Doug Shaver

The dialogues would be the ones recorded by Plato. It is not at all clear that they occurred in any form outside of Plato's mind.

That is certainly possible. In my opinion, it is probable. But it is definitely not certain. He could have been just a figment of Plato's imagination. I don't consider that likely, but it is a possibility.

I've never seen anyone say it is. However, no historian can be any more reliable than his sources. If we know that his sources are reliable, then fine. But if we don't know that, then we don't know how reliable his report is.

S.C.Carlson

If the historian has multiple independent sources, then it may be possible to be more reliable than each of the sources individually. If all the sources, however, have a common systematic bias, then of course the problem become a lot harder, if not impossible, for the historian.

(With Socrates, we have Plato and Xenophon as sources.)

Stephen

Gamera

Well, you've just made my point. Plato's source was Socrates himself. Yet you (and I) doubt the reliability of Plato's rendition.

The reason isn't the source, but the agenda. Historians, authors, have agendas, and it appears Plato had his own philosophical agenda.

Similarly Tacitus had his agenda which puts his histories in doubt, despite the reliability of his sources.

The agends of the NT texts are religious andnot political, which in my mind make them much more reliable that politically dominated texts.

blkgayatheist

I dont see so clear a distinction between religious and political motivations

Doug Shaver

In some sense, I suppose so. But whatever reliability we attach to the author is still entirely dependent on the reliability of his sources, even if in some cases the sources' reliability is more collective than individual.

Doug Shaver

I did not make the point that Plato's source was Socrates himself. He might have gotten some of his ideas from Socrates. That does not make Socrates the source of Plato's dialogues.

What I doubt is that the conversations reported in the dialogues actually occurred.

Gamera

Political agendas involve power, and in the case in point, the Imperial power of the Roman state. It pretty much crushed any dissent that it found in the slightest to be a threat. And it pretty much required that historians propagated the mythos of Roman hegemony and virtue.

Religious agendas of the time were a threat to the political power of Rome and hence by definition not working in its thrall. Christianity didn't promote Roman authorized versions of history. In that sense, they at least were "independent". Now, there are other reasons to questions the reliability of Christian texts. But subservience to political power is not one of them. And that seems to be the most powerful agenda that distorts any historical text.

Gamera

Plato appears to have been a student of Socrates, so he purports to be recounting Socratic teachings. I agree it's dubious, but I don't think most scholars think his source was anybody but Socrates, however much he adapted or distorted him.

Johnny Skeptic

What are God's agenda, book, chapter, and verse, if you please?

Doug Shaver

Which Platonic scholars have you read? Sources for my opinion include Christopher Bobonich, John Dillon, Gail Fine, and David Sedley.