maryhelena

Yep, that 'pudding' has reached it's sell-by date! Whatever nutritional value it once might have had as a salve for the emotional and spiritually distressed - science, in this case, historical validity, no longer allows quackery any sanction.

LegionOnomaMoi

The italicized portion is the claim. You are making claims about what NT scholarship has produced: that what it has produced "no longer sustains our modern appetite for logic and evidence."

Yet despite your assertions concerning an appetite for evidence, you still haven't provided me with the evidence I asked for. Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough. So I'll ask again:

What NT scholarship have you read which prompted you personally to conclude that NT scholarship doesn't sustain your appetite for logic and evidence?

I joined a forum much like this one a few months ago (although I believe it is larger and broader in scope). In that time, I've seen an amazing number of threads and posts in which people make assertions about any number of things, from the historical Jesus to the implications of the big bang, despite having little or no background knowledge of the field or fields they were talking about. I could "look around" in much the same way as you suggest and determine that evolution doesn't exist and the KJV is the inerrant word of god. I don't. Likewise, the fact that a lot of people believe X about history, science, or whatever doesn't mean much to me at all unless I have something which suggests they know what they are talking about.

maryhelena

OK - after dusting the dark corners of the book shelve - here are a few titles of books that failed to provide any logic or evidence for the historical JC assumption:

Edward Schillebbeckx:
Jesus: An Experiment in Christology.
Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World.

James D.G. Dunn
Christology in the Making.
Unity and Diversity in the New Testament
Jesus in the Spirit.

Walter Kasper
Jesus the Christ

Ben F. Meyer
The Aims of Jesus

Hans Kung
Does God Exist
Christianity and World Religions
The Church
On Being a Christian

John Hick - edited
The Myth of God Incarnate

Michael Goulder - edited
Incarnation and Myth

Perhaps not the latest in NT scholarship. But after reading that lot I found I'd rather keep the cash in my pocket. And no, for what it's worth, I've not read Doherty (only some articles online) George Wells neither - just online articles. So there you go - 30 years ago, I became an ahistoricist/mythicist through reading the above books...

People read books all the time - and remain believers in an historical JC. Providing a list of what they have read is no indication that they have learned anything or developed any reasoning ability from what they have read.

LegionOnomaMoi

Perhaps that's because they weren't meant to. While some of them touch on the issue more than others (some I haven't read, such as On Being a Christian or Jesus in the Spirit, but just a brief review of their contents is enought to get a sense of that they're about), most of these are on christology, theology, and/or christian belief. Even works like Meyer's The Aims of Jesus which is counted among historical jesus scholarship is still heavily christological in it's approach. The same is true (if memory serves, as I don't own it) with Schillebeeckx, albeit in the opposite direction. The reason to read these books/volumes is to understand christian beliefs/philosophy and the debates about them, not history. J.D.G. Dunn has several hundred page volume Jesus Remembered which focuses on the historical question of Jesus, as opposed to Christology in the Making.



I've no problem with that. I have relatively few books on christology & christian theology compared to the books, papers, etc. I have on early christian history or the historical Jesus. I'm interested in the subjects just as I am philosophy & theology in general, but as an agnostic I gravitate towards the historical and socio-cultural aspects of religious movements, beliefs, etc.

But it's not the fact that these are "not the latest in NT scholarship" which renders your statement about NT scholarship (at least as far as historiography is concerned) problematic. It's not even the small number or the fact that the majority of research is published in academic journals. With the exception of Meyer and in part Kasper, the works you mentioned are not concerned with the question of the historical Jesus and what we can or can't say given our evidence. They are primarily christological/theological/religious works.

They will not get into, for example, how historians of any type determine the authenticity of authorship of ancient texts, from Plato to Paul. Yet you conclude we really don't have evidence that Paul existed. That's not just a rejection of the validity of NT/Biblical approaches to historiography, but the almost the entirety of the validity of any historical reconstruction of the ancient past.

Of course, some people go that far. But my main point is that (again) you are making claims about what "NT scholarhip" has produced in terms of historiography without having read virtually any of it.


That's certainly true. It is possible to read a great many books and have little ability to grasp what one is reading or to critically evaluate it. Then there is the issue of what one reads. If I am attempting to "learn" about evolution, for example, but I restrict myself to reading books which approach the subject in order to defend creationism or intelligent design I'm hardly going to learn much.

However, as I said, you made a claim about NT scholarship, and specifically what it has produced in terms of the historical Jesus. It may be possible to read and not learn, but it is certainly impossible to make any valid claims about what scholarship a field has produced without having read virtually any of it. Of course, I could be misunderstanding what you mean by NT scholarship. Historical Jesus studies are hardly restricted to NT specialists, and a great deal has been produced by historians of ealy christianity, historians of Judaism, classicists, etc. But all of these work both with an understanding of the cultural and historical context of the NT texts, and thus in some sense represent "NT scholarship."

Agnostic75

Ok, letters, but what about passages, and verses? Are we in an excellent position from a textual critical point of view to state that Paul wrote 1st Corinthians 15:3-8? That is a very important passage, possibly the most important passage in all of Paul's supposed writings.

I refer you to Dr. Robert Price's article at http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/rp1cor15.html.

mountainman

Ancient history.


One of the core principles of the historical method is that "Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability"

Herman Detering for example finds that all of the Pauline letters are later forgeries.



NT and Biblical studies actually exist in a vacuum of archaeological evidence.


The Biblical Historians have Eusebius. That may be all they will ever need, or will ever have.

How is one to gauge the authenticity of Eusebius and his contributions to the historicization of the Jesus story?

One may examine this problem from inside the box of Biblical History or from outside the box of Biblical History, in the field of ancient history. (See Momigliano's quote below).



The hypothetical chronologies discussed for the authorship of the canonical material range between the 1st and 2nd centuries. This implies nobody really knows which century the action really happened. In turn, this implies that what we are dealing with may represent 2nd century anachronistic fabrications.



Ancient historians generally use all the available evidence, both positive and negative.

Biblical Historians generally embellish their positive claimed evidence and ignore the elephant of negative evidence. The first new testament historian seems to have mistaken Constantine for Moses. (See "Vita Constantini") I am not sure how to explain this.




And the subsequent "Searches" for the "Historical Jesus" have had utterly unsucccessful results. The main problem is the external corroboration of the century of appearance of the so-called "Canonical Holy Writ". There isn't any until very very late, when the christian emperors and their heresiologists were sharpening very bloody and political sword of Christendom.

These people literally fought for Jesus (as announced by Jesus to Pilate) because his imperial Purple Kingdom was then very very immanent. "Then will my servants fight".

Luk 19:27

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me.

These theories and methods go back to Eusebius who is considered to be the inventor of ecclesiastical historiography.

Eusebius's application of these theories and methods however has all the markings of a can of worms.

The historian Richard Carrier for example describes Eusebius as "either a liar or hopelessly credulous".

Momigliano states that Eusebius does not have any reputation as a competent chronographer. Where does that leave Eusebius's reputation as an historian? Momigliano likens Eusebius ideas of chronology to propaganda. What more can I say?


I was not commenting on the development of these disciplines, but the theory of their practice. From Momigliano ....

Let me admit from the start that I am rather impervious to
any claim that sacred history poses problems which are not
those of profane history.

I am using Momigliano. Here is the expanded quote above in context. The purpose of reading Gibbon is so that the student can understand the use of irony. Arnaldo Momigliano used very heavy irony, and is seen by many to be in one sense a continuator of Gibbon, and by most as one of the foremost ancient historians of the 20th century.






I have collated some other articles by Momigliano here

maryhelena

Perhaps your not getting the point here. Reading books dealing with christology is to read what christianity is about. Christianity is not about following a carpenter from Nazareth, or wherever. It's about belief in a resurrection - if Christ has not been raised up, so the story goes, ones faith is in vain. That idea, that value can be ascertained through the death, the killing, of one man, is the stuff of nightmares not the stuff of logic. Oh, you might say, that's all part of the add on - the man was killed, crucified, and his followers developed all sorts of tall tales. Great - except that those tall tales are christian tall tales. And without those tall tales being attached to the assumed flesh and blood man of the gospel story - christian theology as we now know it would cease to function. To ascribe such a monstrous idea to those early christians - the idea that they used a crucifixion of a flesh and blood man, a miscarriage of justice, as a source of value - is to do them a great injustice. Such an idea betrays and demonstrates our lack of insight rather than moral inadequacies on their part.

Once the morality of the NT story, read literally, is questioned - then notions about that story being a historical story get dumped in the rubbish bin. Once the morality of the NT story, read literally, is questioned - then it's time to pick up a history book. I reached for Israelite and Judaean History, edited by Hayes and Miller.

outhouse

Mary, none of that make's much sense at all when you take the fact YOUR not talking about a movement in judaism that progressed within judaism.

the reality is romans stole the christ concept from the jews, who wrote their own version while putting the real jewish version 6' under ad hidden from history.

aa5874

Well, the Existing Codices have tremendous historical value and they DOCUMENT what people of antiquity were forced to believe.

There are numerous Existing Codices all with a similar Mythological character.

Jesus of the Existing Codices is MULTIPLE ATTESTED and in PRISTINE condition.

The history of the Myth called Jesus will NOT ever be lost.

It is well-documented in multiple Codices of antiquity.

Everybody will be able to see Matthew 1.18-20 from now till eternity .

Jesus was the Child of a Ghost and people of antiquity did BELIEVE IT.

Codices after Codices--it is the same Myth fable.

The history of MYTH Jesus is virtually cast in stone. O Theophilus!!!

outhouse

Funny, unsuccessful results is what sum's up the myth camp perfectly.

They have one decent champion who presents the weakest of cases for a mythical jesus.