spamandham

Although 2nd Peter is quite short, and it isn't clear we would expect it to discuss a human Jesus, nevertheless, the author is clearly familiar with the Gospel story, and by implication, his Jesus on the mountain is the same one found in the Gospel story:

For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there was borne such a voice to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount.

Rick Sumner

I agree. I'd venture that 1.14 also knows the gospel of John. But wouldn't 1:14 benefit from an elaboration on it? I suppose that depends on what the aims are. But then, it always depends on what the aims are. If we're going to pick and choose where our criteria works and where it doesn't, we're going to end up with a lot of arbitrary, unfalsifiable nonsense floating about. Either the criteria is good or it isn't. Doherty's right to recognize the problem.

Though "quite short" as a criteria for whether or not we should expect it to discuss a human Jesus is silly. A nice effort at hedging, but no cigar on that one.

If 2 Peter is familiar with the gospel Jesus, but never clearly describes him in an historical context then Doherty has a problem. For 2 Peter so meets the criteria that Doherty himself feels obligated to defend--at length--2 Peter's independence from Mark.

But even if I disagreed, that would just mean that criteria for Markan redaction is reversed. Somebody's methodology fails here. It doesn't matter to me whose, since I think they're both wrong.

andrewcriddle

Could you give a source for this please ?

Andrew Criddle

spamandham

That's fine, but what exactly is the criterion? Is it that we expect every writing to put Jesus into a historical setting every other paragraph, is it a more vague probabilistic argument; the more stuff we have that consistently doesn't do that, the stronger the argument?

It's not silly, it's common sense. If 2nd Peter were 3 words long, we certainly would have no expectation of him putting Jesus into a historical setting. If it were 3 million pages long, I think we would. In between is a gray area.

The author states that he (the author) was on the mountain with Jesus. Why is that not a historical context?

Rick Sumner

I already outined it for you. Here it is again.

The reasoning behind Doherty's argument from silence is really quite simple: If we should reasonably expect someone to mention knowledge of the "gospel Jesus," and they don't mention such knowledge, they fail to mention it because they do not possess it.

Carrier goes into this in more detail in his review. The argument applies here.

2 John is even shorter, yet Doherty has no qualms about pointing to 2John.4-6 as one of his notable silences. Indeed Jude is likewise shorter, but finds itself in the top 20 silences.

Neglecting absurdities (like "3 words long"), length is irrelevant, it's content that matters. And Doherty himself applies his criteria to 2 Peter, granting it no less than 7 spots on his 200 silences.

I don't know, ask Earl. It's where he runs into problems. If 2 Peter knows the gospels, and is referencing experiences there, why doesn't he include an historical context for 3:2, 3:3-4, 3:10? Why no context for 1:19?

When this happens in Paul, Doherty employs it as a point in his favour. It is the very essence of the argument from silence--if the author knows of a context, he should employ it.

As far as I'm concerned it is an historical context. And that is exactly the problem, and precisely the reason Doherty argues against it being an historical context.

So either 2Peter knows the context but doesn't employ it, indicating the expectation may be unmerited elsewhere, or 2 Peter is independent (the tact Doherty employs).

There's really no way out of this. If you agree that 2 Peter knows the gospel of Mark, and we hold 2 Peter to the same critical standard Doherty's argument holds the epistles of Paul or Barnabas, or even the second century apologists to, he gives you a false result. As Peter Kirby once phrased it, "Doherty proves too much."

spamandham

So why would we "reasonably expect" 2 Peter to mention knowledge of Gospel Jesus (it does however, as we've discussed)? Length of a work, combined with the intent of the work both factor into my expectations.

Ok, so now we're not talking about a single work, but a body of works. I don't expect to roll snake eyes with 1 roll. But given a large number of rolls, I would expect it. Given enough trials, expectations that are small for individual trials become large for the set of trials. That's how probability works, and arguments form absence follow this same reasoning.

No. It isn't. It's fundamental. The absurdity is to claim that the volume of material is irrelevant to a probability based argument.

Well, admittedly I'm not intimately familiar with Earl's specific argument, but I would say it's reasonable to expect an author to *sometimes* make such references if they are familiar with them, particularly if such references would provide a boost of authority. I don't think it would be reasonable to expect every possible opportunity for a reference to employ one. If an author never makes such references and has numerous opportunities to do so, then that *should* cause us to question our preconceptions (they are afteral preconceptions) about what the author knew.

In the case of 2nd Peter, I would say the author does have knowledge of the gospel story involving Jesus and Peter on the mountain. So if Earl says otherwise, I think he's wrong.

ph2ter

I think I can go even further.
2 Peter has nothing which he was not able to find in the OT or in the epistles of Paul. Mark has additions which do not exist anywhere in the OT. The version of 2 Peter is more rudimentary than the Mark's transfiguration scene and according to Occam should precede Mark.
If 2 Peter precedes Mark and is known to Mark then there is no problem and your thesis falls.
I also tend to believe that the epistle of Barnabas also precedes Mark and is indirectly or directly known to him. Mark was able to use it for the construction of his passion narrative.

I think that for the ignition of the Christianity the crucial moment was when some Jewish circles interpreted the Scripture to say that Messiah has already come. After that the process of historization of that Messianic figure was inevitable, unstoppable. The proto-Christians started the accretion of more and more material about Jesus (searching the Scripture). I think that the epistle of Barnabas illuminates that process. And 2 Peter also.

Rick Sumner

Then the transfiguration has all the hallmarks of Markan invention, but wasn't invented by Mark. The point still holds.

Though I'd be interested in seeing how we get around 2 Peter's relationship with Jude in this scenario. More for curiousity's sake than anything.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

Length of the work is irrelevant. It's not your argument I'm putting at lagerheads here. It's Earl's argument. And consequently it is Earl's standards we need to employ.

We can use one of the golden standards of Doherty's argument from silence here. It references teachings of Jesus, without attributing them to Jesus.

Nope. We're talking about different, individual works. And how works, of different lengths, have different expectations that are not correlated to length. You're dodging the point of the examples here, which was that length correlates neither positively nor negatively to Doherty's argument from silence. If you want to postulate a different AfS, then by all means, lets do so and have a look. But the AfS I'm talking about right now is Earl's.

Except that's not how Doherty's argument works. Jude is very short, but scores in the "top twenty silences." Let's remember that the argument I'm addressing isn't yours, and the author of that argument has laid out pretty clearly where he expects things and where he sees absence.

I was unaware that Earl's argument was probability based. Once again, if you want to postulate your own argument, let's have a look at it. But that argument isn't Doherty's.

Unless, of course, you'd care to show me where Earl lays out this far more empirical sounding argument from probability. Because the only argument I've seen is "The author would benefit from mention here. He doesn't mention. Therefore he doesn't know."

I would agree that it's reasonable. I didn't say the argument was entirely negated, I said it was weakened. And it is. If it's wrong sometimes, it's not unreasonable for the critic to suggest it's wrong other times.

In other words, if one can find instances where the argument definitely leads to a false conclusion, then in other instances, where we don't know the definite conclusion, it is reasonable to be skeptical of it.

But, out of curiousity, if you're not familiar with Earl's particular argument, why are you defending. . .Earl's particular argument? You do remember what my rather specific claim was, I hope?

But if we can't use that criteria with certainty, then we should be as jaundiced toward its results as we should any other that garners false results, even if only occasionally.

This goes back to who's argument you're defending. Once again, if you'd like to develop your own, then let's have a look.

Right now we're looking at Earl's argument. And Earl's argument says that 2 Peter does not make clear reference. Earl says he does not make clear reference because he does not know. I say he knows but does not make what Earl would consider clear anyway.

Excellent. Then we're on the same page. Earl's wrong. The argument that Markan invention can still be scrutinized in other instances, but not this one. Here Markan indicators mean Markan invention. Which means Earl's AfS gives us the wrong answer.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spamandham

If what you're saying is that Earl does not factor length of material in, then ok, I'm not sure if that's true, but maybe it is.

It's hardly a dodge. I previously understood that *you* were saying length is irrelevant. It was not clear until just now that you meant Doherty had ignored length.

The entire field of Biblical history (and much of ancient history in general) is rooted in Occam's razor. What is the simplest explanation of the evidence? An argument from silence is not a slam dunk, but it may alter parsimony nevertheless.

If there are lot's of cases where a citation by an author would have driven a point home and yet the author failed to take advantage of it, and if this pattern is seen across multiple authors, then this *should* make us seriously question our preconceptions about what the authors had been exposed to.

I'm not. I'm discussing arguments from silence more generally, and how it pertains to 2nd Peter in particular.