Roger Pearse

The words petitio principi will help you here.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/beg...equestion.html

But that is what I think you may be doing!

Clivedurdle

But on attestation would mapping help?

History is kings, written by the victors, bunk, post modern or class warfare are different methods of projection - for example compare Peters and Mercator.

They provide differing results, but should not be rejected out of hand because a particular viewpoint may give an important insight.

It is a continuing process of the social construction of reality.

With the issue of Jesi, as I see it a brief review maps this on a mythological godman scenario, hero, story, religious landscape. I have asked questions like what sort of geography do we have, what sort of climate, what sort of vegetation.

There are outlying species - Pilate, Jerusalem, Jewish wars, odd comments by various people, but they feel more like contamination or attempts at realism or flavour in a story.

There may be tracks back to a teacher of righteousness for example, but that is 130 years before Pilate.

So independent attestation is looking at the gestalt, foreground and background, attempting to see what general framework works best and taking it from there.

And with this one Hercules type stories definitely fit best. This really does look like a Flash Gordon Saviour Of the Universe type tale! (Cue Queen at full blast!)


Death where is thy sting?

neilgodfrey

To address several points that have appeared on this thread:

1. Independent attestation is not just about requiring multiple documents to say the same thing before that thing is considered verified. We can read scores of documents whereby people attest to being visited by aliens, and their experiences will be similar. In other times and places we might be able to read of scores of independent tracts from different authors testifying to congenital defects of Jews or blacks or Arabs. All such multiple attestation does is inform readers that there are many authors who believe those things. Not that they really happened or are "historically true".

2. Bias of itself is not a dirty word. It is an inevitable fact of everyone's existence. It essentially means "viewpoint". Every historian worth their salt acknowledges their bias, and understands how it affects their studies. And yes, every historian must attempt to understand the provenance of a document -- its author, its time, its matrix etc -- to place it in its context, as someone else has already said.

In the case of the example of Homer and his Iliad that was mentioned here, yes, classicists and historians DO understand Homer's biases. The bias of most interest in Homer to some historians is his aristocratic viewpoint of the world, and how this affects his descriptions of the lower classes etc.

Bias does not necessarily, of itself, lessen the value of scholarship. It does muddy the waters, however, when the historians appear to fail to recognize how their bias is clouding their evaluation of evidence. Discussions between historians of different biases can generally move forwards when each is fully cognizant of their own (as much as the others') biases and can discuss them openly as part of the debate.

3. As to the question about how independent attestation should look, it can be useful to think of modern history, of just common everyday experience. Modern history has a much richer mine of records to work with, such as birth certificates, treaties, diaries, contracts, to do their work.

Example 1 from modern history:

If I see a document that claims so-and-so was born in a particular place and year,

1. and if I know that the document really was discovered in a place that had a reputation at the time for preserving legal records, and that this is not just a story spun by the seller to persuade me to pay a higher price for it,
2. and if I know that certain marks on a document were intended to verify its authenticity as an accurate record, and these proved under analysis to be authentic and as old as the document itself

then I have two pieces of "independent attestation" as to the authenticity of the document and can be as satisfied as anyone can be that it is a true birth certificate I am looking at. Without any independent attestation it is a worthless piece of paper. People need to be able to draw their knowledge of seals, legally stamped and certified witness evidence, etc to be sure a document like a birth certificate is not a fraud, or a pretend document made up as a prop for a movie.

Example 2 from modern history:

We can suss out why Europe collapsed into war in 1914 by studying loads of documents (treaties, diaries, telegrams, letters, orders, reports and plans, budgets, itineraries, etc etc). Our understanding will be modified the more deeply we study and analyze these and weigh them against one another.

In this case a public document may contradict what a private letter written by an author the public document has to say. We have a case here of "independent attestation" that warns us not to take either document at face value without further investigation, perhaps with still other documentation.

Comparing ancient history:

We can't change the rules of verification of documents or the standards by which we assess "what happened" just because we have less material to work with. We have to limit our questions to what the evidence allows us to explore.

If the only surviving evidence of Alexander's exploits was the "historical novel" by Heliodorus, we would have no reason to believe that Alexander was a true historical person, even though the novel was based on his historical deeds. Even if we had two, three of even four such novels by different authors, we would still not have any reason to believe that Alexander was anything more than a very popular subject for literary entertainment at a certain period. Like William Tell.

We have several ancient narratives about the Trojan war. But those narratives by no means give us any reason to believe that there really was a war fought between much of Greece and Troy involving Agamemnon, Hector, Priam or Achilles.

A bunch of authors having a liking for writing about the same things is not independent attestation that what they wrote about is true.

In the case of Julius Caesar the situation is very different. We have not only his own writings, but we have independent of these:

1. material artefacts testifying of his existence and status in society, such as coins and statues
2. contemporary writings of one of his enemies, Cicero
3. incidental writings about him by the poet Catallus
4. other contemporary mentions in Sallust

These are primary evidence (contemporary with the person). But most significantly here, they are not all born of the same psychological or cultural desire to tell entertaining and/or instructive moralizing stories about a favorite character of the day. In other words they are independent attestations to the life and deeds of Julius Caesar.

Ditto with Alexander -- we have primary evidence that is independent attestation of his life and status and role in the world.

If these cases are any guide, then in the case of Jesus independent attestation could look like, say, any one or more of the following:

1. a document by a Pharisee expressing his views on some of what he had heard or witnessed of Jesus or any of the public controversies that he occasioned;
2. an inscription on a pendant or in a tomb of a synagogue director in Galilee early first century with indication of a memorable and worth-recording encounter with Jesus (people were really incredibly moved by him, enough to worship him as god, according to the apologists, so would an unusual find like this be too much to ask?)
3. a partial collection of a few early first century poems or hymns lauding some deed of Jesus -- but one that was clearly set in the earthly historical realm
4. even a passage in Justin's Trypho pointing to an earlier historian of the Jews themselves who recorded some of the deeds of Jesus

Those four are slightly less rigorous than the counterparts of independent attestation we have for Julius Caesar.

I'm not saying we can't do history with the gospels. But we can only attempt to study the sorts of documents they are, what they appear to tell us about the beliefs and agendas of those who wrote them, what might have occasioned them, -- in other words, the gospels are primary evidence and attestation of persons and communities that they came from. For me this sort of investigation is extremely interesting and can help us suss out something about Christian origins. But believing the fantastic tales of god-men that they speak about, just because they sound so 'real', is not sound historical methodology.

All we have is the self-attestation of the gospels themselves.

One of my favourite quotes attempting to warn biblical scholars against relying on self-attestation was delivered 104 years ago. I've used it before but I still like it. The historian is complaining about the tendency in his own day to take the cited words of Papias at face value historical "information":

This is from an academic paper delivered in 1904 by E. Schwartz: “Uber den Tod der Sohne Zebedaei. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Johannesevangeliums” (= Gesammelte Schriften V, 1963,48-123). It is cited in a 1991 chapter by Luise Abramowski titled “The ‘Memoirs of the Apostles’ in Justin” pp.331-332 published in “The Gospel and the Gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk)” ed. Peter Stuhlmacher.

(FWIW, I discussed this in more detail in another post about Bauckham who falls into this methodological error. I have also discussed how Meier claims that multiple attestation for the existence of the 12 disciples gives sure grounds for their historicity, but how such a claim breaks down on a closer look at his multiple sources. Multiple attestation is not of itself independent attestation.)

Neil

Keith&Co.

So, what, years and miles? Dummy's identification is more valid for him or for the author being closer to the hub of the Roman Empire? The NT is more trustworthy for being closer to our century than the OT is?

Then why bring him up? Why compare them at all? Other than, as i suggested, making excuses for the lack of non-biblical support for Jesus.

No, it wasn't. But you did bring him up in defense of the lack of support for Jesus' existence.

I think you understand what it means and how it is used. What it seems that you're looking for is a loophole. Plenty of apologists have made plenty of excuses for the historical silence on Jesus. If you want to believe in him based solely on the gospels, there's nothing wrong with that. More power to you.

andrewcriddle

You possibly meant to refer to the Alexander Romance by (pseudo)-Callisthenes rather than the Aethiopica of Heliodorus (which hardly if at all mentions Alexander.)

Andrew Criddle

neilgodfrey

True true! I did I did! 'Twas a long day and a late night for me! :redface:

Thanks for the correction.

mountainman

Nice post Neil. I too like the Papias reference by E. Schwartz.

Here is another one about Schwartz. Unfortunately I dont understand the German terms being referred to here.

Best wishes,'


Pete

Helpmabob

Methinks a similar question has been asked before challenging the authority of a testimony: The Pharisees challenged him, "Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid." Jesus answered, "Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. [John 8:13-15]

Similarly, the bible does not rely on the support of other texts, but is given authority by God. The intention of the bible is to lead people to faith. It is intended to be read in the guidance of the Spirit, and applied to our daily life and actions for the building up of faith. Those who do are not prepared to act in faith will get little benefit from it regardless of independent attestation.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. [John 16:13] For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword…but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. [Hebrews 4:2,12]

As we see the Bible itself says the Spirit speaks the living word of God, so more or less independent attestation will neither increase nor decrease faith, which is the central aim of the Bible.

It seems that the answer to the question of independent attestation is that it is immaterial.

Deus Ex

Don't you see the circularity of your argument? The Bible is the actual Word of God just because it says it is.

That is not good enough for some of us.