4God

Of course you can't!!!
In fact scholars have spent i'd say 100 years trying to disprove the historical facts of the Bible, with marginal effect. Secular sources support much of what is covered within the Bible. That given, it must be looked upon as a historical document and not "just" literature as you noted about Josephus...Just because these were Christians writing should not mean you loook at them as fatally errant.

How the text relates to the time period it refers to? I'm having a hard time with that, please explain further. Also, if the text though written long afterward(that even a point of debate) proves itself historically accurate, given the references to places, events, and peoples...then one MUST look at it with a certain degree of accuracy. To do otherwise would simply illustrate a bias against it w/o a basis of fact.


-when you say literary, i'm scratching my head. If he is literary then every writing by a historical person is just literary. Nothing can be believed. For a time, people believed that Pontius Pilate wasn't real. However, people tried to say that the Bible proved it and was historically accurate. Finally, it was proved to be true, but again, discounting the work dispite its proven credibility is odd.

spin

The logic is fallacious. There is a current assumption that Jesus is historical. This is a substantive claim and needs substantive evidence to verify it. You cannot just assume it. Would you assume that any literary content was historical fact merely because it is in literature? What would you require to show that Petronius's Satyricon contained historical facts?

Actually, secular sources support very little biblical content, just some of the trimming. But then again it shows that a lot of the trimming is simply wrong.

If a text is written well after the fact, for example, there is no way to relate its contents to the period it refers to without using external support from the period concerned. Tacitus for example was writing around 120 CE about events that happened 100 years before his time. It's hard just to accept his word for anything he says, just on his own saying. Fortunately a lot of what Tacitus has written finds confirmation in archaeological remains and in epigraphy, so that a lot of the content that he has written receives <grin> tacit support. We know when Tacitus wrote and we can relate much of his stuff to the period. When were the biblical texts that interest you written and how do you relate them to the period they ostensibly refer to?

A literary work is a literary work. Information in itself is inconsequential until it gains some "credibility". There's a lot of incredible stuff in Marco Polo's life history, but when, for example, he talks about an Old Man of the Mountain in a particular part of his text, his text gains some credibility, because we have epigraphic record of the figure (and a few of his castles) and much of the other material he mentions. We can't do the same for the Travels of Sir John Mandeville with its "references to places, events, and peoples".

I simply mean that we have literary information about the figure. We need external information about the figure before he can jump into history.

Well, Josephus does talk about Pilate, but for a long time his works were looked on with less consideration than they are today.

However, Pilate is a frill in the story. He is not central. Harry Houdini, while not central to Ragtime, was in the story. That doesn't make Ragtime a historical work.


spin

4God

spin

gotta sleep, but i will definitely take this up in the morning.

-out

Amaleq13

No, I deal with stories and their internal logic/coherence as well as consistency with external information. As I said before, whether the figures are assumed historical or not is irrelevant to this approach.

If the story is claimed to be historical and can be shown to be incoherent or otherwise incredible, the story really can't be considered "history", can it?

To show that rejection of the story is not dependent upon first rejecting the assumptions conceded.

I wrote:
...I consider the logic of the story to be substantive.

The real world IS a story! Pieces of physical evidence only take you so far. You have to be able to tell a story with it to obtain any meaning. An illogical, incoherent, or otherwise incredible story can be dismissed as part of the "real world". That makes consideration of the logic of a story claimed to be historical clearly substantive.

I'm not trying to convince Vinnie that I am right. I'm trying to determine if he has any information I'm not aware of that makes it appear he might be right.

He is a potential source of new information or argument that might cause me to alter my conclusion. If you examine only one side of an argument, you are unlikely to ever discover anything contrary to your conclusions. I don't consider that reliable. All my conclusions are contingent because I don't pretend that I know all the relevant information nor do I pretend that new evidence/arguments are discovered/created all the time.

I wrote:
How does finding the depiction of Pilate unbelievable fail to signal an end to concessions?

I consider the notion of "foregone conclusions" to be generally contrary to the principles of science to which I attempt to adhere. It is a great way to maintain one's conclusions but an unreliable way of determining if they continue to be likely true given new evidence/arguments.

Amaleq13

No, I believe the Pilate described by Josephus would neither tolerate an illegal Sanhedrin nor succumb to pressure from them to kill a man he knew to be innocent. This guy was no friend of the Jews. The Pilate depicted in the Gospel story seems to me entirely inconsistent with the man depicted by Josephus.

I'm not sure why you use "later" above when the first story you shared represents his first acts upon taking over and clearly establishes his attitude:

"This first act of provocation ended in humiliation for Pilate and almost certainly set the tone of his manner in handling Jewish affairs."

That "tone" hardly suggests he would submit to pressure from an illegal Sanhedrin trial to execute a man he knew to be innocent. It took the threat of 7,000 martyrs to get him to relent. Why does it make sense to suggest a handful of law-breaking priests would have better luck?

First, we've already seen how eagerly Pilate obeyed commands to play nice with the Jews (i.e. "This action by Pilate was in contradiction to Augustus’ orders granting Jerusalem immunity from these images."). Second, I don't find it credible at all that Pilate would interpret an order to "not mistreat the Jews" to mean "ignore illegal Sanhedrin trials and execute any innocent men they ask you to".

I don't think it is credible to suggest there was ever a time when Pilate wanted to "please the Jews".

I don't consider the threat to be credible nor the idea of Pilate conceding to it. Are you forgetting that Pilate is portrayed as considering Jesus innocent? How much of a threat to his career would it be if there was no evidence that the claim of "the Jews" was credible?

Are you kidding? Why would Pilate even believe in the concept of the Messiah in the first place? He clearly was no friend of the Jews all the way until the end of his career. Even the Gospel story isn't enough to carry the weight of such a claim and that is all the "evidence" you have for it.

I agree. The evidence clearly suggests the story is not credible as history.

To state that the Gospel depiction of Pilate is credible you have to ignore Pilate's apparent anti-semitism, his earlier disdain for orders to be nice to the Jews, and assume the threat from "the Jews" was legitimate. IMHO, none of those are warranted and the story fails to obtain historical credibility.

spin

Sadly, you are dealing with literary figures who participate in the stories you're dealing with, so your negation doesn't make sense to me.

You've shown that the story is incoherent, not that it is necessarily not related to history.

As I said, incoherence of story doesn't necessarily render the story not historical. History is dealt with through historical methodology. Literary methodology works for literature. The story is literature. It's relationship with history is governed by external factors.

It is neither necessary or sufficient. Stories are stories.

If so, then you are wasting your time, aren't you?

Physical evidence, is what you have from the period, whether it be epigraphic or archaeological. The former is usually more eloquent.

Meaning is a useless idea when dealing with history. You want to know what happened, not necessarily anything about what it meant.

We live with illogical, incoherent and otherwise incredible history. Does it make it any less history? There is a population in America which is routinely, daily lied to about foreign politics; this population usually doesn't care what happened the day before, because today you get a different version; they say that someone can cause deadly effects in 45 minutes and others said previously that that person didn't have the weaponry. What we have is illogical, incoherent and otherwise incredible history. But it is history.

So he's just a source of information?


spin

Amaleq13

I would be more inclined to believe your argument if you were to provide a specific example of an historically valid story that is also logically incoherent.

And this methodology never takes into account whether a given story is logically coherent? History is a story.

history: 1. the branch of knowledge dealing with past events 2. a systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, etc.

What else is "a systematic narrative of past events" except a story presumed to be true? History is a collection of stories presumed to be true (i.e. based on actual events). Myths are a collection of stories presumed to be false (i.e. not based on actual events). Myths can be illogical and incoherent but I do not think the same is true of history because I don't think the same can be true about reality. I look forward to reading your examples to the contrary.

The evidence is, by definition, meaningless unless it is placed within a narrative context. Dating a particular coin to a particular time and observing the specific place it was found obtains meaning only when the information is given in a context (i.e. a story).

Simply observing that "many 1st century coins from Tyre have been found in archeological digs in the Upper Galilee" isn't history. On the other hand, if I go on to say that "the fact described above indicates that Tyre was a primary economic influence on Galilee", that is history. Though the "story" is quite brief, it is still a story and still required to turn the evidence into history.

There is no "history" without meaning. There is only a collection of data without a context.

How can you "know what happened" without some narrative context? The evidence isn't "what happened". The story in which the evidence is described is "what happened".

I hope you have better examples because I don't consider any of the above to qualify as "illogical", "incoherent", or even "incredible". In other words, I think the story you tell above is credible and, thus, may be historically true.

I would say "primarily" rather than "just" but that is my primary consideration of just about everybody here. In other words, I consider everyone participating in this forum as a potential source of new information. Even in the short time I've been here, that consideration has proven true. In fact, I believe you are the most recent contributor to my general fund of information with the "ahijah" reference.

I certainly don't consider Vinnie a "potential convert" to my way of thinking nor do I consider him some sort of windmill to be knocked down.