Toto

I think the confusion is on your part, then.

The objectionable practice is to say "We can, however, take the texts at face value, like all historians do with ancient texts, unless there's evidence to the contrary," and then attempt to reject all evidence to the contrary, to save the texts.

But if "evidence to the contrary" is a very low bar, then we are not that far apart - especially if recognizing the high probability of legend in ancient texts is counted as evidence.

But in that case, why insist that ancient texts must be taken at face value? I still say that you will not find a professional historian from the modern era who claims that all ancient texts must be taken at face value unless there is evidence to the contrary.

spin

Why does this guy blunder non-stop? No wonder he cannot make sense of the task in front of him. Had he not been posting, this would have got him to post. It just wasn't necessary.

His belligerence got him where he is now.


spin

Toto

Please cut out the insults. I am on the verge of closing this thread and editing out some of your choice words.

Thanks

Solitary Man

Yes, I agree it is quite objectionable.

I'm almost tempted to say that there is always evidence to the contrary. Then it becomes a matter of weights and scales.

To come outright and say it? Did you not read Jeffrey Gibson's post at the ANE-2 yahoo list? How else can you take them? Is there another way? Surely you're not interested in taking them as Christians do - i.e. the prophecies in the Jewish scriptures point to Jesus Christ as the messiah. That would be a bad way of doing it.

What way do you suggest? At face value is the only sure way to do it. Otherwise you'd need to make a case for your particular bias.

Toto

No I did not read Jeffrey Gibson's post at ANE-2. I do not follow Jeffery around the internet. Do you want to provide a link or a quote?

Solitary Man

Just to get ideas. I must sign off for now, but I shall return.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANE-2/message/6485

Toto

Egads, man. This is another thread that Jeffrey started based on a misinterpretation of what spin posted.

And I don't see any coherent defense of the idea that ancient texts are taken at face value. There is this interesting comment from Kevin P. Edgecomb: It doesn't sound like Jeffrey got what he was looking for.

spin

This is just the same misguided query Jeffrey Gibson made on the classicists' list verbatim.
It may help indicate why Solitary Man didn't read my earlier posts to him.


spin

Ted Hoffman

Of course, Quirinus, Herod and Pilate are historical characters and they are mentioned in the NT but even their usage in the NT is rife with difficulties. Pilate for example, acts in a manner inconsistent with his character while Herod, who is mentioned in the birth narratives is placed in a period that conflicts with Quirinus. Luke for example, conflates 4BCE and 6CE and this is a reason, among others, that denies us the luxury of just assuming we can place Jesus at that time period and place. Even count Dracula is placed at a time and place.
Examples abound where fictional stories are crafted using real-life people and places. Of course attempts have been made to reconcile these conflicting accounts, with little or no success.
The matter of synagogues as architectural artifacts in the first century Galilee is hotly debated, with no decisive evidence to date that is able to support the idea that they existed in first century Galilee. Yet the Gospels (specifically Luke) mention synagogues as architectural buildings. For this, see Evolution of the Synagogue: Problems and Progress, Edited by Howard Clark Kee and Lynn H. Cochick (1999) and Lee J. Levine in, Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981.

There are other problems of course when one starts comparing what we find in the NT and numismatic, archaeological and other evidence.
We are told of thousands of people going to Nazareth where Jesus was performing Miracles. Yet nobody mentions this amazing miracle worker outside the NT - including Josephus. Nobody mentions Nazareth outside the NT for several decades.
Then you disagree with several NT scholars when they present Multiple Attestation criterion, Double Dissimilarity criterion, Friend and Foe etc as "Historical Jesus methods"?
The reason tools are needed is because the NT fuses theological agenda, myths, fiction and midrash. The gospels were also redacted and the evangelists copied each other. So tools are needed to extract history from all those.
I am suprised you can ask such a question.
Its not about convincing me. These are difficulties scholars are aware of and critical scholars are seeking solutions.
Is there any scholar who claims we dont know anything about Josephus? Let us talk substance please.
Provide examples of what we should take at face value in the gospels: water turning to wine? a virgin giving birth miraculously? dead people coming back to life? Rotten people walking in the streets? Triumphal entry into Jerusalem? The Temple ruckus? Slaughter of babies?
Please tell us. Several have tried and failed. Only recently I showed quite convincingly (in my view) that even Sanders could not list basic things about Jesus about which we can be certain to be factual.

What compositional clues? A writer telling us what a character was saying when that character was all alone? Writers deriving speech, structure and motif of their stories from the Old Testament?
Please do tell me.
This is a false analogy. We are talking plagiarism (to use a modern term) and redaction. Its different from literary borrowing.
We dont care whether Luke was a cook or a poet or a historian since we dont know who he was. We are interested in whether what Luke wrote was history. Is it your argument that what he wrote was history? If so, how do you arrive at that?
It is the other way round. What Mark wrote has a bearing on what Luke wrote because Luke copied Mark. If you copy fiction, you get fiction irrespective of whether you believe it is history. This is simple logic. Does the act of copying convert a genre of a text?
Wrong. If Luke thought he was writing history, he thought he was writing history. That does not make his output history. The job of the historian is to study Luke and compare it with the documentary record and other sources to determine the veracity of his story. Historical criticism deals with the referential function of a text. I dont expect to have to define this for you.
What actually happened has not been at issue here. We are debating over whether we have sufficient reason and tools to determine that what the gospels contain is history. This is a dicsussion of method. Not facts. If your method sucks or if you lack a method, it doesnt matter what you think happened or what actually happened because you lack the tools to arrive at what actually happened.
Luke's census has several problems. One, which Sanders notes in The Historical Figure of Jesus is that Luke dates it near Herod's death (4BCE) and also ten years later, when Quirinus was the legate of Syria (6CE).? Luke writes in Luke 2:1-2 that Jesus was born during a census that was held when Quirinius was governing Syria. And we know from the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus that this census took place in 6CE (Antiquities of the Jews, 17.355) around ten years after Herod the great had died (Herod died in 4BCE).
But at the same time, Luke 1:5 has the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist in the days of Herod and Luke 1:36 states that Mary bore Jesus approximately 16 months after annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist putting Jesus birth no later than 3 BC (Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah. Volume 1 & 2 (1994), p.547.) Yet Matthew 2:1-3 claims that Jesus was born while Herod the great was still alive, probably two years before he died (Matthew 2:7-16). Thus Luke dates the birth of Jesus at 6CE and at 3BCE at the same time while Matthew dates Jesus? birth near 4BCE.

Another problem besides the date conflict is that Rome took a census of people who lived in Judea Samaria and Idumaea, not Galilee as Luke asserts. Richard Carrier has extensively researched on the date of nativity in Luke and addressed numerous attempts by conservative scholars and Biblical apologists to harmonize Luke and Matthew and he writes the following as his conclusion in The Date of the Nativity in Luke ,(5th ed., 2006):
Now please resolve the problem.

Agreed. Now please list things you consider significant in the gospels and that you think are factual.
Then explain how you reach the conclusion that they are factual.
You will need to start from Bultmann, Schweitzer and come to modern times. The reasons for writing most of texts you have cited above are fairly well known or determinable, unlike the gospels. Their authors are also known, unlike the gospels. Their nature of their contents (whether mythology, fiction, history, poetry etc) can be ascertained without much controversy, unlike the gospels. Text criticism of the gospels exposes a history of redaction, plagiarism and existence multiple and conflicting accounts and betray the fact that theological interests and religious beliefs ( bothJudaism and Christianity - hence DD criterion) heavily influenced what we find in the gospels.
Does this mean you dont know why we have had quests for the historical Jesus?
That was not my intention. I will not be posting any other list of books and I apologize for doing so earlier.

Roger Pearse

Indeed. But the same objection might be made of any text whatsoever throughout history. You need to indicate, surely, what your criterion is that includes all these texts but excludes the gospels.

I believe that archaeologists routinely mention the fallacy of arguing from absence of archaeological evidence. We can only reject the testimony of a contemporary witness if we have evidence that this indisputable of an error, otherwise we are merely writing fiction.

Josephus contains two mentions, as I am surprised you don't know (unless you are treating some theory that allows you to ignore this data as if it were data itself?). Who else, specifically, are we suggesting 'must' mention either? I'm afraid that arguments from silence -- when 99% of the literary production of the period is lost -- don't seem at all convincing as a reason to ignore data that is NOT silent.

I don't believe that appeals to authority of this kind have any place in rational debate.

Surely you need to do this, in order to establish whatever theory it is you have in mind, rather than demand it of others?

I'm not sure why you assert this. His identity as a doctor-friend of Paul is given in the historical record.

Does any sensible person doubt this?

I am interested to hear that you have some rules for all people writing history who have ever lived. I wonder only how you communicated these to them and enforced them.

I can imagine nothing of value that would be started in such a place, tho. I would always start with the data.

All the best,

Roger Pearse