Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

MrMacSon wrote:

outhouse wrote: Putting more historical weight on a more spiritual piece then one needs on that case. Cherry picking really.

than?

Hardly cherry-picking - its key foundation of the whole Jesus story

Your opinion only.

The historicity surrounding john, has always been debated as it is a spiritual piece as the mythology evolved in time, and being a compilation longer in the making then the gospels, has made it hard to determine any early history as it offers contradictory statements in comparison to the gospels.

neilgodfrey wrote:Tim Widowfield is writing a series on the scholarly claims of social memory theory as applied to historical Jesus studies and is demonstrating how the whole shebang is based on a distorted understanding of the original theory as developed in sociology. His most recent post is devastating, demonstrating the tendentious shoddiness that is part and parcel of "biblical studies": The Memory Mavens, Part 3: Bethlehem Remembered

Widowfield's series is very interesting, thanks for linking, Neil.

Who is Tim Widowfield, and what is his background in ancient history and/or NT? Is he someone whom Tim O'Neill would call a "hobbyist"? He seems to go into things in depth.

toejam wrote:^I guess it also depends on what we mean by "oral traditions". I doubt the early Christians had strict and formally learned word-for-word oral recitations of these stories (other than perhaps some small creeds, e.g. Lord's Prayer). I was referring more to informal oral traditions. The stories (or some of them) were likely in circulation and developing before they were put on wax in the gospels. But, as Crook and Carrier agree, we really have no reliable methodology for tracing that process back. Form criticism has been pretty well dead for a while now.

Here is the problem, though, toejam: Even if there are oral traditions behind Gospel stories, they are not necessarily based on actual events. Oral traditions can be purely fairy tales, fables (see Old Man Coyote stories for example). I know you appeal often to the historically sound information in the Gospels (Pilate being an actual person, for example), but those elements could have been added by the author of Mark to "oral traditions" that are not based on actual occurrences. So you have a twofold problem: (a) demonstrating that any of the Gospel of Mark is based on oral traditions, and (b) demonstrating that those oral traditions are based on actual occurrences. Oral tradition is the only link to a historical Jesus and it is a tenuous link, indeed.

ficino wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:Tim Widowfield is writing a series on the scholarly claims of social memory theory as applied to historical Jesus studies and is demonstrating how the whole shebang is based on a distorted understanding of the original theory as developed in sociology. His most recent post is devastating, demonstrating the tendentious shoddiness that is part and parcel of "biblical studies": The Memory Mavens, Part 3: Bethlehem Remembered

Widowfield's series is very interesting, thanks for linking, Neil.

Who is Tim Widowfield, and what is his background in ancient history and/or NT? Is he someone whom Tim O'Neill would call a "hobbyist"? He seems to go into things in depth.

I fail to see what Widowfield's "background" or qualifications have to do with the substance of what he wrote. He read and reviewed a few books and papers and commented on them. It's an opinion piece, not a scholarly monograph. Why bring that over-opininated egotist Tim O'Neill into the discussion?

Because I want to know Widowfield's background! He writes good stuff.

Like me Tim Widowfield is an amateur scholar, someone another amateur (but also a boorish, lying charlatan and apologist for Christian apologists) like Tim O'Neill would call a dilettante and a fraud. My own view is quite different. After writing a few guest posts I have asked him to become a regular contributor to Vridar. Something of his background is here.

From Carrier's post of 3rd March 2014: Critical Review of Maurice Casey’s Defense of the Historicity of Jesus March, 2014:

Neil Godfrey and Tim Widfowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work.

Tim also does lots of the tech work for the Vridar blog. He managed to keep it going when the Joel Watts inspired fiasco led to it being shut down on Wordpress.com

^^^^^

Cool, thanks, Neil! Glad to see you have him on board.

blood wrote:Why bring that over-opininated egotist Tim O'Neill into the discussion?

neilgodfrey wrote: ... another amateur (but also a boorish, lying charlatan and apologist for Christian apologists) like Tim O'Neill ...

As an aside, O'Neill has been sprung today being a fraud as a sock-puppet - http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/threa ... 974&page=0
After O'Neill made 4 first-time posts on Wed 31 Dec, another "first-time poster" 'The Mad Rabbi' came on the next day (1Jan) spruiking O'Neill & his website.

His reasoning, generalizations, distortions and glib allusions to supposed evidence seem to echo the occasional name who comments here from time to time. His propensity to swap names and personas has been long-known.

ficino wrote:Hello junego, I just finished reading the article you linked. I think it is a devastating critique of the Quest for the Historical Jesus. I recommend it highly.

Crook does not deny that the gospels contain factual material. What he denies is that we can use them to distill that factual material, esp. about the content of Jesus' teaching and the thrust of his ministry. In his debate with Richard Carrier, Crook maintained that Jesus existed, but he appealed to Paul, not the gospels, for evidence.

I found it an unsatisfactory article.

Its (plausible) empirical claim is that people and groups will readily drastically distort their memories of events when it suits their agenda(s) to do so. Its conclusion is that therefore we cannot distinguish true from false material in such memories.

I don't think the conclusion really follows from the empirical claim. Some of the purported memories will be more plausibly the product of the relevant agendas than others. And this does seem to provide grounds for regarding some purported memories as more reliable than others.

Andrew Criddle