mountainman

Is the Historical Jesus of mainstream BC&H
to be considered as:

1) a human assertion,

2) a scientific postulate,

3) a god-revealed self-explanatory fact?

4) something else?



Pete

Peter Kirby

An unexamined axiom.

It's been the axiom of so much fruitful study, that to go back on it would represent a major loss. If you can imagine what losing Q would mean to Kloppenborg's career, you can imagine what losing an HJ would mean to someone like J.D. Crossan.

However, not only is it an unaxamined axiom within biblical criticism and history, it is also implied by the articles of faith for most Christians. This makes it even thornier to go back and question.

Rarely have axioms been overturned simply by discovering they are axioms. They are overturned in one of two ways.

(a) By accumulating research discovering that to accept the axiom and its implications leads to a logical contradiction, or a contradiction with very evident facts.

(b) By the rise of a new body of research, comparable in breadth and depth to the original body of research, which does not include the axiom in its set of premises.

Most mythicists have attempted to do (a), to varying degrees of success, if they have attempted to do either. Nobody has really attempted to do (b) in a rigorous and controlled way. Someone like Robert Price, however, may be positioned to try. It would necessarily take the collaboration of at least a dozen accredited individuals to establish "a new body of research."

--
Peter Kirby

spin

I agree with this.

For scholarly pursuit method 1 should be sufficient, for the standard position is without scholarly basis, ie it is without any tangible support. However, because it is the status quo position and the people who hold it as correct are considered to be experts, scholarship goes out the window and one needs to partake in the replacement (or methadone) therapy. It is the self-mystification which must be attacked as bad methodology, not pander to the problem and supply a substitute.

Traditions don't need a real source to have tangible effect. It is commitment to the tradition which prevents the would-be scholar from being able to plumb the reality and see whether there is some tangible reason for the tradition. It was commitment to a traditional understanding of light that led Michelson and Morley to believe their experiment to demonstrate aether was a failure, though fortunately for science, the experiment came to be seen as a falsification of the theory of aether and a new concept of light was therefore necessary.

Science, though, has better chances of clearly demonstrating errors. The historian won't get it so cut and dried and will have to depend on stricter methodologies than used in the past and adherence to them for better chances of historical accuracy.


spin

Peter Kirby

Dearest spin,

I'm having trouble figuring out whether you agree, or disagree with me, or do neither.

Simply pointing out that the scholar has an axiom in his pocket is not enough to rock the scholarly world. Do you agree? Or do you think that we might be able to turn the tide by constructing a 15'x40' billboard in San Diego next year reading, "HISTORICAL JESUS IS AN AXIOM!"

If it were possible just to point out that it is an unexamined axiom, and let the discussion start and end there, wouldn't this have already happened?

This is why I suggested that one of the (a) or (b) paths above are available to those who wish to assail the axiom. The axiom, however, will not yield to mere denunciations of its axiomatic status.

--
Peter Kirby

mountainman

1) When did it first become an unexamined axiom?

2) Are there not scholars who have made the claim to
have examined this axiom, and if so, why is it now
called unexamined?

3) Are there any other axioms of any sort (unexamined
or otherwise) lurking around the very foundations of BC&H,
or is this the solitary and elect axiom?



Pete

Peter Kirby

1778, when "The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples" by Reimarus came to light. Being the first contribution to the field, and not examining this axiom, this is the best answer that we can give.

All the scholars who have examined the axiom have claimed to have found it wanting, or have not published their examinations. It has never been established in the literature.

Yes, for example; that the New Testament was written in Greek; that the apostle Paul wrote some of the letters now preserved to us; that the critical text descended from the Westcott-Hort text is correct; etc. Some of these axioms, I may not even be aware they exist, because that is the slippery nature of the things.

--
Peter Kirby

spin

I agreed on what I could agree on. Then disagreed on the rest.

The reason why biblical scholars are thought of as pariahs in the scholarly world is that their methodologies, if their approaches are consider thus by the rest of the academic world, are thought to be pretty holey.

Go into an evolutionary biology school and start with an axiom regarding god and no-one will listen to you again. Untestable premises are simply not acceptable.

Understanding that historical Jesus is an axiom which won't be rendered anything but axiom -- and to save this long painful process, I wish someone would get on and test that core to show that it is more than an untethered axiom -- is like setting up a billboard saying "I base my scholarly endeavors on the reality of something I cannot know is real."


Method (b) is that attempted by Doherty I believe and I don't like his chances. It is not the axiomatic nature of the matter, but the fact that the status as axiom cannot, as I understand it, be upgraded to anything useful for scholarly pursuit.

To we who look back toward the beginning of a tradition all we see is a void. We get to the point where the earliest maintainers speak and beyond them nothing -- and as I've said, that's not necessarily because the tradition is based on unreal information, but that we simply run out of data. There is no way that that axiom could get past the status of axiom without data. A historical Jesus needs historical evidence. In all the years I've been on this forum, I've never seen anyone proffer one single factoid to support a historical Jesus.

History is not a field in which the meat it is to investigate can be an axiom.


spin

aa5874

That is a genuine axiom.

That is a recent discovered axiom.

That is an examined axiom

mountainman

Do you consider that earlier commentators, such as Arius in 325 CE
were too seriously antiquity-impaired to have considered the axiom.


The axiom is clearly not unexamined then.
Why do you insist on calling this axiom "unexamined".
Do you seriously think it helps anyone?




Pete

Peter Kirby

It is unexamined by those who mean to take it as axiom.

I am rarely not in earnest, and am always trying to help. :frown:

--
Peter Kirby