By "looking for assurance of the author's reliability" I was thinking of the standard tools historians use, like informing us of his sources, expressions of scepticism when appropriate, etc. And of course an author can lie about even these, that's why I mentioned the "big bag of variables" rather than go on to a full discussion of all the caveats and details of the method. I'd rather address details in small doses as they arise in a conversational format.Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:40 am Neil
And yet, a staple of counterapologetics is to mock Paul for saying that he is not lying. Perhaps rightly so, perhaps unfairly. We lack the other side of the correspondence, so for all we know, he was accused of lying. The mockery is that "I am not lying" is just what a liar would say.And of course we look for the author's interest in assuring us of the reliability of his account, giving us some idea of his sources, sharing and acknowledging our scepticism when relating most remarkable events, etc. Not that these are guarantees --- but such factors go in to the big bag of variables that need to be considered in any reading.
I keep coming back to Steve Mason's discussion but there are many others who practice the same thing: "lying" or "deception", deliberate or unconscious, is all part of what researchers work at detecting in their sources.
Exactly so. Hence the necessity of knowing something of the provenance of a source, author included, in order to know how to interpret it. (I did not understand the couple of paragraphs about game theory etc that preceded the sentence I have responded to here.)Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:40 am If you prefer, the heuristic can be shorn of its tie to formal game theory, "All communication is self-serving."
That's not how sound historical method works, in my understanding.Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:40 am If "historical method" is to believe more readily some unverifiable claim because other unverifiable claims were made at the same time, then "historical method" needs some work.
Sorry but I don't understand your approach here. We seem to have quite different approaches to the gospel of Mark, bringing to our reading of it quite different assumptions and interests.Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:40 amIn the meantime, among the many things I respect Mark for is not wasting my time with irrelevancies that could not possibly change a rational person's estimate of the truth of what he asserts. (I have no idea whether achieving his reader's belief was among Mark's goals, I only know the uses to which his writing has been put.)
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For example, I love it that Mark identifies Simon of Cyrene's kids (a fact claim) and doesn't waste my time connecting the dots babbling about whether they are among his sources. His claim can accomplish only one thing: to establish that it is possible for him to know what happened that day, and the claim is self-proving as to that possibility (yes, it is possible, no, I don't know what any "Simon of Cyrene" would tell me, if I could ask him, which I can't).