Criteria of Authenticity are Unique to the Study of Jesus

[mlinssen]

If historians conclude there was a historical Jesus who started it all then it will be because that explanation makes the most sense of the sources we have. It will not be because we know on the basis of contemporary sources of known provenance and authorship that Jesus existed. Jesus will instead by a hypothesis some might propose as the best explanation to the sources we have. Others may have a different hypothesis to explain them.

... then they will clearly, objectively and quantifiably lay out, preferably via a few bullet points, why they come to that conclusion

It is typical of biblical academic to have e.g. a fairly proper analysis of data, only to be followed by a very predictable and [ETA: fixed formationdogmatic]Conclusion that has nothing to do with any of it.
Science doesn't do that (nor any proper writing, to be frank) because a conclusion may not introduce new data that hasn't been discussed prior: a conclusion is nothing but a summary of the paper with a binary outcome

[perseusomega9]

It is typical of biblical academic to have e.g. a fairly proper analysis of data, only to be followed by a very predictable and formation Conclusion that has nothing to do with any of it.

Exactly. I don't know how many time I've read the concluding chapter to a biblical studies book and thought that doesn't follow from the previous six chapters. Or something interesting in a footnote stating this is the sole use of that word and its unattested for the next 100 years. Or the concluding chapter is some mealy-mouthed justification for the previous devastating critique is important to the Christian life and this is how it can be applied even though it completely undermines doctrine and tradition.

[mlinssen]

It is typical of biblical academic to have e.g. a fairly proper analysis of data, only to be followed by a very predictable and formation Conclusion that has nothing to do with any of it.

Exactly. I don't know how many time I've read the concluding chapter to a biblical studies book and thought that doesn't follow from the previous six chapters. Or something interesting in a footnote stating this is the sole use of that word and its unattested for the next 100 years. Or the concluding chapter is some mealy-mouthed justification for the previous devastating critique is important to the Christian life and this is how it can be applied even though it completely undermines doctrine and tradition.

Yup, I forgot about the footnotes!
When I'm really bored I go footnote surfing, and actually look 'm up. Often they lead to nothing but someone else's opinion that is entirely unsunstantiated... save for a footnote that the book will have. Which leads to another opinion, etc

A live sample of a story like that is my looking up of the tares / zizanion upon the bequest of the (administratively) late Ben C. Smith who dropped it as his usual distraction, only to distract from the distraction as usual a little later on

The story of the Zizanion on the Apocalypse of Moses

[dbz]

The idea of formulating certain “criteria” for an evaluation of historical sources is a peculiar phenomenon in historical-critical Jesus research. It was established in the course of the twentieth century . . . and it does not, to my knowledge, appear in other strands of historical research. (pp. 51–52)

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--Schröter, Jens (2012). "The Criteria of Authenticity in Jesus Research and Historiographical Method". In Keith, Chris; Le Donne, Anthony. Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. A&C Black. pp. 49–70. ISBN 978-0-567-37723-4.

The growing consensus now is that this entire quest for criteria has failed. The entire field of Jesus studies has thus been left without any valid method. (p. 11)

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--Carrier, Richard (2012). Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61614-560-6.

[ABuddhist]

But Nattier, if I recall correctly, used the criterion of embarrassment to try to reconstruct the situation which the author(s) of the Ugraparipṛcchā were dealing with - related to tensions between Mahayana and non-Mahayana Buddhist traditions.

Which sounds similar to the example of Horsfall's use of the criterion as shown us by Andrew Criddle: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10524 .... On which, see my reply: viewtopic.php?p=151120#p151120

So, I reread today Jan Nattier's book about Mahayana Buddhism "A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā)" [University of Hawaii Press; New edition (May 31 2005), and I report the following. Nattier uses the term "principle of embarrassment" and refers to the term as "commonly used in New Testament studies" on page 65. She claims that she was introduced to the term by David Brakke. Nattier describes the "principle of embarrassment" as useful for three categories of things in Buddhist studies

1. for assessing the reactions of non-Mahayana Buddhists to the claims made in Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. Thus, Nattier takes the admission in the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines that many Buddhists asserted that the Perfection of Wisdom literature was not authentic Buddhist Scripture and the claim in the Lotus Sutra that some Buddhists stood up and walked away when the Lotus Sutra's teaching was first preached as reflecting genuine skeptical reactions by Buddhists to Mahayana Buddhist scriptures' teachings.

2. For assessing the accuracy of a story in the Mahavagga section of the Vinaya in which some Buddhist monks argue with each other so severely that the strike each other and refuse to accept Shakyamuni Buddha's offer to mediate. Nattier accepts this story as evidence that during Shakyamuni Buddha's lifetime, there were diputes and fights within his following of mendicants.

3. For assessing the accuracy of a tradition in Vinaya I.101-102 in which Shakyamuni Buddha's followers are criticized by lay people for not assembling on full and new moon days in order to preach to the lay people. Shakyamuni Buddha is portrayed as convoking such an assembly when invited to by King Bimbisara, but in the first such meeting the Buddhist mendicants only sat around resembling livestock. In response to further criticism by lay people, Shakyamuni Buddha implemented biweekly recitation of monastic rules and preaching to lay people. Nattier accepts that this story reflects an incident or series of incidents in which Buddhist monastics adjusted to public norms because of public pressure. Nattier even says (at p. 66), "Such a story - in which Buddhist monks are described as falling short of social expectations - would hardly have been viewed as flattering to the Buddhist community, but was presumably too widely known to be denied."

Criticisms of such reasoning can be made, but it is reasoning found outside studies about Jesus.

[neilgodfrey]

Criticisms of such reasoning can be made, but it is reasoning found outside studies about Jesus.

Thanks for the update.

[ABuddhist]

Criticisms of such reasoning can be made, but it is reasoning found outside studies about Jesus.

Thanks for the update.

No problem. If you were to make a Vridar blogpost about it similar to what you did for "Authenticity of the Early Buddhist texts", then I would be fascinated with that.

[neilgodfrey]

Criticisms of such reasoning can be made, but it is reasoning found outside studies about Jesus.

Thanks for the update.

No problem. If you were to make a Vridar blogpost about it similar to what you did for "Authenticity of the Early Buddhist texts", then I would be fascinated with that.

I'd love to, but I only have one life-time which, I have discovered, is not nearly long enough to bring myself up to speed with Christian and Jewish texts, let alone Islamic ones which I have endeavoured to do in vain ..... before I start on the Buddhists!

[Leucius Charinus]

Criticisms of such reasoning can be made, but it is reasoning found outside studies about Jesus.

Thanks for the update.

No problem. If you were to make a Vridar blogpost about it similar to what you did for "Authenticity of the Early Buddhist texts", then I would be fascinated with that.

I'd love to, but I only have one life-time which, I have discovered, is not nearly long enough to bring myself up to speed with Christian and Jewish texts, let alone Islamic ones which I have endeavoured to do in vain ..... before I start on the Buddhists!

Maybe one can take a shortcut to Buddhism through the Nag Hammadi library? The stuff in there is arguably neither Christian or Jewish as asserted by (biblical) mainstream studies. Sethians? Valentinians? Hermetica? Gnostics? Archeology? The Christian stuff is not necessarily Christian stuff. Thomas is not Christian. Philip is not Christian. Often the stuff appears as Platonic and sometimes as Plotinic. At the moment I see it as the last voice of Hellenism. It has some correlation to Buddhism. Nonduality is featured. The NH library was probably produced in a monastic environment. Shortcut?