Ted Hoffman

Ben,
What do you think of Goodacre's criterion that "anything in the passion narrative that is based on a scriptural allusion is, _ipso facto_, fictional." and how do you compare it to Sander's approach?

Ted Hoffman

I just got an updated version of Goodacre's “Prophecy Historicized or History Scripturized? Reflections on the Origin of the Crucifixion Narrative". I'd like to study it before I come back to Sanders.

Ben C Smith

That is not his position at all. In fact, his paper was written precisely in order to counter such a position.

I suspect you have misread what Ken Olson said about what Goodacre thinks in that XTalk thread.

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

You are right Ben.
I think I have arrived at a judgement on this matter. There are three approaches scholars take regarding the correspondences between the gospels like Mark and the OT.
1. Evidence of creativity off OT sources (e.g. Sanders and Crossan).
2. Evangelists narrating events using OT language or framework.
3. Jesus acting out what he had read in the OT to signify to onlookers that he was the messiah (Sanders).

I think (2) and (3) are unreliable interpretations because they lack boundaries and ultimately the exegete resorts to pick-and-choose methodology.
In this thread, I am interested in (3) - which is the one Sanders employs in interpreting some acts of Jesus.
Sander's approach ignores the fact that the evangelists were faced with liturgical needs, narrative needs, polemical needs, theological and apologetic influences. That alone knocks out that approach.
The explanatory power of this approach fails when one considers literary and text-critical issues like the triptychs and doublets - for example, Ludemann's argument that the Sanhedrin trial is a doublet of the trial before Pilate. Turton presents the doublet as appears in the image below:
http://www.angelfire.com/empire/intensity/doublet.jpg
Can both of these be considered historical?

As noted earlier, events like the crucifixion scene where Jesus' garments are torn, as is prophecized in Psalms are simply implausible because they involve many people and unless there is a play in progress and a script being followed, that scene is fictional. Where does that leave us? Pick and choose.

My verdict is that a multivaried approach has to be used. Sander's approach is too unreliable to yield any credible results.

Ben C Smith

I could not disagree more.

On the one hand, Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 narrate the birth narratives against an OT background, and I think you and I can agree that most of those narratives are probably invented.

On the other hand, Luke 21 paints the fall of Jerusalem in OT colors. As Rick pointed out, Mark casts the death of John with OT images. Yet these events are, at core, historical.

The indubitable failure of these two extremes to cover all options means that the truth must lie, as usual, somewhere in the middle.

I can easily see using the OT parallelism to strike out many of the details. I do it myself.

But to erase the entire event automatically, without further argument, is to use an all-or-nothing approach that is completely foreign to criticism (but right at home, interestingly, in fundamentalism).

You can use the more negative phrase pick-and-choose, if you wish, but criticism is all about discerning, picking the good information out of the bad, sifting and sorting, staking out positions on every detail.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that both cannot. But one still can. Is it? I am not going to answer that question here, but I assure you the answer will require the mounting of an argument.

Agreed.

Sure does! That is exactly what historians do (except insofar as I have already pointed out that this way of putting it is probably too negative). Tacitus historians pick and choose (to use your terms) which parts of his history he got right and which parts he got wrong. Josephus historians pick and choose. WWII historians pick and choose.

Strange, then, that your approach seems to come out all-or-nothing.

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

You strike out the details. What is your justification for retaining the rest?
I agree. Wow.
JBap's death has historical weight because of MA. Other than multiple attestation Ben, what justification can we have for retaining the rest?
Do you assign reliability to the embarrasment, dissimilarity, friend and foe criterions etc?
Am trying to interrogate your methods. Am not sure I have advocated for an all-or-nothing approach but I am trying to see what your method is so that I can understand why it is (presumably) better than all-or-nothing.
Am not sure they would agree. I dont know why you are trying to justify something that is fundamentally flawed. Pick-and-choose implies a method-free, whimsical and purely subjective approach. If there is a clear method and criteria in place, I dont think we can call such analysis pick-and-choose.
Sanders himself condemns pick-and-choose methodology though he does it himself.
Without MA, I dont see why we would pick one over the other. What do you think?
Of course, why dont you set the ball rolling?

Ben C Smith

Multiple attestation, contemporaneousness of evidence, tracing of trajectories, and the ever useful technique of assuming X in order to arrive at a contradiction or suspicious coincidence, thus demonstrating not X.

As for the historical process of what I have called discerning, picking the good information out of the bad, and sifting and sorting, I refer you to Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History, page 143:

Having accumulated his notes, the investigator must now separate the credible from the incredible. .... In detailed investigations few documents are significant as a whole; they serve most often only as mines from which to extract historical ore. Each bit of ore, however, may contain flaws of its own.

Call it what you will, but this is what I was talking about.

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

The proof of the pudding is in the eating my good friend. Can you use this method to prove whether or not the temple ruckus took place or has a historical core? Let us see it at work. Now.
I dont know in what context the above were written but I will hazard a few comments. The above statement makes the unwarranted assumption that there is a historical "ore" or core, however flawed that "ore" may be. As I stated, this is an unwarranted assumption. But lets turn it over and have a good look at what is being suggested. Credible from the incredible? Okay.

I think its incredible that Jesus' biological father was God as John and Matt indicate (immaculate conception). Does that mean that Jesus' pedigree was unknown or lacking?
If not, who was his father? Do we pick Joseph yet the same books say it was God? And who was his mother - how do we know? Why should we believe that the mother of Jesus was called Mary?
How do you decide what is credible and what is not? Fiction can be credible. So the fact that something is credible alone does not make it historical.

I find the the trials at night very unlikely. For various reasons:
1. Trials were not to take place during the sabbath or festivals because these were days of rest.
2. Sentences were usually handed the following day, not the same day as the day of the trial.
3. Trials took place during the day not late evening.
4. The temple was closed at night and that was where the people (chief priests and scribes) would assemble for such purposes.
5. The priests would have been very busy on the eve of the festival and would be unwilling to gather for a trial. In addition, wine was regularly taken and that would have further made the sanhedrin unwilling to assemble for the trial.
6. Jewish penalty for blasphemy is not crucifixion but stoning.
7. The enemies of Jesus (Pharisees and Herodians) suddenly disappear and scribes take over and hand a death sentence to him.
8. The trial before the Sanhedrin is a doublet of the trial before Pilate
Because of the above and contradictory behaviours of the individuals presented, scholars like Merz have proposed that Jesus was executed prior to the passover.
9. Why doesnt Mark name the high priest yet the Roman procurator in the scene is named? (Matt and Luke do their research and paste the name but why doesnt the first gospel name him?)

My issue is, why believe he was tried at all if the trial generates so many questions and is so at odds with what was known?
Give me reasons for believing there was any trial at all

You do note that what is incredible and what isn't is influenced by our worldviews and interpretive frameworks right? The Historian Alun Munslow wrote that our interpretations on historical issues are mediated by the positions we adopt (implicitly), our preferred arguments through which we connect events, the nature of our inferences and the theories we invoke to refer to past reality.

How do you shake off all this baggage from what he labels "credible"? If you cant, "credible" is simply an argument from personal credulity, which is not useful. Many people think evolution is incredible. So what?

Ben C Smith

1. I have not done enough work on the temple incident to comment one way or another on its historicity. These things take time.
2. The demanding tone you take (now, period) is the single best way to ensure I do not indulge you with an analysis. I am pretty stubborn that way.

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

No problem Ben. Thanks for playing.