Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Steven Carr · 07-13-2010, 10:31 PM

How does 'multiple attestation' work?

Is the suicide of Judas 'multiply attested' ie contains enough contradictions between the two accounts that they become independent accounts, thus guaranteeing the historicity of the claim that Judas committed suicide?

ApostateAbe · 07-13-2010, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

How does 'multiple attestation' work?

Is the suicide of Judas 'multiply attested' ie contains enough contradictions between the two accounts that they become independent accounts, thus guaranteeing the historicity of the claim that Judas committed suicide?

No criterion is a "guarantee," and I don't think that you will find anyone arguing such a thing. Multiple attestation works best if each attestation comes from eyewitnesses. The accounts of the suicide of Judas are not eyewitness accounts, so the best that can be argued from the multiple attestation is that it is an early tradition, not that it is actually historical. If it is an early tradition, then it may increase the probability that it is historical, but there are also plenty of lies and myths that are early traditions.

The problem is compounded by the two conflicting methods of suicide. They agree that Judas committed suicide, but they do not agree on whether it was by hanging from a tree or by falling headlong off an edge. It is something I take to be an oddity, regardless of whether the suicide was historical or mythical. Why would there be two different accounts? It tells me that the initial belief was that Judas committed suicide and he was buried in a certain "Valley of Blood," and there were no further details. The details were worked out only after there were two different churches that needed to decide on them.

Steven Carr · 07-13-2010, 11:57 PM

The two conflicting methods must mean they are independent accounts, which means they are historical, surely, as we have multiple, independent attestation.

'No criterion is a "guarantee,"'

Yes, and 12 leaky buckets can hold more water than one leaky bucket.

Littlejohn · 07-14-2010, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

How does 'multiple attestation' work?

Is the suicide of Judas 'multiply attested' ie contains enough contradictions between the two accounts that they become independent accounts, thus guaranteeing the historicity of the claim that Judas committed suicide?
.

There is only one text, among all existing ones, which faithfully recounts the true end of 'Judas Iscariot': The Gospel of Barnabas!

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

arnoldo · 07-14-2010, 05:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

How does 'multiple attestation' work?

Is the suicide of Judas 'multiply attested' ie contains enough contradictions between the two accounts that they become independent accounts, thus guaranteeing the historicity of the claim that Judas committed suicide?
.

There is only one text, among all existing ones, which faithfully recounts the true end of 'Judas Iscariot': The Gospel of Barnabas!

Greetings

Littlejohn

.

The Gospel of Tatian ( Diatessaron) has the following account re Judas.

Quote:

Then Judas the betrayer, when he saw Jesus wronged, went and returned the 8 thirty pieces of money to the chief priests and the eiders, and said, I have sinned in my betraying innocent blood. And they said unto him, And we, what must we do? 9 know thou. And he threw down the money in the temple, and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. . .

SUBSCRIPTIONS

I. IN BORGIAN MS

Here endeth the Gospel which Tatianus compiled and named Diatessaron, i.e., The Fourfold, a compilation from the four Gospels of the holy Apostles, the excellent Evangelists (peace be upon them). It was translated by the excellent and learned priest, Abu'l Faraj 'Abdulla ibn-at-Tayyib (may God grant him favour), from Syriac into Arabic, from an exemplar written by 'Isa ibn-'Ali al-Motatabbib, pupil of Honain ibn-Ishak (God have mercy on them both). Amen.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...atessaron.html

James Brown · 07-14-2010, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

The Gospel of Tatian ( Diatessaron) has the following account re Judas.

So then the whole Acts story was made up whole cloth?

aa5874 · 07-14-2010, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

The two conflicting methods must mean they are independent accounts, which means they are historical, surely, as we have multiple, independent attestation.

'No criterion is a "guarantee,"'

Yes, and 12 leaky buckets can hold more water than one leaky bucket.

I think you are confusing "version" and "attestation".

There may be several versions of legendary fables or fiction characters but these versions although fundamentally similar are not attestations of historical events or characters.

The betrayal idea seems to have come from Psalms and authors of the Gospel stories have used different versions using a character called Judas.

It must be noted that in gJohn's version, Judas did not even betray Jesus. Jesus identified himself.

John 18.3-9

Quote:

3 Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?

5 They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them.

6 As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.

7 Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

8 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way:

9 That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none....

As can be seen the author of gJohn has contradicted earlier VERSIONS of the betrayal.

It was JESUS who surrendered on his own.

ApostateAbe · 07-14-2010, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

The two conflicting methods must mean they are independent accounts, which means they are historical, surely, as we have multiple, independent attestation.

'No criterion is a "guarantee,"'

Yes, and 12 leaky buckets can hold more water than one leaky bucket.

I can't disagree with you there. Twelve leaky buckets really can hold more water than one leaky bucket and far more water than a bottomless bucket. Very many people out there seem to prefer the bottomless bucket.

John Kesler · 07-14-2010, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

How does 'multiple attestation' work?

Is the suicide of Judas 'multiply attested' ie contains enough contradictions between the two accounts that they become independent accounts, thus guaranteeing the historicity of the claim that Judas committed suicide?

Here is a nice summary of this criterion, which also lists the problems with it:

Quote:

3. Criterion of Multiple Attestation

There are two ways of formulating this criterion:

(1) “A passage [i.e., a saying or story] is more likely to go back to Jesus if it has been preserved in two or more sources which are independent of each other.”[6]

(2) Motifs or phrases that appear in more than one form of discourse (e.g., parable, chria, aphorism).[7]

(1) Sayings, Stories: E.g., ‘Children and the kingdom’ appears multiples sources: in Mark (10:13-16), special Matthaean material (18:3), the GThom 22 and in John 3:3, 5.

The Parable of the Mustard seed appears in Q (13:18-19), Mark (4:30-32) and the GThom (20).

Jesus’ saying on divorce is attested in Mark (10:11-12), Q (16:18), and 1 Cor 7:10-11.

N.B. The sources must be independent: e.g., Mark; Q; GThom; Paul; John; POxy 1224. But a saying that appears in Mark and Matthew does not represent two independent attestations, since Matthew normally depends on Mark. An exception would be if the Matthaean (or Lukan) occurrence does not obviously depend on Mark, as is the case with Matt 18:3, which is not directly dependent on Mark 10:15 (Matt has a parallel to Mark 10:13-16 at Matt 19:13-15).

(2) Motifs/themes The “reign of God” appears not only in several independent sources, but in a variety of discursive forms: beatitudes (Q 6:20b; GThom. 54); admonitions (Q 10:9; 12:31), aphorisms (Q 7:28; Matt 18:3), parables (Mark 4:30; Matt 13:44, 47), a prayer (Q 11:2), prophetic sayings (Mark 9:1; Q 13:28-29), and chriae (Luke 17:20-21).

Jesus’ association with toll collectors is found in call stories (Mark 2:14), controversy chriae (Mark 2:16-17/POxy 1224), aphorisms (Q 7:34), parables (Luke 18:10-13) and anecdotes (Luke 19:1-11).

Crossan adds a nuance to the criterion, combining it with a stratigraphy of sources[8]: Layer 1: Q; Thomas (1); Paul; PEgerton 2; POxy 1224; GHeb; Didache 16; Layer 2: GEgy; Longer Gospel of Mark; Mark; POxy 840; Thomas (2); SG; Layer 3: Matt, Luke, Apoc, 1 Clem, Barn; Didache 1:1-3, 2:2-16:2; Hermas; James; Hermas; Ignatuius, 1 Peter; Polycarp to the Philippians 13-14; 1 John; Layer 4: John, ApJas, 1-2 Tim, 2 Pet, Polycarp to the Philippians 1-12; 2 Clem; GNaz; GEbi; Didache 1:3--2:1; GPeter

Sayings/stories that appear in early strata and which are multiply attested are more likely to be authentic. The value of this approach is obvious: it implicitly weeds out sayings and stories that are common only in later strata of tradition (because they proved serviceable to early Christian interests). The potential problem with this approach lies with the somewhat arbitrary way the strata are delimited: if Mark were included in Layer 1, the tally of early-independent attestations would increase for some sayings, and if GThom were relegated (for example) to Layer 3 or 4, the attestation of some sayings would decrease.

Problems:

The mere fact that a particular motif is multiply attested does not mean every occurrence of that motif is authentic.

Multiple attestation of a story or saying does not imply that there are not elements in those units that are redactional or secondary.

Littlejohn · 07-14-2010, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnoldo

The Gospel of Tatian ( Diatessaron) has the following account re Judas.

Quote:

Then Judas the betrayer, when he saw Jesus wronged, went and returned the 8 thirty pieces of money to the chief priests and the eiders, and said, I have sinned in my betraying innocent blood. And they said unto him, And we, what must we do? 9 know thou. And he threw down the money in the temple, and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. .

The fact that into Diatessaron is found the same version that we find in other New Testament documents, does not mean that the one version, ie of the hanging, must necessarily to be the truth

Underlying everything there is a mystification as a fund: the pseudo-name 'Judas Iscariot' was nothing more than a nickname (*), used by forger fathers to hide behind the real character: SIMON said PETER!

From the Acts of Peter and those of Peter and Paul, we learn that Peter was made CRUCIFY by Claudius Nero, as guilty of outrage, along with his gang of assassins (see the story of spouses Ananias and Sapphira ), to the life of Simon Magus, who was became a protege of Nero. In the Gospel of Barnabas, in fact, we find that 'Judas Iscariot' was CRUCIFIED!

Greetings

___________________________

Note:

(*) - almost certainly, the name stemmed from the latin phrase 'Semonem Iudaeus Sicarius' (Simon the Jew killer), by which the Romans that knew Peter pointed out him. The latin 'sicarius' was turned into Aramaic with 'sicariotes'. This term became, in the Vulgate of Jerome, 'scariotes' and 'scariotis', by the elimination of the first 'i'. Other schools, such as those that produced the Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alessandrinus, followed a different approach to mystify the embarrassing question. Instead of eliminating the 'i', as did Jerome, moved it in front of the 'S', transforming the term as 'Iscariotes'.

Littlejohn

.

07-13-2010, 10:31 PM	#1
Steven Carr Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: England Posts: 5,629	Multiple attestation How does 'multiple attestation' work? Is the suicide of Judas 'multiply attested' ie contains enough contradictions between the two accounts that they become independent accounts, thus guaranteeing the historicity of the claim that Judas committed suicide?

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07-13-2010, 11:57 PM	#3
Steven Carr Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: England Posts: 5,629	The two conflicting methods must mean they are independent accounts, which means they are historical, surely, as we have multiple, independent attestation. 'No criterion is a "guarantee,"' Yes, and 12 leaky buckets can hold more water than one leaky bucket.

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