Is 'Serious Scholarship' Biased in Favor of Historicity?

[toejam]

^Full-stop? That's misleading. The baptism is accepted as historical by most scholars due to a combination of the tradition passing several criteria - multiple attestation, historical context/coherence, and embarrassment. E.g. If the pericope was only found in Luke, for example, you would find a lot less scholars being confident on it. Whether or not you, I, or outhouse find this convincing is a different issue. But it is false to say that the Criterion of Embarrassment is the "full-stop" reason why it's considered historical.

[neilgodfrey]

The baptism is accepted as historical by most scholars due to a combination of the tradition passing several criteria - multiple attestation, historical context/coherence, and embarrassment.

That's not been my experience of the readings.

[Clive]

Why do we not listen to the xians? Anthropology 101!

During any Baptismal Serivice or during the Great Blessing of Water in the Orthodox Church we pray that the waters before us – and any water we are blessing – might become imbued with the blessing of the Jordan. We pray that the waters in our church might become those of the Jordan River.

This petition in prayer is based upon an ancient Christian idea about what the Jordan River really is (and here we again see how theology takes us beyond any literalist thinking into the realm of poetic theological reality). St. Gregory of Nyssa writes about the River Jordan (the reference to Jesus Son of Nave is to Joshua Son of Nun. Jesus Son of Nave is how Joshua is called in the Septuagint and thus the Patristic writers readily saw Joshua as a type of Christ. In our English translations of the bible we lose this typological reference because we use the name Joshua):

“For indeed the river of grace flows everywhere. It does not rise in Palestine to disappear in some nearby sea: it spreads over the whole earth and flows into Paradise, flowing in the opposite direction to those four rivers which come from Paradise, and bringing in things far more precious than those which come forth. … Imitate Jesus, the son of Nave. Bear the Gospel, as he bore the ark. Leave behind the desert, that is, sin: cross the Jordan, and hasten to the life according to the commands of Christ; hasten to that land which brings forth fruits of joy, where flow, as was promised, milk and honey. Overturn Jericho, your former way of life, and do not let it be built up again. All these things are types for us, all prefigure truths which are now revealed…”

Jean Danielou commenting on the above quote of St. Gregory writes:

But there is another interesting point in St. Gregory of Nyssa. The Jordan is shown in a new light. It is no longer through as the river which flows into the Dead Sea, but as a mythical river, which encircles the whole world and is contrasted with the mythical rivers of Paradise. We are brought up against the junction of the idea of the Jordan as the source of Baptism . . . the idea found in all Christian ligurgies that all baptismal water is the Jordan … Jordan, as the frontier between the world of the sense and the spiritual world…” (Jean Danielou, FROM SHADOWS TO REALITY: STUDIES IN THE BIBLICAL TYPOLOGY OF THE FATHERS, pp 271-272)

https://frted.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/ ... dan-river/

[andrewbos]

...

[Clive]

the realm of poetic theological reality)

Maybe the xians are already mythicists?

[outhouse]

(Promise not to tell outhouse this, but the one reason that is found in the scholarly books on the historical Jesus over and over is that no-one would make up the story of Jesus' baptism. Criterion of embarrassment. Full stop. That's it. Of course there are other historical Jesus scholars who demonstrate the invalidity of this argument but those arguments to my knowledge are consistently ignored, never addressed.)

This is why I refused to jump your hoops. Weak.


I knew how you were going answer, verbatim. Then you would throw up a bunch of links about how the criterion is useless. When in fact its just an aspect of logic and reason.


First as I stated Josephus builds historicity, because we have his evidence, he was doing this.

In the Antiquities of the Jews (18.5.2) 1st-century historian Flavius Josephus also wrote about John the Baptist and his eventual death in Perea.[41][42]

Josephus establishes a key connection between the historical events he recorded and specific episodes that appear in the gospels

YES here is your c of e

One of the arguments in favour of the historicity of the baptism of Jesus by John is that it is a story which the early Christian Church would have never wanted to invent, typically referred to as the criterion of embarrassment in historical analysis

But more then you stated FULL STOP ha ha LOL

Another argument used in favour of the historicity of the baptism is that multiple accounts refer to it, usually called the criterion of multiple attestation Technically, multiple attestation does not guarantee authenticity, but only determines antiquity.[54] However, for most scholars, together with the criterion of embarrassment it lends credibility to the baptism of Jesus by John being a historical event

[outhouse]

The people interested in Biblical Scholarship are mostly believing christians and most of the biblical scholars have some kind of christian background. No religious person will ever want to believe that their founding figure started as a myth and that the story about him or her was largely mythical. So these religious communities will create and get their religious scholars who fit mostly with their own wishes and expectations.

If that was true

Then why does the current biblical jesus according to scholars, exist at about 99% mythology?????????????????


The current state of scholars posit biblical jesus is mythical.

It is frustrating for historical scholars that you can hardly wring anything historical out of largely mythical religious traditions.

Wrong word track. Challenging not frustrated.

Scholars could care less how little historicity there is or is not. They are not disappointed there is so little evidence. They are creating a picture of past events, with or without the man. he is not the center, he is within the walls they are attempting to recreate

[neilgodfrey]

(Promise not to tell outhouse this, but the one reason that is found in the scholarly books on the historical Jesus over and over is that no-one would make up the story of Jesus' baptism. Criterion of embarrassment. Full stop. That's it. Of course there are other historical Jesus scholars who demonstrate the invalidity of this argument but those arguments to my knowledge are consistently ignored, never addressed.)

This is why I refused to jump your hoops. Weak.

The only hoop I asked you for was the one I finally gave you in the end: Please tell me the reasons scholars give for their belief in the historicity of the baptism of Jesus. You failed to do that.

I knew how you were going answer, verbatim. Then you would throw up a bunch of links about how the criterion is useless. When in fact its just an aspect of logic and reason.

Well I threw up NO links and said NOTHING about the usefulness or uselessness of the criterion at all, did I now.

You obviously had no idea of what I was getting at and responded with obvious fear that you'd be trapped if you did answer somehow. Now others have come out first you have bravely run out to the gate and started barking again, too.

First as I stated Josephus builds historicity, because we have his evidence, he was doing this.

In the Antiquities of the Jews (18.5.2) 1st-century historian Flavius Josephus also wrote about John the Baptist and his eventual death in Perea.[41][42]

Josephus establishes a key connection between the historical events he recorded and specific episodes that appear in the gospels

Yes you did say that and I have indicated here that I know of no scholar who has ever used Josephus as a reason to declare that the baptism of Jesus was historical. Do you? Who is it/are they? How could they since we know Josephus nowhere speaks of the baptism of Jesus, period.

YES here is your c of e

One of the arguments in favour of the historicity of the baptism of Jesus by John is that it is a story which the early Christian Church would have never wanted to invent, typically referred to as the criterion of embarrassment in historical analysis

But more then you stated FULL STOP ha ha LOL

Another argument used in favour of the historicity of the baptism is that multiple accounts refer to it, usually called the criterion of multiple attestation Technically, multiple attestation does not guarantee authenticity, but only determines antiquity.[54] However, for most scholars, together with the criterion of embarrassment it lends credibility to the baptism of Jesus by John being a historical event

Well you might have me here -- but do tell me the source of your quotation, first. I'm sure it will be a representative of the majority of scholars and will cite support for the assertion.

But what you have demonstrated nonetheless is that you had no idea at the time of your claim what reasons scholars give for their belief in the historicity of the baptism of Jesus. Now you are telling me you knew all along?

[Peter Kirby]

Well you might have me here -- but do tell me the source of your quotation, first.

It's from Wikipedia.

Baptism of Jesus

It's often interesting to observe the competing interests at work in creating the 'consensus statements' at the top of articles: "Most modern theologians view the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as an historical event to which a high degree of certainty can be assigned if religious texts are taken at face value." Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Most modern "theologians," not necessarily historians; and of those, there's certainty only "if religious texts are taken at face value."

Wikipedia has all kinds of bad, but the conflicting biases of the participants do often save it from the very worst possible extremes.

[neilgodfrey]

Well you might have me here -- but do tell me the source of your quotation, first.

It's from Wikipedia.

Baptism of Jesus

It's often interesting to observe the competing interests at work in creating the 'consensus statements' at the top of articles: "Most modern theologians view the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as an historical event to which a high degree of certainty can be assigned if religious texts are taken at face value." Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Most modern "theologians," not necessarily historians; and of those, there's certainty only "if religious texts are taken at face value."

Wikipedia has all kinds of bad, but the conflicting biases of the participants do often save it from the very worst possible extremes.

Thanks for this, Peter. I have only had time to glance at the first citation the Wikipedia article uses to support this claim about Josephus lending credibility to the baptism account -- Murphy's "John the Baptist" -- and it does so to the extent that there is a hint in Josephus's description of JB's baptism that it would mean embarrassment for the church to admit Jesus was associated with it.

So the claim by Murphy, and it is very faint one for our purposes -- is that the evidence of Josephus strengthens the argument's criterion of embarrassment.

Always pays to check the citations.

(Murphy also adds "multiple attestation" but we know that in this context all that means is that Luke and Matthew drew upon Mark to rewrite the account by removing some of the embarrassment -- I trust most scholars do not accept that as a genuine example of 'multiple attestation'. Outhouse might have other evidence to prove me wrong on that point, though.)