Ben C Smith

For the purposes of his Historical Commentary on Mark, Michael Turton discusses the use of positive and negative criteria for evaluating the historicity of various units of text or tradition.

Positive criteria are tests which, if the datum in question passes, tend to show that the datum is historical. Negative criteria are tests which, if the datum in question passes, tend to show that it is nonhistorical.

Turton helpfully summarizes various sets of criteria that have been proferred in the past, including those by Meier, Ludemann, and Brown. He notes that many of the lists contain only positive criteria, which I agree can be problematic. He also notes that Ludemann included negative criteria in his list; Turton rightly praises him for it.

But then Michael makes what I consider to be a crucial mistake:

With all this in mind, I decided from the outset that I would simply abandon all positive criteria and simply go with negative criteria.

The problem with using only positive or only negative criteria is a matter of where to place the data to start with. One may start with one of three positions:

1. All the data are historical until proven otherwise.
2. All the data are indeterminate until proven otherwise (non liquet).
3. All the data are nonhistorical until proven otherwise.

The problem with using only positive criteria is that the tests can move a datum only up the list, never down (unless one implements some sort of measure to the effect that failing all the tests is a de facto negative). The problem with using only negative criteria is the reverse of this. In other words, in order to get the full range of possibilities (1, 2, and 3 above), one has to start with historical (number 1) if using only negative criteria and with nonhistorical (number 3) if using only positive.

For example, let us imagine that we start out with a judgment of non liquet for whatever datum we wish to examine. If our list of criteria is only positive, our only options are non liquet (still) and historical; we have no real way of demonstrating nonhistoricity. If our list of criteria is only negative, our only options are non liquet (still) and nonhistorical; we have no real way of demonstrating historicity.

It is this latter trap that Turton falls into. He seems unwilling, even with all negative criteria, to start with a verdict of historicity and work his way down; hence his woolly determination:

I reasoned that whatever was left over after careful sifting might be regarded as having potential for historicity.

So, after applying all his negative criteria, what is left has a potential for historicity; this is the same as a non liquet! Turton has, by his very method, no real way of coming up with a verdict of historicity.

Now, Turton is correct to point out that the criteria used by different scholars can often conflict, as well.

I have been toying with, not exactly a list of criteria, but rather a filter, a system to help us determine what is historical and what is nonhistorical in the ancient Christian tradition (or indeed in other traditions). This filter is double; that is, it includes both a negative side and a positive side. Each datum starts at a default position of non liquet, which is the only starting point that has ever made sense to me. (After all, before we examine the datum, we are not clear on how historical it is; and that is what non liquet means... not clear.)

The negative side runs the following tests on the datum at issue:

1. The datum is naturally impossible or implausible.
2. The datum too tightly matches an heroic template or a scriptural precedent, and is external to the character enacting it (that is, it is others, or even nature, who are unwittingly fulfilling the template).
3. The datum shows clear signs of attempting to overturn or reinterpret earlier layers of tradition.

Once the datum has gone unscathed through the negative side, it moves over to the positive side:

1. The datum hails from a text or from texts whose genre is compatible with the transmission of historical details.
2. A plausible chain of transmission can be constructed from the enactment of the datum to its transmission in our texts.
3. The datum is either multiply attested or can be broadly confirmed as plausible from a multiplicity of sources (or both).
4. The datum is either assumed as common currency for all sides of the debate or shows signs of being a layer of tradition that later tradents wished to overturn or reinterpret (or both).

This is rough as yet; hence my presentation of it on this board. What I think it avoids is the clash of criteria that Turton discusses. The negative must be overcome first, before the positive come into play; therefore, no datum can pass both negative and positive tests at the same time. On the positive side, I am currently envisioning that a datum pretty much has to pass all four tests in order to really swing the pendulum to historicity.

I am very certain that more work needs to be done here, and am searching for valid criticisms. Thanks in advance.

Ben.

PS: Examples of each test could be supplied, in case there is confusion on what I mean by them.

mountainman

Hi Ben,

I take it that you are restricting the domain of your enquiry to textual criticism and thus the examination of the literature in exclusion to the presentation (perhaps just for the moment) of other datum, such as for example, the monumental evidence for historicity such as inscriptions, art, coins, architecture, scupture, relics, etc, etc, etc.

The question in my mind is simply whether historicity can be gauged by such a qualified exclusion of the evidence available. In other words your OP appears to be confident that it is discussion critieria for historicity within an exclusive bound of the text alone.

If this is the case, then my opinion is that you are not discussing historicity in the general sense, but you are really discussing some very limited version (of textual historicity, whatever that may mean) which has as a result no general applicability to the actual historicity of both ancient historical events and the authoring of documents in their political climate in the field of ancient history.

OTOH, I understand that textual criticism of the "inner meanings" of things in texts is today a valid field of study that does not necessarily have to take into account other related material (which might be separately admissable to the field of ancient history for example) external to that text. If this is your position, then good luck.


Best wishes,


Pete

spamandham

I don't see any of these positions as particularly meaningful. Ancient history is (mostly) not about proving or disproving, it's about attempting to understand the past with minimal stretches of the imagination. Occasionally, some fact can be conclusively proven or disproven, but that's the exception rather than the norm as far as I can tell.

- it's all about informed assessment of probabilities.

As an example, if we saw a single implausible event described in ancient texts, the assessment might be that the author was a whackjob. But if we see a widespread pattern of fantastic claims, it now requires a greater stretch of the imagination to conclude as much - were so many authors whackjobs, was it a gullible time period, or was the fantastic an intentional form of hyperbole/entertainment that would be understood as such by the audience?

Will people 1000 years from now think we were gullible because we watched movies with people flying around unaided, or will they understand the context?

Ted Hoffman

Because the Bible is by definition, already taken by Christians and most lay people (atheists are a minority on Earth) to be true (in other words, it is assumed by the majority to have passed the positive test), the efficient way of proceeding is by testing its truthfulness.
We use the negative criteria to do this.
I find it implausible that Jesus could have climbed on an untrained donkey and rode on without incident as the Bible portrays. Do you? I find it implausible that the urbanites in Jerusalem could have spread their clothes to an unknown peasant from Galilee to welcome him in the city. Do you?

How do you define and determine "implausible"?

Roger Pearse

As I understand it, atheists such as MT believe that they only have one life. Yet this site appears to be an endless collection of materials culled from equally dull books, which must have taken him forever to compile. (I presume this is part of his campaign to "destroy Jesus" or however he put it; interesting to see how he goes about it).

But... can anyone imagine a more depressing waste of a man's life -- his only life --than to spend it on a grinding process like this? Is this all he lives for?

To me it's baffling in one sense; perhaps a testimony to the power of hate in another (for he can have no legitimate interest in writing a commentary on the bible). But if I was certain that I had only one life, I sure as hell wouldn't spend it writing a commentary on the book of Mormon, or whatever.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

hjalti

Why can't he have a "legitimate interest in writing a commentary on the bible"? I'm an atheist and I love biblical studies. But it's probably just the blinding hate. That darn baby Jesus!

Ted Hoffman

Dull books? Since when has that been an issue for people in pursuit of knowledge? It never took him forever. It took about a year and a half and Turton has moved on to very interesting and happy things in his life. Forever must be very short for you.
The fact that a boxer thinks a bodybuilder's exercise routine is a "grinding process" does not make it so. Heck, a footballer may think a lecturer's job is a "grinding process"! And vice versa. It doesn't mean squat.
I run three times a week in preparation for the marathon every year and just started week two of the 100 push ups challenge. My knuckles burn whenever I go past 60 push ups. Is that a waste of time? Depends on who you ask. I love it and it makes me happy to struggle with the challenges.
It it all I live for? What a silly question! Its like asking someone going for a movie whether that is the purpose of his life.
People do what they want. Period. Why? Because they can. Get over it. Don't waste time making value judgments on what people do.
Christianity makes factual and historical claims on our reality and on our heritage. We have a role to play in clarifying this past and wiping the muck off our heritage. If you think that is motivated by hatred, I can only sympathize.

neilgodfrey

Stalin's pact with Hitler could be seen as fitting the "implausible" category. Stalin, known for his extreme distrust of "everyone", trusts the proven leastrustworthy person of all? Yeah right!

Just like Alexander consciously aimed to imitate the god Dionysus in his conquest of Asia?

The way recent Labour Parties in UK and Australia have shown clear signs of attempting to overturn and reinterpret earlier layers of traditional views and philosophies of Labour governments?

Is there any genre that has never been compatible with the transmission of historical details? Various forms of poetry? Novels and fiction? Short stories? Commercial ads? Movie or radio scripts? Political monuments? Matchbox and beerbottle top snippets? Graffiti?

What limits our imagination? Is imagining a plausible transmission really a criteria for historicity?

Just like there are so many multiply attested sources testifying to the sinister character and deeds and conspiratorial plots and schemes of Jews and/or Arabs and/or Blacks . . . ?

How does this differ from accepting the generally assumed myths of a culture as historical? (Besides, if all sides of the debate agree then who is there to question historicity in the first place? Will not the question be disqualified as not part of the debate before it gets traction?)

As for the second option, this appears to fail to recognize the common overturning and reinterpretations of traditions (and history) that regularly occur for ideological reasons.

In other words, why the need for such criteria in the first place? Why not accept the normal rules of historicity found in non-biblical studies? Why special rules for biblical studies? It looks like we are desperate to try to find a bracket of answers and support certain types of models that the data that we do have simply won't justify.

spamandham is right -- that is not how ancient history works. Some have even suggested that Socrates himself may not have been historical, but that would make no difference to the sorts of questions historians ask themselves and explore about the time -- the origins and nature of early Greek philosophy, the intellectual climate and contributions of the time, etc. There are no studies that I know of exploring whether Socrates really existed -- it would be pointless given the sorts of historical questions that are meaningful. We should ask why the case of Jesus should be so different. The answer should be obvious. And it is not a historical one.


Neil

Ben C Smith

I intend the term prove in the historical sense, not the scientific sense, and you seem to have adequately defined it (understanding with minimal stretches of imagination).

Ben.

ETA: This is what I have in mind. Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources, page 78:

The difficulties of applying the so-called scientific method to historical research means that historians must often satisfy themselves with rules of logic that appear less watertight, making statements that seem probable, not "proved" in any "scientific" sense.

Ben C Smith

How does this differ from what I set up? In fact, I am suggesting we apply the negative criteria before the positive.

Have we not already discussed this? I seem to recall, for example, discussing the probable make-up of the crowd, if there was one, yet your words show no awareness of ever having held such a discussion.

Ben.