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Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:41 am
by maryhelena
StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:09 am
Whatever one may make of Bermejo-Rubio's other writing, his sentence--''The quest for the historical Jesus is, at least in theory, a rational enterprise which assumes that Jesus of Nazareth indeed existed and was a historical actor.''--is logical. Obviously, he is persuaded that Jesus existed, even as he critiques some accounts of him.
Perhaps ironically, maryhelena, you suggest that, were he a better historian, he would agree with you, your less-evidenced alternate story,
you ASSUME.
Bermejo-Rubio makes an interesting quote - an historian must not begin with assumption -
an historian must begin by doubting..
First, historians are and must be extremely cautious, given the expectation
of strong bias and fiction in the available sources. As Moses Finley shrewdly
put it, ‘ancient writers, like historians ever since, could not tolerate a void,
and they filled it in one way or another, ultimately by pure invention. The
ability of the ancients to invent and their capacity to believe are persistently
underestimated.’54 This is why in another classic work, Robin G. Collingwood
states that the idea that ‘all sources are tainted with ignorance and mendacity’,
far from being a cynical assertion, ‘is really the most precious possession of
historical thought. It is a working hypothesis without which no historian can
move a single step.’55 The inference of such a realization is obvious. In another
standard presentation of historiographic method written in the late nineteenth
century, the French historians Charles V. Langlois and Charles Seignobos made
clear the need to start with a methodical and cautious doubt about the content
of documents:
''The historian ought to distrust a priori every statement of an author, for
he cannot be sure that it is not mendacious or mistaken … We must not
postpone doubt till it is forced upon us by conflicting statements in documents;
we must begin by doubting.'56
Bermejo-Rubio has not, as far as I'm aware, set out historical evidence for his assumed historical Jesus. He has assumed a historical Jesus and sought to 'dress' him with elements from the gospel story. But it's not, Stephen, the clothes that make the man - a man's identity is not related to current fashionable attire.
My own position, Stephen, is opposite. I start with history and seek to find reflections of that history within the gospel story.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 7:17 am
by StephenGoranson
That's not an accurate nor an unbiased analysis of how B-R arrived at his views.
Nor is your self-estimate of your approach being exactly opposite reliable.
But I want to say something potentially more constructive. The (relatively-early) claim in Tosefta that crucifixions were sometimes made where and when many would see them is at least plausible. Compare the Third Servile War crucifixions of Spartacus and his army. Compare those by Alexander Jannaeus.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 7:58 am
by maryhelena
StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 7:17 am
That's not an accurate nor an unbiased analysis of how B-R arrived at his views.
Nor is your self-estimate of your approach being exactly opposite reliable.
Must I really state the obvious...
Bermejo-Rubio has not offered an historical argument for the Gospel figure of Jesus. He has acknowledged working with an assumption of historicity.
As for your estimation of my own approach....
Stephen, I'm not interested in arguing with you as I'm not interested in arguing with Jesus Historicists. I have more interesting things to research. An historical Jesus is a dead end. It provides no way forward in researching Christian origins. I am interested in Bermejo-Rubio's seditious Jesus theory because I think it has potential to move forward research.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:10 am
by Giuseppe
StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 7:17 am
But I want to say something potentially more constructive. The (relatively-early) claim in Tosefta that crucifixions were sometimes made where and when many would see them is at least plausible. Compare the Third Servile War crucifixions of Spartacus and his army. Compare those by Alexander Jannaeus.
did the
Romans know when many would see them? The Tosefta's passage talks about the
Jewish authorities as authors of the punishment. This would refer to a time when the Jews were more free from Rome.
But even if the Romans applied that rule already by then, the BR's point remains all when reformulated so: why wasn't Jesus one of the λησταί going to be crucified within that date "when many would see them"?
Surely
that is the reason why Nickel doesn't quote the Tosefta. And
that is the same reason why BR doesn't care about that passage.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:19 am
by StephenGoranson
from B-R in bibleinterp:
"....Only those hypotheses which provide the most likely reconstruction of Jesus as an intelligible actor within the first-century Palestine under Roman and Herodian rule are adequate from an epistemological standpoint and deserve being taken seriously into account. ....." Which he, like it or not, attempted to evaluate.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:24 am
by maryhelena
StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:19 am
from B-R in bibleinterp:
"....Only those hypotheses which provide the most likely reconstruction of Jesus as an intelligible actor within the first-century Palestine under Roman and Herodian rule are adequate from an epistemological standpoint and deserve being taken seriously into account. ....." Which he, like it or not, attempted to evaluate.
Hypotheses... By all means.... Take ones pick... Many to choose from. No historical evidence means hypothesis remain just hypothesis.....
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:28 am
by StephenGoranson
From your perspective, maryhelena, is your Hasmonean proposal proven by evidence, or a hypothesis?
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 9:00 am
by maryhelena
StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:28 am
From your perspective, maryhelena, is your Hasmonean proposal proven by evidence, or a hypothesis?
Historical evidence, as far as it can be established, provides a foundation upon which to build, to construct, a narrative. History remains primary. The narrative constructed, either as explanation or allegory or theology, is secondary.
Worth considering these words from Josephan scholar James McLaren. Words that equally apply to the gospel Jesus story.
It is evident that the narrative of events contained in Josephus's texts should not be taken at face value. The interpretative framework as outlined indicates that to distinguish between the comments and the narration of events is not possible. It is not simply a matter of dismissing Josephus's interpretations, nor a matter of working out which version of an event is accurate. The interpretative process is more fundamental: it controls the entire choice of subject matter and, therefore, the overall picture that is being conveyed. We must now contend with the possibility that although we can make conclusions and observations regarding what Josephus narrates, what we can conclude is, in itself, the product of an interpretation. In other words, the picture being used to understand the first century CE in Judaea may not necessarily provide the reader with a 'full' or 'balanced' representation of what was happening in the territory. In effect, our major resource for examining the period is itself a constructed picture.
James S. McLaren: Turbulent Times ? Josephus and Scholarship on Judaea in the First Century CE. page 67.
With apologies to James McLaren....
It is evident that the narrative of events contained in the gospel texts should not be taken at face value. The interpretative framework as outlined indicates that to distinguish between the comments and the narration of events is not possible. It is not simply a matter of dismissing the gospel interpretations, nor a matter of working out which version of an event is accurate. The interpretative process is more fundamental: it controls the entire choice of subject matter and, therefore, the overall picture that is being conveyed. We must now contend with the possibility that although we can make conclusions and observations regarding what the gospel writers narrates, what we can conclude is, in itself, the product of an interpretation. In other words, the picture being used to understand the first century CE in Judaea may not necessarily provide the reader with a 'full' or 'balanced' representation of what was happening in the territory. In effect, our major resource for examining the period is itself a constructed picture.
James S. McLaren: Turbulent Times ? Josephus and Scholarship on Judaea in the First Century CE. page 67.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 9:06 am
by StephenGoranson
In other words, mary helena, you have, for your story, no proof.
Re: Fernando Bermejo-Rubio latest article June 2024
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2024 9:35 am
by maryhelena
StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 9:06 am
In other words, mary helena, you have, for your story, no proof.
Nobody has any proof that the gospel figure of Jesus was a historical figure.
What proof we do have is that Rome executed the last King and High Priest of the Jews. The Hasmonean, Antigonus.
Josephus states that Mark Antony beheaded Antigonus (Antiquities, XV 1:2 (8–9). Roman historian Cassius Dio says that he was crucified and records in his Roman History: "These people [the Jews] Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and scourged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and so slew him."[5] In his Life of Antony, Plutarch claims that Antony had Antigonus beheaded, "the first example of that punishment being inflicted on a king."[6]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigonus_II_Mattathias
Let me repeat. Nobody has historical evidence that the gospel Jesus was a historical figure. Nobody.
All we can do is attempt, from Jewish history, to create a narrative that can throw some light upon the gospel story.... And thereby throw some light upon early Christian origins.
Now Stephen, if you don't mind, I would prefer to get back to considering what Bermejo Rubio has to say in his 40 page article in the Journal for the study of the historical Jesus.