Rules of Historical Reasoning

[Ben C. Smith]

(Amusingly, you did the same thing, writing that the parinirvana is not the date of the Buddha's death but rather the date of his death. But again, thanks for keeping things clear. There is enough confusion on these threads without slips of the pen interfering, as well.)

[Bernard Muller]

So you do not agree with Carrier's arguments that he draws from the sources, but you do not object the use of a wide range of sources yourself.

I am sure you are aware of the historian Daniel Boyarim. Boyarin in The Jewish Gospels appeals in part to sources even as late as the sixteenth century to support his argument that the concept of a dying messiah was not at all alien to pre-Christian Judaism or unique to Christianity. And yes, he appeals to midrash, too, in late sources, including those of

Moshe Alshich -- 1508-1593
Nachmanides -- 1194-1270
Yefet ben Ali -- 10th century

So use of very late sources can in principle be justified by professional historians. You may not agree with their arguments or conclusions, but you cannot fault Carrier or Boyarim in principle for their application of Day's rule #5.
Top

I think that appealing to sources which postdate the studied time period by centuries is simply horrific. And I don't care if that comes from a historian or not.
Furthermore, Daniel Boyarin is a religious historian, and seems biased by his Judaism.
And I do not think Mark Day had that in mind when writing his rule 5:

The historian is warned not to depend too much on a single document, but rather to utilize a wide range of evidence. This warning is to some extent implicit in the demand for source criticism, since it is obvious that no serious source criticism can proceed without employing knowledge gained from other sources.

Actually, I do not see here in the text where that dubious method would be allowed.

Cordially, Bernard

[neilgodfrey]

I think that appealing to sources which postdate the studied time period by centuries is simply horrific. And I don't care if that comes from a historian or not.

So you don't bother to listen to the explanations why they use such late documents or their explanations of how they contribute to their thesis. You fault them without a hearing.

[neilgodfrey]

The Marcan narrative says on the surface that Jesus was crucified on the Day of Passover, but there are indications of a source behind the Marcan text in which Jesus was crucified on the Eve of Passover. This is Theissen's starting point. How is this not addressing the logic of the narrative?

That sounds quite kosher. But I thought we were talking about another specific example that you referenced, one in particular that was related to anonymous persons. I was not addressing every point by Theissen but the particular points I understood that you raised.

In the questions posed by Theissen there is no literary or narrative logic in question. The question arises for reasons that are entirely external to the source(s) -- and therefore, I suggest, not methodological sound as source criticism.

????

Why the ????

Theissen's discussion of anonymous persons, a particular example you raised and the one I was addressing, is not a source-critical question.

Both Carrier and Theissen attempted to read the mind of the putative author of an alleged source text, did they not?

No. I attempted to make that explicitly clear. Obviously I failed.

The first step in reading the mind of an author (not that we can do that seriously, but only as far as attempting to understand the text at hand) is to understand the nature of the work, or what is commonly called "genre". That includes literary devices used, what we know of the type of literature in its broader cultural context. That has to be the starting point -- understanding what we are reading. That also includes some attempt to understand the origins of the text -- its sources, inspirations, influences.

Did Carrier do this? I have since been able to lay hands on his book again, and I cannot see where he discussed the genre of his putative source at all.

Yes, he did. Chapter 10 in particular.

Carrier's question arises from the nature of narrative logic, from the source data itself.

Yes, it does. That's what I was saying. That's the point.

Perhaps we have some confusion of meanings of terms like "narrative logic" and "source data"?

Theissen appears to be raising his question about the anonymity of persons without regard for the genre or wider literary context of the details in the narrative of GMark.

I can agree that Theissen does not discuss, to the best of my memory, the genre of his putative source text, either.

Yet he mentions little details that have the potential to open up this question, but he glosses over them without a second thought in that direction. Example: he acknowledges the possibility, advanced by some scholars, that the youth fleeing naked was a symbolic detail. (How many historians, including ancient ones, mingle genuine history with symbolic narratives as if they are all of the one story?)

Theissen's hypothesis is based on questions about why a source depicted a person anonymously in a certain scene.

Again, Theissen's hypothesis is based on the issue of which day is said to be the day of Jesus' crucifixion. The text as it stands is uneven on that score. I am not sure how you are justifying to yourself the notion that this is not a source-critical question.

As stated above, this is a new point introduced into this post that I was not addressing earlier.

I have no difficulty with scholarly arguments relating to source criticism that point to different sources behind varying dates for the crucifixion. One who has written a very large tome just on that one question is Karel Hanhart. His work (The Empty Tomb) is a good example of source criticism throughout, from what I recall. (Not saying that one has to agree with his arguments, but he does understand source criticism and discusses in great detail the apparent traditions for different dates behind the crucifixion.)

eventually leading to hypotheses about motives for omitting names.

Which is what I was addressing, and which is going beyond/bypassing source criticism.

Carrier is not simply arguing from silence. He is arguing from a situation in which an argument from silence does indeed carry weight. When we have silence where we had very good reasons to expect noise (the dog that didn't bark) then the argument is not so weak.

I profoundly disagree with your assessment of his argument here. But I also accept that you are not necessarily trying to justify his conclusions, and have averred that it is possible he overreached.

but when Paul is on trial, where in fact historicist details are even more relevant and would even more certainly come up, they are suddenly completely absent. (Carrier, p. 367)

We can disagree with his argument, but his argument is not that Paul is silent at that point, but that it is an unexpected silence. That's his argument, whatever we think of it.

I want to get more feedback from you on the issue of the timing of the crucifixion being the initial and main reason for suspecting a passion source behind Mark before writing more on the topic, since you seem to be under the misapprehension that the anonymity of certain characters is the starting point for Theissen. I have given the page numbers to consult above.

Well the anonymity question was a key point you raised as a basis for your criticism and the one I addressed. This is a new point, the one about timing of the crucifixion, now.

[neilgodfrey]

In the meantime, I wonder what you might think of the case for or against the "historical Siddhārtha Gautama" (as it were). I am not an expert in Buddhist origins, but I have gathered over the years that there is absolutely no primary evidence for his life and times, that the very date of his flourit has been debated within the range of a couple of centuries, that the first historical notices about him come nearly two centuries after a commonly purported date of his death, that the first biography written about him dates to about 300 years after his death, and that all the potential archaeological evidence for his existence is of a solidly indirect nature (such as the existence of a structure thought to be a shrine at the alleged place of his birth). The Wikipedia article summarizes:

Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara (c. 558 – c. 491 BCE, or c. 400 BCE), the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatasatru, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara.

....

The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all historians.

....

The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE.

I know this is only Wikipedia, but I have done some reading and have confirmed at least the broad outline of the above information.

On the one hand, as the article says, scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of Gautama's life. I will readily admit that biblical scholars' claims are not always qualified as they should be; and, if that is your only point on this subject, then I concede it immediately. That is, if you are happy for biblical scholars to carry on as they are, just with the single proviso that they (more accurately) characterize their conclusions as quite tentative, then I am in agreement.

On the other hand, however, I gather that the article is correct when it asserts that "most accept" that Gautama lived and taught and so forth. They are accepting these basic facts based solely on patently secondary sources (you can scan the first biography of the Buddha here: https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/ ... carita.pdf, comparing it to the theological content and overall approach of the gospels) and highly indirect inferences from archaeology and other points of converging history.

In India: A History, for example, John Keay writes:

Only the dates remain problematic. Buddhist sources show a healthy respect for chronology, and usually disdain the mathematical symmetries and astronomical exaggerations found in Vedic and Jain texts.

....

Obviously, if the Buddhist chronology had commanded international regard, an agreed date for the parinirvana would long since have emerged, and it would then be the uncertainties about when Christ was born in terms of the Buddhist reckoning which would be considered unsettling. Euro-centric, or Christo-centric, assumptions about the measurement of time should be viewed with caution. .... Nevertheless, the widely divergent dates adduced for the Buddha’s parinirvana do pose serious problems. That of 544 BC derives from a much later Sri Lankan tradition and is usually discarded. As between the 486 BC of Indian tradition and the 483 BC of a Chinese record, the difference is slight and not too important. Indeed, it was the near congruence of these two dates which led the majority of scholars to accept their validity; one or other was used to deduce a date for the Buddha’s birth of c566–3 BC, which thus became ‘the earliest certain date in Indian history’. Recently, however, opinion has swung towards a much later dating for the parinirvana, in fact ‘about eighty to 130 years before Ashoka’s coronation [in 268 BC], i.e. not a very long time before Alexander’s Indian campaign [327–5BC], i.e. between c400 BC and c350 BC’. This reappraisal of the evidence, mainly by German scholars, shunts the Buddha forward by around a century.

....

Adopting, then, not the conventional 486–3bc for the parinirvana but some date between 400 and 350 BC, one may place the birth of Siddhartha Gautama, the ‘Buddha’, some time in the mid-fifth century. Like his contemporary, Mahavira Nataputta of the Jains, he was a ksatriya, the son of Suddhodana,raja of the Sakyas. The Sakya state being one of those republican gana-sanghas, it had many rajas. And since their chief was elected, the ‘Prince’ Siddhartha of later legend must be considered a fabrication.

So John Keay and the German scholars upon whom he relies argue that Gautama died between 350 and 400 years before Christ. Implicitly, they accept that he existed, as well as certain other "facts" about his life. By what kind of Glubbdubdribbian sorcery are they asserting this information, then, when they have zero primary sources to work with, and their secondary sources are just as religious and hagiographic in nature as the gospels are, and even chronologically later in relative terms?

I think the answer is obvious and simple, and I already quoted Howell and Prevenier's version of it upthread:

But historians never have just what they want or need. At one extreme is the historian limited to one source. Einhard's Life of Charlemagne is, for example, the only source scholars have about the private life of Europe's first emperor. Like many of the political biographies written today, this one is more hagiography than critical biography, and in the best of worlds historians might well refuse to use it as evidence about Charlemagne's life and his character. But historians, although conscious that they are prisoners of the unique source and bear all the risks that this involves, use it because it is all they have. At the other extreme are historians studying the recent past. They have a great many sources, and in many ways their problems are thus fewer. But even here there is no certainty.

Historians do not back down from the challenge of reconstructing the Buddha's life and times just because their available sources are several grades below even what we have for Jesus. They make their best attempt to reconstruct, knowing full well that they are working with far less solid information than other historians have for figures like any of the Caesars or whatnot. They do what Bernard does: they dive in and give it a try. I have read you before as basically taking Bernard to task for doing this, and I hope I am wrong. I hope you are merely chiding him for not always reminding the reader of how sketchy the evidence is compared to the evidence for (a scant few) other figures in ancient history; if that is the case, I would join you, since I agree that Bernard can overstate the certainty of his case. But I do not fault him in the slightest for creating hypotheses, testing them, and seeing if he can account for all the evidence thereby. Jesus does not have his own Thucydides or Tacitus, so we must make do with what we have. Do you agree?

Howell and Prevenier cite a source that is contemporary with Charlemagne. That is the difference between evidence for Charlemagne and the Buddha. We have nothing comparable, not even a hagiography, for the latter.

Of course there cannot be any certainty for the historicity of Gautama. How can there be? All the source material is very late in relation to his purported life. He may well have existed, though. There is simply no way of knowing.

It is indeed pointless to dive in to try to reconstruct his life IF one's interest is in serious historical research. If one is interested in the myth, the legends, that is another matter. I am not against reconstructing legends or hypothetical lives. I like reading about them and thinking about their meanings and influence on later generations.

If what we have does not allow us to answer the sorts of questions that require more than what we have, then we cannot ask those questions -- meaning we cannot ask questions expecting answers from data that is insufficient to answer those questions. If we need more information, and we don't have it, then we don't have it, and we simply need it before we can know what we want to know.

[neilgodfrey]

Theissen's hypothesis is based on questions about why a source depicted a person anonymously in a certain scene.

Again, Theissen's hypothesis is based on the issue of which day is said to be the day of Jesus' crucifixion. The text as it stands is uneven on that score. I am not sure how you are justifying to yourself the notion that this is not a source-critical question.

Theissen starts to address this issue of the timing of the crucifixion as an indicator of a source text being modified in his very second paragraph of the chapter, on page 166, immediately after the introduction to the chapter. He continues the discussion through at least page 169, referencing other scholars' works on the topic, including dissenting scholars such as Werner Kelber.

Once a separate source is hypothesized, then Theissen starts to ask questions about its provenance, eventually leading to hypotheses about motives for omitting names.

Theissen does kosher source critical analysis on the Passion Narrative, e.g....

In my opinion, in Mark we can discern behind the text as we now have it a connected narrative that presupposes a certain chronology. According to Mark, Jesus died on the day of Passover, but the tradition supposes it was the preparation day before Passover: in 14:1-2 the Sanhedrin decides to kill Jesus before the feast in order to prevent unrest among the people on the day of the feast. . . . etc etc

That's all very fine. No problem. (We can debate his points but they are source-critical points he is making.)

But from there he goes into something else that is not source criticism:

The following investigations of clues to locality and dates in the Passion story are planned in such a way as to take into account our lack of knowledge of the story’s scope and internal layers. We will inquire about the characterization of persons within the Passion story. People are often described in such a way that the implicit hearer needs previous knowledge in order to identify them and their roles correctly. These kinds of “indications of familiarity” point to a relative proximity to the persons described, or to traditions about them.

The bolded text is a subjective question (unlike the source critical exercise preceding). ( I am using "subjective" in the everyday sense of the word: I realize we can get philosophical and say everything is subjective, if we want to take that tack.)

The bolded text does not raise a question that is bound by data within the text itself.

The bolded text assumes a particular audience that has a certain time and place and set of interests. (This particular audience with its setting and interests "just so happens" to coincide with Theissen's model of Christian origins and the provenance of GMark.)

Every literary criticism requires an implicit audience for a text. But it is going way beyond the data to impute to that audience a certain set of interests and setting and time.

What Theissen is doing here is imputing to an implicit audience his own questions about the characters. He is using the implicit audience to project his own historical questions about the narrative.

Yet there is nothing in the source text to justify that particular type of implied audience or set of interests they are supposed to have. Theissen is projecting himself and his own interests into GMark's original audience.

The text of GMark itself does not raise the questions Theissen poses. (Those questions arise from his own idea of the context and place of the GMark in the history of Christian origins and from his own mind-reading of the gospel's author.)

[MrMacSon]

I'd be interested in comments on this - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 527#p74527

[Ben C. Smith]

The Marcan narrative says on the surface that Jesus was crucified on the Day of Passover, but there are indications of a source behind the Marcan text in which Jesus was crucified on the Eve of Passover. This is Theissen's starting point. How is this not addressing the logic of the narrative?

That sounds quite kosher. But I thought we were talking about another specific example that you referenced, one in particular that was related to anonymous persons. I was not addressing every point by Theissen but the particular points I understood that you raised.

You are the one who raised Theissen's treatment of anonymity. Here is what I said:

What, then, is the difference (if any) between Carrier's use of source criticism here and, say, Theissen's when he argues for a passion narrative dating to the 30's and a form of Q dating to before 70?

So... how does this differ from what Theissen does in The Gospels in Context? You accurately point out upthread a bit that one does not have to agree with Carrier's source criticism itself; but he is still doing what historians do when he uses it. Honest question: would the same apply to Theissen (and other scholars who have dated the passion narrative to the thirties)? Unless I misunderstand what you mean by criteriology, neither Carrier (on behalf of his trial account) nor Theissen (on behalf of his passion narrative) uses the much maligned criteria (dissimilarity, embarrassment, and so on) in this particular connection. So how can we tell which of the two is doing source criticism in a way that "no other historian would dare"and which is doing things properly? Or are Theissen and his ilk (including Crossan on this particular topic, as well as Bauckham himself and a host of commentators on Mark) exceptions to your generalization that biblical scholars are cheating, so to speak, in their method of finding primary sources behind the secondary gospels?

I asked explicitly about Theissen's source criticism, which means I was not asking about his treatment of anonymity, which is not source criticism in any meaningful sense of the word. I meant, of course, his discussion of internal contradictions in the Marcan account which may imply a source text. I think you really confused yourself when you relied on a snippet from page 447 of The Historical Jesus, by Theissen and Merz. You assumed that whatever they were talking about there was also what I was talking about; but that is simply not the case.

I suppose I could have been clearer; but, since you and I actually discussed the merits of a pre-Marcan passion narrative one time, and the differing dates of the crucifixion was the primary datum on the table, I honestly thought you would know what I was talking about.

Now, as per above, I think you have clearly called Theissen's source criticism "kosher" — so how does that assessment compare to the words of yours I quoted earlier?

Currently biblical scholars do not treat the NT documents like any other ancient documents and they do not apply normal historical methods. Their historical arguments are in effect, and by the admission of some of them, circular. And since they do not have primary sources for Jesus, they find ways to create imaginary primary sources to work with by doing something no other historian would dare do with his sources -- get "behind" or "beneath" them with circular "criteria".

Does this generalization of yours apply to Theissen's work in teasing out a pre-Marcan passion narrative? Or would you apply this only to his subsequent treatment of anonymous persons in that narrative? I first read you as suggesting that scholars' sussing out sources behind the extant texts was itself problematic, when perhaps you meant only that what they did with those texts is what was "cheating" (so to speak).

Theissen's discussion of anonymous persons, a particular example you raised and the one I was addressing, is not a source-critical question.

....

Well the anonymity question was a key point you raised as a basis for your criticism and the one I addressed. This is a new point, the one about timing of the crucifixion, now.

Again, to be clear, you are the one who raised Theissen's discussion of anonymous persons. I was referring to the same essay/chapter in which he does that, yes, but I was talking only about his source criticism.

Did Carrier do this? I have since been able to lay hands on his book again, and I cannot see where he discussed the genre of his putative source at all.

Yes, he did. Chapter 10 in particular.

Again, I believe you have lost the thread here. (Perhaps this is a consequence of debating several people at once; it happens.)

My question was regarding Carrier's treatment of the source he finds behind the Pauline trial narratives in Acts. You refer me to chapter 10, which is all about the gospels. Where does Carrier discuss the genre of the source he claims to have found behind the trial narrative?

Yet he mentions little details that have the potential to open up this question, but he glosses over them without a second thought in that direction. Example: he acknowledges the possibility, advanced by some scholars, that the youth fleeing naked was a symbolic detail. (How many historians, including ancient ones, mingle genuine history with symbolic narratives as if they are all of the one story?)

Really? I think that happened a lot in ancient histories. But this is a side question for our discussion, so I will not pursue it further here.

Howell and Prevenier cite a source that is contemporary with Charlemagne. That is the difference between evidence for Charlemagne and the Buddha. We have nothing comparable, not even a hagiography, for the latter.

Yes, that is absolutely a huge difference. But I believe you are missing the point, which was: "But historians never have just what they want or need."

Of course there cannot be any certainty for the historicity of Gautama. How can there be? All the source material is very late in relation to his purported life. He may well have existed, though. There is simply no way of knowing.

It is indeed pointless to dive in to try to reconstruct his life IF one's interest is in serious historical research.

And yet historians of ancient India have held entire conferences dedicated to pinning down the date of his birth and/or death. Pointless conferences, I suppose you, for one, would have to say.

My point is this. I think you are quite mistaken if you imagine that historians of times and places outside of biblical studies would never indulge in these activities which you are calling pointless. Your approach to ancient history is skeptical and cautious, and that is great. But it is not the rule in biblical history, and it is not the rule outside of biblical history. I bet most fields have historians of your general persuasion, but they also have historians who "dive in" (as I have been terming it) and make the most of an admittedly sketchy situation. There are plenty of scholars willing to go on record as judging that it is more likely that Gautama existed and was born at a certain time than that he did not exist or was born at a different time, just as there are plenty of scholars willing to do the same about Jesus. I have stated before that I wish biblical scholars were more forthcoming about the epistemological difficulties the nature of their sources puts in their way, and I have been trying to see if that is the main stumbling block for you or not: in other words, would you be happy if biblical scholars carried on as they already are, but simply expressed more clearly and/or honestly how little they really have to work with? Or are there, to the contrary, plenty of books and articles you feel should never have been penned, even with such disclaimers?

It seems to me that you have made it sound at times as if biblical scholars were, by and large, the only historians guilty of doing these "pointless" things. As the example of Indian history surrounding the life and times of the Buddha shows, however, this is not the case. I think this means that you are either (A) underinformed about the state of historical studies outside of biblical studies or (B) guilty of a sort of "no true Scotsman" fallacy, whereby you are counting only those historians who agree with your more stringent methodology as historians.

[Bernard Muller]

to Neil,
From Day's rule 1:

the historian should prioritize primary sources, though should nonetheless be critical of these sources.

Primary sources are those which

transport the historian directly back to the past that the documents describe and of which they were a part, permitting the historian knowledge of that past without the accretion of subsequent interpretation and tradition.

(bolding mine)
Day is against historian's knowledge drawn from "the accretion of subsequent interpretation and tradition".
That goes against Carrier mentioning medieval legends and worse, imagining assumption in order to make a point about God believed, in the 1st century CE, to have a sperm bank in heaven.

Carrier's point is the narrative inconsistency at a place where we are least expecting inconsistency. Just where the narrative logic leads us to expect a repeat with thunderbolts of what we have read in earlier speeches of Paul, here we read something that according to narrative logic would appear to backfire.

In any rules of Day, I don't see anything allowing a historian to draw some conclusion from argument based on silence (unexpected or not).

Cordially, Bernard

[neilgodfrey]

to Neil,
From Day's rule 1:

the historian should prioritize primary sources, though should nonetheless be critical of these sources.

Primary sources are those which

transport the historian directly back to the past that the documents describe and of which they were a part, permitting the historian knowledge of that past without the accretion of subsequent interpretation and tradition.

(bolding mine)
Day is against historian's knowledge drawn from "the accretion of subsequent interpretation and tradition".
That goes against Carrier mentioning medieval legends and worse, imagining assumption in order to make a point about God believed, in the 1st century CE, to have a sperm bank in heaven.

Carrier's point is the narrative inconsistency at a place where we are least expecting inconsistency. Just where the narrative logic leads us to expect a repeat with thunderbolts of what we have read in earlier speeches of Paul, here we read something that according to narrative logic would appear to backfire.

In any rules of Day, I don't see anything allowing a historian to draw some conclusion from argument based on silence (unexpected or not).

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard, did you notice the word "prioritize" there? You do know what that means, don't you? It does not mean exclude from any and all consideration any other source, period.

It's basic reading comprehension. I don't understand why you bother to raise objections like this.

(But you get worse: drawing a conclusion from silence is not a bloody rule for god's sake. Why do you even bother to raise stuff like this? You are entirely free to disagree with the argument from silence, but sheesh, Sherlock Holmes even solved a case from the silence of the dogs, you remember. There really are times when silence is a valid argument. You are free to disagree, but please don't be a bigot about it and refuse even to listen or refuse point blank to seriously consider alternative views.)