Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Clive wrote:It is strange - it seems studies into Islam are actually going further than in xianity

This book is an effort at the “quest for the historical Muhammad” that uses methods and perspectives borrowed from biblical and early Christian studies to investigate the beginnings of Islam. It takes its main focus on divergent traditions about the timing of Muhammad’s death in the historical sources for the early Islamic period.

The traditional Islamic biographies of Muhammad, which were first written more than a century after his death, relate Muhammad’s death in 632 at Medina. Nevertheless, an alternative tradition survives in earlier and more numerous Jewish, Christian, Samaritan, and even Islamic sources, in which Muhammad was still alive when his followers entered Palestine in 634-35. Although this discrepancy in the source materials has been known for several decades, until now, it had never been investigated.

The purpose of this study, however, is not to determine when Muhammad really died. Rather, these rival memories of the end of Muhammad’s life afford a valuable opening through which to explore the nature of earliest Islam more broadly.

The tradition of Muhammad’s leadership of the campaign in Palestine seems to be earlier than the account of his death in Medina. The question then is what developments within early Islam could explain such a transformation in the early Islamic memory of the conclusion to Muhammad’s life. This study argues that the basis for such “re-remembering” of Muhammad’s death lies in the rapidly changing nature of the new religious movement that he founded. Evidence suggests earliest Islam to have been driven largely by belief that the end of the world had drawn very near: Muhammad and his followers seem to have expected this event even within their lifetimes. The final judgment of “the Hour” was anticipated, it would appear, in Jerusalem, as it largely still is today in the Islamic tradition.

http://rorotoko.com/interview/20120424_ ... gin_islam/

Leave aside the question of a real Jesus or not, where is the questioning of the received history of xianity?

So far it seems that oral tradition is used as a stop-gap to fill in sources where no source can be found. It is entirely a backward methodology with no consideration for how these various "communities" came by the stories in the first place, let alone how they were transmitted. With no literary authority, there is no check on the accuracy of stories passed on. We see little evidence that the earliest Christian writers tapped into this oral tradition at all.

cienfuegos wrote: I would like defenders of "oral tradition" to examine the assumptions that they hold. Oral tradition is a magic bullet they pull out as a "source" of facts. They need to have a theory to defend the assertion that oral tradition contains factual or authentic material. So far, I don't see it. outhouse pointed to a model of oral tradition that does not apply, one that is often appealed to by apologists.

I get the impression that some conservative NT scholars now have been ignoring the question of the texts' genesis altogether. Instead, they're working with the text alone, not with its historical roots, and are applying reader response theory, schemes of analyzing rhetoric, etc. I think some of them may justify their narrowing of focus by appealing to the notion that "all we have is the text." If I'm right that there is this trend, I don't know to what extent it's directly motivated by:
1. fashions in literary theory
2. the philosophical stance that truth is eternal so the historical contingencies of a text's formation don't matter
3. a (tacit?) realization that the gospels/Acts can't be shown to be historically reliable (and in fact appear as though in aggregate they are not so)
4. desire to further their careers by working in new, cutting edge subspecialties
5. ?

ficino wrote:If I'm right that there is this trend, I don't know to what extent it's directly motivated by:
1. fashions in literary theory
2. the philosophical stance that truth is eternal so the historical contingencies of a text's formation don't matter
3. a (tacit?) realization that the gospels/Acts can't be shown to be historically reliable (and in fact appear as though in aggregate they are not so)
4. desire to further their careers by working in new, cutting edge subspecialties
5. ?

5. All of the above.

However, I think it is primarily driven by 3.

DCH

DCHindley wrote:

ficino wrote:If I'm right that there is this trend, I don't know to what extent it's directly motivated by:
1. fashions in literary theory
2. the philosophical stance that truth is eternal so the historical contingencies of a text's formation don't matter
3. a (tacit?) realization that the gospels/Acts can't be shown to be historically reliable (and in fact appear as though in aggregate they are not so)
4. desire to further their careers by working in new, cutting edge subspecialties
5. ?

5. All of the above.

However, I think it is primarily driven by 3.

DCH

I think 3 and 4. It's publish or perish out there. They have to say something new, at least.

ficino wrote:

cienfuegos wrote: I would like defenders of "oral tradition" to examine the assumptions that they hold. Oral tradition is a magic bullet they pull out as a "source" of facts. They need to have a theory to defend the assertion that oral tradition contains factual or authentic material. So far, I don't see it. outhouse pointed to a model of oral tradition that does not apply, one that is often appealed to by apologists.

I get the impression that some conservative NT scholars now have been ignoring the question of the texts' genesis altogether. Instead, they're working with the text alone, not with its historical roots, and are applying reader response theory, schemes of analyzing rhetoric, etc. I think some of them may justify their narrowing of focus by appealing to the notion that "all we have is the text." If I'm right that there is this trend, I don't know to what extent it's directly motivated by:
1. fashions in literary theory
2. the philosophical stance that truth is eternal so the historical contingencies of a text's formation don't matter
3. a (tacit?) realization that the gospels/Acts can't be shown to be historically reliable (and in fact appear as though in aggregate they are not so)
4. desire to further their careers by working in new, cutting edge subspecialties
5. ?

To some extent, I think they are correct that they only have "the text" to work with. They just have to realize that they are dealing with a theological Jesus, then, with no historical Jesus in sight. We can use the texts to inform us on what early Christians believed, but there is not much there to support bold certainties about the "real Jesus."

I am interested in the origins of Christian thought. The mythicist perspective offers the best look into the work of first century ideas, much more than the historicist does. Given all the swirling elements existent in Jewish culture and philosophy at the time of the emergence of "Jesus Christ," proposing a single, illiterate carpenter from Nazareth as being the genesis of this movement appears naive to me. The flaw in historicism is, as most here seem to recognize, the attempt to draw conclusions about what "really" happened from mythology. (It is itself a euhemerist project.)

cienfuegos wrote:So again, toejam (you can help on this): Who told Mark that John had baptized Jesus? Who was present to observe the fact that John baptized Jesus?

We don't know. My suspicion, like the content of most of his gospel, is that he's compiling known traditions (oral and/or written) into a single biography-like narrative.

Maybe Jesus made it up. Maybe the new guy on the block, in order to increase his influence, only claimed to have been baptized by the famous John the Baptist?

One can appeal to non-evident "maybes" indefinitely if one's goal is to render everything uncertain. But I think most people here (historicist or mythicist) are right there with you. None of this stuff is certain. But at the end of day it's about plausibility. That Jesus was probably baptised by John is a sound historical conclusion. Something you don't deny, seemingly. Appealing to "it was all made up" is as questionable an explanation as when theists appeal to the "mysterious ways" of God. It gives you access to the same infinite (but equally non-evident) explanation.

cienfuegos wrote: I am interested in the origins of Christian thought. The mythicist perspective offers the best look into the work of first century ideas, much more than the historicist does. Given all the swirling elements existent in Jewish culture and philosophy at the time of the emergence of "Jesus Christ," proposing a single, illiterate carpenter from Nazareth as being the genesis of this movement appears naive to me. The flaw in historicism is, as most here seem to recognize, the attempt to draw conclusions about what "really" happened from mythology. (It is itself a euhemerist project.)

I don't see why a minimalist HJ proponent need attribute much of the theological and philosophical parts of the NT to a carpenter from Nazareth, and I don't see why the carpenter need be illiterate.

We might have an itinerant preacher who got into political trouble and was crucified, whose followers (and latecomers like Paul) had visions and were convinced he was "alive," and whose followers developed a superstructure of theological/philosophical/magical (?) speculation around pieces of his memory. Or we might have the visions and superstructure but no real guy who lived on in memory, just a later, invented memory.

For a hypothesis to get traction, it has to explain the range of phenomena. It's not enough for it to be parsimonious and simple.

Really, it is simple, though. Jesus Christ is code for Joshua the Anointed, i.e. the High Priest. The key is in the vision and prophecy of Zechariah. Why is that prophet so privileged in the gospels? What were the priestly families up to after they were displaced to Galilee post-Revolt? They spoke both Greek and Hebrew. Heh heh.

Seriously, I'm not yet convinced that the mythicist hypothesis succeeds in explaining the range of phenomena. But I'm open to being convinced. Meanwhile, a conspiracy theory is a hell of a lot more fun.

toejam wrote:

cienfuegos wrote:So again, toejam (you can help on this): Who told Mark that John had baptized Jesus? Who was present to observe the fact that John baptized Jesus?

We don't know. My suspicion, like the content of most of his gospel, is that he's compiling known traditions (oral and/or written) into a single biography-like narrative.

Maybe Jesus made it up. Maybe the new guy on the block, in order to increase his influence, only claimed to have been baptized by the famous John the Baptist?

One can appeal to non-evident "maybes" indefinitely if one's goal is to render everything uncertain. But I think most people here (historicist or mythicist) are right there with you. None of this stuff is certain. But at the end of day it's about plausibility. That Jesus was probably baptised by John is a sound historical conclusion. Something you don't deny, seemingly. Appealing to "it was all made up" is as questionable an explanation as when theists appeal to the "mysterious ways" of God. It gives you access to the same infinite (but equally non-evident) explanation.

Well, that's the whole problem then, isn't it? This isn't doing history. You are making guesses and you have no actual source of information. All you have is a second hand source by author who has a theological and maybe even a political purpose in mind. You do not have any idea where the author of gMark arrived at his baptism story, you can't even imagine a probable chain of transmission from the event to Mark's quill. But you count it as a "sound historical conclusion." That is NOT doing history.

What is the other side of the coin? We don't need to establish that Jesus was actually baptized by John. The author of gMark in his time and place had reason to have the famous John the Baptist pass his legitimacy on to the unknown Jesus of Nazareth. If Mark's purpose was not history (and I do not think it was--if that were the case then I don't think we'd have so much of it created out of other source documents), but theology and political, he did not need for this event to actually occur.

Even if there were an historical Jesus, there is no way to establish that Jesus was baptized by John. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, but there is no way to a "historically sound conclusion" without identifying how the author of Mark came by his knowledge of this event. We can't even establish a plausible chain (Jesus was alone at the time so the source was Jesus himself apparently: Jesus could have made that up to give himself more legitimacy).

cienfuegos wrote:

Well, that's the whole problem then, isn't it? This isn't doing history. You are making guesses and you have no actual source of information.

In some respects, this is how "doing history" works. You run things down as far as you can and then attempt to come up with reasonable hypotheses of what happened. In this regard, there is nothing unhistorical about the hypothesis that John baptised Jesus. This is what the earliest gospel traditions attest to, and the explanation has great explanatory power as to how baptism became a key part of Christian ritual and why it was there were early Christians who only knew of the "baptism of John" as their initiation ritual.

Like I said, this "you don't know the source of the sources" thing can be run by anyone to render ANY historical conclusion uncertain. Creationists use it to prematurely dismiss the evidence of evolution too. It's not about certainty. Your arguments seem tailor made to the theists who claim certainty. I'm with you when it comes to exposing the lack of certainty we can have about this stuff. But the only alternative hypothesis you've offered so far to explain why there exists a tradition of John the Baptist in the gospels is because it was simply "made up". Is that how "doing history" works? That events you admit are plausible but cannot be rendered certain are deemed more likely to have been made up? Do you actually think it is more likely that it was simply made up?

Are writings motivated by theology and politics necessarily unable to record history? Read L. Ron Hubbard's biography on scientology.com. It too was written by an unverified, likely non-eyewitness with theological and political motives, not an interest in doing pure history. It doesn't mean that the biography doesn't contain many facts about the historical L. Ron Hubbard and that it is more likely its events are made up from scratch. I don't see why the same can't apply to the gospel traditions. The infamous 'Hitler Diaries' still includes a heap of historical truths about Hitler.

I agree that we don't "need" to establish John's baptism of Jesus. What need is there to do history of Christian origins at all? But with this approach, we also don't "need" your hypothesis that Mark supposedly isn't recording some degree of history and that the event was simply made up.

toejam wrote:cienfuegos wrote:

Well, that's the whole problem then, isn't it? This isn't doing history. You are making guesses and you have no actual source of information.

In some respects, this is how "doing history" works. You run things down as far as you can and then attempt to come up with reasonable hypotheses of what happened. In this regard, there is nothing unhistorical about the hypothesis that John baptised Jesus.

Bzzzt. Doing history relies on analyzing your source material. The gospels are deeply flawed sources in that regard. You have failed to tell me how Mark writing probably in the 70s or 80s knows that John baptized Jesus. Do you have an answer? Mark is OUR source for the story, what was HIS source?

This is what the earliest gospel traditions attest to, and the explanation has great explanatory power as to how baptism became a key part of Christian ritual and why it was there were early Christians who only knew of the "baptism of John" as their initiation ritual.[/quote]

Or does the story explain why baptism is practiced? Couldn't it be a "just-so" story?

toejam wrote: Like I said, this "you don't know the source of the sources" thing can be run by anyone to render ANY historical conclusion uncertain.

Again, false. We know that Plato is one source for our knowledge of Socrates. Plato claims to be an eyewitness to his trial. This is much stronger evidence than "Mark," an anonymous author referring to an event with no idea of how he came by his information. See the difference?

toejam wrote: Creationists use it to prematurely dismiss the evidence of evolution too.

We have discovered evidence of evolution that was created contemporaneously with event we wish to examine. Organisms died and their remains were fossilized. Second, we have a theory of how evolution occurs and,third, we know the molecular mechanisms that provide for the evolution of species. We can readily dismiss creationist objections. The same is not true of Jesus historicity. What is your theory of oral transimission? What is the mechanism within oral tradition for verifying true accounts from legend or myth?

toejam wrote: It's not about certainty. Your arguments seem tailor made to the theists who claim certainty. I'm with you when it comes to exposing the lack of certainty we can have about this stuff.

Is there anything I have said anywhere that suggests I am talking about certainty? I want you to tell me how you think the unidentified author of the Gospel of Mark knew that John baptized by Jesus. That's all. What's your theory?


[quote="toejoam}But the only alternative hypothesis you've offered so far to explain why there exists a tradition of John the Baptist in the gospels is because it was simply "made up". Is that how "doing history" works? That events you admit are plausible but cannot be rendered certain are deemed more likely to have been made up? Do you actually think it is more likely that it was simply made up?[/quote]

Lots of events could be plausible, that doesn't mean they actually occurred. I am making a larger point here that you seem intent on missing: that oral tradition is not a verifiable source for what really happened. When I was in Chiapas Mexico the indigeonous people made dolls of Subcommandante Marcos and Ramona and would say that they were spouses. Marcos and Ramona were not married, but one could easily see in a less literate society this untrue fact becoming part of a legend of Marcos and Ramona. That an oral tradition might have existed that John baptized Jesus, does not make it true. You have no mechanism for verifying this piece of data. The rule of thumb for establishing facts in antiquity is two independent sources. That does not exist here.

toejam wrote: Are writings motivated by theology and politics necessarily unable to record history?

How do you know what is the history and what is the theology? How do you disentangle one from the other? What method do you apply to do so? So far, you are asserting that Mark said it so it must be true. Did the heavens open and a voice talk from heaven? Why not?

toejam wrote: Read L. Ron Hubbard's biography on scientology.com. It too was written by an unverified, likely non-eyewitness with theological and political motives, not an interest in doing pure history. It doesn't mean that the biography doesn't contain many facts about the historical L. Ron Hubbard and that it is more likely its events are made up from scratch. I don't see why the same can't apply to the gospel traditions. The infamous 'Hitler Diaries' still includes a heap of historical truths about Hitler.

Biographies were written about William Tell, as well. Robin Hood, King Arthur. Why do you disbelieve any of the facts on scientology.com about Hubbard? This site claims that Hubbard was befriended by a Blackfoot shaman and was "ushered into the tribal ranks" as a blood brother. Do you believe that actually happened?

toejam wrote: I agree that we don't "need" to establish John's baptism of Jesus. What need is there to do history of Christian origins at all? But with this approach, we also don't "need" your hypothesis that Mark supposedly isn't recording some degree of history and that the event was simply made up.

There's a lot of things we don't need. True. But my statement was directly relevant to how we establish facts in historical studies. Your take is that we can accept whatever is "plausible" as historically true. I don't share that view.