What is "a reasohable doubt?" (for Pete and everyone)

[Metacrock]

The rest of that OP is somewhat negative eg. -

History is probability. Although a strange kind of probability to which we cannot put numbers.1

or

the question before us is "when does it become reasonable to doubt?"

Good history (ie. good historical methodology) is nuanced, contextual, and realistic.

I assume that by "good history" you mean good historiography? what do you mean by that? in what sense? how exactly does that contradict history being probabilistic?1

Historiography is

• * the writing of history; or
  
  * the study of the writing of history and of written histories.

That is slightly different to 'The Historical Method'

the primary method of history doing is reading and writing, Historiography is also the term historians use for theory of h0w history should be done. In the 19th century when history really became an academic subject there were two schools, histrocism and historiogophy, the former was like Hegel big sweeping panarama of the big picture and the latter was, not reductionist but analogous to it. More pragmatic more concerned with empirical matters. The latter won out and the Hegelian thing became unfashionable.


1If history is 'probabilistic', then surely one can attribute or put numbers to such probables?

.[/quote]

Historians speak of "historical probability" a special concept., can't establish a percentage of probability if you don't know all the variables. if knew that we wouldn;t need the probability. Not everything in history is unquantifiable in terms of likelihood but many things are,

[neilgodfrey]

I know I'm going to regret entering this little discussion but here goes -- a question for starters:

Who are some persons universally accepted as genuinely historical on the basis of "stories alone"?

[Metacrock]

I know I'm going to regret entering this little discussion but here goes -- a question for starters:

Who are some persons universally accepted as genuinely historical on the basis of "stories alone"?

First of all when you call something a "story" that's a loaded term. It could be used innocently or it could be a lot of things including a euphemism for "fiction," or even "lie." I went through a big thing on Reppert's dangerous idea blog where an atheist was using the designation "story" as a weapon, waving it in our faces, That's why I thought Pete might be doing that. He was not apparently,

The Bible does not say 'here are stories about Jesus." In terming them stories you are already tagging them as fictional. Your question implies just that, stories are some category of falsehood or sham. In reality it depends upon who is telling the story and why. There is a narrative form of historiography.

Moreover Jesus is not substantiated only by Narrative. But in fact all of history gives Jesus presumption as historical, Only a handful of actual actual academic historians don't accept that. To get around it mythicists make up their own standards of historiography.

King Arthur is thought to be based upon a real guy but we have no evidence at all for such except one list of chieftains in a battle all it says is his name.

Herodotus demythologized Greek myth and wrote history based upom it. He assumed real evemts ehind the stories,

Xenophon's Anabasis was a bunch of stories but they were about a real military campaign that they were on,

[neilgodfrey]

So you can't identify any person universally accepted as genuinely historical on the grounds of stories -- whether from an ancient historical or fictional or mythical or theological or philosophical or dramatic or indeterminate or other genre -- alone?

I'm sure you can if you stop to think for a few moments.

[neilgodfrey]

I ask because I sometimes think of history as being a bit like real life. How often do any of us believe anything solely because of the story we hear about it?

[Peter Kirby]

I ask because I sometimes think of history as being a bit like real life. How often do any of us believe anything solely because of the story we hear about it?

I'm not quite sure how everyone is using this word "story." We might want to be more specific about our terminology to avoid confusion.

Personally I think we (if not you) commonly accept or believe statements based on nothing other than human testimony, and I also think that most of us don't hesitate to accept human testimony at second hand (I heard this witness say...). After second hand, I do think that many of us start to apply considerable additional skepticism (...though I am not going to say most).

Frankly, of course, in our daily habits, as a species, we're rather credulous for the simple reason that certainty is expensive. Because it's expensive to get to the bottom of things, in terms of time, people act as if things are true, even if they are not known to be true beyond all reasonable doubt, quite frequently.

Indeed it is a ritualized exception to this rule when we go through all the formalized trouble to hold a trial (to determine whether there is adequate evidence regarding a crime) or perform a scientific experiment (to determine whether certain generalizations about empirical matters muster at least some measure of statistical significance).

Back on the subject, there is of course a very real problem in determining the "genre" and/or "intent" of an ancient text, and that's part of what I am talking about when I am asking that the reliability of a story (= tale, narrative, without prejudice to genre or intent) be considered first before its contents are declared established as true beyond a reasonable doubt. The alternative is absurd, of course, if not madness: "no, I haven't done anything to check that the text was intended literally or that the author had both motive and means to tell the truth about the subject, or done anything ta all to verify it otherwise, but I believe it to be certain anyway!" (Yes, "beyond reasonable doubt" and "certain" [in a not-completely-strict sense of the latter, not in a mathematical or solipsistic philosophical sense...] are essentially synonymous, so if anyone is struggling to find the meaning of the former expression, they might be aided by their understanding of the latter.)

In any case, I don't see the point of having a pseudo-debate on the pseudo-topic of whether a statement in a text is established as true beyond a reasonable doubt unless and until the statement is shown to be false. This is the kind of perversity that is sometimes fostered by a theological education, perhaps, but which shouldn't detain ordinary rational human beings.

[Metacrock]

I ask because I sometimes think of history as being a bit like real life. How often do any of us believe anything solely because of the story we hear about it?

I'm not quite sure how everyone is using this word "story." We might want to be more specific about our terminology to avoid confusion.

Personally I think we (if not you) commonly accept or believe statements based on nothing other than human testimony, and I also think that most of us don't hesitate to accept human testimony at second hand (I heard this witness say...). After second hand, I do think that many of us start to apply considerable additional skepticism (...though I am not going to say most).

History is human testimony. We are talking about mere existence not miracles. I see not reason to assume the Gospels are fictional, we know they were collections of the oral traditions of communities we know the oral tradition was about teaching the community the sayings sand actions of Jesus. Not reason to think it was fiction.

Frankly, of course, in our daily habits, as a species, we're rather credulous for the simple reason that certainty is expensive. Because it's expensive to get to the bottom of things, in terms of time, people act as if things are true, even if they are not known to be true beyond all reasonable doubt, quite frequently.

Indeed it is a ritualized exception to this rule when we go through all the formalized trouble to hold a trial (to determine whether there is adequate evidence regarding a crime) or perform a scientific experiment (to determine whether certain generalizations about empirical matters muster at least some measure of statistical significance).

Interesting points

Back on the subject, there is of course a very real problem in determining the "genre" and/or "intent" of an ancient text, and that's part of what I am talking about when I am asking that the reliability of a story (= tale, narrative, without prejudice to genre or intent) be considered first before its contents are declared established as true beyond a reasonable doubt.

sure, good point, I don't mean to imply that it's all so each and obvious. There are problems, we don't even know who The Galatians were. I think we can be pretty sure the Gospels were about communicating real events, that's not to say there aren't thorny problems since their redaction and sermonic seeming intent sort of leads them to create a kind of mythical reality but it's based upon real events.

The alternative is absurd, of course, if not madness: "no, I haven't done anything to check that the text was intended literally or that the author had both motive and means to tell the truth about the subject, or done anything ta all to verify it otherwise, but I believe it to be certain anyway!" (Yes, "beyond reasonable doubt" and "certain" [in a not-completely-strict sense of the latter, not in a mathematical or solipsistic philosophical sense...] are essentially synonymous, so if anyone is struggling to find the meaning of the former expression, they might be aided by their understanding of the latter.

sure we can avoid that sort of thing without the opposite extreme were mark wrote a fictional novel and people just started thinking it was real.

In any case, I don't see the point of having a pseudo-debate on the pseudo-topic of whether a statement in a text is established as true beyond a reasonable doubt unless and until the statement is shown to be false. This is the kind of perversity that is sometimes fostered by a theological education, perhaps, but which shouldn't detain ordinary rational human beings.

You can't show it to be true by showing it's false, You have to show that we would know false if we saw it so we have a way of knowing its true. you don't think it's reasonable to have reasona le doubt.

[neilgodfrey]

Metacrock - let me try again but this time I will add "testimony" to the list of genres of story. (Story can be any type, any genre -- "story" defined as you like.)

So you can't identify any person universally accepted as genuinely historical on the grounds of stories -- whether from testimony or an ancient historical or fictional or mythical or theological or philosophical or dramatic or indeterminate or other genre -- alone?

If you can't then that's fine. Simply say it cannot be done and I can move on.

[spin]

I see not reason to assume the Gospels are fictional, we know they were collections of the oral traditions of communities we know the oral tradition was about teaching the community the sayings sand actions of Jesus. Not reason to think it was fiction.

This is naturally ludicrous nonsense. You start with an opinion ("I see no reason"), making one think how faulty your reasoning could be. This leads to a negation of an assertion that is in itself an assertion. There seems to be an implied assumption that there are only two types of text: truth and fiction. Then a butterfly move from gospels to collections of oral traditions, without any justification. These traditions are according to you sayings and actions of Jesus. Another assertion. Sure, no reason to think it was fiction: you haven't turned your brain on. There is however sufficient gospel content that points to non-reality, which you are stuck calling fiction.

● Consider the temptation: where did that narrative come from, ie who could have been the witness? I guess you can come up with the witless rationalization that Jesus told people of his temptation.
● Just as outlandish is the Gethsemane story which features tree disciples who Jesus asked to be vigilant but who fell asleep, yet we have the report of Jesus going off away from them and praying to god three times. We get the words and anguish of Jesus in this narrative while those disciples slept. Oops, no witnesses possible, even though that witless rationalizer could try to claim that they were neither really asleep nor did Jesus go very far at all. (Jesus, Peter, I wish I had that ROTFLMAO smiley.)
● Then there's the give unto Caesar denarii that Jesus calls for, even though denarii weren't used in Judea, now were Greek coins (leptas) two of which were equivalent to one Roman quadrans (in the widow's mitres story). We get clever dudes suggesting that they got Roman and Greek coins from soldiers, but if one perused the pages of Meshorrer's Judean coin catalogs you would not find any sizable number to suggest that ordinary people recognized such coins.
● Then there is the Syro-Phoenician woman. Syro-Phoenician woman indeed! The term requires a Roman perspective that needs "Syro-" to distinguish from Lybo-Phoenicians. Yet Jesus is supposed to have gone off to Tyre and met a Syro-Phoenician woman.

These are prime candidates for ahistoricity.

● We could add the doublets found in Mark such as the feeding of the 5000/4000 and the healing of the blind/deaf person through spittle, which indicate a development of traditions spawning new ones collected by the intervention of redaction. Add one man/one angel/two men at the tomb, two of which are not historical being redactional efforts, as was Matt's two blind men to Mark's one.
● Then there's the famous Petrine recognition that Jesus was the christ, which provoked the response, upon this rock I build my church from the mouth of Jesus, yet Jesus uses the word "church" as one would expect from the organized church and unlike anyone else before that time. At the same time Jesus conveys the notion that the church was a singular organization that could be built. This usage is only registered in Matt's redaction. One might try to argue that Jesus was being prophetic and that his disciples wouldn't have understood what he meant but posterity would. ROTFLMAO.

Metacrock, you have a mighty big carpet to sweep stuff under so that you can ignore the ahistorical material in the gospels that prevent most people who think about it from making the sorts of naive assertions as you have done as cited at the start of this post. Now go back and do your work rather than lazily assuming you don't need to.

[Peter Kirby]

It's worth reminding the long-suffering reader what the conclusion of my brief essay was:

http://peterkirby.com/the-best-case-for-jesus.html

As the best possible case that can be made for the historicity of Jesus, there is enough ambiguity in the evidence here that we cannot conclude that the problem has been settled once and for all.

In other words, the point of the essay was merely to open up the question for further inquiry, as a question worthy of investigation rather than as something on which the case has been closed, shut, barred, and forbidden from serious consideration.

It's strange that this is considered objectionable by anyone, given the pathetically limp nature of the negative responses, which have been very light on actually bringing evidence. Indeed I have yet to meet anyone who gave a stronger reason establishing the historicity of Jesus than the few mentioned in that essay. The most common response has been a hand-waving sort of appeal to the evidence (whatever that might be) and that there actually is a very good case (which might be...?). Some have also made a couple lesser and even-more-subjective arguments, typically aimed against particular non-historicist hypotheses.

If anything, the conclusion of this essay is one of the most clear ones available to us. This question needs to be considered 'opened up' for real discussion, debate, and inquiry. There is nothing to gain from the policy of silence, unless (perhaps) one is an apologist and doesn't wish the facts of the case to see the light of day.