Laura D.

I responded to your post. But then my power failed (for about 30 seconds). So now, I redraft—no doubt wittier than ever, maybe a little doubt. And yes, I do intermittently lose myself in my sentences (but I do love parentheticals; not just because, it makes English majors cringe).

So you caught Santa—bless his jolly old self.

Thank you for the citation. I enjoyed Doherty’s review. He acknowledges the fact that as we apply stricter standards to the historicity of Jesus, those same stricter standards must challenge assumptions made regarding the accuracy of the historical basis for other historical figures,

Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle. Or they are so intricately woven into the history of the time that it is impossible to make sense of that history without them.

I feel this acknowledgement only lends credibility to his work. So while I don’t agree with his ultimate conclusion, it definitely seems worth my while to take a look into his own works.

Well, in both cases, we just have lists. We look at any available evidence that the figures on our list might be historical. For Jesus and Mohammad, we have a lot of second hand accounts that claim these two were actual living people. We have no real contemporaneous evidence.

For Heracles, we have nothing more than base speculation that conjectured that he might have been a Bronze Age historical figure, perhaps a king from Tiryns in the Peloponnesos (for speculation, read unadulterated guess). For Homer’s Odysseus, not much, but we do have that small kernel that there was at least a Troy and the Mycenaean cities of Greece. And we have Thucydides for the proposition that arguably there is some sort of historical core to the idea of a Greek expedition against the city of Troy.

So for Herakles and Odysseus, despite our different hermeneutics, we arrive at the same conclusion, thumbs down (reluctantly in my case, I’m a comparative literature major and closet romantic) on their historicity.

But we part company as to an historical Jesus (for me—wearing my neutral, beedy eyed, hard nosed scholar cap—a man named Jesus lived, there was some sort of movement, he was executed in some manner, and some sort of movement continued; I’m playing scholar here, we both know I have … let me check, ah yes, … religio-tendentious purposes); (but for you, just another Easter Bunny). Я This is one of those sentences I get lost in, but it’s such a beaut, I can’t bear to re-write it.

As for Muhammad, if you dismiss the Qu’ran, the Hadith, and other Islamic source material, then you have no basis to conclude he left bones whitening in some desert encampment. I’m not quite so brutal in my analsis. So I’m comfortable with the idea that, yeah, he probably kicked a little ass, married a few women (quite a few), and had a few kids. I think solo/jiri above lays out my own view best with respect to the evidence supporting an historical Mohammad.

Now, just a few extraneous comments,

Originally, the Arabic language lacked written vowels. So a word like Kittaab (piece of paper) looks the same as Kuttaab (school). Both are written with four lettes, Kaf, tah, alif, bah. So when reading, you would determine the word’s meaing by context. Also, primary written language at that time was Syriac and as written Arabic developed, you would find Syriac vocabulary intermixed with the Arabic. This—I believe—is where we get that famous condundrum, what exactly do the martyrs get, fair maidens, white raisins of crystal clarity, or angels. My husband tells me that he would go for the virgins too.

The concept was good initially. For each bit of tradition, find out exactly who said it, evaluate whether they are reliable or not, and only keep what is worth keeping. We use the isnad concept in our criminal courts system for chains of evidence. The problem is people fairly soon figured out that they could forge an isnad for some juicy bit of tradition and pretty soon the traditions were exploding. In any event, that far back in history, it’s all hearsay.

Clivedurdle

Interesting. Are you using these skills when you look at the New Testament?

For example, what if the Passion is a play?

http://www.nazarenus.com/

You may ignore the arguments about the author, but look carefully at the central hypothesis - is the passion a play?

Laura D.

Interesting hypothesis. I don’t think it’s literally a play—certainly not the Gospel according to Mark. But the Passion of the Christ does lend itself to a dramatic rendering. And Matthew takes every advantage of this fact. We have plot, a careful sequencing of events, and a building conflict that is ultimately released and resolved. Matthew perhaps more than any other Gospel uses literary devices to makes its point. For example. we have the earthquake at the moment Jesus dies (typical prophetic and apocalyptic symbolism that is often employed by Biblical authors).

In any event, I tend to agree with your citation to Alfred Loisy,

"The economy of the Gospel narratives is related to the ritual commemoration of the Passion; taking them literally we run the risk of transposing into history what are really the successive incidents of a religious drama…."

God bless,


Laura

gstafleu

And then of course we have Robert Price's argument that the Passion, up to and including the finding of the empty tomb by some women, is simply an instance of a then-popular type of romance novel...

Gerard

Clivedurdle

Hang on! Is the Koran also a romantic novel? Mo as Lady Chatterley's Lover?

Clivedurdle

Have a careful read of that Nazarenus site - the author is stating play directions and rules are obvious, like an obvious chorus.

Tammuz

This is correct. Consider verse 17:1 for instance:

"Glorified be He Who carried His servant by night from the Inviolable Place of Worship to the Far distant place of worship the neighbourhood whereof We have blessed, that We might show him of Our tokens! Lo! He, only He, is the Hearer, the Seer."

Muslims today interpret this as a flight Muhammed took one night by a superhorse to "the farthest mosque" in Jerusalem (intepreted as the site of Masjid al-Aqsa), and there are (at times contradictory) Hadiths confirming this intepretation. However, John Wansbrough, a Western scholar of Islam, dismissed this story as an attempt to explain away the vagueness of 17:1. According to him, the verse originally referred to Moses' departure from Egypt (i.e the exodus). This intepretation seems not to be totally out of question, considering the verse that comes after:

"We gave unto Moses the Scripture, and We appointed it a guidance for the children of Israel, saying: Choose no guardian beside Me." - 17:2

Yeah it was probably the best they could figure out. But they only trust persons of their own sects (Sunnis and Shiites differ regarding many Hadiths). And the isnad system lacks source criticism. According to Western standards, the better person the tradition is attributed to, the more likely it is to be false. I.e, a Hadith attributing a saying to Muhammed is more likely to be false than a saying attributed to a companion. I think it was Patricia Crone who showed that at the early stages, there was only eight Hadiths attributed to Abdullah ibn Abbas. But at the final stage, it was many many more. Some may be variants of the same saying (variants are counted as separate Hadiths), but hardly all of this. Clearly, many have been fabricated and attributed to him.

In fact, in Islamic cities before the Hadiths were finally collected (about 200-300 A.H), there were persons taking money to fabricate Hadiths with good isnads. There is an isnad called "the golden chain" which consists of the following narrators: Malik narrating from Nafi narrating from Abdullah ibn Omar narrating from Muhammed. Clearly, such an isnad is useful for forgerers.

And the Muslim Hadith scholars didn't only keep authentic Hadiths. Indeed, some collections were made intentionally to only contain fabricated Hadiths, probably so that everyone would know that they are false.

Laura D.

You have a point. We see new religions consistently emerging. I know that some tangential study exists, e.g., the warning criteria developed by psychologists for potential destructive cults.

Who do you point to as the best modern day example of the phenomena that you have described?

God bless,


Laura

Laura D.

Exactly. Moreover, Ibn Abbas was thirteen at the prophet's death. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm thinking he probably didn't raid with his Uncle much. So you cannot expect too much wisdom regarding traditions of the Prophet from Ibn Abbas.

Laura D.

The author of the Nazarenus site may want to hook up with Dan Brown. Given the popularity of the Da Vinci Code, I could see a very successful movie in the making. If I wrote it, I would give a young Seneca a romantic interest ala Shakespear in Love.

Since the Passion of the Christ has been staged as a play for hundreds of years, it's a marvelous theory. The authors did an excellent job. They should advertise more. Given the popularity of debunking Jesus, they should be able to get some decent attention.

God bless,

Laura