Titanic
Well-Known Member
how so?
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How would an Historical JC be Defined?
- Thread starter Jonathan Hoffman
- Start date
how so?
gnostic
The Lost One
fallingblood said:
I don't know when exactly Jesus die, meaning "what year", because historians and scholars date his death anywhere between 30 and 36 CE. They can't pinpoint when Jesus died, exactly, just like they have difficulties in determining exactly what year was jesus born, because of 2 different and conflicting birth stories.
(It is difficult because of Luke had also claimed Jesus' birth had also occur at Quirinius' governorship in Syria and the census in Judaea (6 CE); general consensus is that Herod's death occurred in 4 CE. According to Josephus, Herod Archelaus ruled Judaea for 10 years after his father's death, and the census didn't occur until Archelaus was banished and Judaea became a Roman province.)
Paul is definitely Jesus' contemporary, because he was born in 5 CE.
Josephus, on the other hand, was not Jesus' contemporary, because he was born in 37 CE. Josephus was still a young man when Paul died in 66 CE.
You misunderstand me. There are those who popularize, and those who sensationalize. In other words, some people make money taking technical literature and making it accessible, while others just distort.
My go-to example is Ronald Hutton. He wrote a book on the history of Wicca. It was never intended to be read by the general public. But so many wiccans and other neopagans were interested in it that they wrote to him with complaints. His book was too dense, and his previous book (The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles) was even worse (i.e., it was more technical). So Hutton published two versions of his book on the history of modernized druidry (i.e., only the first chapter of each concerns "actual" druids, and basically simply that we do not know anything much about them at all). One book was for the general audience, the other for academics.
I've read both, and they are both excellent (they are just intended for different audiences and reflect this).
That is not how I see Ehrman. In Misquoting Jesus, he has a line "There are more variants among are manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament."
(p. 90). It's an almost verbatim copy of a line in Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, except it lacks what follows in that version: "There are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the NT. As one might expect, however, these raw numbers are somewhat deceptive. For the vast majority of these textual differences are easily recognized as simple scribal mistakes...The single largest category of mistake is orthographic; an examination of almost any of our oldest Greek manuscripts will show that scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most people can today."
You tell me: are the additional lines hard to follow? If so, is there a way they could be made simpler rather than just removed entirely so that the reader of Misquoting Jesus isn't left with the wrong impression?
What bridges?
Years ago, he wrote a book Lost Christianities. In it, he includes and account of Morton Smith's "find" of the Secret Gospel of Mark. It's pretty neutral. In the Journal of Early Christian Studies, his critique of both Morton Smith and the finding is much more scathing, and is set against two others (Guy Stroumsa and Charles Hedrick) who both disagree with him and both write that not only should any debate over the find be but to rest, but the only reason there is one has to do with personal attacks on Smith.
In other words, when it came to an account of an extra-canonical text, Ehrman was far more neutral in his work for the general public, but set himself against two of his colleagues publicly in an academic journal in 2003. Stroumsa has a reputation more akin to Ehrman's teacher on textual criticism than Ehrman.
And you think he's mending bridges with his latest book?
I gave you an example of a line almost identical in one of his public works to one of his technical works. How difficult did you find it to understand the context added in the technical work?
Absolutely not. I don't expect anybody to do what I do because it isn't normal and is at least borderline unhealthy. I have two hobbies and buy almost nothing in the way of luxury items because I spend what I have on academic materials to study everything I'm interested and that includes far too much. I don't expect that from others and I advise against it.
Which is why I find it so much more important for scholars (and non-scholars when it comes to public media reports of studies) to act responsibly. I have no problem with scholars making money selling to the public or doing other things (I am supporting myself through contract work at the moment, and before I moved I was selling my services teaching and tutoring both high school and college kids).
I have a problem when inaccuracies are included not for simplicity but for sensationalism.
I didn't really consider Ehrman at all in what you said, and quoted him not because I felt you did him a disservice but because of the number of times I have heard "but X isn't a historian" in debates on the historical Jesus. It is a constant critique of biblical scholars that they are not historians. And Carrier has used this inaccurate assessment to his advantage by flaunting the fact that his degree contains the word "history", when in fact most of those most qualified here have degrees that do not.
That's because he spent his entire career as a grad student and after obtaining his doctorate on topics that had almost nothing to do with history, but on public policies. His blog topics have covered everything from trends in porn to trashing biblical studies scholars, but he hasn't published much of anything on ancient history.
Also, just so you know, regarding the oft discussed references to Jesus in Josephus and Carrier: virtually all scholars in biblical studies or classics believe the reference to "James, brother of Jesus, the one called Christ" is authentic.
Yet we find
Carrier, R.(2012). Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200. Journal of Early Christian Studies 20(4), 489-514.
Here Carrier argues that the line about James is an interpolation. And it was published in the mainstream journal I mentioned above (Ehrman's paper on Secret Mark).
So apparently despite being "unemployable", as you say, his paper is almost alone in its conclusions yet is published in a mainstream journal on early Christian studies.
By "alone", I mean we'd have to go back in time to when scholars like Solomon Zeitlin (who published three papers I know of arguing that the Josephan passages are interpolations in the 20s and 30s) were more common, and the idea that the gospels contained almost nothing but stories early Christians made-up was mainstream, to find more of those with this view.
Yes, but you have also acknowledged that you don't read the technical literature. Ehrman gave him credit because "serious" in this case is relative. One book has an author with an MA classical civilizations. Yet in one of the two books, the authors claim that a word used to translate "stable" (katalemna) in the NT corresponds to a Greek word that could mean "cave" in order to compare Jesus to Dionysus (whom we are told is also known by the name Pan).
This word is not in the NT. It is not in any early Christian literature because it is not a word. Yet it is on the wiki page of the book, and I have seen it elsewhere.
Another "big name" is Murdock (a pseudonym), who cites Herodotus in order to claim that Jesus is like Mithras. The actual passage, however, talks about a Persian goddess.
The standards, in other words, are not high.
I've argued with Doherty himself.
Am I correct in saying that your familiarity with Jesus studies is limited to non-technical literature? Would you make a statement such as "frankly, that is pretty much what all multiverse proponents do"? Or, to put it another away, if you read Socrates: A Life Examined, would you dismiss it as "the same thing historicists do" compared to those like Dorion (who, like many historical Jesus scholars over the past 200 years, believes we can know nothing of Socrates other than perhaps basic facts because everything we have of him is literary fictions)?
Or would you say "I have no idea what kind of literature is out there because all I'm familiar with is the non-technical stuff"?
I don't care what he does in the book. It's not meant to be scholarship and to think it represents scholarship at all (when Ehrman himself denies that it does) is to make a serious mistake. To think that this is what "historicists" in general are capable of is to make a much more serious mistake.
I know that you do. I've told you more than once I am jealous of your familiarity with scholars I admire. Which is why I'm surprised that it seems you think you understand the specific politics in this case (which is like reading popular books by e.g., Pinker and thinking you understand the linguist wars; I have read a lot of the literature not just on linguistics but on the modern history and you told me things I didn't know), or that you can characterize the state of research because you've read some popular works.
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fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
That is the lamest response yet. It isn't even an argument, but a rejection of information based on a bias.
So the fact that I have faith in something, everything else I say is irrelevant? That is just ridiculous. More so, you have no idea what I actually have faith in. You don't know what beliefs of mine are dependent on faith. So for you to rule my beliefs out because of an imaginary weakest link is nothing more than a strawman.
Finally, everyone has faith, or a working hypothesis.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
I guess if we stripped away Harry Potter and Jesus of their magical abilities we could view them as ordinary, but why the bother? I guess in the case of Jesus there is this overwhelming need by some to declare he was real and that he really and truly o walked the earth. Afterall, he was the redeemer of all of mankind, we could hardly make do without him.
Why do many atheists and agnostics also accept that Jesus existed? Surely they don't have a need to see him as the redeemer of all of mankind. Or what about Jews? They don't see Jesus as the redeemer of all mankind either. You're argument fails as it is not just people who see Jesus as a redeemer or all mankind who accept that Jesus is historical.
As for why bother? Why bother studying any religious leader or historical person? Because there is quite a bit that we can learn from them. Why study history? Because we can learn from history. Augustus was also said to have "magical" abilities, so why bother study him? Because it helps us understand history better. History allows us to understand our culture better. It allows us to see how we got where we are today, and where we are going.
You were doing fine pointing out my lame redeemer of all of mankind excuse until you brought up Augustus. Augustus is a totally different case altogether, it's fallacious to compare Jesus with Augustus on so many levels that you completely discredit yourself for doing so. Those that are so persistent about this Jesus character being historical don't care about history, they only care that Jesus is believed to have been historical. Why? Only those that have a need to tell everyone that Jesus really and truly o walked the earth know why they care about him so much. It's like a religion, oh wait a minute, it is a religion, no wonder Thomas Brodie got fired for writing a book about the probability of Jesus being a myth.
Jonathan Hoffman
Active Member
OK, show examples of your faith regarding history (as that is the context of this discussion) and we can decide whether it is lame or has legs.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
:clap: Cheers! I shall join you in an obstinate refusal to think. :clap:
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
It can both be lame and have legs.
Seriously, is critical thinking not taught on any level these days?
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angellous_evangellous
Guest
That's the problem with people referring to him having (1) not read him or (2) read him poorly.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
Augustus is a perfectly fine example. The same historical principles should be used on Augustus as well as Jesus. There should be no special pleading, and Jesus-mythers seem to always be doing that.
More so, you completely missed the point that even atheists, agnostics, Jews, Hindus, etc accept that Jesus existed even though they are not part of the religion. So your argument has no ground to stand on.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
In regards to history, my beliefs are not supported by faith, but through the historical method. So basically, you can not rule out my beliefs simply by saying faith is weak, as my beliefs in regards to history are not based on faith.
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angellous_evangellous
Guest
I've been thinking that there might be better examples than Augustus. The primary reason is that Augustus was an historically significant person while he was alive, so there is far more material available for him that has nothing to do with religious writings. Like Jesus, Augustus remained historically significant, but he began that way and his significance is not encased in only a few perspectives. By the time Jesus becomes significant, his histories took on a life of their own, separated from the historical Jesus in a way that we cannot reconcile as we can with sources for Augustus.
The biographies Pythagoras comes to mind - offhand - for me as a closer example of what happened with Jesus. But the Gospels are far closer to Jesus historically...
Jonathan Hoffman
Active Member
My faith in you is now restored!!
:magic:
Copernicus
Industrial Strength Linguist
I did not misunderstand you. I just disagree with you. The main function of the popular literature is to stoke the intellectual curiosity of non-specialists. Just as with academic works, 90% of it is going to be fairly misguided and useless. People who read those works don't always stop thinking about the issues they address. To tell you the truth, I might never have become a linguist if I hadn't been attracted to the field by the prolific (and horribly misguided) works of Mario Pei. I see the cult following of General Semanticists in a similar light--as priming the pump of curiosity over issues that lots of people will go on to learn more about. I'm not condoning misinformation. I'm just not as worried about it as you are. We live in a world of propaganda and misinformation, yet life goes on. Self-righteous indignation will never cleanse the popular literature of misinformation any more than it will cleanse the peer-reviewed academic literature. I suppose my view of such matters is a little jaded in my old age. Can't get the old fires of academic outrage stoked enough.
I think Ehrman could have done a better job, but I think that you find flaws of that sort in just about everything people write. It may or may not lessen your confidence in what else he writes in that work. Certainly, Carrier went on at length about how his fairly nitpicky points should deter anyone from reading Did Jesus Exist?. Nevertheless, I'm still reading it, because I'm interested in what Ehrman had to say--even more so, in light of Carrier's criticisms.
Absolutely, and I think you gave me a good reason to think that. You posted earlier that most of his followers seem to be religious skeptics. I thought it an accurate statement about his reputation, and I saw this work as something of a course correction. He doesn't want to be marginalized. Reputation is everything in academia. Being admired by religious skeptics is not necessarily a plus for faculty in a religious studies department. He started out the book by saying that he expected his earlier supporters to be surprised and disappointed.
I do, too, when the distortions are deliberate.
What you say here is ironic, because Carrier was reacting to exactly the same charge made about mythicists--that they lack credentials. He was particularly incensed that Ehrman, obviously not a trained historian, had denied his earned credentials as a historian and used the label "Classicist" to impugn them. And you are trying to mitigate that tactic by saying that "his degree contains the word 'history'" rather than acknowledging the fact that he is a bona fide, credentialed historian. I don't care how light his list of peer-reviewed publications is. He may even be a bad historian. But he is still someone trained and credentialed by competent historians.
You, too, are guilty of being at an early stage in your career. How weighty is your publication list? Some scholars have short lists with very significant publications. Others have long lists with nothing much of lasting impact on their field. Carrier has taken a different path than most people with degrees in Ancient History. His career decisions can be considered courageous, crafty, or foolish, depending on your perspective. I find it ironic that you still lean towards Ehrman's criticism of Carrier without acknowledging what provoked Carrier's ire. Carrier is very often labeled as a "Classicist" by those who disparage him, and Ehrman could actually easily have checked the facts with Carrier or looked at his curriculum vitae.
Carrier doesn't dispute this. You need to consider his response to it, which I find quite credible. One needs to consider not just the expertise of the people making the claim, but the basis for their claim. Why do they consider it authentic? Or are we always to accept something as true merely because most scholars in that field say it is true? Nobody knows for sure whether Paul ever met James, whether he got James' story straight, or whether James even told him the truth. It is a slim reed on which to hang an argument, and there aren't a lot of other reeds around to corroborate it. The evidence for HJ is very light, considering the impact that the legend has had on subsequent generations.
Doesn't the existence of this peer-reviewed publication contradict the disparaging remarks about his academic credentials? I stand by my remark that he is virtually unemployable. His reputation makes it very hard for any university to consider taking on the stigma of hiring him. That doesn't mean that his peers will reject his work for publication.
So have a lot of people who disagreed with him. Myself, I've argued with Noam Chomsky in person. Obviously, he was wrong, and I was right.
No, and I'm not at all sure what point you think you are making with all of those rhetorical questions. It would help if you just explained the arguments I was missing that you saw in the technical literature. Otherwise, all this amounts to is an argument from authority. This is an internet discussion forum, not a professional academic conference, so we can be less formal about such things. I'm not a specialist in Ancient History, Religious Studies, or Classics. Should I just therefore shut up and accept what the "experts" say is the gospel truth? What happens when they disagree with each other or change their minds?
So now you cut him some slack for not being academically pure. I'm beginning to wonder which side of that fence you want to be on. I think that Ehrman meant his book to be sound from a scholarly perspective. If he didn't, then he was being disingenuous, and I have no reason to think that.
I do not think that I understand the "specific" politics of this particular field. I can only generalize about academia, based on my own experiences. I certainly have a better understanding of the politics in the linguistic community, but there are lots of linguists out there who will probably disagree with me. In the end, all we can do is base our opinions on our current understanding, which is certain to be imperfect. Therefore, we need to keep re-examining everything we think we know.
I moved this up because it reflects a very, very serious misunderstanding of something far broader than anything about Jesus. Do you know who the members of Dr. Carrier's dissertation committee were? According to his CV:
Committee: W.V. Harris, R. Billows, M.L. Jones, G. Williams, K. Vogt
Dr. Harris received is doctorate in classics from Oxford. Then, as now, the Oxford Classics department covers the historical study of Greece and Rome, while the history department does not.
The same is true for the next on the list- classicist Dr. Richard Billows. He received his doctorate at UCLA, which also has the same distinction between the "history" department" and the classics department. In fact, the only page you can find all members of his committee listed at once? The Department of Classics at Columbia. Why? Because three are affiliates, as they are professors of history who have backgrounds in classics, and one (Williams) is a member of the Classics department.
Why is this? Well, I don't know how much you've looked into the development of the university system or this history of the modern academic historical-critical approach, but long after places like Oxford were founded, the modern critical approach to history began with in biblical studies and classics. Because that's all that history really was for years.
How might we check?
You were a professor at Columbia. Take a look at the history dept. Human civilization has been around for a few thousand years. Broken down by time period, Columbia starts with "To 400". Going with the "historians v. other" approach, Columbia thinks 6 scholars are enough to cover history prior to 400CE. The next period is 400-1350, but although there are 8 names, one is also on the "To 400" list. Apparently there isn't much to study as far as "history" is concerned until about 1350CE, when it gets going, but doesn't really take off until the 19th century, when history begins.
What about those 6 names? One is Dr. Seth Schwartz, who came back to Columbia in 2009 after he "taught for fourteen years at the Jewish Theological Seminary". Two are the classicists I already mentioned. One is an art historian. Dr. Marc Van De Mieroop is a Near Eastern studies specialist. And finally we have Feng Li, associate professor of Early Chinese History and Archaeology.
So, either Columbia doesn't think it requires more than one professor for the entirety of Chinese history or
you have fundamentally misconstrued the entirety of the study of ancient history.
And just maybe, you've mistaken Carrier's response as justified rather than the smug, arrogant, and completely idiotic crap it is because you didn't take into account that the only reason Carrier's PhD isn't "classics" is because he received it from a history department with almost nobody qualified to address human history before 400CE, not because Columbia has a terrible history dept. but because it is affiliated with e.g. the classics department.
Nothing compared to Carrier's. But why is Dr. Carrier so particular about his doctorate in Ancient History, when his list of publications on his CV has almost nothing on ancient history?
So this:
is either a serious misunderstanding or a serious distortion. Because
1) Most people don't get degrees in Ancient History because they aren't offered
&
2) Carrier has published a lot. Just not much on Ancient History
1) Most people don't get degrees in Ancient History because they aren't offered
&
2) Carrier has published a lot. Just not much on Ancient History
How can not contributing to one's field
?
Most, yes. Not all. Here is a clip (more of the interview here: Common Sense Atheism) which is a recording of a radio interview that is from 2010, before his new book:
[youtube]WUQMJR2BP1w[/youtube]
And you know this because, having heard how James M. Robinson's book The Problem of History in Mark was received, and his subsequent treatment, are upset because...after that book came out in 1957, and despite being part of the much publicized Jesus Seminar that came out with not one but two new "New Testaments", and his more recent works like The Secrets of Judas: The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel, he somehow managed to cling to his academic appointments?
Marcus J. Borg DID leave his Hundere Chair of Religion and Culture in 2007 after he started writing books for the general public about the ways in which the NT has distorted the real Jesus. But this began in '87, followed by e.g., Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994); The God We Never Knew (1997); The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (1999); Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (2001).
JD Crossan is still where he's been since '95, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, DePaul University although he's also become Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies University of Central Florida (in 2006).
Karen King still holds her position at Harvard Divinity School.
Marvin Meyer remained somehow unaffected until his death last year.
And I could go on. But as you have yet to show me evidence of this serious bias that affects biblical studies which you don't read, or much evidence you know who actually studies ancient history and what degrees they typically have, I think that I will wait for some evidence that you have an understanding of the actual study of history of this period in general before I go into whether or not this specific topic is so biased.
I have. I have also considered the fact that this is a topic which people have been publishing about for over a hundred years, that I've read every source he lists and a lot more on this specific passage and on Josephus in general, and that you have neither done this research nor do you know, apparently, who does.
I have gone over that many times on this forum alone.
No. It means that while you have seen biases so intrinsic to biblical studies, one of the very few peer-reviewed journals Carrier has ever published in is one they put out. He's even a member of the Society of Biblical Literature.
No, but you should at least have an idea of what these fields are, in general, before you ask questions about one topic, rather than make sweeping statements about entire fields by creating this discipline called "Ancient history" to which something like "classics" can be compared.
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dust1n
Zindīq
Really? There aren't scholars and historians the take seriously and literally the miracles of Jesus?
dust1n
Zindīq
I personally respect your prudence in the matter John, and don't seem much reason for excluding any framework for determining the usefulness of evidence to support a claim, whether JC was real or not or magical or not, and the simply dismissing the entire topic is in bad taste, if one has no interest in discussing the matter, especially if no alternative is provided.
dust1n
Zindīq
And then we should be able to defend those rules; not everyone necessarily agrees that an empirical approach to history eliminates the "entire disciple of history." Consider an example:
"In the last 20 years postmodernism has had a powerful effect on the discipline of history and is now forcing empiricist historians to articulate their methods, and to defend them as both possible and virtuous. In this concise introduction, Stephen Davies explains what historians mean by empiricism, examines the origins, growth and persistence of empirical methods, and shows how students can apply these methods to their own work."
Empiricism and History (Theory and History): Stephen Davies: 9780333964705: Amazon.com: Books