Criteria of Embarrassment in secular history

[JoeWallack]

The [embarrassment]criteria[/embarrassment] of Embarrassment (If X didn't happen no one would want to claim it did) is an important tool in study of the Historical Jesus. I

JW:
Yes, but it should not be. I fucking hate agreeing with Neil Godfree but he/she/it/they is right here (he's just been unable to articulate why).

The Criterion of Embarrassment is Literary Criticism. Literary Criticism does not provide much weight for historical conclusions. What does is
Source Criticism. Good support for a historical conclusion would be:

• 1) Multiple
  
  2) Independent
  
  3) CREDIBLE witnesses
  
  4) Who agree.

For example GD, do we have this for Jesus' supposed baptism? No:

1) Multiple - We have multiple accounts (Literary Criticism) but we have no known witnesses (Source Criticism).

2) Independent - No. All subsequent accounts look to be based on GMark. Maybe not but we don't know that.

3) CREDIBLE - Can't be credible if we don't know the Who. Even if we did the impossible, implausible claims would impeach.

4) Agree. Unclear. GJohn does not show Jesus as baptized.

The Criterion of Embarrassment has logic, no one denies that. But as far as the Gospels in general and specifically Jesus' supposed baptism, it's just Literary Criticism. Subsequent editors were embarrassed by GMark. But as far as GMark, again, there's no Source Criticism support but even just looking at Literary Criticism, GMark has a primary style of Irony and having someone who confesses their sins before accusing everyone else of sinning fits well. You also have the clearly fictional and based on Jewish Bible scene of the main purpose of the baptism being Jesus' anointment. Is it possible that "Mark" knew Jesus was baptized and used it as a base to add the impossible, implausible and especially ironic? Sure. But it's also possible it was
just another fiction.

And as far as O'Neill and all those Christian historians of his and The Criterion of Embarrassment, per GMark, the original Gospel narrative, all of Jesus' supposed disciples never believed he was supernatural, never believed in his Passion and abandoned him. Jesus, that's embarrassing. Yet how many of them conclude it's a historical fact? More examples for GD upon request. No, CBS (Christian Bible Scholarship) and their O'Neill familiars seem to reserve the Criterion of Embarrassment to the HJ verses AJ discussion for some reason.


Joseph


Hasan Salama

The New Porphyry

[neilgodfrey]

I think there is good evidence for some sort of sack of Rome although the actual details are hard to recover. See Plutarch Camillus

That's fine -- but we are not discussing whether there was a sack of Rome in 390, are we. We are addressing the nature of historical evidence.

If one decides that it is a historical fact that the Gauls sacked Rome it will not be on the basis of a "criterion of embarrassment". I quoted Mary Beard noting the various reasons that later claims for that event had nothing to do with "embarrassment". Quite the contrary.

If Horsfall back in 1981 expressed the view that "criterion of embarrassment" gave us reliable grounds for believing in the event (while acknowledging that he was swimming against the tide on that view), and since then we have seen a leading classicist criticize such naive readings of the sources and another modern historian point out the reasons we have to doubt that such an event took place, --- I have not seen in any of this any room for the use of the "criterion of embarrassment" as the grounds for concluding that a particular event was most likely historical.

It's just not in the tool kit of any books I have read about historical methods or in any works by historians explaining their craft.

As far as I am aware it is only used in biblical scholarship and has of more recent years come under fire even there.

[Leucius Charinus]

Major Premise 2: A report is either invented or it is true.
Minor Premise 2 (= Conclusion 1): The castration of Attis was not invented.
Conclusion 2: Therefore, the castration of Attis is true.
...
Richard C. Carrier, Ph.D.
“Bayes’ Theorem for Beginners: Formal Logic and Its Relevance to Historical Method — Adjunct Materials and Tutorial”
The Jesus Project Inaugural Conference
“Sources of the Jesus Tradition: An Inquiry”
5 December 2008 (Amherst, NY

This is exactly what I referred to above: use of hypothetical examples rather than actual examples. If Dr Carrier wanted to argue against someone's usage of the CoE, then fair enough! But since it should be used in conjunction with other criteria where possible, then he'd need to show what other criteria was being used. Otherwise it is indeed a strawman.

I don't see the use of hypothetical examples as a strawman argument. Rather I view it as providing examples of how the application of the "CoE" is susceptible to fallacious logic. This use of examples like this is a common and acceptable approach in the field of logic.

AFAIK these "historicity criteria" (which include the CoE) are an invention of biblical scholars in the early 20th century and to my mind reflect some sort of "group think" from within biblical scholarship at that time.

[neilgodfrey]

it should be used in conjunction with other criteria where possible

And if not possible?

But boy oh boy -- when those other criteria that are meant to provide some lattice work from which to hang the Criterion of Embarrassment are less logically valid and even more severely criticized within the biblical studies guild.....

[Leucius Charinus]

Groupthink

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.[1] This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.[2][3]

Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory,[4] as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour.[5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

[GakuseiDon]

This is exactly what I referred to above: use of hypothetical examples rather than actual examples. If Dr Carrier wanted to argue against someone's usage of the CoE, then fair enough! But since it should be used in conjunction with other criteria where possible, then he'd need to show what other criteria was being used. Otherwise it is indeed a strawman.

I don't see the use of hypothetical examples as a strawman argument. Rather I view it as providing examples of how the application of the "CoE" is susceptible to fallacious logic. This use of examples like this is a common and acceptable approach in the field of logic.

No, it is definitely a logic error, since it is confusing "limitations" with "flaws". When I debated creationists, one thing they hated was radiocarbon dating since it poked holes into their constructed histories around the Bible. Now, radiocarbon has limitations. According to Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating

The variation in the 14 C/12 C ratio in different parts of the carbon exchange reservoir means that a straightforward calculation of the age of a sample based on the amount of 14 C it contains will often give an incorrect result. There are several other possible sources of error that need to be considered. The errors are of four general types:

* variations in the 14 C/12 C ratio in the atmosphere, both geographically and over time;
* isotopic fractionation;
* variations in the 14 C/12 C ratio in different parts of the reservoir;
* contamination.

So when radiocarbon dating was used against creationists, they would point to something like the above and say that radiocarbon dating was flawed, and so couldn't be used. "We just don't know how much extra carbon was pumped into the system!" (Note: I'm explaining what creationists have said when I've argued with them. I am not supporting their views!) There is more to carbon dating than just measuring the amount of carbon. Other factors/assumptions need to be considered as well. That doesn't make it "flawed" by any means.

It's no accident that CoE is described as needing to be used with other criteria, and it is no coincidence that Andrew Criddle's example in the OP uses multiple sources. It's a limitation of the Criterion. But a limitation does not mean "flaw". That is a logic error by any definition.

AFAIK these "historicity criteria" (which include the CoE) are an invention of biblical scholars in the early 20th century and to my mind reflect some sort of "group think" from within biblical scholarship at that time.

The authenticity criteria were built over having multiple texts on the same subject written within a relatively short period of time. It's a fairly unique situation when it comes to ancient texts. More common when, say, doing interviews with multiple witnesses of a crime. It's common sense.

The problem to me is that the assumptions on how the Gospels, etc, came to be can be questioned. Change those assumptions and the criteria become invalid. gJohn first instead of gMark? gMark all fiction? The Criteria would then need to be re-examined. But they are problems that need to be resolved within the premises rather than the criteria.

[Paul the Uncertain]

First, thank you to Andrew for an interesting and discussable find.

That said, "CroEm (shiny, pronounceable, and not easily confused with the Church of England) is not very rarely used by scholars of the human past other than Bible scholars" repairs the damage.

Empirically derived universally quantified statements (= "sweeping generalizations") are often false when taken literally. Not all swans are white. On the other hand, these false claims may be good approximations to the truth. Quite a few swans are white.

CroEm typically requires a number of assumptions to operate. For example, unless we know who proposed the "embarassing" fact claim, it is hopeless to assert that the claim embarassed the proposer. All we know is that the fact claim acquired some currency after it was made.

The poster child example is the Satanic verses affair. The earliest extant writings examining the claim, I am told, are of Muslim origin. It doesn't follow that we know the Muslim historians' sources for the claim. All we know is that some of them took the claim seriously. As well they might, the textual integrity of the Koran is a foundation of the religion's legitimacy.

The very idea that Mohammed couldn't even tell the difference between the prompts of Gabriel and the prompts of Satan is the stuff of nightmares. Maybe worse is the naturalistic version where Mohammed consciously included the verses for political reasons.

Cognitive dissonance is a complicated phenomenon. It is hard to predict how someone will receive a psychologically disruptive claim without knowing the person well. The range of responses possible are not yet "common sense," although the phrase cognitive dissonance has entered the language.

All of that, and we haven't considered how adverse fact claims might originate. Enemies. Nightmares. Cost-benefit analysis (e.g. some enterprising protoChristian may have thought it would be helpful if the alleged Jewish messiah was accepted during his lifetime by at least one big-name Jewish authority. Ah, John the Dunker. The benefit of claiming the endorsement comes at the price of Jesus being baptized or else explaining why not. Tanstaafl.)

The difficulty in a nutshell, then, is that in order for the criterion to be reliably applied, we already need to know a great deal about both the source and the receivers of the subject fact claim. If, as is the typical case in NT scholarship, all we know is that an ancient Jesusy group accepted a fact claim which bothers modern Protestants, then there is little surprise that CroEm has only a narrow constituency. IMO as always.

[neilgodfrey]

The topic of this thread is "Criteria of Embarrassment in secular history" -- NOT, "CoE in biblical/historical Jesus studies". There's a reason for that: the contention is that the CoE is unique to biblical history and the example presented here attempting to refute that turns out to have been one scholar's opinion expressed in 1981 which was acknowledged as being contrary to the common view of other classicists -- and prior to a study critiquing naive views of ancient sources.

The CoE is NOT used in "secular history" as a tool to establish a fact of history. It is useful to helping discern motives for various actions or types of writings. The fact that a biblical scholar says the CoE is only useful when used in conjunction with other criteria demonstrates how flawed it is even in biblical studies since those other criteria are even less valid than the CoE as a tool for determining historicity.

Criteriology is a tool used in biblical studies because the evidence its sources provide do not support the historicity of events by the standards of ancient -- or any other academic -- history that we are familiar with. There are a growing number of scholars who have chosen to ditch criteriology entirely and turn instead to "memory theory". That should tell us something about the criterion of embarrassment.

[andrewcriddle]

I think there is good evidence for some sort of sack of Rome although the actual details are hard to recover. See Plutarch Camillus

That's fine -- but we are not discussing whether there was a sack of Rome in 390, are we. We are addressing the nature of historical evidence.

If one decides that it is a historical fact that the Gauls sacked Rome it will not be on the basis of a "criterion of embarrassment". I quoted Mary Beard noting the various reasons that later claims for that event had nothing to do with "embarrassment". Quite the contrary.

If Horsfall back in 1981 expressed the view that "criterion of embarrassment" gave us reliable grounds for believing in the event (while acknowledging that he was swimming against the tide on that view), and since then we have seen a leading classicist criticize such naive readings of the sources and another modern historian point out the reasons we have to doubt that such an event took place, --- I have not seen in any of this any room for the use of the "criterion of embarrassment" as the grounds for concluding that a particular event was most likely historical.

It's just not in the tool kit of any books I have read about historical methods or in any works by historians explaining their craft.

As far as I am aware it is only used in biblical scholarship and has of more recent years come under fire even there.

Just to clarify. Horsfall is not using the CoE to argue that the sack of Rome by the Gauls occurred. Horsfall is arguing that since:
a/ some accounts claim that the Gauls took Rome but the Capitoline Hill successfully held out under siege
b/ some accounts claim that the Gauls took the Capitoline Hill as well as the rest of Rome
we should prefer the type b/ accounts to the type a/ accounts because the b/ accounts are more embarrassing to Roman pride than the a/ accounts.

Andrew Criddle

[andrewcriddle]

FWIW another 4th century BCE witness to the Gaul's sack of Rome Theopompus according to Pliny

Theophrastus, the first foreigner who treated of the affairs of Rome with any degree of accuracy (for Theopompus, before whose time no Greek writer had made mention of us, only stated the fact that the city had been taken by the Gauls, and Clitarchus, the next after him, only spoke of the embassy that was sent by the Romans to Alexander)—Theophrastus, I say, following something more than mere rumour, has given the circuit of the island of Circeii as being eighty stadia,

Andrew Criddle