KrisK10

Amaleq,

I didn't see anything in the link to Matrixism that would answer Muller's challenge -- a rapidly accummulating series of legends around a historic individual (but maybe this wasn't your point?)

Kris

KrisK10

Do any of them answer Muller's challenge about legends rapidly accumulating around historical individuals?

Kris

KrisK10

Thank you Andrew! In fact, because Sherwin-White does not state his thesis in the way that I have reworded it (which IMHO automatically follows based on his response to P.A. Brunt (see my first post)), and that he does not address this aspect of his thesis in his main discussion, and that his brief mention of Brunt’s objection shows up only as a footnote appended to the end of his treatise, gives me the impression that Sherwin-White did not fully appreciate this aspect of his thesis. And this leads to the main point I have been trying to make -- the weakness in S-W's argument is that he thinks there will always survive a less legendary source to correct any highly legendized sources. He understandably bases this on his study of people that I'll bet were almost always famous at the time they lived and/or shortly after, and so it would make sense that a generally correct historical core would survive somewhere in the literary record of these people. The difference with the Christian literature is that Jesus was not seen as historically significant to anyone during his life or shortly after except by those who saw him as a God. So it makes sense in this case that only the legendized records would survive.

Kris

KrisK10

Not quite -- S-W proposed that there was there was not enough time for legendary development to wipe out, or nearly wipe out, the historical core. It's more about historical erasure rate than legendary growth rate.

Kris

Vinny

If I had to guess, I'd say that there is no such generally accepted rule. I think it was contrived by Christian apologists who took Sherwin-White's remarks out of context. I would be surprised to find anyone other than Christian apologists who cite such a rule.

KrisK10

Vinny,

I ran into your blog a couple months ago and it confirmed many of my same thoughts about S-W. You did some really excellent work there! His short 8 page treatise is a very difficult read, and there are many careful qualifications he makes, but there does not seem much doubt in my mind that here we have a very experienced classical historian who has never seen a body of literature like that which surrounds Jesus IF indeed that body of literature is on the order of 90% legend (such as the likes of the Jesus Seminar proposes today). I think this honest reflection from S-W should be taken seriously. After closely reading his treatise over and over, I believe the problem in his view lies in his final footnote in which P.A. Brunt challenges his idea:

"Mr. P.A. Brunt has suggested in private correspondence that a study of the Alexander sources is less encouraging for my thesis. There was a remarkable growth of myth around his person and deeds within the lifetime of contemporaries, and the historical embroidery was often deliberate. But the hard core still remains, and an alternative but neglected source – or pair of sources – survived for the serious inquirer Arrian to utilize in the second century A.D. This seems to me encouraging rather than the reverse."

As Sherwin-White admits, determining the historical core from the highly legendized records of Alexander the Great would have proven difficult or impossible if not for the survival of the less legendized sources to guide the historian. He is right to say that his convention of historical inquiry -- “even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historical core of the oral tradition” -- still holds true in this case, but its meaning is different than what many people then and now might have originally thought. Given Sherwin-White’s clarification, his convention of historical inquiry is really this:

If there are literary records where the mythical tendency has prevailed over the hard historical core of the oral tradition in the first two generations, there will always survive another less legendized source or sources to guide the later historian.

That Sherwin-White does not anywhere state his thesis this way, that he does not address this aspect of it in his main discussion, and that his brief mention of Brunt’s objection shows up only as a footnote appended to the end of his treatise, gives the impression that even Sherwin-White did not fully appreciate this aspect of his thesis. And here is where it looks like the discussion just died out (the book was a print of S-W's lecture series given 2 years earlier, so perhaps he was burnt out on that and just moved on). I'm simply here trying to pick up where they left off. And the next obvious thing in my mind is that S-W's perspective, and the exception of the Christian literature, can BOTH be explained from the fact that historians usually investigate people who were historically significant in their time and/or shortly after. In Jesus' case, he was not historically significant for a couple centuries after his death except to those who thought he was a God. That is why we have only the highly legendized records for Jesus. What do you think? Is it worth moving past the careful qualifications and nuance in S-W's treatise and going to the core of his argument?

Kris

spamandham

The point was not that a legend might grow in 30 or 100 years, but rather, that the original story upon which these religions is based is abject fiction from the git go, and a religion grew around it anyway.

Do we know that isn't what happened in regards to Christianity? Could it have started as the "scientology" of it's day? If so, then myth growth rates become irrelevant, since it would be a big bang myth rather than a gradual process of mythmaking.

That said, I don't think it would be too hard to come up with even modern myths that arose very rapidly. One example off the cuff, is John_Frum

Vinny

Like the apologists, I think you are reading much more into Sherwin-White's comments than is warranted. I don't see him denying the possibility that the gospels are mostly legendary. He thinks that they can still be subjected to critical historical methods but he never claims to have done so. I think you are unlikely to find anyone other than apologists citing him because historians are unlikely to consider what he said particularly significant.

KrisK10

Vinny,

I respectfully think you're wrong on all counts.

I disagree with almost all of the conclusions that traditional scholar William Craig makes, but he is sharper than many people think. As far as I can tell, he first used S-W as a reference in 1981, before S-W died. He would have been a fool to do this if someone could have gone to S-W and found out that he was just speaking off the cuff or had since rescinded his opinion. For what it is worth, Wikipedia footnotes S-W's 1993 obituary as saying, "his conviction of the essential historicity of the narratives in the New Testament" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._N._Sherwin-White). Sherwin-White is certainly vigorous in his 1963 treatise, if not for the basic historicity of the gospels, at least against the idea that they are all, or almost all, legend. You are correct that he did not do some 5 year research project specifically dedicated to this thesis, but he is obviously drawing on years of experience with ancient literature. I don't think this can be dismissed so easily. I think S-W's comments need to be addressed head on, and his final footnote is the key to doing so, which it just so happens is also the key to answering the Julius Muller challenge. But, if nobody else sees it this way, I must be on the wrong track.

Kris

Kris

KrisK10

Regarding Sherwin-White's "rule" that there should always survive a historical core somewhere within the body of records that come from the first two or three generation of an event:

My guess is that it is taken for granted by classical historians. Again I'd love to do a poll, even a small sample size, if anyone knows a few classical historians. I think the key here is not that S-W's rule is wrong, but that the Christian literature is different for the reason I have been saying over and over.

Kris