Freethought & Rationalism Archive

LegionOnomaMoi · 03-05-2012, 09:15 PM

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Originally Posted by mountainman

The determination is usually made within the conceptual framework of the discipline.

??? Which discipline? Textual criticism? Classics? Textual analysis? We have a number of letters. The authors claim to be written by a particular person (Paul). NT/biblical studies don't actually occur in a vaccuum. There wasn't some pioneering methodology that classicists or other historians use for pseudepigraphical texts, compared to those working with Paul's epistles or other NT texts.

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The canonical material of the new testament is historically unprovenanced, as is to a lesser degree much of the non canonical material. Determinations made on unprovenanced material are highly hypothetical.

According to which historians? Historians use both unprovenanced and pseudepigraphical texts to learn about the past. They analyze the language and references within the texts to try to determine if not who wrote them then when and were.

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The scrutiny of canonical material has had associated with it a specific conceptual framework engendered by more than 16 centuries of Christian theological colleges.

From A. Tucker's (who, by the way, is primarily a philospher of history, historiography, and political theory, and never studied in any "Christian theological college") Our Knowledge of the Past (Cambridge University Press, 2004):

"Critical historiography accepted from the enlightenment its critical cognitive values...The first application of critical cognitive values in conjunction with new theories and methods to generate new knowledge of the past from present evidence was in biblical studies. The new cognitive values allowede scholars to consider the scriptures as evidence rather than as knowledge tout court or useless noise."

Historical Jesus studies were pretty much founded by Reimarus, whose purpose was to undermine christianity. The methods used by ancient historians in classics and similar fields, from textual critical methods to methods for dating texts, were developed within biblical studies and borrowed by other historians (from the same source referenced above):
"Theories and methods that were developed in biblical criticism were exported to the analysis of ancient Greek and Latin texts."

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Ancient history and Biblical History are not the same discipline - the latter is a subset of the former.

You have your understanding of the development of modern historiography backwards.

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Have you read Momigliano or Gibbon?

I've read Momigliano's The Development of Greek Biography. It was his work on bioi or ancient biographies which changed the interpretation of gospel genre. And as for Gibbon, I've read him but for the same reason I've read Ranke, Renan, Schweitzer, and other outdated works: they were very significant for their time.

So, again, you are making claims about ancient historical scholarship compared to NT scholarship. What secondary scholarship on BOTH are you using to make such comparisons?

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Originally Posted by Agnostic75

Regarding 1st Corinthians 15:3-8, is it plausible that Paul did not write that passage?

I refer you to Dr. Robert Price's article at http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/rp1cor15.html.

I addressed this earlier. Price (whose expertise is not textual criticism) not only seems to stand alone here, even Walker, who reperesents the more "extreme" skeptical approaches to textual criticism (Price actually quotes Walker to support his rejection of the approach advocated by those like Munro) doesn't just reject Price's view. He is so convinced that these verses are part of the original text that he uses them to argue that later verses are interpolations. From Walker, W. O. Jr. (2007). 1 Corinthians 15:29-34 as a Non-Pauline Interpolation. CQB 69(1): pp. 84-103 (emphasis added)

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Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

"Verses 1-28 proclaim the fact of Christ’s resurrection “as the common ground of all Christian preaching and faith” (vv. 1-11), insist that a denial of resurrection negates Christ’s resurrection and thus invalidates Christian faith itself (vv. 12-19), and assert that Christ’s resurrection guarantees the future resurrection of believers and the final destruction of death (vv. 20-28). Verses 35-58 address a possible objection regarding the nature of the resurrection body (vv. 35-53), concluding with a ringing affirmation of victory and an exhortation to faithful endurance (vv. 54-58). The flow of the argument in vv. 1-28, 35-58 is logical, clear, and complete. This flow is abruptly interrupted, however, by vv. 29-34..."

maryhelena · 03-05-2012, 10:14 PM

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Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

Really? And you have historical evidence to support a historical NT Paul? All you have is an interpretation of the NT storyline. You have no historical evidence that the NT figure of Paul was a historical figure. You can believe all you want re possibilities - but without evidence your possibilities are blowing in the wind...

Of course we have evidence to support a historical NT Paul. we have his letters and we have acts. Both are problematic sources (opinions as to how problematic they are vary in the academic literature, from quite "radical" skepticism to overly uncritical acceptance, but even in the sensationalist literature I haven't come across the view that Paul didn't exist).

As I thought. You have no evidence whatsoever that the NT Paul was a historical figure. Well, now you have - come across the "view that Paul didn't exist". Keep it in mind whenever you try to deal with the "problematic sources".

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We have a series of letters written by an author claiming to be named Paul.

Authors use pseudonyms all the time. Someone, or somebody, or some people, wrote letters using the name of 'Paul'. Who wrote the letters is the issue not who might have claimed to have written them. Creative licence allows for a lot of creative plot structures.

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It's true that (for various reasons) authors would write works (like letters) using another's name (e.g., some or all of Plato's letters). What do these pseudepigraphical texts have in common? There is a great deal of literature on the subject, ranging from works which deal with the topic on a general level (e.g., the edited volume Der griechische Briefroman: Gattungstypologie und Textanalyse) to those which deal with specific letters (e.g., Foucart's "La VI^e lettre attribuée à Démosthène"). There are also nice collections of these letters (e.g., Costa's Greek Fictional Letters which includes the original greek and translations as well as commentary). Searching through this literature we find a few interesting things:

1) Pseudepigraphical letters were almost always attributed to well-known historical individuals like Socrates, Plato, Euripides, etc. In other words, nobody would bother to write under Paul's name unless he was a well-known figure (at least in early "christian" circles).
2) Those which are not are part of a literary tradition (e.g., the work of Aelian) which dates not just after Paul, but after our earliest actual papyri of Paul's letters (e.g., p46), and are not seperate creations but parts of novels.
3) Unlike with, say, the letters of Cicero, where our manuscripts date (as is typical) from the 9th or 10th centuries CE, we have extant textual attestation for Paul's letters a mere ~150 years after they were written. We also have an incredibly large number of copies to compare. Thus we are in an excellent position from a textual critical point of view, and this allows us to determine which letters are almost certainly those of Paul, which are questionable, and which are almost certainly not written by Paul.

Oh, my - words on pieces of manuscripts allow one to decide for historicity. Heaven help us.

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That's without getting into the references to Paul in early christian literature outside the NT.

Yes, follow the NT story by all means - but that will not get you anywhere near early christian origins. Indeed, we may never get the 100% 'truth' - but what we can do is jettison the illogical and bizarre nonsense.

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I noticed you quoted from my post #147

That's because I was directed to that post.

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This whole debate over one little Greek word is what is bizarre. When a word can be translated in a number of ways - take your pick and move on.

Then one is no longer translating.

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but the ahistoricist/mythicist position is as wide a 'church' as is the historicists position and cannot be refuted by so feeble an attempt at negation.

I have no idea what you mean by "wide as a 'chuch'" but the position is virtually non-existent among specialists (whether ancient historians of some sort, experts in Jewish studies, NT/Biblical specialists, etc.). And this is the first time I've ever come across anybody using this line to "defend" the idea that there was a historical Jesus.

I really don't get what you are trying to say here. My point related to the fact that the ahistoricist/mythicist position cannot be refuted even if one particular version is found to be vulnerable to 'attack'. As there are many versions of the assumed historical Jesus - so, likewise, there are various ahistoricist/mythicist positions on the gospel JC. Both theories are as wide as a 'church' in that they house various theories on the gospel JC.

Bringing up specialists is not the way to go in the context of the NT story. After nearly 2000 years they are still preaching and teaching a historical gospel JC. And what is it - 100 or so years - and the modern day search for the historical JC has reached a dead-end. The best that can be offered is a flesh and blood JC - with no claim for historicity and all that such a claim requires. And a flesh and blood JC is pure assumption, its nothing less than a position of wishful thinking.

LegionOnomaMoi · 03-05-2012, 10:32 PM

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

As I thought. You have no evidence whatsoever that the NT Paul was a historical figure. Well, now you have - come across the "view that Paul didn't exist". Keep it in mind whenever you try to deal with the "problematic sources".

Authors use pseudonyms all the time. Someone, or somebody, or some people, wrote letters using the name of 'Paul'. Who wrote the letters is the issue not who might have claimed to have written them. Creative licence allows for a lot of creative plot structures.

Oh, my - words on pieces of manuscripts allow one to decide for historicity. Heaven help us.

Our access to what happend in the ancient past is almost entirely dependent on "words on pieces of manuscripts." If you want to argue that we have no way of knowing who wrote the letters attributed to Cicero, Pliny, etc., then fine. In fact, given that the same techniques used to determine authorship when it comes to letters are used for all ancient texts, then your approach would require rejecting any knowledge of authorship at all, whether we're dealing with Plato or Plutarch or anybody else. However, those who believe that we can use "words on pieces of manuscripts" (whether they are near-eastern specialists, classicists, comparative linguists, NT specialists, etc.), have to rely on historiographic methods to determine what explanation best explains the evidence.

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Yes, follow the NT story by all means - but that will not get you anywhere near early christian origins. Indeed, we may never get the 100% 'truth' - but what we can do is jettison the illogical and bizarre nonsense.

There isn't any "NT story." The NT not only combines at least three different "genres," the compilation isn't even an attempt to construct a coherent, linear narrative.

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I really don't get what you are trying to say here. My point related to the fact that the ahistoricist/mythicist position cannot be refuted even if one particular version is found to be vulnerable to 'attack'.

Any historical explanation involves using what evidence we have to weigh the validity and probability of different hypotheses about this evidence. So, for example, any non-christian (such as myself) would reject the conclusion of Wright's 3rd volume on the historical Jesus even if such an individual accepted all of his premises. Why? Because even if it is true (accepting Wright's view) that we have no good historical explanation for the origins of christianity and the resurrection story, this does not enable a historian to conclude that the resurrection version is therefore a historically plausible account. Why? Because even if all other explanations of our evidence are highly improbable, they are nothing compared to the improbability of someone rising from the dead.

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Bringing up specialists is not the way to go in the context of the NT story. After nearly 2000 years they are still preaching and teaching a historical gospel JC.

What specialists have you read which lead you to conclude this?

outhouse · 03-05-2012, 10:57 PM

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Our access to what happend in the ancient past is almost entirely dependent on "words on pieces of manuscripts." If you want to argue that we have no way of knowing who wrote the letters attributed to Cicero, Pliny, etc., then fine. In fact, given that the same techniques used to determine authorship when it comes to letters are used for all ancient texts, then your approach would require rejecting any knowledge of authorship at all, whether we're dealing with Plato or Plutarch or anybody else. However, those who believe that we can use "words on pieces of manuscripts" (whether they are near-eastern specialists, classicists, comparative linguists, NT specialists, etc.), have to rely on historiographic methods to determine what explanation best explains the evidence.

It is freakin hillarious to watch these myther's cherry pick to!

Ive never seen such poor schalorship attempt's, their biggest failure is to not use the same methods from one author to the next. There is no standard at all! for who or what to accept as long as it proves their oddball theology.

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There isn't any "NT story."

So far what ive seen here is that the myther's use the creation of biblical jesus as a poor excuse that there is no historical core.

Completely disregarding all the many examples of valid historical cores to mythology that ancient hebrews used in their literal transmission.

I wish atleast they kept standard in what they ignore, but even that is cherry picked [facepalm]

All these unique parables and sayings attributed to jesus like Q and Thomas that have simularities, just popped themselves into existance out of no where with no historical core. [facepalm]

outhouse · 03-05-2012, 11:14 PM

How many historical romans were in fact deified???

All men of power and or ruler's or emporer's

Yet for some strange reason jesus a dirt poor peasant jew from nowheresville gets deified above all romans, by romans.

I agree romans hellenized and created a deity, but they didnt create a poor peasant jew who taught and healed for the hardworking poor jews.

it amazes me how people cannot see how the romans stole a jewish hero and deified him as they have a LONG history of deifying mortal men.

maryhelena · 03-05-2012, 11:18 PM

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Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

As I thought. You have no evidence whatsoever that the NT Paul was a historical figure. Well, now you have - come across the "view that Paul didn't exist". Keep it in mind whenever you try to deal with the "problematic sources".

Authors use pseudonyms all the time. Someone, or somebody, or some people, wrote letters using the name of 'Paul'. Who wrote the letters is the issue not who might have claimed to have written them. Creative licence allows for a lot of creative plot structures.

Oh, my - words on pieces of manuscripts allow one to decide for historicity. Heaven help us.

Our access to what happend in the ancient past is almost entirely dependent on "words on pieces of manuscripts." If you want to argue that we have no way of knowing who wrote the letters attributed to Cicero, Pliny, etc., then fine. In fact, given that the same techniques used to determine authorship when it comes to letters are used for all ancient texts, then your approach would require rejecting any knowledge of authorship at all, whether we're dealing with Plato or Plutarch or anybody else. However, those who believe that we can use "words on pieces of manuscripts" (whether they are near-eastern specialists, classicists, comparative linguists, NT specialists, etc.), have to rely on historiographic methods to determine what explanation best explains the evidence.

And just where has relying on NT "words on pieces of manuscripts" got these specialists? And just to make something very clear - I don't give a hoot what scholars do regarding Cicero, Pliny, etc, Plato or Plutarch - my interest, my focus, is the gospel JC. And I'm not about to get side-tracked into comparing that story, the JC story, with ancient texts outside of a Jewish cultural, theological and philosophical, setting. That setting is primary. Sure, no cultural can remain isolated - and undoubtedly, other influences were taken up or adapted to that primary Jewish cultural. JC is fundamentally, basically, a very Jewish story. And that's where I play 'ball'.

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Yes, follow the NT story by all means - but that will not get you anywhere near early christian origins. Indeed, we may never get the 100% 'truth' - but what we can do is jettison the illogical and bizarre nonsense.

There isn't any "NT story." The NT not only combines at least three different "genres," the compilation isn't even an attempt to construct a coherent, linear narrative.

No NT story? Try that one on some christians....:constern01:

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I really don't get what you are trying to say here. My point related to the fact that the ahistoricist/mythicist position cannot be refuted even if one particular version is found to be vulnerable to 'attack'.

Any historical explanation involves using what evidence we have to weigh the validity and probability of different hypotheses about this evidence. So, for example, any non-christian (such as myself) would reject the conclusion of Wright's 3rd volume on the historical Jesus even if such an individual accepted all of his premises. Why? Because even if it is true (accepting Wright's view) that we have no good historical explanation for the origins of christianity and the resurrection story, this does not enable a historian to conclude that the resurrection version is therefore a historically plausible account. Why? Because even if all other explanations of our evidence are highly improbable, they are nothing compared to the improbability of someone rising from the dead.

You don't have evidence for historicity of either JC or Paul. What you have is a NT story and pieces, or more, of ancient manuscripts. Manuscripts are not evidence for the historicity of the story they contain. (I think I already said something to that effect - so will not go around the circle with that.....).

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Bringing up specialists is not the way to go in the context of the NT story. After nearly 2000 years they are still preaching and teaching a historical gospel JC.

What specialists have you read which lead you to conclude this?

Your the one that brought up specialists, not me. Who and what I have read is not an issue here. If an argument has some value it will stand on its own without a sanction from a consensus of specialists. 'Truth' can stand on it's own feet - it's errors that need all the support that it's illogical premises require. 'Truth' has never played the numbers game.

LegionOnomaMoi · 03-05-2012, 11:40 PM

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

And just where has relying on NT "words on pieces of manuscripts" got these specialists? And just to make something very clear - I don't give a hoot what scholars do regarding Cicero, Pliny, etc, Plato or Plutarch - my interest, my focus, is the gospel JC.

Then that's a very real methodological problem. If you wish to look at these texts from a non-christian, historical point of view, you have to know not only the cultures, literary traditions, and so forth which are essential to understanding these NT texts, you also have to know what methods are used to understand ancient history in general. If your focus is solely on "the gospel JC" then you have no basis for comparison between these and other texts, between scholarship on these texts and other ancient texts, and thus lack any capacity to judge the historicity (or lack thereof) of these texts. The NT was written in greek during the hellenistic period. Without a wider understanding of what methods are available to historians seeking to make historical claims about texts from this period, all you are doing is arguing from ignorance.

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JC is fundamentally, basically, a very Jewish story. And that's where I play 'ball'.

Yet scholars of Judaism (including Jewish scholars of Judaism, such as Vermes and Neusner) utterly reject your methodology.

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No NT story? Try that one on some christians....:constern01:

I don't care about "some christians" or their opinions. I'm interested here in history, in "truth" to the extent that we can determine it.

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Your the one that brought up specialists, not me. Who and what I have read is not an issue here.

It absolutely is. We're talking about applying historiographical methods to evidence which consists of numerous texts written in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, not to mention epigraphical and archaeological evidence. All this is used to construct a socio-cultural model of a particular time and place. Any analyses of texts (such as those in the NT) depends upon an understanding not only of the cultural context in which they were written, but on an understanding of genre of the period, our knowledge of the situation outside of the events described, etc.

In other words, one cannot conclude (at least not validly), that the NT can be determined to be X without being
1) Capable of even reading it
2) Understanding the secondary scholarship on ancient history in general and the NT in particular
3) the background knowledge required to interpret the texts.

Simply mapping a modern understanding of historiography onto a translation of a text is utterly inadequate.

maryhelena · 03-06-2012, 12:14 AM

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Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

And just where has relying on NT "words on pieces of manuscripts" got these specialists? And just to make something very clear - I don't give a hoot what scholars do regarding Cicero, Pliny, etc, Plato or Plutarch - my interest, my focus, is the gospel JC.

Then that's a very real methodological problem. If you wish to look at these texts from a non-christian, historical point of view, you have to know not only the cultures, literary traditions, and so forth which are essential to understanding these NT texts, you also have to know what methods are used to understand ancient history in general. If your focus is solely on "the gospel JC" then you have no basis for comparison between these and other texts, between scholarship on these texts and other ancient texts, and thus lack any capacity to judge the historicity (or lack thereof) of these texts. The NT was written in greek during the hellenistic period. Without a wider understanding of what methods are available to historians seeking to make historical claims about texts from this period, all you are doing is arguing from ignorance.

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JC is fundamentally, basically, a very Jewish story. And that's where I play 'ball'.

Yet scholars of Judaism (including Jewish scholars of Judaism, such as Vermes and Neusner) utterly reject your methodology.

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No NT story? Try that one on some christians....:constern01:

I don't care about "some christians" or their opinions. I'm interested here in history, in "truth" to the extent that we can determine it.

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Your the one that brought up specialists, not me. Who and what I have read is not an issue here.

It absolutely is. We're talking about applying historiographical methods to evidence which consists of numerous texts written in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, not to mention epigraphical and archaeological evidence. All this is used to construct a socio-cultural model of a particular time and place. Any analyses of texts (such as those in the NT) depends upon an understanding not only of the cultural context in which they were written, but on an understanding of genre of the period, our knowledge of the situation outside of the events described, etc.

In other words, one cannot conclude (at least not validly), that the NT can be determined to be X without being
1) Capable of even reading it
2) Understanding the secondary scholarship on ancient history in general and the NT in particular
3) the background knowledge required to interpret the texts.

Simply mapping a modern understanding of historiography onto a translation of a text is utterly inadequate.

The proof of the pudding, so they say, is in the eating of it......The 'pudding' that NT scholarship has produced, using a historical JC cake mix, no longer sustains our modern appetite for logic and evidence.

And that does not equate to my viewing the NT story as of no relevance. On the contrary the NT story is relevant - not as a history of its two main characters, JC and Paul - but as philosophy. As a philosophical ideal dramatized in the form of a story and set within a historical time period - a historical time period deemed to be relevant to that philosophical ideal.

Doug Shaver · 03-06-2012, 01:14 AM

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

Someone, or somebody, or some people, wrote letters using the name of 'Paul'.

Why?

maryhelena · 03-06-2012, 01:30 AM

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Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

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Originally Posted by maryhelena

Someone, or somebody, or some people, wrote letters using the name of 'Paul'.

Why?

And the answer to that is - why not?

People, authors, use pseudonyms all the time. I don't have a hotline to the mind of whoever wrote under the name of 'Paul'. And anyway, being anonymous seems to be par for the course in NT writing. Did someone by the name of *Luke* write the gospel of Luke? Literary works can be written in the first person. Creative licence is not subject to reality....

And on internet forums - great place to have dozens of pseudonyms...

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03-05-2012, 11:14 PM	#205
outhouse Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Auburn ca Posts: 4,269	How many historical romans were in fact deified??? All men of power and or ruler's or emporer's Yet for some strange reason jesus a dirt poor peasant jew from nowheresville gets deified above all romans, by romans. I agree romans hellenized and created a deity, but they didnt create a poor peasant jew who taught and healed for the hardworking poor jews. it amazes me how people cannot see how the romans stole a jewish hero and deified him as they have a LONG history of deifying mortal men.

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