus?)