Vinnie

Crossover from another thread. Was going to post that in there but figured I'd provide a sneak peak into my new project.

Jesus was crucified. This is a provable FACT!

On my new Jesus page I have the following in my

Range of Values Assigned to Jesus Traditions

• Virtually Certain (100%)
• Highly Probable (80%)
• More Probable than Not (60%)
• Non Liquet
• Improbable

The crucifixion of Jesus clocks in as historically certain. My HJ methodology is theoretically based upon the principle that the more criteria that support a datum, the more certain it is. As a general rule, nothing with less than two criteria intersecting can have better than "more probable than not" attestation. This for example, is where Jesus' healing of Mary Magdalene comes in. Its placed around "more probable than not" or "non liquet." At any rate, three separate independent historical criteria (out of my criteria) clock in as evidence of crucifixion (MA, FS, EC). Others might throw in CPD for reasons which will be articulated:

Methodological Considerations Guide:

• Ma = Independent Attestation
• MA= Multiple Independent Attestation and//or Independent Attestion of Forms
• EC = Embarrassment of "Against Grain"
• FS = First Stratum
• ID = Incidental Detail
• CF = Creativity Factor or With the Grain
• F&F Friend and Foe
• DD = Double Dissimilarity
• CT = Competing Traditions
• CPD = Contemporary Primary Data
• CC = Coherence Criterion

Three of them are actually negative criteria which help to sift out potential fact from potential fiction or rather, limit what we can know with any certainty (CT & CF & CC). For example, I do not use coherence to argue for positive attestation of any traditions. The point of coherence would be to test ones overall portrait of Jesus and see if it is consistent with those facts deemed 1) Virtually Certain. later, traditions deemed more probable than not could conceivable be tested against 1 and 2 as well.

For an example, any detailed or slightly detailed reconstruction of Jesus must adequately explain why he was crucified and why his followers were not. Why crucifixion as opposed to a private murder? For a further clarification, I will show it is virtually certain Jesus had close followers or disciples. Now say your reconstruction claimed Jesus was leading a revolt against Rome or Roman authority. It would be, in my judgement, inexplicable that only Jesus and not also his closest followers were crucified.

These two traditions are not reconcilable. One or both must be axed.

Now MA and Ma are not two separate criteria. I simply use them to distinguish between independent attestion and what I deem very good or widespread multiple attestation.

For example, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. By my recollection this has double indepdnent attestation under the 2ST. Both Matthew and Luke place Jesus there (through contradictory means) but on judgment of what is common to both they both have Bethlehem.

The tradition for this is Ma and not MA because its two third stratum sources my stratification). There is nothing in the first or second stratum and the forms are the same (e.g. narrative vs narrative. To see how it compares with the rest of my criteria:

Ma = It has this.

MA = Does not fit the bill.

EC = Does not Fit the Bill

FS = Does Not Fit the Bill

ID = Does Not Fit the Bill

CF = Its with the theological grain of the evangelists and that makes us suspect by default. There are plausible reasons for viewing this tradition as being created (Bethelehem birth that is!).

CT = Many would argue that there are competing traditions on this. First, Nazareth (Mark and John) has much better attestation and is not "theologically motivated". Whole streams of NT thought seem to be oblivious to a special birth, and this includes streams we might not expect to be oblivious to it (as opposed to some bad argument from Pauline silence). Also, John's statement which asks, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

F&F Does Not Meet the Bill

DD = Does Not Meat the Bill

CPD = Does Not Meet the Bill

CC = Does Not Meet the Bill

With this run down in mind, the compelx or tradition that Jesus was born in Bethelehm which receives Ma from Mt and Lk is clearly judged to be improbable. Theological creation of Christians is the most likely judgment.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Oh yeah, when my page is up it will have a discussion of each criteria as well for clarification//explanatory purposes.

The nature, scope, limitations and so on of each one...

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Vinnie, will you be comparing your approach with that of other scholars? i.e., Sanders, Meier, Crossan, Wright, Porter, Luedemann, Funk, Theissen. They have all published different approaches of appraising tradition about Jesus.

For example, here is my summary of Luedemann: Lüdemann sets out four criteria of inauthenticity and five criteria of authenticity in The Great Deception, which is something of an abridged and popular version of his subsequent comprehensive work Jesus After 2000 Years. The first criterion of inauthenicity is that sayings presupposing Jesus as the exalted Lord are not from the earthly Jesus. The second is that actions that presuppose the violation of natural laws are unhistorical. The third states that sayings that appear to be devised to answer the problems of later communities are inauthentic. The fourth criterion of inauthenticity says that sayings or actions that presume a Gentile rather than a Jewish audience do not go back to Jesus. The first criterion of authenticity says that sayings or actions that are offensive to Christian sensibilities are not likely to be fabrications. The criterion of difference states that sayings that do not appear to reflect the ideas of post-Easter communities likely go back to the historical Jesus. The criterion of growth says that material around which additional traditions have accumulated may be old enough to go back to Jesus. The criterion of rarity indicates that sayings with few parallels in the Jewish sphere are likely to be distinctive to Jesus. The fifth criterion of authenticity, that of coherence, says that a saying or action that fits in seamlessly with other identified authentic material may also be deemed authentic.

John P. Meier offers the following summary (A Marginal Jew, Vol. II., pp. 5-6).

Stevan Davies has published the Jesus Seminar Premises and Rules of Evidence

Don't we have a lot of issues to work out, though, before we can get an agreement on the HJ? For example, I would like to see a discussion of the relationship of the Gospel of John to the Synoptics, and I haven't seen anything like that on this board lately.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vinnie

Peter, my list is not complete. I know of several other critera (some which scholars like Meier, Sanders anmd other deem dubious) as well.

I don't promise an entire book on the methodology but I will devote some space to a discussion of each criteria and I will also compare and contrast various scholarly methodology.

""""The first criterion of inauthenicity is that sayings presupposing Jesus as the exalted Lord are not from the earthly Jesus. """""

Looks like with the grain. I do not focus entirely or mostly on sayings. There are some major difficulties with reconstructing sayings of Jesus, especially if you are seeking sopecific formulations.

"""""The second is that actions that presuppose the violation of natural laws are unhistorical.""""""

This criteria will be rejected by a lot of scholars, and according to a recent thread, possibly by Carrier who at least attempts to evaluate miracle traditions.

At any rate, despite my stance agaisnt nature being defied, I'd still evaluate miracle traditions. It may at least serve as a check of some sort on how well a methodology can weave fact from tradition.

Further, "unhitorical" is too cague for me. This does not mean the traditions do not go back to some historical core.

Att any rate, there is nothing problemtiac about Exorcisms (most prominent healing type in synoptics?) and faith healings. are a different story.

This is entirely to simplistic and simply incorrect from my perspective. Contexts are more prone to change than sayings are. I deem this a demonstrable fact of the field. What we are doing is looking for history embedded within the traditions. If we can gather any that go back to the Hj out of such sayings is a different matter. Dismissing them wholesale is problematic. One has to first argue that the entire account (saying and situation) stand or fall together.

This actually looks like something I can agree with to an extent and I would say its already a part of my methodology above. This would be an aspect of what I argued as coherence. To clarify, it would ask, does this datum fit with the historical certainty that Jesus conducted a ministey to Jews and not Gentiles?

Embarrassment. Got that.


Problem. How "post Easter" was the Jerusalem group and were they free from creativity?

Maybe not a problem though. This posits using a text that is neutral in a sense. Not with the grain and not against the grain (embarrassing).

One has to show that something has "grown" though? Examples? How does one know a traditions grew without affirming a historical core? Also, is this being applied to saying and parables? matthew shortents Mark's material in places. Scholars such as E.P. Sanders have long noted that straight line development from short to longer forms cannot b assumed.


""""""""The criterion of rarity indicates that sayings with few parallels in the Jewish sphere are likely to be distinctive to Jesus. """""""""

I agree but only a few traditions fit this bill. Let the dead bury the dead is one such tradition.


"""""""""""The fifth criterion of authenticity, that of coherence, says that a saying or action that fits in seamlessly with other identified authentic material may also be deemed authentic. """"""""


I am still hasing the value of this as a criteria and whether it can serve as positive attestation or not. For now I use it as a check. Once my article is written I will have my final judgment up.

I am not far from Luedemann though, or Meier, or Crossan, or Sanders.

I really like Sander's idea of distinguishing between the likelihood of traditions. For example, the framework I took up = Virtually cetain, highly probable, on down.

I would be curious to see an application of Luedemann's criteria. How would he treat Luke 8:2? Was Mary exorcised by Jesus or not?

Of his five criteria is may fit 1, and it should fit five (Jesus worked exorcisms).

Like I said, I am not certain of how much merit coherence has in regards to positive attestation. I think I will end up taking the stance of "use coherence positively with care". See Raymond Brown's example of the pro and con of coherence in Death Messiah, p. 18.


The problem with the five criteria without a theoretical basing:

Early Christinity was diverse and different images of Jesus were present. Even in some of the most secure of all sayings (e.g. Jesus' teaching on divorce) there are notable differences (we have two versions here!!!) and this is probable the most secure Jesus saying we have!

My theoretical basing requires that two or more positive criterion attest to an incident to get beyond "more probable than not".

I would even go so far as to require at least three criteris or more for virtually certain. Only a few general statements about Jesus would fit this bill.

Edited to Add a fourth problem: Such a theoretical basing, I think, better neutralizes four general problems 1) Christian diversity 2) Christian creativity, 3) that Jesus left behind people, not parrots and 4) inherant limitations of each individual criteria.

Vinnie

Vinnie

And as a default, I think one should work from the first stratum up.

Start a thread

Of course, even if John does know Mark several traditions within the Gospel must still be seen as independent.

Muller may be correct. As I noted before, John looks like it has a long tradition history. Maybe the first layer or so were indendent but later redactions were not. Of course it first needs to be evaluated as to what arguments can be given for or against Johannine dependence.

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Vinnie, I highly recommend that you get Jesus After 2000 Years for an analysis of every single Jesus tradition, including what's been redacted and what's historical. (And of course The Five Gospels and Acts of Jesus, which represents the work of hte whole Jesus Seminar.)

In this case, Luedemann is disappointingly terse: "Apart from the names, the historical yield is nil." (p. 309) Perhaps you'd like to query me on another datum.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vinnie

The Twelve.

I'll pick it up after Christmas. Have a big book list.


Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Luedemann writes: "It is very probable that Jesus called a group of twelve during his lifetime. Were we to regard this group as a post-Easter creation, it would be difficult to explain why it disappeared again immediately after its institution. (I Cor 15.5 mentions the group of twelve, but probably it was no longer in existence at the time of Paul's activity.) Moreover, the existence of Judas as one of the twelve suggests the historicity of the group of twelve in Jesus' lifetime. For who would have invented the existence of Judas who delivered up Jesus as a member of the group of the twelve had this person not been historical?" (JA2K, p. 22)

best,
Peter Kirby

Layman

What do you mean by stratum and how do you determine the levels of it?

You called the Gospel of John third stratum. Surely this is not simply based on its dating to the end of the first century. What if the Gospel of John were written by an eyewitness? Or if it was written by the disciples of a recently dead eyewitness? If so, why would that not be first or second stratum?

Ditto the L materials. Kim Paffenroth in his The Story of Jesus According to L concludes that the "L" source dates as a written source from 40-60 CE, roughly equating its date with Q. But it seems that you may date Luke's special material as third stratum. If Paffenroth is right, or even in the ballpark, why should this material be so classified?

For more information on the L source you can read a short piece I wrote on it here:

http://www.geocities.com/christianca...kespecmat.html

Vorkosigan

Methodological naturalism -- the unhistoricity of violations of natural law -- is the foundation of modern scholarship. To claim otherwise is to cease being a scholar, and start being something else.

Vorkosigan