Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Radorth · 09-27-2002, 06:49 AM

Quote:

The thread is titled, in part: "42 Ancient Historians Should Have Noticed"
So far, there seems to be an almost embarrassing absence of evidence supporting this assertion.

You mean these critics just made it up? Is that lying, or just ordinary 21st century myth-mongering?

I have questions:

1. How many one the list did in fact mention Jesus?

2. How do we know they didn't mention Jesus if we don't have some or all of their works? Hearsay is OK? If so, how do we know the witness knew all they wrote?

Radorth

Jayhawker Soule · 09-27-2002, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by galiel:
Not to mention an almost embarassing absence of evidence to the contrary.

The claimant may bear a disproportionate burden of proof.

If the absence of historical reference is atypical, this should be fairly easy to demonstrate. If not, one might wish to mount the soapbox with a different, and more compelling, set of arguments. An alternative, of course, is to pedantically attack all who do not bow to your exegesis as insidious theists lacking your fine grasp of scientific methodology. Unfortunately, this approach provides ample opportunity for embarrassment as well.

[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]

Vinnie · 09-27-2002, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Well, Crossan goes beyond a partially interpolated TF to assume that the original was positive.

If I remmeber correctly he says the reconstructed text is studiously neutral. He then wonders if Jo wrote with an eye on both Christians and Jews.

Vinnie

Layman · 09-27-2002, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto:
Layman - you are so well read. Why not read Doherty? It would make you more effective when you argue against him, don't you think? In fact, I'll make you a deal. I will find a copy of Sanders, and you read Doherty.

I have read plenty of Doherty, Toto.

Quote:

Perhaps you missed some of the previous discussion on this. We are looking for a methodology, not just idiosyncratic methods that could lead to any conclusion. If there were such a methodology, historians would use it instead of each using their own methods.

So what you are doing is launching an assault on the entire field of historical studies, not just an attack on the idea that there was a historical Jesus. You are attacking the idea that we can know there was a historical Paul, or a historial James, or a historial John the Baptist, or a historical Caesar, or a historical Alexander the Great. You deny historical knowledge, not just the historical Jesus.

The fact is historians do have methodologies, but you just don't like them.

Quote:

Meier has a method of deciding which of the purported statements of or about Jesus were most likely to be authentic, assuming he existed in the first place. But he has no methodology which would show that Jesus was a real person, versus an entirely legendary figure.

Actually, Meier is quite clear that the methods he uses apply equally well to determining whether events occurred as they are whether sayings occurred. He actually refers to Sanders and two other historians for making the case for such analysis so persuasively.

Have you read Meier?

Quote:

Crossan stated he was not even interested in the question of whether Jesus existed

Well, since he claims that the crucifixion of Jesus is a certain historical event, he necessarily concludes that Jesus' existence is a certain historical event.

Quote:

I picked up a copy of Michael Grant's Jesus: an Historian's Review of the Gospels. (We still don't know whether he is an atheist, but there is no hint of it in this book.) He devotes an appendix to methodology, in which he first dismisses the Jesus Myth hypothesis, and then tries to steer a middle road between believers and unbelievers. He rejects practically every other methodology as flawed in one way or another, and then decides that anything that clashes with what you might expect to read about Jesus is probably true, especially since a coherent portrait of Jesus emerges.

Wow. You read a book. You are actually talking about something you actually read. You don't do a good job of summarizing his opinion, but it does look like you read the book.

Quote:

He writes with a lot of style and works in quotes from other scholars, but this is really pathetic as a search for historical fact. What he finds surprizing or unexpected is in his own mind, so he is just another person looking at the Rohrschach test of the Gospels, and finding a reflection of himself.

Actually, since Grant is a leading historian and has a good understanding of ancient history, he is qualified to determine what is "surprising or unexpected" by authors of that time. He does not say "this would be surprising to me," but "this would be surprising to someone with such and such beliefs raised in such and such a culture."

Grant's review of the gospels is interesting and informative, but it's not extraordinarily in depthy. But all you do is (mis)characterize him and claim .... what I'm not sure. Certainly it's true that there are good and bad historical investigations related to Jesus.

Toto · 09-27-2002, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Radorth:


2. How do we know they didn't mention Jesus if we don't have some or all of their works? Hearsay is OK? If so, how do we know the witness knew all they wrote?

Radorth

Later Christians selectively preserved ancient documents. It is reasonable to assume that if any of these historians had mentioned Jesus, their works would have been copied and preserved, and that if any had said Jesus was just a myth, they would not have been preserved. It's one of the things that makes all ancient history speculative.

Vinnie · 09-27-2002, 09:28 AM

Quote:

So what you are doing is launching an assault on the entire field of historical studies, not just an attack on the idea that there was a historical Jesus. You are attacking the idea that we can know there was a historical Paul, or a historial James, or a historial John the Baptist, or a historical Caesar, or a historical Alexander the Great. You deny historical knowledge, not just the historical Jesus.

I'm not sure if Doherty does that or not but I have noticed that about mythers in general on the internet. Their argument is not always against the HJ, but againt historical studies in general.

I guess if a person wants to overturn the study of ancient history then I suggest they get a doctorate and start expressing their views in peer reviewed journals. Otherwise you aren't going to get the time of day as far as I am concerned.

Vinnie

lpetrich · 09-27-2002, 09:30 AM

An example may be how the writings of Celsus, an early critic of Xianity, was preserved only in Origen's writings.

Atticus_Finch · 09-27-2002, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by leonarde:
Posted by galiel:
I would dispute that this is a single source though: even if you take the similarities of the
Synoptic Gospels to have been based on just one
witness account, there is John. The very last few
verses (24 and 25)of John indicate that it is a written version of an eyewitness testimony. So that would give us at least 2 sources: Synoptic and John's Gospel......

To lump these (minimal) two sources together as "The Bible" is just as silly as saying "If the King James Version was good enough for Saint Paul,
it's good enough for me!" : the Synoptics and John's Gospel are in the NT/Bible because they were judged by the Christian
faith community as being the best, most reliable
written records of the life, teachings, death, resurrection of Jesus. If there had been 6 such accounts so judged, probably they would have all been included in the canon....but they would have remained six sources, not one ('the Bible'). IOW the Bible is a sort of anthology.

Cheers!

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]

At least 3, Peter. I Peter 1:1-3

Regards,

Finch

Layman · 09-27-2002, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vinnie:
[QB]

I'm not sure if Doherty does that or not but I have noticed that about mythers in general on the internet. Their argument is not always against the HJ, but againt historical studies in general.

Actually, I want to clarify that I was not accusing Doherty being a historical nhilist like my friend Toto here (altough I think some of his "methods" would lead to that situation if applied by real historians). Doherty definitely thinks historical knowledge is possible because he makes an assertive claim -- Jesus did not exist.

Quote:

I guess if a person wants to overturn the study of ancient history then I suggest they get a doctorate and start expressing their views in peer reviewed journals. Otherwise you aren't going to get the time of day as far as I am concerned.

Vinnie

I would only add that you would have to read something other than whats in the Infidels.org library in order to get a doctorate in historical or New Testament studies.

Apikorus · 09-27-2002, 10:05 AM

Michael, NT scholars run the gamut from bibliolaters to hyperskeptics. The NT really isn't my cup of tea - I find it terribly boring - and I don't consider myself competent on the subject, but I have read a fair amount and I'd align myself more on the skeptical end (surprise) - Burton Mack, for example. (But not G. A. Wells.) You're correct in that HJ inquiry is largely based on an analysis of written sources, but these days it is also informed by sociology and archaeology of ancient Palestine.

I apologize if I have offended, but I found galiel's contentiousness annoying. I personally think that the historical Jesus is largely inaccessible given extant sources, and that his image in the NT is hopelessly refracted to the point where we can't hope to conclude much about his life with any real confidence. This is where I would disagree with Vinnie and Layman: it would take relatively little to deal a serious blow to Jesus' historicity - as galiel had pointed out, if you could nullify the evidence from Josephus (with a new find of 2nd century fragments of Antiquities, say), then really all you have are some very tendentious, interdependent gospel accounts. But, to state the obvious, our text of Josephus does refer to Jesus. Twice.

Evangelicals are often given to making ludicrous statements to the effect that "Jesus is the most historical figure in all (ancient) history". Well, Jesus may well be the most studied figure, but really he is more a Will o' the Wisp - he himself left no writings, there are no extant relevant inscriptions, no contemporary documentation for his life outside the gospel hagiographies and some admittedly shaky (but ultimately solid enough, in my view) words in Josephus, etc. You'd have to work a lot harder to deny the historicity of Tutankhamun or Muwatallis or Alexander or the city of Nineveh.

[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

09-27-2002, 10:05 AM	#70
Apikorus Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,396	Michael, NT scholars run the gamut from bibliolaters to hyperskeptics. The NT really isn't my cup of tea - I find it terribly boring - and I don't consider myself competent on the subject, but I have read a fair amount and I'd align myself more on the skeptical end (surprise) - Burton Mack, for example. (But not G. A. Wells.) You're correct in that HJ inquiry is largely based on an analysis of written sources, but these days it is also informed by sociology and archaeology of ancient Palestine. I apologize if I have offended, but I found galiel's contentiousness annoying. I personally think that the historical Jesus is largely inaccessible given extant sources, and that his image in the NT is hopelessly refracted to the point where we can't hope to conclude much about his life with any real confidence. This is where I would disagree with Vinnie and Layman: it would take relatively little to deal a serious blow to Jesus' historicity - as galiel had pointed out, if you could nullify the evidence from Josephus (with a new find of 2nd century fragments of Antiquities, say), then really all you have are some very tendentious, interdependent gospel accounts. But, to state the obvious, our text of Josephus does refer to Jesus. Twice. Evangelicals are often given to making ludicrous statements to the effect that "Jesus is the most historical figure in all (ancient) history". Well, Jesus may well be the most studied figure, but really he is more a Will o' the Wisp - he himself left no writings, there are no extant relevant inscriptions, no contemporary documentation for his life outside the gospel hagiographies and some admittedly shaky (but ultimately solid enough, in my view) words in Josephus, etc. You'd have to work a lot harder to deny the historicity of Tutankhamun or Muwatallis or Alexander or the city of Nineveh. [ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

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09-27-2002, 09:30 AM	#67
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	An example may be how the writings of Celsus, an early critic of Xianity, was preserved only in Origen's writings.

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