Originally Posted by stonewall1012

Few seriously contend that an over arching "meaning" of history is even possible anymore. Hence few thinking people contend that metanarrative are relevant anymore.

Originally Posted by stonewall1012

Lets just say I believe in using multiple fields to assess history.

Originally Posted by mountainman

The more multiple fields the better and the fewer multiple fields the poorer and restricted and myopic in today's reality of specialisation. It is the relativity of the citations between the fields which provides the measure of historical integrity which is either deep or superficial. Here is an abstract which attempts to use 15 fields.

You will find that the problem with BC&H scholarship is that it attempts to focus unduly on the literature field, and then on the greek and latin and hebrew. Coptic and Syriac have perhaps one or two centuries of age in the field and are still regarded as poor relations in BC&H (the gospels we must not forget were forged in greek).

BC&H scholarship as a narrow path of the literature alone is doomed to extinction IMO, since someone allowed the C14 boys into the field. Paleography and handwriting analysis, where in past centuries stood as solid placemarks of academic chronology, are seen today as far less substantial, for example, because of the use of technology such as C14.

Best wishes,


Pete

Originally Posted by stonewall1012

I would absolutly agree with you that multiple field study is the best methodology and the most scholarly accepted approach to the field of history. However, doesn't this continuing growth of interdisciplinary reliance endanger the scholar to myopisy any way? Can the historian truely survey all the work in Sociology, philosophy, theology, ethics, paleography, archeology and psychology sufficently?

Doesn't the scholar "pick" and "choose" whom they are going to "listen" to? What if the scholar picked only "atheists" to "listen" to because they "trust" their judgements? Or what if the scholar only listened to "theists".

Examine the Alexander the Great was a homosexual argument. The movie was a great example of how people abuse history. It is very possible Alexander had sexual relations with his good friend, but the ancient Greeks didn't view sexuality or male / male relations the same way we do. It is a horrible injustice to Alexander to argue that he was "homosexual" in today's way of understanding that term, when he didn't understand sexual relations in the manner that we do now.

Someone listened to a historian making this "claim" about Alexander and failed to realize the true nature of the argument.

In the same way unless the historian is completely knowledgable in the field that he/she is cross referencing the historian can make the same mistake.
While I think cross referencing is good our possibility for error has increased with each field we attempt to cross reference.

Originally Posted by AM

ON PAGANS, JEWS, and CHRISTIANS

--- Arnaldo Momigliano, 1987


Chapter 1:

Biblical Studies and Classical Studies
Simple Reflections upon Historical Method


p.3

Principles of Historical research need not be different
from criteria of common sense. And common sense teaches
us that outsiders must not tell insiders what they should
do. I shall therefore not discuss directly what biblical
scholars are doing. They are the insiders.

What I can perhaps do usefully is to emphasise as briefly
as possible three closely interrelated points of my
experience as a classicial scholar who is on speaking terms
with biblical scholars.

1) our common experience in historical research;

2) the serious problems we all have to face because of the
current devaluation of the notion of evidence and of the
corresponding overappreciation of rhetoric and idealogy
as instruments for the analysis of the literary sources;

3) what seems to me the most fruitful field of collaboration
between classical and biblical scholars.


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.





p.7

One is almost embarrassed to have to say
that any statement a historian makes must
be supported by evidence which, according
to ordinary criteria of human judgement,
is adequate to prove the reality of the
statement itself. This has three
consequences:


1) Historians must be prepared to admit
in any given case that they are unable
to reach safe conclusions because the
evidence is insufficient; like judges,
historians must be ready to say 'not proven'.

2) The methods used to ascertain the value
of the evidence must continually be scrutinised
and perfected, because they are essential to
historical research.

3) The historians themselves must be judged
according to their ability to establish facts.


The form of exposition they choosen for their presentation
of the facts is a secondary consideration. I have of course
nothing to object in principle to the present multiplication
in methods of rhetorical analysis of historical texts.

You may have as much rhetorical analysis as you consider
necessary, provided it leads to the establishment of the
truth - or to the admission that truth is regretfully
out of reach in a given case.

But it must be clear once for all that Judges and Acts,
Heroditus and Tacitus are historical texts to be examined
with the purpose of recovering the truth of the past.

Hence the interesting conclusion that the notion of forgery
has a different meaning in historiography than it has in
other branches of literature or of art. A creative writer
or artist perpetuates a forgery every time he intends
to mislead his public about the date and authorship
of his own work.

But only a historian can be guilty of forging evidence
or of knowingly used forged evidence in order to
support his own historical discourse. One is never
simple-minded enough about the condemnation of
forgeries. Pious frauds are frauds, for which one
must show no piety - and no pity.

Originally Posted by mountainman

We have computer and database technology and other technological services today with whiuch we can track possibilities for error or otherwise. I do not feel in any way pessimistic about the confusion of information.

IMO good and simple advice on the modus operandi of an historian is to be found in the following extract ...

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Such a statement reveals a strange ignorance of the history of scholarship! It's probably merely the words of an uneducated man.

Originally Posted by stonewall1012

How much speculation should the historian allow into his theory?

Originally Posted by spamandham

...the minimum amount required to explain all the evidence. Of course, that's subjective, but it can be evaluated qualitatively if not quantitatively.

Which is more likely:

- a man actually rose from the dead
- someone(s) invented a story about a man rising from the dead

If at face value, you deem the latter more likely, you now have a supportable hypothesis requiring no speculation "the author wrote that he rose from the dead, even though he didn't". If you choose option 1, you also have a supportable hypothesis "the author wrote he rose from the dead, because he actually did and the author knew it".

Either of these are subject to further testing in general.

But human nature isn't satisfied with simply assessing the basic facts. We want to know what *really* happened. For better or worse, it's the job of the historian to interpolate between the supportable hypotheses to compose a complete theory.

Originally Posted by aa5874

I think you are wrong.

"A man rose from the dead" can be an hypothesis indeed, but it cannot be supported.

Originally Posted by aa5874

Or there is no information presently to support such an hypothesis. And such an hypothesis may not even be considered plausible, in the first place.

Originally Posted by aa5874

And do historians really compose theories about the hypotheses of events that may have occurred?

Originally Posted by spamandham

Sure it can. There is a written claim to support it. The next step is to test that claim. Obviously, it doesn't pass muster when subjected to biological arguments, but that doesn't stop the initial hypothesis from having support.