Ulan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:29 am
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Sat Nov 25, 2017 11:03 pm
Relying on evidence, data, for inquiry, is, I believe, a sounder method and the only method that historical inquiry can justify. That does not mean one closes one's mind to alternative possibilities. One is always aware of the limitations of our data. But that does not excuse us from going beyond the data we do have.
If we cannot find an adequate explanation for the gospels by means of the data we have at hand, then we fall back to agnosticism; not knowing. I think agnosticism is a healthier and more justifiable option to building models that we become attached to even though they lack any evidence -- apart from circular arguments or confirmation bias.
Nothing what you say here is wrong. We can only make reasonably solid arguments from data we actually have access to. Also, I don't think Ben goes beyond this conclusion of "not knowing" anywhere during his argumentation. He just presents possibilities, as far as I can see it.
The exercise involves beginning with the model that various traditions (generally oral, but possibly written, too, I suppose) are taken, edited or refined in some way, sometimes taken whole, and then stitched together with other sources as best as the author can manage, usually with some infelicity or lack of imagination, to create a new narrative.
I am not sure that that's how any authors we know of worked to create literary works.
Of course they used sources, but I don't know if they attempted to (or were too unimaginative to do otherwise) piece phrases and sentences or paraphrases together with other paraphrases or texts to make something new.
I am not denying that they used sources. All authors have sources of some kind. And I do not deny that authors could take an existing text and rewrite much of it, as does Matthew. But what I described above is something I don't know that authors did.
The point of the exercise, I think, is to understand as well as we can how our earliest canonical gospel came into existence.
We can make up various scenarios about how the gospel came into existence, and we see if we can find data in the gospel that confirms the "fact" of those scenarios, but that's not a sound methodology, imo.
It's not the way historians validly work with sources or document, as far as I am aware. In fact the method contradicts the sound methods set out by a number of ancient and modern historians, including some who focus more on the OT.
Ulan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:29 am
In the end, the sources that tell us that many more gospels than those we know existed are also some kind of evidence.
I think this confuses the meaning or nature of the term "evidence". We don't know of any gospels prior to Mark. Or if we know of them we don't know that they were prior to Mark. There is no evidence for gospels prior to Mark, as far as we are aware.
It is reasonable to argue that Mark was the main source for the other three canonical gospels. It is very reasonable to argue that our canonical gospels, at least in their original (pre-canonical) forms, preceded the other gospels we have. One of them had to be the first and there is strong evidence Mark fits the bill. That's working with the evidence. If new data turns up that overturns that view, then great, we have more to think about.
Ulan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:29 am
Internal evidence is also there, and I don't see any problem with basing attempts of interpretation on this internal evidence. The problem you warn against here only comes up when we start getting that much in love with our conclusions that we use them as "facts". I don't see anyone doing this here.
How can we validly establish an argument based on a hypothesis and finding data to support that hypothesis in the gospel? Is that not simply a process of confirmation bias?
We need some data external to a gospel to enable us to get an "objective" handle on the contents of a gospel and a way to interpret it. We have data that is external to Mark that we can see that Mark used. Why do we need to add to that by postulating other data that we don't have and have no way of testing -- if what we do have already goes a long way to answering the question about how the gospel came to be written the way it is?
Ulan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:29 amI mean, just look at the discussion of the "Bethsaida section" (Mk 6:45-8:26). There are good reasons to assume that this is a duplication where one text had a different, separate history from the bulk of gMark. There are also other good reasons to reject this. Still, the text is different enough in a few significant ways to justify the idea that we may look at different sources in in our extant gMark here, even if the original sources may have been some version(s) of "Mark" that we don't know anymore. I think this is different from having "no evidence". The evidence is there. It's just weak evidence, and yes, "we don't know".
We have no way of testing such hypotheses. The evidence we see is the result of confirmation bias. There are no controls. No way of testing any of it.
There is a much simpler explanation (by simpler I mean one that does not draw upon unsupported and unsupportable hypotheses -- apart from confirmation bias/circular reasoning). There are very good reasons to accept the original narrative was playing with "duplications" for theological messages that have been addressed in much of the literature already.
I am led to understand that very few, if any, classicists approach their texts the way NT scholars have traditionally approached the gospels. (There was a time when classicists did dissect Homer's epics much the way of NT source criticism but they have long since abandoned that model. NT scholars may be a bit behind the times.)
Ulan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:29 amThere is also the additional problem of treating all evidence equally. If you think of the whole debate of "historical vs. mythical" Jesus, there is an intrinsic inequality in the likelihood of finding evidence for those two propositions, one of them being that proving non-existence is extraordinarily difficult or even impossible (many arguments for historicity ignore this issue).
I think this is based on misunderstanding of the valid historical method. We don't go "looking for" proofs for this or that theory. We look for evidence against this or that, and balance that against what we have. We let the nature of the data decide what questions it permits us to ask.
I think much of the historical-mythicist discussion has nothing to do with sound historical methods or ways of thinking. Too often questions are put to data that it is incapable of answering. And more often data is not studied for what it is, but for stories that have traditionally accompanied those sources. But that's another question.
Ulan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:29 am
Not wanting to derail this topic, we have to be crystal clear that all we do here is speculate. If we want to sit on the position that "we don't know", which is obviously correct, then we can just close this forum.
Much source criticism is speculation. But historical inquiry is not, should not, be speculation. That should be evidence based. That does not mean that our conclusions will be dogmatic. They will be tentative but valid because they are evidence based. That's more than speculation or models that are based on confirmation bias and circularity.
I can kind of understand why my questions and proposals seem to be dismissed as "extreme" or nihilistic. They are far from either, though. I am merely attempting to apply normal historical methods to a field that has not generally followed them. I think it is too easy for us all to become immersed in the conventional wisdom, the traditional and universal assumptions, and fail to recognize their circularity or how far removed they are from genuine historical methods.