GakuseiDon

AFAIK, the CoE has never been used to establish the historicity of Jesus. The historicity has already been assumed. It is only in the delusions of some mythicists (none of those on this board, of course) that CoE is used to establish Jesus' historicity.

Dump away, aa, dump away.

Well, it can't establish historicity, but with the assumption of historicity, I think it can be a useful tool for describing what we can see in the texts.

Only if I were trying to prove historicity. Since I'm not, I don't care what you think I NEED to do.

spamandham

Since the criterion of embarrassment has not been validated, it's quackery as far as I'm concerned, so I don't see much value in applying it to hypothetical cases.

The fact that a later writer finds something embarrassing about something an earlier write wrote, tells us absolutely nothing about the historicity of that detail. All it tells us is that an earlier writer did not find it embarrassing (or it obviously wouldn't have been there in the first place), but a later writer did.

spamandham

Oh puleeeze. HJ promoters are constantly using this criterion here. ApostateAbe has dozens of posts making this exact argument.

aa5874

But, your claim is quite astonishing!!! The CoE is used by HJers to try to establish that Jesus of Nazareth did DO things that appear EMBARRASSING.

HJers are the ones who use the CoE to try to establish the historicity of Jesus.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

See http://www.associatepublisher.com/e/...arrassment.htr

Is it not a bit embarrassing to assume the historicity of Jesus only to find that with the CoE nothing about Jesus can be established as historically true?

Please produce a website which shows that the CoE used with other criteria has indeed established the historicity of Jesus or any event associated with.


Please state exactly what has the CoE established if you have ALREADY ASSUMED the historicity of Jesus.

Now, why are you claiming that the CoE is a tool for describing what we see in a text? You know that is not so.

The CoE is used as a tool to determine the historical probability of EMBARRASSING events


But, exactly. You have nothing but BELIEF. You have FAITH. Nothing else matters.

GakuseiDon

Well, let's have a look at one. What is one of his strongest arguments using the CoE that establishes Christ's historicity?

Toto

Apostate Abe's arguments are all crap, as you say, so none of them are strong.

Historicists like James McGrath do argue that since the crucifixion was embarrassing, it is most likely to be historical, and that this historical "fact" indicates that Jesus existed. He has done this on his blog, not in any peer reviewed journal, of course.

If you want to support the criterion of embarrassment, why don't you give an example of how it is used correctly?

GakuseiDon

Nice to see you using the Steven Carr approach to misrepresentation.

Sure. Just like I say that Apostate Abe's arguments are all crap.

Not interested, I'm sorry. It doesn't matter what I write; soon enough someone will write "Zeus did some embarrassing things, therefore why don't bible scholars claim they must be rooted in historical fact?" My point is that the CoE relies on more than just "it was embarrassing therefore it is probably true".

David Deas

Translation: I can't. Don't know how. And or don't have a clue what the heck I'm talking about here.

(*) How about pointing to an independant research article that examines the CoE and it's predictive power?

Toto

I've never seen Steven Carr misrepresent anything.

Be careful when you start throwing mud around.

You can't think of an easy answer to that? A biblical scholar would say that Zeus' embarrassing hijinks were part of an "early tradition" but that this early tradition has no historical anchor.

But you're right. Whatever you write, someone will be able to find a flaw in it that you can't answer. It's a lot easier to pretend that you are just not interested.

You have not done anything to support your point. My point is that the criterion of embarrassment is pretty much useless, so it doesn't surprize me that people using that criteria have to try to bolster it with a lot of handwaving.

GakuseiDon

I see.

Yes.

I suspect that most people, even mythicists, unconsciously use that criterion when examining texts, to help explain changes in viewpoints between earlier texts and later ones.