spin

So do you have problems with archaeology and its relative chronologies given by stratigraphy and often made absolute by C14 and various other dating mechanisms? Do you invalidate coin information found in wide distribution? Do you invalidate the epigraphic remains from past eras? These are the primary sources of history. It is from these that the matrix of history is now constructed. In the past history was the arbitrary reading of literary texts, but much of this has given way to a much more scientific basis to fundamental information about the past. Religious studies is just backward in its attempts to deal with history.

You can continue this know-nothing approach, but it will not help you breathe life into the CoE.

spin

This should give pause for thought.

It's a dangerous tool put in the hands of people who do not understand the problems and the rewards (or lack of them).

TedM

Yeah, I am fine with science being used to help reconstruct history, personally. I also am fine with considering the criteria of embarrassment as a potentially useful tool. Neither are perfect, and one is more subjective than the other. What is CoE?

spin

Well, that's something. I think it does mean that one can say something about history that is not as you have claimed subjective.

Potentially maybe, in a few cases maybe, but certainly not driven by common sense. The uses that I have seen it, including all those in this forum have been farcical. That should caution you from trying to use it without sufficient uncommon^* sense.

* "uncommon" as in "specialized in the field of study".

Can you say anything less meaningless? Hermeneutics will only obfuscate history.

What is the CoE? Weren't you talking about the criterion of embarrassment? Context is useful.

andrewcriddle

As evidence of hostility to women as witnesses see Josephus antiquities book 4 Andrew Criddle

spin

When the story of the arrest tells us that all his disciples "deserted him and fled" (Mk 14:50), the narrative has sufficiently justified the rhetorical use of the women.

Kapyong

Gday,

Lie?
WHAT lie?
No-one here said the gospels were lies - please pay attention to the arguments.

But HJers keep repeating this false argument - that there are only and exactly two possibilities :
1. TRUTH
2. LIES
And of course, the gospels could not possibly be a lie, so therefore they are TRUE - QED !

What nonsense.
History is full of non-true books that are NOT lies.


K.

davidstarlingm

We don't know that the evangelists didn't omit those things? They're right there in the gospels.

Or are you saying that we don't know that women weren't considered reliable witnesses? I think the Talmud is pretty clear on that point.

DCHindley

Whiston does have a footnote to this statement (#21):

I have never observed elsewhere, that in the Jewish government women were not admitted as legal witnesses in courts of justice. None of our copies of the Pentateuch say a word of it. It is very probable, however, that this was the exposition of the scribes and Pharisees, and the practice of the Jews in the days of Josephus.

Maybe what we are seeing here is Josephus' opinion of women in general - i.e. grouped with slave-servants who can't be trusted an inch, because females are impulsive and not as serious as a man like himself. I'm sure his household was a joy to live in.

It is my understanding that various Jewish sages treated their spouses as anything from close confidants to stay at home babysitters held to strict standards similar to what the Taliban impose on women in general.

DCH

Toto

You can find anti-women sentiments in all of classical and Biblical writings, but you also find a lot of influential and powerful women, and no indication that there was any more embarrassment about women being the first at the tomb than there was about the wealthy women who supported Paul, about Mary and Martha listening to Jesus, the woman who anointed Jesus' feet with her hair, etc.

You can find prohibitions against women testifying, but you can also find historical records of women who did testify in court -- not that the gospels portray a court procedure in any case.