PhilosopherJay

Hi TimBowe,

Apparently, the reason we should accept these as independent sources according to Ehrman is because "Over the course of the past fifty years, historians have worked hard developing methods for uncovering historically reliable information about the life of Jesus."

Now, I wonder if doing "hard work" is enough to justify the acceptance of conclusions. Certainly creationists have worked hard to justify their theories over the last fifty years. Many of them have even taken biology courses and have read Darwin.

We may say analogously that the Superman story comes from many independent sources. It appeared in the Superman comic strip in thousands of newspapers in 1939, Action comic books, Superman comic books, Superboy comic books, the 1940's radio show "Superman," the 1950's television show "Superman", in the 1970's movie "Superman" In the 1980's television series, "Superboy," in the 1990's television series "Lois and Clark" in the 2000's television series "Smallville," the 2006 movie "Superman Returns" and numerous other places. Since each of these sources reveal things about "Superman" that none of the other sources reveal (rule #1) we may say that they are all independent sources. The ones that use a more highly developed use of mythology, we can say are less likely to be historical(rule #2), so the movie "Superman II," where he battles criminals from the "Phantom Zone," is less likely to be as historical as the episode in season II of the 1950's "Superman" television series, where he saves an orphan boy from becoming a juvenile delinquent by becoming his pal.

I think we need a deeper examination of what "independence" might mean before declaring works independent.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

show_no_mercy

Critical Thinking 101.

"Begging the question" isn't simply "unsupported assumption for a conclusion" or any sort of unsupported assumption for that matter. For an argument to be begging the question, the conclusion has to be implicitly implied in one of the premises. I didn't do that. At the most, you should have said "The Barabbas scenario being fiction is an assertion" and I would have been like "Ok" and maybe posted or linked to some explanation.

But you threw around a fancy sounding logical fallacy that you don't know what it means.

My conclusion is that John knew Mark. One of my premises is that the Barabbas scenario is fiction. There's no begging the question here. The conclusion can follow from the premises without circularity (which is what begging the question is). You may not agree with my premises, but this doesn't mean it's begging the question.

If I had said "The Barabbas scenario is fiction because it's not true" that is begging the question. All I did was make statements about the Barabbas scenario. If someone is making statements there's no argument, thus no conclusion, and thus no begging the question. Making assertions or unsupported assumptions is not begging the question in any definition of the phrase.

Only arguments can be said to be begging the question. Not statements.

Elijah

You were making an argument with the statement. You were making the argument with an unsupported assumption. This is begging the question that your initial assumption is correct. You implicitly implied that the two stories in Mark are fiction as one of the premises to support John using Mark as a source. I’m not disagreeing or agreeing with the premise, just pointing out that it needs to be supported if you want to use it as evidence for your next point or it’s begging the question, which doesn’t necessarily mean circular reasoning. If you went on to say that Mark was fictional based on those two stories being fiction without actually supporting them, then that would be circular reasoning.

You are correct in that you were not assuming the conclusion in your initial position or in one step as your example but that isn’t necessary for you to beg the question regarding your initial proposition. You did go onto make another assumption in that even if the stories are fiction that John must have got the stories from Mark.

From wiki

Begging the question is related to the fallacy known as circular argument, circulus in probando or circular reasoning but they are considered absolutely different by Aristotle.

The fallacy of petitio principii, or "begging the question", is committed "when a proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof."[3] More specifically, petitio principii refers to arguing for a conclusion that has already been assumed in the premise. The fallacy may be committed in various ways.

"Begging the question" can also refer to making an argument in which the premise "is different from the conclusion ... but is controversial or questionable for the same reasons that typically might lead someone to question the conclusion."

GakuseiDon

Is this not valid, though? Separate themes indicate separate sources, e.g. Superman being married in "Lois and Clark" suggests a different source than Superman not being married in the 1950's television series.

Well, as written, it seems that the analyst assumes that all these stories were based on a historical Superman. That being the case, the above might well be reasonable (though whether it is or not starts going beyond the analogy).

That a method may work on assumed historical figures and not work on fictional ones doesn't tell us whether the assumption is correct or not. The assumption needs to be addressed first. But this would be a good topic for a new thread, so I'll start a new one on this.

badger3k

Thanks for yet another quote from Bart Ehrman, but do you have any argument of your own? :huh:

squiz

What is going on with Ehrman here? Since when were Mark, Q, M, L and John independent of each other? Why does he accept the TF so uncritically?

dog-on

Job security?

mg01

Ehrman makes similar statements in "Jesus Interrupted" in the chapter, "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord? Finding the Historical Jesus". In some cases he seems to go to far with statements/traditions he claims must go back to a historical Jesus when they could just as well have been either part of the earliest traditions of followers or inventions of the gospel writer for narrative purposes, not necessarily direct quotes from Jesus.

Several claims in particular relating to symbolism in the temple cleansing and the crucifixion are easier explained as later theological based explanations than assuming an HJ necessarily had to be a willing martyr.

If you are going to claim an HJ based on early gospel traditions (essentially Mark), the most you can claim is Jesus was the apocalyptic prophet who with a following in the outskirts of Jerusalem who traveled to Jerusalem at passover and was executed possibly due to an altercation at the temple. That's really it. Actions viewed as symbolic by later writers, especially those with a Hebrew Bible basis" are more likely to be latter attributions than historical.

DCHindley

Because Mark, Q, M, L and John are independent of each other.

Matthew and Luke are thought to have combined two sources, Mark and a sayings source "Q." "M" means material unique to Matthew and not in Mark, Q or Luke. "L" means materials unique to Luke but not in Mark, Q or Matthew. And John doesn't seem to directly utilize any of the materials from Mark, Q, Matthew or Luke. "Independence" here refers to direct borrowing, not sharing a common tradition stream.

Finally, I think that him saying the "Gospel of Thomas, possibly the Gospel of Peter, and certainly Josephus were all produced independently of our other surviving accounts" is a far cry from uncritically accepting the TF. If you check, he is probably refering to the James brother of Jesus called Christ of Ant 20, not the TF of Ant 18. I could be wrong about that, if he accepts one of the reconstructions that tries to save part of it (possibly something like "a doer of wonderful works, who was called christ").

I would dispute that the Gospel of Thomas is independent of the synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke), as I think a good case can be made that it often combines elements from several of these gospels into individual sayings, plus perhaps other floating traditions as well, creating a kind of synthesis out of them.

The Gospel of Peter seems to me to have nothing early in it at all, despite what Crossan thinks of it. It just reeks of 2nd century apocryphal gospel on the same vein as the nativity gospels.

DCH

dog-on

Q is the result of positing that the gospel writers were independent and that Christians did not screw around with their text and simply making shit up.

Wishful thinking.