I don't see much in your message which seems to need a reponse, Legion, and since you will not discuss the synoptic question with me, or any other specific issue relatinng to the (non)historical Jesus, I'm afraid I'm losing interest. I'll answer a line or two. If there's anything you want to specifically ask, I'll respond.
Ask me the question. What is this "synoptic question" I'm not discussing? Is it this:
ITEM #1: The synoptic gospels. Why do we view Matthew, Mark and Luke as three different books rather than what they seem so obviously to be, which are revisions of the same story? Not retellings. Revisions of the same text, whose sole purpose was to make the story better. That's what revisions are.
The answer is that in Greek (where everything from word order to morphology can change so easily), too much of Matthew and Luke have identical or nearly identical material that is completely lacking from Mark. Moreover, what material they do use from Mark is rearranged by each author differently to suit their narrative needs (making them clearly reliant on Mark
in part, and therefore after). There is no way to explain the identical or nearly identical extensive portions of Greek in Matthew and Luke by saying they are both "revisions" of Mark. Nor do either show any signs of using each other. For example, if Matthew used Mark but added all the material generally thought to come from a source called Q, and Luke just copied this from Matthew, we would expect to find the kind of use of Matthew's "extra" material in Luke that we do of Mark's. We'd also expect that any variance was relatively consistent, in that either Luke kept the same wording as Matthew, or changed it. But we don't find either. Instead, there are places where it appears Luke has the original wording, and Matthew has changed it to fit into his narrative. And vice versa.
But here we come to a problem:
(Do you really not recognize my brute appeal to (my own) authority in response to your constant appeal to your offstage 'scholarly consensus'?)
I recognize that you see it as such. You think your approach is that of a rational skeptic, asking questions or posing doubts that are somehow meaningful and demonstrate not only your skilled debating, but also the glaring holes in arguments for the historical Jesus.
But this is nothing new. And it's also not actually your approach. I have placed before you (directly or indirectly) evidence which relates to ancient Greek & a particular interpretation of Paul's identification of Jesus' brother. I need not appeal to any authority to make this argument; I can simply analyze the Greek and show how this formula is used in Paul, Josephus, and Greek texts in general.
Now we have (it seems) your "synoptic question" or whatever you want to call it. I can refer you to sources all the way back to Holtzmann, or I can walk you through the Greek myself. But are you able to evaluate any argument I make about the Greek and why it is necessary to see a set of lines in Matthew and Luke as coming from an independent source apart from Matthew based on things like morphology, syntax, lexical choices, clausal structure, connecting particles, etc.? No.
I'm sure that you know exactly what I'm talking about, but I just don't care enough to transplant my question from the other thread to this one.
Let's hope I got it right then.
So the consensus of medical opinion about a particular disease is just as scientific as the consensus of 'biblical scholars' about the historical Jesus?
Who knows? After all, eugenics was a "science". I would think that, true to form, you wouldn't just take their word for it. What distinguishes scientific inquiry from another type? Is sociology a science? Psychiatry? Psychology? When and why? And given that the entirety of psychiatry is built upon an assumption about the nature of diseases they have no evidence for other than that built upon the assumption that the diseases exist as such, how is this more "scientific" than historical inquiry?
But let me ask you something: Medical doctors are generally "people with a license to practice medicine and who practice medicine for a living".
Actually, the entire field of psychiatry survived by redefining what psychiatrists do as "medicine" to keep their priority and status over and against therapists (psychologists, social workers, etc.).
Can you define 'biblical scholar' for me and our audience? What certification is required for one to be a 'biblical scholar' -- qualified to lend his voice to the 'scholarly consensus'?
One doesn't lend voice to the "scholarly consensus". One contributes to scholarship. And like medicine and science, this works the same way. Graduate degrees in a relevant area are generally preferred, but by no means essential. For example, a paper my sister wrote as an undergrad (which I know of as I helped) will be appearing in
Journal of Nursing Education and Practice (or has already appeared). Once someone (post-doctorate, research fellow, whatever) has written something (paper, monograph, etc.) they or others think is worth sharing, they send it into an academic group, such as the editorial board of some journal or series. The editorial board looks at it, and if they think it is 1) likely to be something consistent with what they publish (for example, a journal devoted to the historical Jesus isn't going to publish an article on the relationship between Philo and classical Greek philosophy, as it has nothing to do with the object of that journal), and 2) probably something written by somebody who is competent and knowledgable (for example, if the individual cites only popular works, or shows an inability to actually
read the sources, primary or secondary, they discuss, then the committee is unlikely to bother with it), then they send it to a bunch of people who are known to have written work similar to or related to the topics of the study. The reviewers then comment on the study, noting things like whether or not the author hasn't addressed a very important and relevant source or sources (for example, if the author mentions mithras and the hellenistic mysteries yet doesn't mention any research since Burkert's
Antike Mysterien). The editorial board will then either accept the study, ask the author to revise it and resubmit it, or reject it and note why (in which case the author might revise and resubmit it, send it to another academic publishing group, or decide not to continue to try and get it published). Once it is accepted, it
starts to be considered as scholarship. That review process is only the beginning. The study can now be accessed and ripped apart by the real critics: the opposing scholars who hold different views. And their rejoinders can in turn be ripped into by the original author and others.
There is nothing preventing anyone from submitting a paper or book to such an academic publishing group. Nor to prevent the published work of others outside of academic publishers to be considered fair game for scholars to write about. This holds true in general across fields (the exception being things like neuroimaging studies, in which equipment most don't have access to is required). The biggest obstacle to being published is the necessary degree of expertise. Most of those who spend enough time studying a subject like the historical Jesus such that they can write about it and contribute (rather than regurgitate) scholarship get degrees. Why learn three or more ancient langauges, and two or more modern languages, not to mention reading countless books and papers, all for fun? Few people do. Instead, they go to school to be paid to study (as a graduate student, researcher, post-doc, etc.).
So tell me how we can determine that consensus.
If you have to ask, you can't. It is the same in every field. One determines it from looking at the research, from knowing what happens at academic conferences, from literature reviews, from reviews of these reviews, etc. Nobody ever "votes" about consensus (one reason the voting of the Jesus Seminar was ridiculed). It is determined by the only thing that matters: scholarship.
I seriously doubt that anyone can offer a common defintion of 'biblical scholar,' but I'm willing to listen.
Someone who has published mainly academic works on issues related to biblical studies, and/or who has a doctorate degree (which means they had to have their dissertation accepted in a way that involves at least as much reviewing by others as does peer-review) in some field related to biblical studies.
Yikes. The 'single statement' to which I replied was your assertion that you wanted to drop our dialogue.
It wasn't. You said something to the effect of "assume I don't know anything" and I said that if I assumed this (or having assumed this) there was no point in discussing anything. So unless you really don't have a clue about anything related to the historical Jesus (which was what I was asked to assume), then I wasn't saying I wanted to stop discussing anything. Simply that assuming you don't know anything wasn't going to help.
