Koyaanisqatsi

How do you determine it?

How do you determine that Stephen King or Kurt Vonnegut is writing fiction? I challenge you to find a single utterance in any of those two author's catalogue where they state, "This is fiction."

You know it's fiction, just as the Greeks knew Paul was selling fiction, hence his whole diatribe about how if it is fiction, then it all falls.

Gee. What a shock.

Why the hell would he need to admonish/proselytize to "true believers" that what he was preaching was the Truth?

The "truth" is self evident, which is precisely why he (and others), as a cult leader, brazenly declared that "God" made wisdom foolish and that you couldnt' know it was fiction just by reading it.

It's a fucking shell game, just like all the other shell games. Paul even admits, if indirectly, that any lie told in the service of his snake oil is justified.

Why? Because he so believed it all to be true? NO! If he actually believed it were all true then there's no need to sell it. The very fact that it's being sold is the first clue (if none others land) that it's fiction!

So, because other "historical texts" have made up and reported inacurate stuff that means what exactly? You're answering your own question, stated, or not.

If it's made up, it's fiction.

:huh:

Yeah, that must be it. Sleep tight with that, btw. I'm just "frustrated" because you and I arrived at the same conclusion; it's made up and inacurate just like every other historical reportage.

After all, if eveything is "biased" then nothing is biased and one must sift what? Fact from fiction?

So, tell me, what is fact from fiction about water being turned into wine? The dead resurrecting bodily from their graves? "Prophecy" being fulfilled, when in fact no such prophecy of a god incarnate in flesh killing himself as a necessary sacrifice to himself to save us all from himself exists anywhere in the "prophecies" claimed?

Historians, if they have a defining quality, do not make shit up and then claim it isn't made up, but "god breathed" or the like. That's what brain washers do, for lack of a better term.

Tell me, did your parents ever actually tell you that Santa Clause wasn't real; that he was made up? And did you ever ask why they made him up?

When it comes to theological, supernatural claims?

HOW was he biased? Define Tacitus' bias. Then and only then will you and I be able to approach the term "bias." Define Tacitus' bias.

Stuff that straw, baby, yeah!

Just his pendulum.

Look, from what I can glean, you and I agree; as stated before, it all comes down to fact vs. fiction. So you tell us. What is fact and what is fiction about the Jesus myth and what is your standard for measuring either?

:huh:

And please, by all means, avoid answering this question directly, or in any way that doesn't concede the entire argument. We await your special standard.

Oh, that's right, you've left the "theological" questions up to argument. So, I guess that just leaves us with such things as the trial the Pilate never would have presided over and the "ritual" of releasing a convicted murderer/seditionist that never did or would occur and the "conversation" Jesus supposedly had with somebody he evidently thought was Satan, or the "conversation" he had with somebody he evidently thought was Jehovah or a dead body "resurrecting" (i.e., coming back to life).

If a dead body came back to life today, what would you conclude as an objective, non-biased reporter? That it was evidence the person was a god, or that it was evidence that he wasn't actually dead, but merely unconscious or in a coma or the like?

Let's strip away the bias. Your best friend dies and then three days later comes back to life. Is he now the "One True God?" If not, why not? Is that event evidence of a god, or just bad diagnosis?

And if you do conclude in your reportage that it is evidence that he was god, or that a god exists to "resurrect" him, how is that not ridiculously and absurdly biased? "Dead" people come back to life all the time; most do not. So the ones who do not aren't gods, but the ones who do are gods or were only "brought" back by a god?

But that's the point, right? Jesus was the only one, right? Except that he wasn't. Oh, wait, he was the only one who bodily came back to life. All those others who came back to life spiritually don't count; only the one who comes back to life in his own body counts.

Oh, but wait; no one believed at first that he had come back in his own body. In fact, according to your "historians," one had to actually poke his wounds before he believed Jesus had come bodily back (wounds and all). So the corrupted body comes back in an uncorrupted manner only with the wounds it sustained at death?

Snake oil.

Gamera

Your entire rant boils down to this lack of scholarship. Most Historia 101 classes discuss Tacitus bias. Classicists are painfully aware of it. One hardly knows where to begin with such lack of knowledge about the current scholarship. However, I'll just point out that Tacitus is extremely nostalgic, extremely political, and his views on Tiberius have been pretty much debunked by current scholarship.

This my help you get started on your journey from naivety.

http://janusquirinus.org/essays/Tiberius.html

Gamera

Well, clearly the gospel mss have been scrutinized in a way that no other texts have because of their historical/cultural importance, but that was only possible because the mss history of the gospel is so well known. Most "historical" mss from classic "historical" writers are so distant from the authors in time that no professional historian can put much credence in them as far as the particulars. Heaven only knows what redaction, for political or other purposes, they went through. The mss history is so bad, we can even wager a guess.

That's hardly a point in their favor. You're essentially penalizing the Christian scriptures for the high quality of the mss and the relatively well known ms history. The only reason we can even theorize about the redactions is because they are so well attested to -- really on a level totally unrivaled in the classic world.

Gamera

Notice I put the word "historical" in quotes. I don't really see any difference between Tacitus, Heroditus, Luke and Plato. They're all historiography as far was we can tell. It's the naive skeptics who make the subtle distinction between professional classical "histories" and other texts. My view is the distinction is hopelessly naive.

Well, the synoptics describe the life of one Jesus, with some theological claims thrown in. In that they are no different than Suetonius's Life of Augustus, except that Suetonius has a political agenda, not a religious one, so his encomia are adjusted accordingly. This is the Suetonius who believed in soothsaying and other nonsense, and apparently kind of thought Augustus was a god.

"He even divined beforehand the outcome of all his wars. When the forces of the triumvirs were assembled at •Bononia, an eagle that had perched upon his tent made a dash at two ravens, which attacked it on either side, and struck them to the ground. From this the whole army inferred that there would one day be discord among the colleagues, as actually came to pass, and divined its result. As he was on his way to Philippi, a Thessalian gave him notice of his coming victory on the authority of the deified Caesar, whose shade had met him on a lonely road. 2 When he was sacrificing at Perusia without getting a favourable omen, and so had ordered more victims to be brought, the enemy made a sudden sally and carried off all the equipment of the sacrifice; whereupon the p275soothsayers agreed that all the dangers and disasters with which the sacrificer had been threatened would recoil on the heads of those who were in possession of the entrails; and so it turned out. As he was walking on the shore the day before the sea-fight off Sicily, a fish sprang from the sea and fell at his feet. At Actium, as he was going down to begin the battle, he met an ass with his driver, the man having the name Eutychus146 and the beast that of Nicon;147 and after the victory he set up bronze images of the two in the sacred enclosure into which he converted the site of his camp.

97 His death, too, of which I shall speak next, and his deification after death, were known in advance by unmistakable signs. As he was bringing the lustrum148 to an end in the Campus Martius before a great throng of people, an eagle flew several times about him and then going across to the temple hard by, perched above the first letter of Agrippa's name. On noticing this, Augustus bade his colleague recite the vows which it is usual to offer for the next five years for although he had them prepared and written out on a tablet, he declared that he would not be responsible for vows which he should never pay. 2 At about the same time the first letter of his name was melted from the inscription on one of his statues by a flash of lightning; this was interpreted to mean that he would live only a hundred days from that time, the number indicated by the letter C, and that he would be numbered with the gods, since aesar (that is, the part of the name Caesar which was left) is the word for god in the Etruscan tongue."

And you beleive this guy?

Gamera

The NT more or less accurately describes the political, religious and cultural milieu of the period, and has been supported by archaeology and other more or less contemporary texts, such as Jesophus. The errors are on the margin, which is indicative of historiography.


I don't think fiction is a mysterious term. Greco roman plays were fictive, and everybody in the audience understood that. Greco-roman novels were the same. Of course, the distinction between historiography and fiction was less distinct in the classic period. At the very least, using the Aeneid as if it were history was the type of discourse confusion Romans engaged in, just like we do with our fanciful biographies of Washington.


".

Yes, I do.

I haven't been asked to establish the trajectory, which is pretty clear to most historians. But I'm happy to supply it if you lack the knowledge.

Koyaanisqatsi

Must I explain it again? HOW was Tacitus biased. Define the manner in which his bias manifested iteself in his writings.

You keep claiming that all historians are biased, but there is a significant difference between someone liking vanilla ice cream and therefore they tend to favor writing about vanilla ice cream and someone either brainwashed into a cult, or a cult leader who then writes material others then use to brainwash other cult members with, yes?

Paul, for example, apparently found no moral problem in lying if need be to convert more cult members. Therefore, nothing he wrote is reliable, let alone any possible historical "facts."

Cult members are also already believers; thus you can tell them almost anything happened and they wouldn't question it nearly as vigorously as a real historian's account would be questioned, etc.

So kindly stop equivocating the term "biased" and define how Tacitus was biased in light of the above standard and your own statement that "all historians are biased" as a ridiculous attempt to dismiss my point.

This might get you started on your road to intellectual honesty.

rob117

Yes, all historians are biased. The difference is in the degree of bias, how intentional it was, and whether or not they admitted it. Herodotus, for example, has a anti-Theban bias in his writings- for example, when Thebes contributes support to Leonidas at Thermopylae, he claims they were only doing so because Leonidas forced them to, whereas he does not make this comment about the other allies. This is due to Herodotus' sources on this event being Athenians who had recently been at war with Thebes in the time after the Persian wars. This bias of his is thus a problem with his sources, not the product of his own agenda. Then there are conscious biases that he admits- for example, when he says, "The Phoenicians say, although I don't believe it..." his bias is conscious, but he has admitted to it. And then there are his biases that he simply doesn't admit- when he claims Apollo saved Croesus of Lydia from burning on a pyre, he presupposes the existence of Apollo and his intervention in human affairs, and does not question it. This is thus an unconscious bias that he does not admit to. And when he uses his stories to make a moral point, such as "God tolerates pride in none but himself," this is a conscious bias, driven by a moral and theological agenda, that he has not admitted to.

Despite his pitfalls, Herodotus still bases his history on inquiry. He doesn't simply tell you what happened; he cites his sources and even sometimes tells you why he believes one version of a story as opposed to another. He has his theological agenda, but it is secondary to his desire to preserve the deeds of historical actors so that they aren't forgotten.

The gospels, on the other hand, are written to convince their audience of Jesus' divinity. They make their assertions without telling you why they believe this is the version of events that happened; they simply narrate and do not give evidence for their assertions, except in highly suspect incidences. They use powerful narrative to convince you of something without inquiring into its validity- in short, propaganda. They can be used for historical reconstruction, but they are not the works of historians.

Koyaanisqatsi

Thank you rob117. Well put!

Gamera

Tacitus's biases and agendas are so obvious one hardly knows where to begin with you. Let's see, he was related by marriage to his subject matter in Agricola, throwing the whole book into doubt. A book that has been pretty much deconstructed for its political agenda. Try this.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~otherw/writs/sobak.html

He was of aristocratic birth, didn't like poor people and was nostalgic about Rome's past, coloring all his works, which no modern scholars considers anything but highly political works masquerading as history. His hit job on Tiberius is notorious, though his motives unclear.

He believed in phoenixes.

Read some critical studies, man.

Gamera

Another naive historian who assumes the conclusion. What evidence do you have that the gospel writers didn't engage in inquiry and that Herodotus did?

Welll, you take Herodotus' word for it in his writings, because, despite his whacky beleif in Apollo, you have assumed he is an "historian."

But you don't take Luke's word for it because he isn't an "historian" by definition, because he believes in Jesus. You assume Luke talked to no one, made no inquiry, didn't investigate the facts.

Frankly I think your argument is very unconvincing.

Your use of the term "propaganda" is particularly interesting since it implies a political agenda. It's easy to see Tacitus and Seutonius' political agenda. They are political men attached to political leaders. It's inconceiveable that they wrote anything without keeping a sharp eye on the political struggles taking shape around them, and the threat they posed to them.

In contrast, there appears to be absolutely no political agenda to the gospels. There is certainly a religious argument and its hagiography. But it isn't political, at least not on its face.

So who's the propagandist again?