Ben C Smith

On a recent thread about Josephan references to Jesus, right after I had offered a tiny line from a possible reconstruction of the famed Testimonium, spin stated:

Elsewhere spin has gone into more detail:

I think that this metaphor is actually somewhat fitting for the enterprises both of lower and of higher criticism. Yes, historians frequently have to sift the good from the bad in the extant texts, whether on a strict text-critical level (external, or lower, criticism) or on an evidentiary level (internal, or higher, criticism).

Spin apparently intends the metaphor of picking fly excrement off of fallen foodstuffs to be so repugnant as to discourage the student of history from ever engaging in such an activity. Ironically, however, the metaphor is, I think, rather too tame as a description for the historical process.

I suggest that a better metaphor would be that scene from Jurassic Park III in which the protagonists have to search through a heaping pile of dinosaur excrement in order to find a ringing cell phone. For the historian is frequently reduced to discarding almost every single direct claim in a text and seizing upon only a smattering of indirect inferences.

Historical inquiry is not for the squeamish. Historical inquiry involves detailed sifting and sorting of the evidence. The historian cannot afford to view some potential evidence as tainted as a justification for throwing entire texts away. All texts are tainted. And any given text may be the result of forgery, deceit, exaggeration, manipulation, wishful thinking, bias, distortion, inaccuracy, or carelessness.

I think sometimes amateur sleuths on this forum (I do not use the term amateur disparagingly; I too am an amateur) assume a courtroom model for their investigations into early Christian history. The goal often seems to be to discredit the witness. Two examples from that selfsame thread noted above would be:

1. The Testimonium has obviously been tampered with; therefore the entire passage is to be rejected without further ado.

2. Origen has obviously not cited Josephus accurately on the reasons for the fall of Jerusalem; therefore he is not qualified as a witness to the text of Josephus even when he agrees with it verbatim.

Modern western courtrooms do indeed disqualify certain witnesses based on privilege and the potentially prejudicial quality of their testimony, and attorneys do engage in discrediting the credibility of star witnesses for the other side.

But legal method is not necessarily a very accurate reflection of historical method. I cite Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History (or via: amazon.co.uk), pages 149-150:

In a law court it is frequently assumed that all testimony of a witness, though under oath, is suspect if the opposing lawyers can impugn his general character or by examination and cross-examination create doubt of his veracity in some regard. Even in modern law courts the old maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus tends to be overemphasized. In addition, hearsay evidence is as a general rule excluded; certain kinds of witnesses are "privileged" or "unqualified" and therefore are not obliged to testify or are kept from testifying....

The historian, however, is prosecutor, attorney for the defense, judge, and jury all in one. But as judge he rules out no evidence whatever if it is relevant. To him any single detail of testimony is credible — even if it is contained in a document obtained by force or fraud, or is otherwise impeachable, or is based on hearsay evidence, or is from an interested witness....

Gottschalk goes on to list four tests that the testimony ought to pass before being considered valid. But my point here is that the historian does not cry hearsay or bias in an effort not to have to deal with the testimony any longer; rather, the historian has to sift and sort. He or she may end up throwing it all out, or most of it, but that possibility does not excuse him or her from the detailed work of trying to find the buttered bread beneath the fly excrement or the cell phone in the dinosaur droppings.

Gottschalk again, pages 160 and 163:

Yet he must continue to bear in mind that even the worst witness may occasionally tell the truth and that it is the historian's business to extract every iota of relevant truth, if he can.

....

Even the boldest propaganda may be made to yield credible information....

It is quite possible that the historian in the end will not be able to extract any such truth from the Testimonium, or from the other reference in Josephus, or from Paul or Mark or Papias or Irenaeus or Origen or Eusebius, but he or she must make the attempt. The fly shit analogy looks to me like an excuse not to have to make that attempt (an excuse, that is, not to do history).

I think of text critics everywhere, but especially those who deal with the New Testament. On the model of refusing to remove fly shit, every one of the thousands of textual variants, particularly the ones that appear to have been less than accidental, would provide the squeamish with an excuse not to attempt to discover what, if anything, the original said at that point in the text. After all, the text has obviously been tampered with.

Someone once wisely said:

Very much agreed. But the evidence, so frequently buried under layers of bias, distortion, and incompetence, will do nobody any good if we refuse to roll up our sleeves, don the rubber gloves, and plunge right in.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

Nicely put. The difficulty with doing ancient history is that nearly everything is covered with flyspeck.

Peter Kirby

I like the Jurassic park image. Two thumbs up, way up!

regards,
Peter Kirby

rlogan

I don't think comparing metaphors is useful.

To be fair to spin, he has written a lot over the years here on both the James passage and the Testimonium.

From what I have seen his conclusion is in fact based on a pretty thorough consideration of every argument that has been put forward one way or another. Also a comprehensive understanding of a tremendous amount of biblical works.

I think he is really out of patience on it. And the metaphor is perhaps symptomatic of that.

If you actually had a sound methodological basis for "excavating" some original TF out of this obvious forgery, by all means show us. Spin would listen to it. So would I.

Were there other references to Jesus from the multitude of writers who would have had occasion to hear of him - or had there been some archaeological evidence, or perhaps even some epistles with clear dating anchors that had reference to a flesh and blood Jesus... that would be one thing.

But we have none of that. So it's wishful thinking, not sound methodology.

Phlox Pyros

Excrement and more excrement!!??

Well, to the main gist of Ben's post, all I can say is "Amen".

Hmm...does that also apply to sifting through all the rhetoric around here to get to the core points (if there be any)?

Ben C Smith

Flyspeck. I knew there was a better word for it than fly excrement. Thanks.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Your counterpoint is appreciated.

Out of patience? Why would that be?

I really like what Stephen Carlson has done in trying to locate a pre-Eusebian witness to the Testimonium. To actualize the notion that the Testimonium is tainted, and therefore should be discarded in its entirety, would put an immediate end to this kind of investigation. And, even if he is completely wrong about Tacitus and Josephus, it would be a mistake to desist from investigations of this kind.

Ben.

spin

Shallow. Very shallow. Reject without further ado?? You still haven't RTFA (Read The F*cking Archives). No, not just because you can clearly see some fly shit. That comprehension should require you to be much more cautious with what you swallow.

Just as shallow. Assuming your conclusions. Did Origen cite Josephus at all? You simply don't know. And apparently unanalysed was the conclusion that was Origen a witness to Josephus's passage about James in AJ 20, when his main thrust bears no relation to the text of Josephus? You have not responded to the total improbability of your position and are foisting another misinterpretation of my views onto this list.

I offered a reading of Origen's work which attempted to show his method and what he actually claims Josephus said. No tangible response from you or anyone. You all think that you can blithely assume that you can discern what was, and what was not, expansion by Origen without showing any interaction with the text. The problem with Origen's text is not Origen but the modern reader who dragoons him into supporting Josephus -- without seeing what his passage does -- and gets fixated with a single phrase.

The best you can do is marvel at the fact that this already contentious phrase was the same in both Josephus and Origen (doh!), while assuming only one possible relationship between the texts. I asked you for a few more trajectories for the phrase in both texts, but you didn't condescend. I was wondering how you could choose between them, but you didn't get there. You already had your trajectory marked out.

When you've done some tangible work regarding the fly shit, then maybe you'll get somewhere. At the moment you are too busy cherrypicking what you understand of other people's arguments.

I'm glad you can accept at least notionally that history is a tyranny of evidence.


spin

Ben C Smith

I had already asked you for what you perceived as the correct trajectory (though I did not at that time use the nice word trajectory); I even offered up one possibility (that the later scribe wanted to make good on what Origen had written), armed and ready for your response.

You replied that such was possible, but that you had no real interest in the source of the gloss in Josephus.

And thus ended the Great Trajectory Hunt of 2006.

Thanks for your feedback.

Ben.

spin

In no sense. Because I won't take up a particular trajectory, it doesn't mean you should ignore the others because you've got one. The trajectory is your problem, not mine. Why is yours preferable to the others?? This is just one question you've ducked.


spin