TedM

The very reason embarrassment that is implied is the idea that Jesus may have been a mere man seeking forgiveness.

spin

Everybody wants to invent their own new age Jesus. Jesus may have been a pharisee, a cynic, an apocalyptic nutter, a zealot, a car salesman, or just an ordinary Joe seeking forgiveness, but then again all they've got to work with is a tradition contained in texts that are anonymous, unprovenanced and undated, texts which show a tendency to have been reworked and contain purely imaginary content. So no-one with a brain cares what Jesus may have been until one can find a way to spring him from the jail of text. While he is just a character in a tradition all the "may have beens" in the world are just hot air. The notion of embarrassment is a phase shift from text to anonymous writers based on the assumption that one can somehow unite the two. It's just text. The criterion of embarrassment is a sideshow of the christian circus.

Come and watch the death-defying hermeneutics of Madame Wellendowed, the woman with three breasts, who will turn the graphic novel hero Pinocchio into a real boy by appealing to the length of his nose being such an embarrassment that the nose--and, by extension, the boy--must be real!!! Her act certainly sells a load of popcorn.

TedM

The criteria of embarrassment relies on subjectivity, common sense, intuition, knowledge of human nature, and -as much as it can-on evidence with regard to the texts, their authors, and the cultures in which they lived. It's a mixed bag. Some people are better than others at ferreting out the truth and will never be able to convince those less gifted that they have a superior insight. Am I one of those? Hell, I don't know. Are the scholars that seem to agree on certain passages? Hell, I don't know. Is the lack of evidence too great to overcome with subjective analysis? Hell, I don't know. Internal certainty is sometimes wrong, and sometimes right, but as with nearly all historical methodologies, it will fall short of being able to provide proof that everyone can agree on. History isn't science, so I see no good reason to throw out a methodology which when used by some people can be used to find the truth even if others are not able to discern it themselves.

Toto

This does not describe a secular science. If we are engaged in a scholarly enterprise, the test of whether you have ferreted out the "truth" is whether you can survive peer review in the long run.
If you have to ask, the answer is no.

If the method does not lead to consistent results in the hands of different scholars, it is not a method.

It gets worse.

If those who use this so called methodology can't convince their peers, there is no way to validate it. That makes it useless.

These people who think they have the truth but can't convince their peers - might as well just start a new cult. They are not doing scholarship.

spin

In short it is a tool of witch-doctors and shamans. Oh and sellers of bullshit.

Subjectivity is also called eisegesis. Common sense is called ignorance of the field. Intuition is called short-circuiting, which may have positive results if you knew how to test the results, but here you don't. Knowledge of human nature is akin to common sense. And finally, we get to the nitty-gritty, the commodity that faux TedM is so lacking in: evidence.

Padding.



I'm sure you would use tea leaves and phrenology as methodologies as well.

Some methodologies are more functional than others. The criterion of embarrassment is not a tool of historiography. It is a tool of religious studies. You don't find it used by real historians, just biblical scholars.

TedM

You mean 'valid method'. How consistent do the results have to be? Aren't ALL methodologies subject to interpretation, thus being subject to complete consistency and total inaccuracy if the group interpreting is ignorant?


Validation? Isn't 'validation' subjective?

You mean like the mythers?

Toto

Peer review is supposed to be the contol.

Some of the "mythers" have the expectation of being able to convince their peers. They write books using standard arguments, sometimes write peer reviewed articles, and at least attempt to convince the scholarly community.

But I did have Acharya S in mind when I wrote that. She spends most of her time using a methodology that is not accepted by the academy, astrotheology, and spends most of her time talking to supporters.

aa5874

I told you already that you really don't know what you are talking about.

The criterion of embarrassment cannot be applied to the NT Canon because it is a compilation of fiction, implausibility, mythology and FAITH.

Your statement confirms that you don't know what you are talking about.

In the Gospels, at the time when Jesus was supposedly baptized he was not even known by John. He was not known as the Christ or the Son of God. He did not perform any miracles.

If Jesus did exist as a mere sinner man and was baptized then his baptism could NOT be embarrassing to Jews who were themselves being baptized by John.

ficino

Apologies to anyone who mentioned Mark 14:51. It says that a certain youth had followed Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane, clad only in a "sindon" over his nakedness (thin cloth - same word as cloth used to wrap jesus' body), and when they laid hold of him, he left the cloth and escaped naked. This is in no other gospel. Morton Smith used it in his argument that Jesus was a "magus" who was conducting an cultic initiation, during which the young man was to have sex with the master. It certainly seems as though writers of the other gospels found this verse "embarrassing." Postulating though that gMark is fiction, does anyone have a clue why this would be in there?

outhouse

To date it is still puzzling to scholars.