What makes a writing "Fiction" versus "History"?

[Paul the Uncertain]

Neil

So nice to meet you again on neutral ground.

Where we differ is that you hold that human category membership decisions are true-or-else-false, while I hold that they are often and typically more-or-less useful.

In your Thucydides example, his narrating an estimate of what did happen by an under- or undisclosed inclusion of what typically happens would be unacceptable by modern standards. However, it also does not make Thucydides a novelist by modern standards, either.

Modern uncertainty management recognizes that the speaker of substantive truth may employ approximation (that, after centuries of successful use of approximate reasoning in natural sciences, including the gold standard of scholarly truth-telling, physics).

Staying with your example, Thucydides narrated an approximation to the truth. That is easily distinguished both from modern historical practice (where some approximation would be allowed subject to disclosure and other conditions) and also from mainstream notions of fiction.

There is never a blurring.

Pi, 3.14157, 355/113, 22/7. ..., 3.

The exact truth begins and ends with the first item. Everything else is exactly false. Nevertheless, the first few are often useful and often used. Typically, that use is without explanation or apology, nor is that needed by the "trained reader."

Is the engineer who consistently uses 355/113 for pi when that is convenient and close enough flirting with fiction? I could say that she is indulging in a falsehood (which she is), but such a statement would be misleading. I would be holding her substantially truth-respecting practice to a standard of accuracy that has no relationship with what she is trying to accomplish.

I can't see the relevance of what undergrad students would rather study and be graded on.

It is one use for which the approximation to the truth that Shakespeare offered is adequate. The play is convenient and close enough to accurate for the purpose stated, according to the estimation-makers named.

[iskander]

Jesus was a Jewish heretic : he was a real man born of a woman ...because the Jewish liturgy was modified to protect Jewish believers from becoming under the influence of the teachings of Jesus. There is, therefore, external evidence to support the Gospel of Mark.

You got nothing at all, only noise.

...Of course that doesn't prove his figure of Jesus did not exist, but it gives us no reason to think he did, either. And most(?) critical biblical scholars would agree that Mark's figure of Jesus is indeed a fiction.

[neilgodfrey]

Jesus was a Jewish heretic : he was a real man born of a woman ...because the Jewish liturgy was modified to protect Jewish believers from becoming under the influence of the teachings of Jesus. There is, therefore, external evidence to support the Gospel of Mark.

You got nothing at all, only noise.

...Of course that doesn't prove his figure of Jesus did not exist, but it gives us no reason to think he did, either. And most(?) critical biblical scholars would agree that Mark's figure of Jesus is indeed a fiction.

The words of mine you quoted are expressing agreement with what "most critical biblical scholars" have written. So I don't know why you are taking up the question of the historicity of Jesus here.

Your question should probably be in another thread, but I'll tell you why your rabbi's words don't persuade me.

1. Your quotation of his explanation of the dropping of the recitation of the Ten Commandments from the liturgy gives no reason to assume Jesus was the underlying reason. What did Jesus teach that could have led the priests to drop the Ten Commandments from the liturgical recitations at the sacrificial ritual? I can think of nothing. Can you?

2. Your rabbi speaks of "heresies" in the first century. What is the meaning of that word? Is it the same word Josephus uses to describe the various Jewish factions -- Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes? Why would the rabbi assume that Christianity was the heresy that caused the Ten Commandments to be dropped from a liturgy? What other Jewish factions do we know about? Was there a Qumran community? Was their an Enochian community? We know of Paul's Christians in the first century. What did Paul teach that would lead to the Ten Commandments to be dropped from the liturgy? If we think the Palestinian Christians were Ebionites and existed at that time, what did they teach that might lead to the dropping of the Ten Commandments from the liturgy?

In other words, if the "heresy" was responsible for the dropping of the Ten Commandments from the liturgy, then what Jewish faction do we know of from any period that would have led to that change? If you think it had to be the Christians, then you need to tell us what the Christians taught that meant the Ten Commandments had to be dropped from the liturgy. I can't imagine any such teaching.

3. The rabbi says only that "presumably" the heretics are Christians but gives no reasons for his presumption, and even if we agreed he were right and the Christians were the heretics, that tells us nothing about Jesus or the gospel narrative -- which seems to be what you are interested in proving.

4. Your rabbi is discussing the shortening of a liturgy that appears to have been prompted by schedules to finish by a certain point of day/sunset.* Presumably other rabbis suggest there is another reason -- heretics! So which explanation makes more sense to you?

5. What evidence do we have that the relevant rabbis lived in the first century CE and that the debates attributed to them were 'real'? I understand that some scholars think that the rabbinic debates in the Talmud reflect later debates that have been re-set in Second Temple times.

* (Aside: Can you imagine God sitting up there smiling with pleasure when they get the last syllable out just as the sun from their perspective hits the horizon -- even though God from his position doesn't even get to see any sunsets?)

[neilgodfrey]

In your Thucydides example, his narrating an estimate of what did happen by an under- or undisclosed inclusion of what typically happens would be unacceptable by modern standards. However, it also does not make Thucydides a novelist by modern standards, either.

We agree. Genres are fluid and matters of definition. Ancient historical writing and understanding was not the same as ours.

There is never a blurring.

Pi, 3.14157, 355/113, 22/7. ..., 3.

The exact truth begins and ends with the first item. Everything else is exactly false. Nevertheless, the first few are often useful and often used. Typically, that use is without explanation or apology, nor is that needed by the "trained reader."

Is the engineer who consistently uses 355/113 for pi when that is convenient and close enough flirting with fiction? I could say that she is indulging in a falsehood (which she is), but such a statement would be misleading. I would be holding her substantially truth-respecting practice to a standard of accuracy that has no relationship with what she is trying to accomplish.

I don't think there is any fudging of a truth or a "close enough" claim that there was a barge chugging down the canal when I wrote my earlier comment. To say Japan bombed Pearl Harbor is also a "convenient" contraction but it is not a fiction because it is a mere contraction for convenience and usefulness. It is still a historical fact as distinct from fiction.

I can't see the relevance of what undergrad students would rather study and be graded on.

It is one use for which the approximation to the truth that Shakespeare offered is adequate. The play is convenient and close enough to accurate for the purpose stated, according to the estimation-makers named.

Shakespeare is irrelevant to the historian of Julius Caesar -- unless of course he is studying the idea of Julius Caesar throughout history, etc. But to the historian of ancient times Shakespeare is irrelevant.

If students are going to learn all they need to know about the historical Julius Caesar from Shakespeare then they are simply learning a fiction that is going to be useful for getting along in the world for whenever they hear a mention of Julius Caesar, but they are not learning history. They are merely being socialised with an appropriate curriculum. They can call it "history" but that would be a very loose meaning of the term and not the sense in which I thought we are discussing it.

[iskander]

Mark tells the story of a Jewish heretic and the change in the Jewish liturgy confirms the existence of this problem in the first century AD


See attached file.

[neilgodfrey]

Mark tells the story of a Jewish heretic and the change in the Jewish liturgy confirms the existence of this problem in the first century AD


See attached file.

The only part of the file that I can see does not answer any of the questions I raised.

Am I to understand that you do not have an answer for the difficulties I raised with your claim and can only tell me to read other works, even if you cannot tell me how those other works address my questions?

[iskander]

Mark tells the story of a Jewish heretic and the change in the Jewish liturgy confirms the existence of this problem in the first century AD


See attached file.

The only part of the file that I can see does not answer any of the questions I raised.

Am I to understand that you do not have an answer for the difficulties I raised with your claim and can only tell me to read other works, even if you cannot tell me how those other works address my questions?

This one is the only comment that requires an answer.

...Of course that doesn't prove his figure of Jesus did not exist, but it gives us no reason to think he did, either. And most(?) critical biblical scholars would agree that Mark's figure of Jesus is indeed a fiction.

Jesus was a Jewish heretic that lived in the first century AD . Only the ten words come from God !!!
See attached file

[Paul the Uncertain]

Neil

We agree. Genres are fluid and matters of definition. Ancient historical writing and understanding was not the same as ours.

All agreement is welcome. Can we make some progress, then, on the idea that those fluids might mix sometimes?

I don't think there is any fudging of a truth or a "close enough" claim that there was a barge chugging down the canal when I wrote my earlier comment.

What you quoted from me wasn't directed at your observation of the barge. I accepted your brief report as literally true, as far as it went, after allowing for a loose interpretation of your verb, to chug (as I think you wanted your reader to do).

Shakespeare is irrelevant to the historian of Julius Caesar

Which profession exists because there are other parties to the transactions by which the historian earns the bread to sustain her life. Historians get to dictate who belongs to their professional societies. They don't get to dictate what history is, and have no vote qua historians in what fiction is.

In particular, they don't get to enforce a market-sharing arrangement to bar the consumer of approximately factual information about the human past from buying Shakespeare's play to satisfy his or her goals, rather than buying a substitute good from a competing "peer approved" vendor.

I marvel that this is news to you, the vigorous advocate of a minority view about a relatively simple secular fact claim concerning the human past. If historians get to dictate whose writings are history, then yours aren't. Full stop. If consumers have a voice in the matter, then maybe yours are history after all.

....they are simply learning a fiction that is going to be useful for getting along in the world for whenever they hear a mention of Julius Caesar...

Unlikely. I suspect the typical undergraduate student easily distinguishes between clear fact claims like "Marc Antony was politically allied with the living Julius" as opposed to unperfected or fully non-claims like, "Marc Antony addressed a crowd gathered about Julius' corpse using the phrase 'Friends, Romans, countrymen: lend me your ears ...' "

Nevertheless, smart money says that Antony made one or two political speeches at about that time. The drift of those speeches may well have been his fitness to lead a movement that Julius launched.

they are not learning history.

They are if previously they couldn't name a political ally of Julius Caesar. Now they can name one. That's what learning is, and what they've learned in this case is fairly called history.

They can call it "history"

Ah, then you're right, we do agree.

but that would be a very loose meaning of the term and not the sense in which I thought we are discussing it.

OK. I thought the topic was what writings can reasonably be called fiction and what can reasonably be called history, within the English-speaking linguistic community at large (as opposed to looking only at jargon-sharing specialist subcommunities).

[neilgodfrey]

This one is the only comment that requires an answer.

...Of course that doesn't prove his figure of Jesus did not exist, but it gives us no reason to think he did, either. And most(?) critical biblical scholars would agree that Mark's figure of Jesus is indeed a fiction.

Jesus was a Jewish heretic that lived in the first century AD . Only the ten words come from God !!!
See attached file

Those words were the same words I read in the webpage that you quoted earlier. I attempted to explain why they do not persuade me in my earlier

comment above

There is no evidence given to tell us that the 'minim' were in fact Christians. That is a guess. Much modern scholarship doubts that they were Christians at that early time.

But if you want to argue that Christians did cause the liturgy to be changed, can you explain how they did that? What was it that the Christians taught or said that might have led the rabbis to remove the Decalogue from the liturgy?

I can't imagine the rabbis doing any such thing because of Christians. It makes no sense to me.

Your rabbi's webpage further points out that the shortening of the liturgy was thought by other rabbis to have been prompted by the desire to finish reciting the liturgy by sunset. They needed to find a way to shorten it. That makes more sense to me.

Even if the 'minim' were Christians, how does that prove to us that Jesus existed and was a heretic?

[iskander]

This post may succeed in explaining why there is one reason for accepting the existence of a Jewish heretic in the first century AD, one as Jesus

Re: The secret of the sacrifices
by iskander » Sun Apr 03, 2016 2:50 am
http://www.bmv.org.il/shiurim/tamid/tam05.html
Jewish liturgy before Yeshu HaNotzri recited the ten commandments before any other prayer in the morning service. This prayer was dropped to protect the power of the management. This change was not a trivial one.



The importance and the timing of this liturgical change is explained in these videos, already referred to in this thread,
http://www.torahcafe.com/rabbi-tzvi-her ... a07b2.html

http://www.torahcafe.com/rabbi-benjamin ... a8f1c.html


A summary is given here , of the heresy
Heretics in the history of religious people.

Yerushalmi Berakhot
The Talmud of the Land of Israel
Tractate Blessings
http://halakhah.com/yerushalmi_berakhot ... y_2010.pdf
Page 56
"[F] [F-J discusses the practice of not reciting the verses of the Ten Commandments and the story of Balaam.] R. Matna and R. Samuel bar Nahman said, “By rights they should recite the verses of the Ten Commandments every day. And why do they not do so? On account of the claims of the heretics. So that people should not have any cause to say that only these [Ten Commandments] were given to Moses on Mount Sinai.”


http://www.chabad.org/library/article_c ... ter-11.htm
Halacha 4
...
"Jesus of Nazareth who aspired to be the Mashiach and was executed by the court was also alluded to in Daniel's prophecies, as ibid. 11:14 states: 'The vulgar among your people shall exalt themselves in an attempt to fulfill the vision, but they shall stumble.'"
iskander

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2173&start=30