rob117

I'll be more clear-

I admit I haven't read Tacitus yet. So I'll use Herodotus again- he does propaganda. He has theological agendas. But his overarching purpose for writing his work is not to convince you of certain theological claims; it's to recover and preserve the past. Herodotus' history is certainly bad history in some places, but what makes it history is purpose and methodology, not accuracy.

Luke certainly attempts to be a historian, but his overall goal is still to convince you of something. And Matthew? He just tells you the story and uses out-of-context quotes from the Old Testament to support the theological claims.

A better analogy to the gospel-writers would be lawyers. The gospels aim to present their case to the reader. Like lawyers, they use some of the same tools as historians- previous documents, hearsay, etc. But ultimately they are advocates for a cause, be it theological or political.

Also, belief in Christ has nothing to do with whether or not I think an author is a historian. Eusebius is a historian in some of his works, such as the Chronology of the World and the Biography of Constantine. Likewise I wouldn't claim Aeschylus is a historian, even though The Persians is about a recent (to him) historical event.

Gamera

Again, rob, you've just assumed the conclusion. You admit Herodotus has an agenda, but you claim he "preserved" history despite his agenda. You can't reach that conclusion from Herodotus's biases, unless you assume it.

Both Herodotus and Luke have an agenda. Both want to convince the reader (why else would they write a history, which is a narrative authored to convince readers of some perspective on history). Both have a "view" on history (everybody does!).

To claim that Herodotus has "good" motives and doesn't want to intentionally color the past, whereas Luke has a "bad" motive and does simply mischaracterizes the historigraphical process. Herodotus's politics have been written upon. It should supprise no one that he was a highly political person, given his participation in the overthrow of a tyrant in his native city. I mean even Cicero(as I recall) called him "the father of lies" for his obvious fabrications. And there has been a debate even back then about his veracity.

Your analogy with lawyers is a good one (I happen to be one). All historians are lawyerlike in that they assemble facts for a particular purpose. Now good lawyers don't let on to the audience that they're doing that. They make it sound like they're telling the unvarnished truth. That's their job. That's what Herodotus did. He's a "good" lawyer, and many people fall for it (you included). But he's still advocating.

Honestly it's utterly naive to say Herodotus just made mistakes and he is the most unique mind in history in not letting his biases shape his discourse. History is narrative; it's story telling; it's very form is contrary to unvarnished "truth."

Let me suggest that the reason you find Herodotus "sounds" like an historian, and Luke doesn't to you, lies in a retrojection. As a modern educated person who obviously reads history, you're familiar with modern historiography. Modern historiography sounds like Herodotus (at least is sounds more Herodotan than Lucan) because modern historiography modelled itself on Herodotus, the so-call father of history. Not coincidently then, it's discourse is similar to his. So it's a feedback system: modern historiography tries to sound like Herodotus, so modern people think that's how historians are supposed to sound like, so naturally they conclude that Herodotus sounds like an historian.

But of course if you lived in the 16th or 19th century, historiography would sound less like Herodotus and maybe more like Luke.

Read Sir Thomas Browne's attempts at cultural history and it doesn't sound a bit like Herodotus, who must have seemed terse and hence cunning to his ear. Virtually all 19th century historiography is steeped in racialist references and religious sentimentality, if not jingoism. They may have found Herodotus lacking in morals.

The point is historiography often tells us more about the discourse community that produces it than the content of the history provided.

spin

Yes. That's because you used quotes in the phrase that I cited from you.

I notice you glaringly use "we" in this little piece of methodological reductionism.

I al.so notice that you avoided some of the items I listed in this statement of self-irony.

Here's what I said again:

What exactly do you mean by "historical" texts? Do they include works such as Judith, the Satyricon, Lucian's "True History", Revelation, Acts? What makes a text historical in your mind?

You didn't answer the question here at all. You merely took the opportunity to supply a little dose of your own reductionism.

I was fishing for some criteria for how you can extract historical data about the past.

Do they really?

And how about Lemuel Gulliver or even Dan Brown's Robert Langdon? You don't seem to be getting at historical data yet.

This is a smokescreen, Gamera. You are avoiding the whole set of problems I put to you. I wasn't after your apologetics, your attempt to reduce history to what anyone writes. I was after your efforts to delineate history.

You're avoiding my question Gamera. I was looking for the data, not the cliche. It's easy to walk the walk and talk the talk, but tin-tacks you are exceptionally short on. You're supposed to say something in court, not play games in front of the judge.

Let me try to be even more specific. What exactly places your guys there at the right time to have commited the crime? What are the smoking guns, the eye witness reports that you can validate? With Ramses II, one can show you the body, the monuments, the inscriptions. With Augustus one can show you the statues throughout his life, the coins, the monuments, the inscriptions. Just go to the Ara Pacis in Rome and look at the man and most of his family sculptured on the monument, or go to the Vatican and look at a few of his statues. See that the representations of the person are consistent. You can do the same for others on the monument. One turns to the literature, Suetonius or Tacitus or whoever else to give us the threads that hold the historical data together.

What Suetonius writes becomes historical data in that it reflects what we already know of the period and earns the historian's trust in its principal narrative. There is a constant possibility of evaluation and re-evaluation of the material in concert with whatever other data from the referenced period may be deemed relevant.

So again, what exactly places your guys there at the right time to have commited the crime?

Even when the playwright puts known historical figures on the stage? Too simple, Gamera.

You're not really dealing with "fictive" in my eyes. You've merely gone for the easy answer. But does "fictive" deal with intent to portray things that the author clearly believed did not happen? What about when an author retells material that s/he believes, but isn't part of the writer's experience? Ebion returns as a classic example. Tertullian had no doubt about Ebion, dealing with his words, while Epiphanius provided further tradition some time later. Is their material "fictive" in your use of the term, remembering that Ebion did not exist, but was a wrongly evinced eponymous founder of the Ebionite "heresy"?

The facetious response is usually a sign of empty hands. You are relying on rhetoric rather than substance.

Back to true scotsman argumentation.

You go from statement of intent to summation in the one breath, leaving out all the important stuff, the substance of anything you might want to establish. You have to make a case at some stage.

It has nothing to do with my knowledge, Gamera. It's your responsibility.

To me it seems you have been playing this game: "I don't like people attacking my guys, so I'll attack yours making them just like my guys. What my guys say is just as truthful if not more so than what your guys say and you can't show any different, so there."

I think you're doing too much dodging and weaving and not enough standing up and showing what you are made of. You have to get past floating like a butterfly and try stinging like a bee.


spin

rob117

I would think the word "fiction" as a genre implies intent by definition. The gospel-writers were not writing novels.

aa5874

Gamera, what other 'historical' texts did you compare the gospels to?


Now, your claims all based on bias and agenda. You have an agenda with your biased historical trajectory.

spin

So when Tertullian and Epiphanius wrote about Ebion, they were not writing novels. Still, their information and thoughts about the eponymous and non-existent founder of the Ebionite movement were wrong. The notion of "fictive" in the discussion isn't particularly functional. It does not act with "historical" to form a binary taxonomy. The range of options is wider than these two possibilities.

I have argued long and hard against the use of terms like "fictive" and "fictional" as irrelevant to the discussion of what much religious literature is. Too many people on both sides of the divide want to argue about such simple dichotomies, truth or lies, real or fake. I believe religionists generally are serious in their efforts, be they modern apologists or ancient writers. They don't believe that they are writing "fiction": they believe it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And it may, but then again may not, be the truth, at least in the sense that it directly reflects reality.

There was an Ebionite movement, but there was no Ebion. Still, Tertullian believed that there was. He wasn't writing fiction when he engaged in a critique of Ebion. A non-existent entity can be reified without people crying "fiction". Tertullian believed that Ebion was real. An Ebion tradition was sufficient for Tertullian to feel the need to enter into literary conflict with this non-entity.

Have you ever played Chinese whispers? It's a game where a person whispers a secret in the ear of one person, who in turn whispers it into another person's until they go through a chain of hearers. At the end, they compare the final version with the original, 99 times out of a hundred, they end up completely different with information being lost and embellishments being added.

Again, you've probably seen film representations of the way gossip spirals through constant embellishment. One gossiper doesn't intend to tell lies, but somehow in the telling the story escalates.

You can see something vaguely similar with the development of contemplative thought on the notion of wisdom in Hebrew literature. Wisdom is the prerogative of god. What comes out of god's mouth is wisdom. Wisdom is what god uses in his actions. When god created the world he used wisdom. Wisdom was with god in the creation. Wisdom helped god in creation. Without wisdom nothing was created. Wisdom came to earth and helped people act well. Wisdom walked the streets and communed with people, imparting her abilities to whoever listened. Wisdom was the word on god's lip. Wisdom was the law of god. In the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was divine. All things came into being through the word.

At every step in this chain of whispers, the speaker believed every word that was being said. It simply cannot be called "fictive" in my way of thinking, yet it cannot be called fact. Traditions are funny that way. They may contain fact, but I don't think there is any real way to discern it. They may have a real kernel, but then again they may not. What is real in the tradition has been obscured.

I certainly agree that "[t]he gospel-writers were not writing novels", but then I never thought they were. I'm happy enough to believe that they believed everything they wrote was (historically for us) veracious. I'm happy enough to believe that the fundamentalist christians who find their way here believe everything they write, notwithstanding the fact that I believe that it is often baloney. It's not sufficient for us that "[t]he gospel-writers were not writing novels." Our interest is history. Trying to evince history through false dichotomies such as truth or lies, real or fake, fact or fiction, is not functional. It's not sufficient to say that something is not fiction for it to be transmuted into fact.


spin

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, now you know how we feel about the gospels.

Let's see, the largely anonymous gospel authors are claimed to have been fanatically devoted followers of Jesus (one supposedly his "beloved disciple") and/or "eye-witnesses" to the events they write about (which would necessarily make them insiders at the very least, not to mention time travelers), and/or inspired by a god to write the fantastic, supernatural events they wrote about in terms and tone implying not only did such events occur, but that such events in general were nothing out of the ordinary, throwing the whole collection into doubt.

A book that has been pretty much deconstructed for its sociopolitical agenda.

Gamera

Yeah, that's my point. The standard for judging the gospels' historicity, if applied to Tacitus or Seutonius or Herodotus, basically effaces all classical history. If that's what you want to do, fine. Just be honest about it and stop using double standard.

Yep, every writer of history has an agenda. Though of course Tacitus had a personal political agenda that was more likely to distort his view of political events than say a Luke, whose a universalists, and has obvious political agenda, just a religious one.

You're getting historiography is a series of agendas. So we need to scrape that as a standard and face the truth about historiography.

Gamera

Agricola comes to mind. It's an encomium just like the gospels written at about the same time. It's purpose is political and it is prolix, unlike the gospels, but the audience was totally different. If Tacitus had got religion, and had a good editor, he might have written something like Luke's gospel.

Don't we all, aa, don't we all.

rob117

True, but that is background noise, not the main purpose. Nineteenth-century historians evangelize, but it is not the main purpose they write; it is secondary. Luke writes first and foremost to convince you of a certain theological claim, and uses history to do so. Nineteenth-century historians reference theology. Luke is a theologian referencing history.

That I agree with.