Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 01-02-2007, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

But like I say, all we have now, as modern Christians, is the narratives themselves. Nothing more. We are not similarly situated as the early Christians. So frankly the historicity of Jesus is virtually a meaningless concept to me, since history is simply narrative texts and nothing more.

Your view of history is invalid. It is beyond me that a person can claim that the historicity of Jesus is meaningless, yet claim that He is historic. Total fallacy.

History is a record of events, this record can be text, audio, video or any other format that can record. History is extremely important to understand civilisation at any period, to claim the hisroticity of Jesus is neaningless is just plain absurd.

RAFH · 01-02-2007, 11:23 PM

So, let me get this straight, correct me if I am wrong. What you are saying it doesn't matter a whit if the bible, gospels and other xian documents have any basis in fact, all that counts is the imagery of the narratives, in other words, its a good story, a great bit of fiction, so we are to buy it hook, line and sinker?

If that is the case, I am gabberflasted. If I thought the argument of the neo-trancendentalists, with the notion that evidence of/for god is simply meaningless, was out there, this really trumps that.

Gamera · 01-03-2007, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Your view of history is invalid. It is beyond me that a person can claim that the historicity of Jesus is meaningless, yet claim that He is historic. Total fallacy.

History is a record of events, this record can be text, audio, video or any other format that can record. History is extremely important to understand civilisation at any period, to claim the hisroticity of Jesus is neaningless is just plain absurd.

What's absurd is to conflate texts with events. What you have done is privileged certain TEXTS, which you deem historical over other TEXTS, which you deem nonhistorical. Thus what you've failed to notice is that all you have before you is TEXTS, which you've interpreted and found meaningful.

Historicity is an ambiguous term that naive scholar banter around, but if pressed it usually boils down to this: historicity is a concept that one applies to certain privileged texts about certain characters in those text, which have meaning for us that are different than characters in say, a purportedly fictionalized text.

That's all it means.

The experience of you witnessing the events of one Jesus of Nazareth, if any, is forever barred by time. All you can do is read about it and form meanings based on those texts. That's what history is -- it's historiography, and nothing else.

Gamera · 01-03-2007, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RAFH

So, let me get this straight, correct me if I am wrong. What you are saying it doesn't matter a whit if the bible, gospels and other xian documents have any basis in fact, all that counts is the imagery of the narratives, in other words, its a good story, a great bit of fiction, so we are to buy it hook, line and sinker?

If that is the case, I am gabberflasted. If I thought the argument of the neo-trancendentalists, with the notion that evidence of/for god is simply meaningless, was out there, this really trumps that.

You've got it backwards. With Jesus or Socartes or Hamlet, all we have is texts (or to be more precise discourse since there was a time when Jesus was part of an oral narrative). The texts are the starting point. Those texts have different meanings for us. Those meanings are totally and distinctly different than my experiences of the world. To read the gospel or to read Shakespeare is to interpret a text and find it meaningful.

I find the gospel meaningful in one way. You don't find it meaningful or find it meaningful in another way. That's all we can ever say about history, which is just a bunch of texts and nothing more. It is an illusion to privilege certain texts as "historical" and providing access to "real" "events" and other texts as not about real events. You have a text and you find certain meaning in it, as does the culture as a whole. That's what history is, as poststructuralist like Foucault have amply shown in book after book. I would suggest the Order of Things as a start.

As to historicity, it's an ambiguous and illusory concept, as I discuss below. What we really mean by "historicity" is just certain special meanings we apply to certain texts. No real person ever appears in the horizon of historicity -- they only appear in the horizon of a text.

ughaibu · 01-03-2007, 12:49 PM

THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS by DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C.D. YONGE
LIFE OF SOCRATES

Toto · 01-03-2007, 12:56 PM

ughaibu: could you comment on that link? What does it show?

ughaibu · 01-03-2007, 01:05 PM

Toto: It's the Socrates entry in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers. It might be of use to those interested in early accounts of Socrates life and works.

Toto · 01-03-2007, 01:13 PM

Diogenes Laertius

Quote:

Of the circumstances of his life we know nothing. He must have lived after Sextus Empiricus (c. 200), whom he mentions, and before Stephanus of Byzantium (c. 500), who quotes him. It is probable that he flourished during the reign of Alexander Severus (222–235) and his successors.

His own opinions are equally uncertain. By some he was regarded as a Christian; but it seems more probable that he was either a sceptic or, more likely, an Epicurean.[1] The work by which he is known, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, was written in Greek and professes to give an account of the lives and sayings of the Greek philosophers. Although it is at best an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation. . .

This is written about 6 centuries after Socrates would have lived. What conclusion do you draw from that?

Is there some particular part of that link that would aid this discussion?

ughaibu · 01-03-2007, 01:16 PM

I dont draw any conclusions from it.
Some people might find the accounts useful, some might not. I have offered a resource that hadn't been mentioned, that's the long and short of it.

Gamera · 01-03-2007, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ughaibu

Toto: It's the Socrates entry in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers. It might be of use to those interested in early accounts of Socrates life and works.

The problem is Diogenes is writing 500 years after Socrates, which calls into question whether his works are relevant to Socrates' "historicity."

All the gospels were written within a much closer time frame to Jesus, if proximity in time is the criterion.

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01-02-2007, 11:23 PM	#12
RAFH Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Kahaluu, Hawaii Posts: 6,400	So, let me get this straight, correct me if I am wrong. What you are saying it doesn't matter a whit if the bible, gospels and other xian documents have any basis in fact, all that counts is the imagery of the narratives, in other words, its a good story, a great bit of fiction, so we are to buy it hook, line and sinker? If that is the case, I am gabberflasted. If I thought the argument of the neo-trancendentalists, with the notion that evidence of/for god is simply meaningless, was out there, this really trumps that.

01-03-2007, 12:49 PM	#15
ughaibu Banned Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Japan Posts: 8,492	THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS by DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C.D. YONGE LIFE OF SOCRATES

01-03-2007, 12:56 PM	#16
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	ughaibu: could you comment on that link? What does it show?

01-03-2007, 01:05 PM	#17
ughaibu Banned Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Japan Posts: 8,492	Toto: It's the Socrates entry in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers. It might be of use to those interested in early accounts of Socrates life and works.

01-03-2007, 01:16 PM	#19
ughaibu Banned Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Japan Posts: 8,492	I dont draw any conclusions from it. Some people might find the accounts useful, some might not. I have offered a resource that hadn't been mentioned, that's the long and short of it.

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