Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Second, distrust can only increase when sources are riddled with all kinds of
wonders and odd claims. If a source is replete with supernatural beings and
strange events, which defy what we know to be laws of physics (and, not
rarely, laws of logic), for obvious reasons it becomes particularly suspect, so
that historians will raise their eyebrows and will immediately realize that
their duty is to be extremely cautious. As I have explained in detail elsewhere,
the reasons why this material must be treated with utmost skepticism have
nothing to do with anti-supernaturalistic prejudices, but with the fact that
such material is intrinsically suspect.57 Moreover, the credibility problems of
the Gospels are more serious. A single man walks unharmed through a hostile
crowd that is trying to kill him. The same man singlehandedly prevents anyone
from carrying anything into a huge temple area. He clearly identifies one of
his followers as a traitor in front of his devout supporters, but none of them
rebukes the traitor for his behavior or tries to stop him. When the man says a
couple of words, a whole crowd of soldiers and officials draw back and fall to
the ground. A Roman prefect pronouncing him innocent has him scourged
and crucified. And so on. Too often, Gospel characters act as they would never
do so in real life.

Third, the fact that historians acknowledge that sources contain much
inaccurate material does not entail that they should rule out those sources in
toto. The underlying rationale is that a mythical or legendary framework does
not invalidate the whole material it contains, in which some reliable pieces
of information may have been preserved. A historical figure need not be
swallowed up by later invented myth. There are several ways through which
reliable material can be identified.58 As the historian Carlo Ginzburg shrewdly
argued, ‘Though reality may seem to be opaque, there are privileged zones –
signs, clues – which allow us to penetrate it.’59

Fourth, the sketchy nature of the available evidence demands from the
historian the drawing up of hypotheses through which the most plausible
reconstruction of a past that is irretrievably lost can be obtained. After all, as
Arnaldo Momigliano reminded us, the historian is ‘an interpreter of that reality
of which his sources are telling signs or fragments’.60 In much the same way as
the detective and the judge, faced with insufficient or contradictory witnesses,
are compelled to try to understand what might have happened, weighing up
which version is more likely, the historian, not having direct access to past
occurrences, will be bound to make reasonable guesses to explain the available
data. Evidence must accordingly be assembled by him or her in regard to a hypothetical story that can only provide unity and meaning to the scraps of
narrative that survive.

Fifth, although the (re)constructive nature of our historical knowledge and
the hypothetical character of our reconstruction need to be emphasized, this
fact does not entail that any guess deserves scholarly respect and attention.
Far from it, hypotheses must fulfill a whole set of requirements: internal
consistency, contextual plausibility, simplicity, and the greatest explanatory
power. In other words, all hypotheses are not created equal. As Momigliano
wrote, historians put forward several hypotheses until one of them is deemed
‘as so convincing that it can be declared the best interpretation of the document
at hand … it is not enough that a hypothesis be plausible. The hypothesis put
forward ought to be more plausible than any other hypothesis.’61

When one is cognizant of the former basic principles, one can draw
several elementary inferences. The first one is that – contrary to Nickel’s
speculations 62 – putting the historical reliability of the Canonical Gospels into
question is not a radical procedure nor exclusively applied by the proponents
of the hypothesis under discussion, but the common patrimony of critical
scholarship. This is proved by the fact that many authors, coming from most
disparate ideological and cultural backgrounds and having nothing to
do with the sjh, have adopted the same skeptical approach.63 Of course, the
extent of the fictitious and unreliable material is currently unsettled, but the
certainty that the Gospels are largely fictional and untrustworthy accounts is
an undisputable outcome of critical scholarship.64

One of the many puzzling aspects in Nickel’s book is its inconsistency. Although, by citing an article by Keith, he insists on the importance of the ‘broad claims’ about Jesus, in the remainder of his book he does not pay the slightest attention to the method which, already used by several scholars in the twentieth century, has been compellingly restated by Dale C. Allison in several works which Nickel himself cites in his bibliography, namely, the recurrent (or convergent) patterns. The phrase ‘recurrent patterns’ is cited by Nickel only once in his book, at the beginning, and only within a quotation of mine. In the rest of his volume, the phrase – and any discussion of its rationale – shines by its absence.

This is all the more striking because in my article ‘Jesus and the Anti-Roman Resistance’ (often cited by Nickel) I made plain that, besides that tool which I still called ‘criterion of embarrassment’, recurrent patterns are an essential point in understanding the argumentative force of the hypothesis under discussion. But then, why would an author interested in debunking that hypothesis as it has been set forth in my work – not debate the value of that tool?
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The hypothesis, such as I have articulated it, does not depend, nor is focused, on the historicity – or on the interpretation – of this or that pericope, but on the reliability of the whole broad impression. Put otherwise, I do not need to discuss the reliability of the (many) passages forming the convergent pattern I have remarked upon, like those referring to the presence – and use – of swords in Jesus’ group, or Mt. 10:34,99 or betraying a nationalistic outlook, or hinting at a bellicose stance and sometimes violent behavior in Jesus and his disciples, or witnessing a deep-seated hostility between Herod Antipas and Jesus’ group, or implying that Jesus harbored a kingly-messianic claim, or showing that the expected kingdom of God has an earthly character, or intimating that Jesus said to his disciples that they would sit on thrones, or articulating their opposition to the payment of tribute to Rome, and so on … and I do not need to do it because of two simple methodological reasons. First, because all that material arguably runs against the interests and redactional tendencies of the evangelists and the later Christian tradition – focused on conveying the view of Jesus as a universalistic and purely spiritual savior of humankind preaching peace and love and without early concerns –, so there is a very reasonable presumption that they correspond to reliable, factual evidence. Second, because all that material forms a convergent and consistent global pattern. The combination of contextual plausibility, plus ‘against the grain’ and recurrent patterns, allows us to identify reliable material in the earliest Christian sources, and to reconstruct the most likely physiognomy of the Galilean preacher.

This is the reason why chapters 4 and 5 of Nickel’s book miss the point and cannot yield what he wants, namely, persuading his readers that the meaning of a few pericopes selected by him has nothing to do with sedition, violence, or an anti-Roman stance. It is not just that he often sets forth strained and highly unconvincing interpretations of the texts he selects, but also, and primarily that he misunderstands and overlooks the real force of the recurrent pattern on which the hypothesis lies.…..

Nickel does not seem to realize that paying attention to the ‘broad claims’ is exactly the approach I use in ‘Jesus and the Anti-Roman Resistance’, whilst analyzing individual pericopes is what he does in his book!101