Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:06 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 1:38 pmThe methods appear to be valid; one may question the underlying assumption that there was a Buddha in the first place, but the exercises of sifting through the data to see where they point chronologically or how they shape genealogically look to be text-based or source-based.
I would have thought that assuming that Jesus existed would
not be kosher in your judgment, and yet you write that the historical methods surrounding the Buddha appear to be valid
despite "the underlying assumption that there was a Buddha in the first place." What is the difference? Or am I misreading you? Is it valid, then, to assume that Jesus existed and then go on from there to sift through the data to see where they point chronologically (as when they triangulate potential dates of birth and death using the chronological information in the gospels and chronographical texts)?
I have been attempting to address valid historical reasoning. The starting point was the set of five rules set out by Mark Day. We can assume anything we want but what matters to the scholar is the method of reasoning or research used. (Of course I believe that certain assumptions are more valid than others, but I've been attempting to address the methods of historical research and the problem when unsupported assumptions throw a spanner in the works.)
I assume we don't know if Jesus existed. I can also begin with two other assumptions, one each either side of that position. But if Bayesian reasoning tells us anything -- and Mark Day goes on to discuss Bayesian reasoning in his book, and he even says at the point I love most that we can (and often do) do Bayesian reasoning without any of the mathematical formula -- then it is that persons beginning with polar opposite assumptions will, if they follow valid method and logic, come to the same ball-park conclusion at the end.
Besides, from the little I have seen of the conference papers addressing the date of the Buddha appear at first glance to be addressing the data itself and not getting into hypothetical historical reconstructions of persons within the data. That sounds fair enough to me. I can imagine some (perhaps only a few) scholars concluding that their dates for Buddha have some significance if not necessarily for a presumed historical Buddha.
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:06 pmThey do not, as far as I have seen at this point, delve into reconstructing literary imaginary worlds assumed to have existed in real life. They seem to be strictly based on the source data itself.
Is that not what assuming the existence of this figure actually is? If we read about a person named S. Gautama in texts either very late or bearing no greater pretensions to being histories than the gospels, and we assume that this person existed, how is that different than Theissen assuming that certain figures from the passion narrative, including Jesus himself, existed?
The point is not merely in the assuming such and such existed per se, but in the use to which we put that assumption. It is one thing to read a story and say, "Hey, I like that story. I wish it were true, or, I am sure it is true or based on a real person!" It is another step to treat that assumption as a fact and proceed to reconstruct a source for the story based on that unsupported or invalidly supported assumption of historicity, or to reconstruct historical events based on that assumption.
That is very different from doing a mere text-literary source analysis or criticism that looks at the features of the source narrative itself.
To take an extreme example to try to make the difference clear: Jokes and spoofs. We have lots of jokes and spoofs about classic fairy tales, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella etc. If we have no knowledge of the source fairy tales of these jokes and spoofs, then we will nonetheless often see clues in the texts we do have that they are based on some other story. We may or may not be able to reconstruct the source stories from those clues.
But it would be overstepping the bounds to assume that such jokes and spoofs are based on "true stories".
Jokes and spoofs are an extreme example of a principle that applies across all source criticism.
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:06 pmYou keep using terminology such as "reconstructing literary imaginary worlds assumed to have existed in real life," and that terminology would seem to me to apply to assuming that the Buddha existed in real life, too. If that is not what you mean, then can you please rephrase it so that I can clearly see how assuming that Gautama exists differs from assuming that Jesus exists?
I hope by now from the above we can put that bit of misunderstanding behind us. It is not the assumptions per se that are wrong; it is our abuse of them.
I think this fault is especially attractive in biblical studies because we always love to "know what really happened". Ditto for the passion for "wanting to believe" and "finding evidence for" the legendary King Arthurs and Robin Hoods. Running with assumptions of historicity and recreating a make believe "historical world" merely on the basis of unsupported or invalidly supported stories is not listed among Mark Day's five rules. The rules should put a stop to that error.
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:06 pmThis all makes it sound as if you are back to considering that Buddha research has a lot of nonscholarship going on, just like Jesus research, especially since we have nothing
but "traditions that first make their appearance long after the purported event or person" for the historical Buddha.
I am not trying to goad you or corner you here. I am honestly not. I am trying to clear up the haze of confusion which descends upon me when I read things that seem to be in tension with one another.
Hopefully the above does clarify where I think the misunderstanding arises. (The scholarly papers in the Dating Buddha volume are not trying to "reconstruct a historical Buddha", by the way.)
We all have to begin with assumptions of some kind; even if our assumption is that "we don't know", that is still an assumption. We may use loose language and say that such a position is beginning with a clean slate or with "no assumptions" -- but even that position is an assumption. (I don't know if I have been guilty of using that sort of loose language. I probably have at times. But at least exchanges here are helping me, I hope, to tighten up my expression.)
I think there have been many scientific theories or theories based on rational inquiry in the past that have over time and with further research, discoveries, refined methods, been found to have been based on misplaced assumptions. That doesn't mean that what was done in all those cases was not rational or sound method.
I have never, as far as I recall, flatly rejected the assumption that Jesus existed as a basis for an inquiry. It is a reasonable assumption with which to begin an inquiry. When I began my studies into the question of historicity of Jesus some years back I am pretty sure I did begin with that assumption and I recall being very unsettled at the mere thought or possibility that he might not be historical. One does one's best to defend one's long held beliefs. That's human, and not wrong. It's the methods and invalid rationalizations that end up often being quite circular (Historical Jesus is the best explanation for X; X is the proof or best explanation for the Historical Jesus) that are the problem.
(Dale Allison and Stevan Davies both even acknowledged this circularity in books they wrote.)
But valid reasoning and accepted sources, as said above, will bring inquirers starting out at opposite ends to roughly the same point in the end.