How do we know X existed?

[Paul the Uncertain]

@Neil

Try to grasp the point I am making.

I did.

To avoid repetiveness, I'm going to try to move forward with what I noticed at the end of your post, rather than re-litigating the same ground.

(And it is not understood as a hypothesis, either. It is stated by many NT scholars as "a fact".)

It looks to me as if there may be a language problem between how some Bible scholars use some epistemically loaded terms as jargon as opposed to how other people often use the same words (e.g. you).

The one that gets me is that in real life, were I to say "Paul has no knowledge of Pilate," I would be making a startling claim about Paul, since he and the locally conspicuous Pilate appear to have been contemporaries. However, in NT-speak, I am stating an easily verified truth: Pilate appears nowhere in the extant letters attributed to Paul.

I wonder if something parallel applies here. I suspect that when you, or an academic historian, or I refer to a fact, we have roughly the same sort of critter in mind. It refers to a proposition in which we have some justfied confidence that it is true or something which we have declared as an assumption that we will treat as if true, sometimes both.

But recall the fellow you quoted who discussed the difference between (their terms) likeliness and loveliness. They acknowledged that usefulness (interestingness, productivity (of, e.g., research directions), fitness, elegance, leverage (Richard Feyman's term) ... loveliness has many names and many specific forms) is a potential reason to prefer one explanation over another.

What if, for NT studies, a fact is a seriously possible and interesting proposition whose negation is uninteresting (for example, because any inquiry premised on the negation would necessarily reside outside the field as currently constituted). Note that this conception is a mixture of truthlikeness (serious possibility is one element) and loveliness (interestingness).

For example, it is reasonably obvious that a typical theologian must be willing to assume that some sort of god exists. An outsider looking in might say "theologians typically assume the existence of some god to be a fact." A theologian might cut to the chase and say "the existence of some god is a fact."

You would express annoyance, I'd ask what the speaker meant by the term fact. No doubt that utterance should annoy someone who hears it as a claim of settled truthlikeness. Heard as an interestingness claim or a mixed claim, however, it seems completely unremarkable, almost inevitable.

If the NT does not have some basis in real events and persons, then what exactly would NT Studies scholars study? NT Literature, I suppose, but are they really trained to do that? Better than other classicists? Well, neither of us holds a brief from the classicist community, so that question will just have to hang, I think.

In any case, it is an unevidenced, and on close examination implausible assumption that academic historians and NT scholars use the identical definition of fact. The hypothesis that their notion of fact differs, more or less as preference differs from truthlikeness, would also explain why NT scholars pursue their facts using different standards than academic historians use. They are pursuing a different goal, but using the same string of letters: the four-letter F-word, fact.

This hypothesis, in my view, is complementary and not competitive with the other differences between the fields which we've discussed: differences in what questions are of interest, differences in available evidence, and yes, the observed difference in methodological standards.

BTW, evidence does play a role in interestingness, so "from a distance," both truthlikeness seekers and interestingness seekers will seem (superficially) to be doing similar things, with similarly positive attitudes toward seeking evidence. I suspect anybody who wrestles with evidence can be called a "scholar," regardless of their objective, whether truthlikeness, interestingness, or a mix.

[neilgodfrey]

If the NT does not have some basis in real events and persons, then what exactly would NT Studies scholars study? NT Literature, I suppose, but are they really trained to do that? Better than other classicists? Well, neither of us holds a brief from the classicist community, so that question will just have to hang, I think.

Historians, especially historians of ancient history, necessarily do literary criticism as an essential part of their historical research. That's covered in some of those quotations from historians that I've posted in this thread. If they didn't do that they would have no way to validly interpret the texts they are studying.

Literary criticism of the sources is an essential part of historical research. I have posted many instances of them doing just that on my blog. See posts, for example, about how historians are to interpret Thucydides or Herodotus.

But the fact(!) that NT scholars (maybe not all but many of them) are quite okay with saying that literary criticism is separate field from historical criticism demonstrates just how fallacious NT research can be. By avoiding a literary criticism of the Gospel of Mark and claiming that they are only interested in what historical data they can learn from the Gospel of Mark they have begun by diving in where no nonbiblical scholar would tread (according to their quotations of their methods posted in this thread). Such NT scholars have disqualified themselves from serious historical research -- unless one considers their fallacious methods and goals to be serious.

In any case, it is an unevidenced, and on close examination implausible assumption that academic historians and NT scholars use the identical definition of fact. The hypothesis that their notion of fact differs, more or less as preference differs from truthlikeness, would also explain why NT scholars pursue their facts using different standards than academic historians use. They are pursuing a different goal, but using the same string of letters: the four-letter F-word, fact.

It's not an assumption nor is it unevidenced that NT scholars and nonbiblical historians have different defintions or ideas of what constitutes a fact. It's a studied and evidence-based fact that they do. I have had exchanges with some of them (and read enough of their works) that makes that "fact" as plain as the nose on lying Pinocchio's face. Larry Hurtado, for one, flatly claimed that the "eruption" of the Christian movement in the early 30s and subsequent persecution by Saul of the church were facts of history, raw data to be explained, incapable of denial. He could not see that those points were nothing more than narratives that only appeared long after the 30s and had no corroborating evidence to support their veracity.

If NT scholars are "pursuing a different goal" that is not to their credit. It implies that they are seeking to support an ideological narrative of Christian origins. NT scholars will tell you that they are pursuing historical inquiry just like nonbiblical historians are doing.

Many of the "facts" asserted by NT scholars are not facts at all by the standards of nonbiblical scholars. Nor are they facts by the standards of any reasonable and educated lay person. It is not a "fact" that Jesus Christ was crucified by Pilate and though nonbiblical historians may speak of Jesus and his crucifixion, they do so in lay terms or simply as a matter of repeating what is nothing more than the vast ocean of "public knowledge" in our cultural world. They are not stating it as a fact that they have researched in their professional capacity as historians, arrived at by the various "rules" and methods that have been set out in the quotations of historians posted here.

This hypothesis, in my view, is complementary and not competitive with the other differences between the fields which we've discussed: differences in what questions are of interest, differences in available evidence, and yes, the observed difference in methodological standards.

It is certainly not competitive because the two sets of historians - NT and nonbiblical - don't talk to each other in any serious way about "the historical Jesus". They ignore each other.

Complementary? Can logical fallacies complement logical correctness? Can circular reasoning complement valid reasoning?

[mlinssen]

Larry Hurtado, for one, flatly claimed that the "eruption" of the Christian movement in the early 30s and subsequent persecution by Saul of the church were facts of history, raw data to be explained, incapable of denial. He could not see that those points were nothing more than narratives that only appeared long after the 30s and had no corroborating evidence to support their veracity.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

L. W. Hurtado, “The Staurogram in Early Christian Manuscripts: The Earliest Visual Reference to the Crucified Jesus?,” in New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World, ed. Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 207-26

K. Aland identified instances of σταυρος abbreviated and with the tau-rho in John 19:19, 25, 31,
and abbreviated forms of σταυρος with this device in John 19:6 (three), 15 (two), 16, 18 (“Neue
neutestamentliche Papyri II,” NTS 10 [1963–64] 75), and further possible cases in 19:17, 20. Cf.
instances identified by Martin and Barns in the 1962 augmented and corrected edition of
chapters 14–21 of 𝕻 66 : forms of σταυρος in 19:19, 25, plus another one restored as “des plus
probables” in 19:18, and forms of σταυρω in 19:6 (two), 16, 18, plus a proposed restoration of
another instance in 19:20. My own examination of the photos published in their 1962 edition
enabled me to verify clear instances in abbreviated forms of σταυρος in 19:19,25, and 31, and in
forms of σταυρω in 19:6, 15, 16, and 18

Papyrus Bodmer II (𝕻 66 ) John 19:25 can be viewed at:
https://bodmerlab.unige.ch/fr/constella ... 7?page=143
https://images.csntm.org/IIIFServer.ash ... efault.jpg

John 19:25 Εἱστήκεισαν δὲ παρὰ τ ῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ ἀδελφὴ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ, Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ καὶ Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή

Hurtado_John19-25CLEARLY.png (342.49 KiB) Viewed 1976 times

The verse starts at the end of the third line from the top and line 4 through 6 are underlined as well, yet there is a big lacuna where σταυρῷ could be and it seems to contain the ῷ - but it is wholly inconclusive.
Could it be there? It could, and if the text is in line "with what it should say" then it would be likely, but it could say anything, and perhaps something was scribbled above the line - or perhaps it said something quite differently altogether. But is this a "clear instance"? No, it absolutely is nothing like that, au contraire - there is absoutely nothing to go on here.
Naturally, Aland and Barnas don't hesitate to count themselves lucky either, although it is unclear in which way they phrase their "find". But Hurtado is clearly falsifying the facts here, no matter which definition of 'fact' one adheres to

Ah, the fantastically great value of peer-reviewed scholarship! Where would we be without it

For the readers who made it this far: it is obvious that the red circle couldn't possibly contain ῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἡ because Ἰησοῦ doesn't exist anywhere in MSS,; the text would have to say ῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ Ἰῦ ἡ instead. Going by the false claim of Hurtado, it would even have to say ῷ σ⳨ῷ τοῦ Ἰῦ: 9 characters, and there is room for 2-3 more. Which would be a perfect opportunity for σταυρῷ instead of σ⳨ῷ

Larry Hurtado - he is no longer with us so I will just leave it at that. But it is evident how this entire echo chamber of Aland, Martin and Barns and Hurtado leads to publications and "facts" like these, and we can see how these people very, very gladly give something the benefit of the doubt false fabrication when it fits their agenda.
I have a few more examples like these but what should I do with them?

[Paul the Uncertain]

Literary criticism of the sources is an essential part of historical research.

Perhaps so. I don't hold a brief from the classicists, as I said, so I cannot usefully engage you on the question of whether criticism of NT literature would be a viable second career for NT scholars deprived of the assumptions of minimal historicity.

It's hypothetical anyway. The many and various minimal historicty assumptions (Jesus, his surviving close associates, Paul, the "core" of early writings, ...) seem well entrenched among NT scholars.

That historians might be good at literary criticism, as you seem to be saying, has only sparing relevance to the issue of whether NT scholars are good enough at it for then to anticipate successfully competing with specialists. It is the NT scholars' behavior that arouses you; and so it's what needs to be investigated. You seem relatively satisfied with how historians behave.

By avoiding a literary criticism of the Gospel of Mark ...

I've seen a fair amount of literary commentary on Mark, and theological commentary on Mark, too. I don't see anything remarkable that within a field, individual people specialize. If some choose to specialize in trying to extract historical information from Mark, then that distinguishes them from others in the field, rather than typifies the field, IMO.

I get it that you think those specialists are barking up the wrong tree.

Such NT scholars have disqualified themselves from serious historical research

I take it by "serious" you mean "academic." If so, then obviously, NT scholars disqualified themselves from academic history jobs when they chose to get their graduate degrees in a different field.

I don't see what you want from NT scholars, except to speak more carefully about epistemological concerns. Speaking style aside, if they abandon the skill set they've trained to acquire and adopt instead the methods of a different discipline, then they're not going to answer the questions that define their field, and they're not going to get jobs in academic history, either.

What's in it for them? Your prescription amounts to the abolishment, not the reform, of their livelihood. Maybe that's a good idea in its own right, but ultimately that's a question of their securing funding to support their research program. As long as there are students who aspire to be pastors and Templeton Foundations to make grants, then there will be NT scholars to train the students and to spend the grant money, less "overhead" paid to the school that employs them, ensuring that administrators welcome their presence on campus.

It's not an assumption nor is it unevidenced that NT scholars and nonbiblical historians have different defintions or ideas of what constitutes a fact.

Then we agree about the hypothesis. I disposed of its contrary, you make the affirmative case for it, we reach the same conclusions.

Larry Hurtado

Well, NT Studies isn't the only academic field where progress occurs one funeral at a time.

It implies that they are seeking to support an ideological narrative of Christian origins.

Ya think?

FWIW, American academic historians are not innocent of ideological advocacy, either. If you need an example from the right rather than the left, Victor Davis Hanson.

Nor are they facts by the standards of any reasonable and educated lay person.

You're wandering into "No True Scotsman" territory here. Bart Ehrman was kind enough to share his intellectual autobiography with his readers. It seems to me that he acquired many of his interests and thought patterns as a lay person and while seeking to become educated.

In his case (according to him), what he learned elicited major changes in his intellectual constitution. I don't see anything inevitable about that, just as there was nothing obviously inevitable that he would continue his eduation in order to become a former lay person. I suspect therefore that there exist one or more lay people whose thought patterns resemble the thought patterns of one or more NT scholars.

Your floors must be spotless, since you do so love your sweeping generalizations. You may be right, but some part of you must notice that you've offered no evidence for this proposition.

They are not stating it as a fact that they have researched in their professional capacity as historians,

Of course not, they learned it as lay people and as students, many of them in childhood. Bart Ehrman (not to pick on him, but he's shared the trajectory of his thoughts with us), when he was first deliberating about his "Did Jesus Exist?" book project, realized that he hadn't much thought about the question before then and wasn't easily familiar with the arguments on point. This is remarkable - he is having an epiphany as a distinguished adult scholar that he'd utterly overlooked the threshhold question of his field.

Full marks, then, for the descriptive adequacy of your critique.

It is certainly not competitive because the two sets of historians - NT and nonbiblical - don't talk to each other in any serious way about "the historical Jesus". They ignore each other.

Then we agree.

[maryhelena]

My two cents worth:

While a literary approach to the gospel story is necessary and interesting, it can never have the final say on whether or not there is a historical core, a historical reflection, within the gospel story. A literary approach does not cancel out the need for a historical approach to the gospel story. An historical approach is not done by, as it were, reading history from the gospel story. It's the other way around - history is primary. From a historical base one can then look at the gospel story for reflections of that history. After all, is that not the Jewish way - the OT stories reflect, not relate, historical events. They reflect, in other words, an interpretation of history. History viewed through a prophetic lens, history viewed through a theological perspective of being the chosen people and their God's dealing with them. Mining, as it were, the gospel story for a historical core, is futile - there is no 'core' there - it's all shifting sand. It's interpretation, it's theology, it's prophecy, it's philosophy, it's mythology, it's reflection not historical fact.

So, step one - Thomas Brodie has shown the way regarding the NT figures of Jesus and Paul - a literary approach displays the stories of the NT to be beholden to the OT stories. The OT becoming a toolbox from which the NT writers drew inspiration for creating their own story. But - that's can't be the end of the line for the NT story. The OT writers combined their story writing with their history. Consequently, as now seems evident - the NT writers drew upon literary tools from the OT - then they also drew upon how the OT writers reflected history within their stories. History and it's interpretation, it's meaning for a specific people in place and time - is, again, a very Jewish approach to their history. History, not the bare facts of history - history viewed as having meaning, of having relevance, for the chosen people.

Jesus mythicists can bang their drum all day long - the Jesus historicists will hold out for a historical relevance - of whatever kind - to the gospel Jesus story. In so doing the Jesus historicists are simply not letting go of the idea that somehow or another there is some history behind the gospel story. For the Jesus mythicists there is no gospel Jesus - but that position does not cancel history. Just because the gospel Jesus is a literary creation does not translate into no history being relevant to the gospel story.

So - step 2 - history, Jewish history, Hasmonean history, has to be put on the table. An historical approach - a political approach - to the gospel story is needed.

If 'Jesus Christ began as a celestial deity' is false, it could still be that he began as a political fiction, for example (as some scholars have indeed argued-the best examples being R.G. Price and Gary Courtney). But as will become clear in following chapters (especially Chapter 11), such a premise has a much lower prior probability (and thus is already at a huge disadvantage over Premise 1 even before we start examining the evidence), and a very low consequent probability (though it suits the Gospels well, it just isn't possible to explain the evidence in the Epistles this way, and the origin of Christianity itself becomes very hard to explain as well). Although I leave open the possibility it may yet be vindicated, I'm sure it's very unlikely to be, and accordingly I will assume its prior probability is too small even to show up in our math. This decision can be reversed only by a sound and valid demonstration that we must assign it a higher prior or consequent, but that I leave to anyone who thinks it's possible. In the meantime, what we have left is Premise 1, such that if that is less probable than minimal historicity, then I would be convinced historicity should be affirmed (particularly as the 'political fiction' theory already fits historicity and thus is not really a challenge to it-indeed that's often the very kind of fiction that gets written about historical persons).

Richard Carrier: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. pages 53,54.

Yes, attempts have been made to find that historical relevance to the gospel story: Judas the Galilean, the Egyptian, Jesus ben Saphat - a Roman conspiracy. All indicating that an understanding of the gospel Jesus story without a historical relevance is inadequate. A celestial Jesus is not a substitute for flesh and blood, it is not a substitute for a gospel story that is set within human history. Doubting Thomas said it best ......, 'Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." Ideas, celestial ideas are all very well - in their place - but at some stage ideas have to face physical realities. Methinks, perhaps time for the Jesus mythicists to place their hands upon a history book.....

[neilgodfrey]

That historians might be good at literary criticism, as you seem to be saying, has only sparing relevance to the issue of whether NT scholars are good enough at it for then to anticipate successfully competing with specialists. It is the NT scholars' behavior that arouses you; and so it's what needs to be investigated. You seem relatively satisfied with how historians behave.

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here. Literary criticism is not some arcane speciality reserved for only a select few. It is a basic bread and butter practice of history and one of the fundamental requirements of interpreting documents. What do you mean by "It is the NT scholars' behavior that arouses you"? That's a very strange thing to bring up and I don't know what you mean by it exactly. Is that how you engage with someone who compares two methods of inquiry and notes the differences between them and sees one as valid by the normal rules of logic and the other as not?

What's this word "behave" as in "how historians behave"? I am talking about historical methods and have pointed out what those methods are by quoting the historians themselves.

Do you have problems with their methods? If so, what? Do you think they don't apply to NT scholars? If so, why?

If you think NT scholars on the historical Jesus are doing something different from other historians that justifies a different set of methods, then what is that different thing they are doing?

I've seen a fair amount of literary commentary on Mark, and theological commentary on Mark, too. I don't see anything remarkable that within a field, individual people specialize. If some choose to specialize in trying to extract historical information from Mark, then that distinguishes them from others in the field, rather than typifies the field, IMO.

I get it that you think those specialists are barking up the wrong tree.

You seem to be avoiding the point. It is clear, is it not, that those methods are based on circular reasoning.

How do you justify anyone assuming that a narrative is based on historical events when there is no evidence that that is the case, and plenty of evidence that the narrative is based on something else, imaginative rewriting of OT stories?

Yes, anyone can imagine there was a historical core to the narratives, but why do you think historians require independent corroborating evidence for a historical core and NT scholars don't?

Such NT scholars have disqualified themselves from serious historical research

I take it by "serious" you mean "academic." If so, then obviously, NT scholars disqualified themselves from academic history jobs when they chose to get their graduate degrees in a different field.

NT scholars are also academics. But bringing up job qualifications is getting away from the point being discussed -- how we know X existed, the methods used by historians to "know" such a thing compared with mere assumption (with no independent evidence) of NT scholars.

I don't see what you want from NT scholars, except to speak more carefully about epistemological concerns. Speaking style aside, if they abandon the skill set they've trained to acquire and adopt instead the methods of a different discipline, then they're not going to answer the questions that define their field, and they're not going to get jobs in academic history, either.

Again, aren't we avoiding the question, here? I don't want anything from anyone. I am simply pointing out that the methods of one field are valid and those of another are not valid on logical grounds.

What's in it for them? Your prescription amounts to the abolishment, not the reform, of their livelihood. Maybe that's a good idea in its own right, but ultimately that's a question of their securing funding to support their research program. As long as there are students who aspire to be pastors and Templeton Foundations to make grants, then there will be NT scholars to train the students and to spend the grant money, less "overhead" paid to the school that employs them, ensuring that administrators welcome their presence on campus.

Come on now, Paul. This is getting bizarre. Now you are suggesting I want to ban livelihoods.

How about getting back to the question of methods by which historians decide X is historical and then make a simple comparison with how NT scholars decide the same?

It implies that they are seeking to support an ideological narrative of Christian origins.

Ya think?

You have an alternative evidence-based explanation? (I'm not saying that all of them are consciously supporting the ideological narrative.)

Nor are they facts by the standards of any reasonable and educated lay person.

You're wandering into "No True Scotsman" territory here. Bart Ehrman was kind enough to share his intellectual autobiography with his readers. It seems to me that he acquired many of his interests and thought patterns as a lay person and while seeking to become educated.

No, nonsense. Or rather, demonstrate that is it such a fallacy.

What is it about the logic of the methods of independent corroboration that is some sort of "variable" to you? That is a hard and fast principle according to how historians explain their methods. Show me how Bart Ehrman's argument for Jesus's historicity meets the standards of mainstream nonbiblical historians as quoted in this thread.

Your floors must be spotless, since you do so love your sweeping generalizations. You may be right, but some part of you must notice that you've offered no evidence for this proposition.

You have simply avoided discussing the logic or rationale of the methods of the mainstream historians as quoted in this thread.

You have avoided comparing those methods with those of Bart Ehrman or another HJ scholar.

You are making claims about what I want or must have instead of addressing the core argument under discussion here.

Give me one example of a NT scholar making a case for a historical person that conforms to the methods for establishing the same by a nonbiblical scholar.

Give me the logical rationale for how the NT scholar justifies his claim for historicity.

[Paul the Uncertain]

What do you mean by "It is the NT scholars' behavior that arouses you"?

Throughout this discussion, you have compared the standards of scholarship that prevail in Biblical Studies unfavorably to the standards advocated by academic historians. You have provided examples of NT scholars putting their standards into practice (= behavior). You were not amused.

Is that how you engage with someone who compares two methods of inquiry and notes the differences between them and sees one as valid by the normal rules of logic and the other as not?

Pretty much. I don't see either field confining its inferences to valid demonstrations according the rules of ordinary 2-valued logic. The existence of Julius Caesar can be established to arbitrary confidence by arguments that are valid according to, say, Bayesian formalisms. But probability theory is neither two-valued, nor is it a logic. I cannot demonstrate Julius Caesar's existence by any argument that is valid in the ordinary logician's sense.

What's this word "behave" as in "how historians behave"? I am talking about historical methods and have pointed out what those methods are by quoting the historians themselves.

Behavior is what we agree upon: the descriptive adequacy of what you've presented. Where we seem to disagree are, in descending order of importance:

(1) The relevance of what scholars aspire to do in one field to what scholars in a distinct field may do, despite differences between the fields in the questions addressed, the availability of evidence, the prospect of obtaining more or better evidence, and the goals of evidentiary inference (= the desired balance between likeliness and loveliness, to use the terms introduced by your witness).

(2) whether all historians actually do what some historians say in the quotes (I have no idea. From lived experience I know that autobiographical narratives are often inaccurate, incomplete, or both, that people frequently exaggerate the extent to which other people agree with them, and that you have presented little or no evidence about uniformity of compliance within the field).

Do you have problems with their methods?

For use in their own field? No. I haven't done a thorough verification, but I suspect these heuristics will survive scrutiny. The standards for survival aren't arduous.

Do you think they don't apply to NT scholars? If so, why?

I thought we agreed descriptively: there are not the standards that prevail ( to apply in that sense) among NT scholars. We disagree presecriptively ( to apply in that other sense). See numbered item (1) above for why I do not find it rationally obligatory for scholars in the one field to adopt the standards of the different field.

If you think NT scholars on the historical Jesus are doing something different from other historians that justifies a different set of methods, then what is that different thing they are doing?

Striking a different balance between loveliness and likeliness justifies different working methods, IMO. So does asking different questions. Availability of evidence issues are trickier for "justification," so I'll just go with the other two from numbered item (1) above.

You seem to be avoiding the point. It is clear, is it not, that those methods are based on circular reasoning.

I'm not avoiding your point, I've largely endorsed your descriptive recitation, including that NT scholars explain themselves poorly.

Assuming that "the gospels have a historical core," then showing that that is both seriously possible and also has interesting consequences, and finally concluding that therefore the gospels have a historical core is circular. Finally concluding instead that therefore "the gospels have a historical core" is a useful hypothesis is not circular. It is what the evidence supports in that hypothetical.

And so once again, we agree: some NT scholars could speak more carefully about what they've achieved. If they have established what your witness called "loveliness," then they ought not to claim "likeliness" on that basis.

Yes, anyone can imagine there was a historical core to the narratives, but why do you think historians require independent corroborating evidence for a historical core and NT scholars don't?

Likely factors are differences in how often independent corroborating evidence is available and how much. Methods that cannot be applied will not be applied (a descriptive claim), nor should they be (a prescriptive claim).

NT scholars are also academics. But bringing up job qualifications is getting away from the point being discussed -- how we know X existed, the methods used by historians to "know" such a thing compared with mere assumption (with no independent evidence) of NT scholars.

You introduced the term to disqualify onself. Disqualify from what, if not academic employment? (= how I interpreted and disclosed that I had interpreted your term "serious" in the context of personal qualifications - anybody can be a "serious" amateur, no "qualifications" are required)

We've long since established that different people mean different things by a claim to know something. We have also established that some historians aspire to different standards of knowing than some NT scholars practice. I assumed you were introducing something not already discussed. My bad, apparently.

Again, aren't we avoiding the question, here? I don't want anything from anyone. I am simply pointing out that the methods of one field are valid and those of another are not valid on logical grounds.

You haven't shown the logical validity of either field's methods, see discussion above. Nor should you, since both claim to be evidence-based, while evidence plays no probative role in valid logical demonstration.

Come on now, Paul. This is getting bizarre. Now you are suggesting I want to ban livelihoods.

I didn't say anything about your wants in what you quoted, I pointed to the consequences of your prescription. If those consequences aren't what you want, then please consider revisiting your prescription.

How about getting back to the question of methods by which historians decide X is historical and then make a simple comparison with how NT scholars decide the same?

I think we've already discussed that, and since that's only aspirational and descriptive, we already agree. Introduce something new (e.g. evidence of actual compliance with the aspirational statements), and we'll discuss that.

You have an alternative evidence-based explanation? (I'm not saying that all of them are consciously supporting the ideological narrative.)

Perhaps the American idiom was unfamiliar. We agree about the influence of Christian apologetics on NT scholarship.

No, nonsense. Or rather, demonstrate that is it such a fallacy.

You made the claim. I didn't say you had committed a fallacy, I pointed out the danger you were in by making such a claim and failing to offer any evidence for it. Apparently, that's a situation likely to persist.

What is it about the logic of the methods of independent corroboration that is some sort of "variable" to you?

I don't know what information you're seeking. The only "variable" I see is the difference between the aspirations of a field where independent corroboration is often potentially available and a different field where it often is not. That has nothing to do with any logic, nor do the fields disagree about what "independent corroboration" means, so far as I know.

As you probably realize by now, I don't have a problem with anybody who doesn't aspire to something which they have no realistic prospect of getting. I expect those in that predicament to adapt to their situation.I think that you and I have established that at the descriptive level, NT scholars have adapted to their circumstances.

Show me how Bart Ehrman's argument for Jesus's historicity meets the standards of mainstream nonbiblical historians as quoted in this thread.

Why? I didn't claim that. I applied Ehrman's testimony about his intellectual formation to help me assess the prospects that there may be some "educated lay people" with simlar standards of fact recognition compared with those of some NT scholars.

You have simply avoided discussing the logic or rationale of the methods of the mainstream historians as quoted in this thread.

I have evaluated the evidence you presented about those methods as befits the aspirational statements that they are. I have not disputed their descriptive adequacy as typical aspirations in the field of academic history. You've presented no evidence about actual compliance with these norms for me to discuss.

Prescriptively, I have stated that I haven't found anything specifically wrong with them for use by academic historians. I have mentioned several reasons why an NT scholar may decline to adopt them without violating any domain independent norms. We seem to agree that academic history and NT scholarship are different domains. I've expressed disagreement that workers in one domain "should" adopt the practices of a different domain with no realistic opportunity of achieving their scholarly goals if they did so.

I guess I'm not very good at this discussion avoidance thing.

You have avoided comparing those methods with those of Bart Ehrman or another HJ scholar.

We agree they are different. By comparing them. On the prescriptive front, I have explained why it is normatively reasonable for them to be different. By comparing them. Where prescription and description meet, I have explained why I think that it is practically impossible for one of these fields to survive the adoption of the other field's standards. By comparing them.

Apparently I'm not so hot on comparison avoidance, either.

You are making claims about what I want or must have instead of addressing the core argument under discussion here.

The only thing I said about your wants is that you want NT scholars to speak more carefully when making epsitemic claims. If that is untrue, then why you do complain about that so much? If that is off-topic here, then why do you discuss it so much here?

Give me one example of a NT scholar making a case for a historical person that conforms to the methods for establishing the same by a nonbiblical scholar.

If we agree that different standards prevail in the two fields, then why should I give an example of some exception to our agreement?

Give me the logical rationale for how the NT scholar justifies his claim for historicity.

I understand the request for a rationale, but what are your standards for "logical?" The only applicable sense I can think of would be "without contradicting onseself," but the only "contradiction" that's in evidence is that some NT scholars overstate or misstate "likeliness" performance. We've already covered that NT scholars could be more careful with how they describe their accomplishments. You've complained about that.

It is definitely the case that you are far more willing than I am to take uncorroborated aspirational autobiographical claims at face value, whether from those whose statements appeal to you or from those whose statements cause you to complain about them.

[andrewcriddle]

It's not an assumption nor is it unevidenced that NT scholars and nonbiblical historians have different defintions or ideas of what constitutes a fact. It's a studied and evidence-based fact that they do. I have had exchanges with some of them (and read enough of their works) that makes that "fact" as plain as the nose on lying Pinocchio's face. Larry Hurtado, for one, flatly claimed that the "eruption" of the Christian movement in the early 30s and subsequent persecution by Saul of the church were facts of history, raw data to be explained, incapable of denial. He could not see that those points were nothing more than narratives that only appeared long after the 30s and had no corroborating evidence to support their veracity.

If NT scholars are "pursuing a different goal" that is not to their credit. It implies that they are seeking to support an ideological narrative of Christian origins. NT scholars will tell you that they are pursuing historical inquiry just like nonbiblical historians are doing.

I don't think that rejecting/ignoring the Dutch-Radical position implies that NT scholars are adopting principles alien to those of nonbiblical ancient historians. FWIW Moses Finley (already mentioned in this thread) seems to have accepted broadly traditional dates for the NT writings. Without holding a Dutch-Radical position, most of the above claims (e.g. setting aside whether or not Paul as persecutor was called Saul) seem facts in the sense of plausible statements supported by relevant evidence and with no evidence to oppose them. We agree that they are not facts in the sense that the existence of Julius Caesar is a fact but nor is the claim that Xenophanes referred to Pythagoras a fact in that sense.

Andrew Criddle

[neilgodfrey]

What do you mean by "It is the NT scholars' behavior that arouses you"?

Throughout this discussion, you have compared the standards of scholarship that prevail in Biblical Studies unfavorably to the standards advocated by academic historians. You have provided examples of NT scholars putting their standards into practice (= behavior). You were not amused.

No, Paul. You are getting way off base. You are making this personal. Please keep to the topic: the practices, methods, standards themselves.

Is that how you engage with someone who compares two methods of inquiry and notes the differences between them and sees one as valid by the normal rules of logic and the other as not?

Pretty much. I don't see either field confining its inferences to valid demonstrations according the rules of ordinary 2-valued logic. The existence of Julius Caesar can be established to arbitrary confidence by arguments that are valid according to, say, Bayesian formalisms. But probability theory is neither two-valued, nor is it a logic. I cannot demonstrate Julius Caesar's existence by any argument that is valid in the ordinary logician's sense.

Then demonstrate, show us, where the methods of the historians of ancient history are arbitrary. They are not even Bayesian. You have simply ignored the points I have been making and are not jumping back to sweeping claims that I thought had been shown to be false -- according to the words of the historians themselves.

What's this word "behave" as in "how historians behave"? I am talking about historical methods and have pointed out what those methods are by quoting the historians themselves.

Behavior is what we agree upon: the descriptive adequacy of what you've presented. Where we seem to disagree are, in descending order of importance:

This is absurd. Behaviour is how people act.

(1) The relevance of what scholars aspire to do in one field to what scholars in a distinct field may do, despite differences between the fields in the questions addressed, the availability of evidence, the prospect of obtaining more or better evidence, and the goals of evidentiary inference (= the desired balance between likeliness and loveliness, to use the terms introduced by your witness).

That's not behaviour, Paul. It sounds like you have decided to simply ignore what the differences in methods -- even from the word of the scholars themselves -- in both fields.

(2) whether all historians actually do what some historians say in the quotes (I have no idea. From lived experience I know that autobiographical narratives are often inaccurate, incomplete, or both, that people frequently exaggerate the extent to which other people agree with them, and that you have presented little or no evidence about uniformity of compliance within the field).

Well I do know that every historian's work I have read has adhered to those methods, and I have read easily over 100 such works, and easily over 100 works of NT scholarship. I know how they work. If you don't, I wonder why you are so quick to defend one against what I have said are both my observations and the observations of both nonbiblical and historical Jesus historians.

Do you have problems with their methods?

For use in their own field? No. I haven't done a thorough verification, but I suspect these heuristics will survive scrutiny. The standards for survival aren't arduous.

Right. I dare say by "haven't done a thorough verification" you mean that you haven't done a verification or comparison at all. Am I right? You're just assuming that New Testament scholars can't be as fallacious in their standards of logic and methodology as I and others have observed.

Do you think they don't apply to NT scholars? If so, why?

I thought we agreed descriptively: there are not the standards that prevail ( to apply in that sense) among NT scholars. We disagree presecriptively ( to apply in that other sense). See numbered item (1) above for why I do not find it rationally obligatory for scholars in the one field to adopt the standards of the different field.

So you are ignoring my request that you actually examine what nonbiblical historians do (did you even read their quotes explaining their methods?) and choosing to ignore pointing out why those methods should not apply to the study of Christian origins and the historical Jesus. You simply are happy to say that there are differences (though you do not demonstrate any knowledge of what those differences are) and that one should not apply to the other.

You are sidestepping the very unfortunate fact -- fact -- that HJ scholarship rests on circular reasoning and "facts" that have no independent confirmation at all.

If you think NT scholars on the historical Jesus are doing something different from other historians that justifies a different set of methods, then what is that different thing they are doing?

Striking a different balance between loveliness and likeliness justifies different working methods, IMO. So does asking different questions. Availability of evidence issues are trickier for "justification," so I'll just go with the other two from numbered item (1) above.

Right. So you don't know what the differences are, you don't even know if one side rely upon logical fallacies as their foundational starting point, and are determined to avoid anything that will oblige you to investigate if that is true.

You seem to be avoiding the point. It is clear, is it not, that those methods are based on circular reasoning.

I'm not avoiding your point, I've largely endorsed your descriptive recitation, including that NT scholars explain themselves poorly.

Assuming that "the gospels have a historical core," then showing that that is both seriously possible and also has interesting consequences, and finally concluding that therefore the gospels have a historical core is circular. Finally concluding instead that therefore "the gospels have a historical core" is a useful hypothesis is not circular. It is what the evidence supports in that hypothetical.

And so once again, we agree: some NT scholars could speak more carefully about what they've achieved. If they have established what your witness called "loveliness," then they ought not to claim "likeliness" on that basis.

We don't agree. You cannot demonstrate by any means of independent confirmation that there is a historical core to the gospels. You cannot demonstrate that at all by any means. You just make that up.

That the gospels have a historical core is not a hypothesis in NT studies at all. It is treated as a fact. It is never tested the way a hypothesis requires.

Yes, anyone can imagine there was a historical core to the narratives, but why do you think historians require independent corroborating evidence for a historical core and NT scholars don't?

Likely factors are differences in how often independent corroborating evidence is available and how much. Methods that cannot be applied will not be applied (a descriptive claim), nor should they be (a prescriptive claim).

That is weird. So if a detective has no evidence that a suspect is guilty but is sure he is guilty then he should not be required to produce evidence -- after all, it doesn't exist. So he has to be charged and convicted without evidence.

That's your level of argument, Paul.

We have no evidence for aliens visiting the earth, but we know they do or it's at least a good hypothesis that they do, so we have to dispense with the need for evidence in our study of alien visitations.

We have no evidence for unicorns in the garden, but we know they are there or at least "really believe" they are, so ....

Sorry, Paul... I really can't bring myself to read the rest of your reply. I'll have to leave it there for now.

[neilgodfrey]

It's not an assumption nor is it unevidenced that NT scholars and nonbiblical historians have different defintions or ideas of what constitutes a fact. It's a studied and evidence-based fact that they do. I have had exchanges with some of them (and read enough of their works) that makes that "fact" as plain as the nose on lying Pinocchio's face. Larry Hurtado, for one, flatly claimed that the "eruption" of the Christian movement in the early 30s and subsequent persecution by Saul of the church were facts of history, raw data to be explained, incapable of denial. He could not see that those points were nothing more than narratives that only appeared long after the 30s and had no corroborating evidence to support their veracity.

If NT scholars are "pursuing a different goal" that is not to their credit. It implies that they are seeking to support an ideological narrative of Christian origins. NT scholars will tell you that they are pursuing historical inquiry just like nonbiblical historians are doing.

I don't think that rejecting/ignoring the Dutch-Radical position implies that NT scholars are adopting principles alien to those of nonbiblical ancient historians. FWIW Moses Finley (already mentioned in this thread) seems to have accepted broadly traditional dates for the NT writings. Without holding a Dutch-Radical position, most of the above claims (e.g. setting aside whether or not Paul as persecutor was called Saul) seem facts in the sense of plausible statements supported by relevant evidence and with no evidence to oppose them. We agree that they are not facts in the sense that the existence of Julius Caesar is a fact but nor is the claim that Xenophanes referred to Pythagoras a fact in that sense.

Andrew Criddle

What does the Dutch-Radical position have to do with what you quoted of my words?

I did mention the Dutch-Radicals in another context, and I did say I thought they applied "normative" historical methods more than mainstream NT scholars, but I also said our more recent "minimalists" apply the same normative historical methods and have come up with very different views on the when and why and how of the OT books.

I have also pointed out in some other comment that it can very respectably be argued that the letters of Paul belong to the mid-first century.

Are you concerned that my view of what constitutes sound historical method leads to a less than secure basis for the historicity of Jesus? Is that the bottom line here?

The word "fact" can have different types of meanings in different contexts, but I think the quotations of historians that I have presented in this thread should make it clear in what sense we are talking about facts in the sense of "Is it a fact that X existed?"

A "plausible statement" is not necessarily a fact, of course. Not is it necessarily a fact if it is "supported" by relevant evidence. That word "support" covers a multitude of meanings. Conspiracy theorists come up with what to them are plausible scenarios with "supporting relevant evidence".

And sometimes we discover that events we thought were facts are not facts at all. So sometimes we learn that people we once thought were historical never existed, either. And I am sure I have come across events that we once thought never happened really did happen -- though I cannot recall examples at the moment. We learn.

Let's be specific. Stick to clear examples. I have tried to present clear explanations of what historians do by quoting their words, and I have presented instances where I think those methods support, or don't support, the historicity of various persons. And I tried to avoid cases where we have coins, monuments, etc of the person.

In what sense do you mean that Xenophanes' referring to Pythagoras is not a fact?

We don't have Xenophanes' poem except via Diogenes Laertius. That is data or the historical source. What becomes a fact is the result of how the historian interprets that raw data: and that requires a knowledge of Diogenes Laertius and his writings and an analysis of those writings and their context as well as the historical chain from Xeonphanes to DL.