2024-09-28

Are Historical Sources “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”?

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by Neil Godfrey

In a recent post I praised Douglas Campbell for drawing attention to the laziness (if not “dishonesty”) of rebutting an argument with the blanket “I am not persuaded” line. In this post I come to blame him for rejecting a genuinely critical reading of source material. It is with the very essence of critical reading that he objects:

Descartes suggested, in a classic argument widely influential in the modern period, that everything is in effect guilty until proved innocent. The result was, rather famously, the reduction of all certain knowledge to the conviction that his mental processes at least guaranteed his existence. In other words, he used radical doubt as a fundamental method. Everything must be doubted until it can be demonstrated indubitably to be true. (16)

Now Descartes’ method (shorn of the extremism with which Campbell presents it) does serve well enough in everyday life and especially in the legalistic professions and scientific research enterprises. But it is possible to take issue with it on a philosophical level, as demonstrated by Wittgenstein. But is there not a valid comparison here? We know that Newtonian physics “fails” at the subatomic particle level; but we do not reject the fundamentals of Newtonian physics when taking care climbing ladders or driving a car.

Campbell wrote — and note the pejorative language in which he couches Descartes’ scepticism:

But the Cartesian method has struggled to get anywhere significant and has, moreover, been subjected to ferocious critique, not least from Wittgenstein, who pointed out (characteristically indirectly) that the use of language implies participation in a broader linguistic community, which is in turn difficult to detach from a complex broader reality that cannot be doubted in the first instance without lapsing into utter incoherence. So Descartes’s key initial claims are in fact delusional. Unfortunately, however, the critical method, which played such a significant role in the rise of the modern university, has had a long dalliance with Cartesianism, so the latter tends to live on, haunting the corridors of the academy like a restless shade. It allowed figures like Kant to reject tradition out of hand and to argue from simpler and more certain first principles, although Kant too struggled to develop his principles with the certainty and extension that he really sought. It is not a completely crass oversimplification to suggest, then, that many modern Pauline scholars, shaped in part by the traditions at work in the modern university, seem to assume, at least at times, that the “critical” assessment of evidence simply involves the application of doubt in a generic way, ultimately in the manner of Descartes. It is a posture of comprehensive skepticism. One must be unconvinced until one is convinced of something’s probity on certain grounds. But I would suggest that when practiced in this generic and universal manner, this is an invalid and self-defeating methodology and a false understanding of criticism.’ (16)

Campbell had faulted as “posturing” the “I am not persuaded” rejoinder as a substitute for critical engagement. He faults Cartesian scepticism with the same label — “posturing”.

I doubt that I would be excused from jury service if I tried to opt out by explaining that Wittgenstein tells me that my particular semantic world may not be capable of deliberating in a truly objective manner the information conveyed to me as it is coded in semantic variations other than mine. Newtonian physics is still valid, its quantum companion notwithstanding.

Campbell then proceeds to justify another misguided “howler”:

We will rely on slender snippets of evidence in what follows, because that is all that we have — occasional and fragmentary remains of conversations that took place millennia ago. But we do have evidence, and it will not do to dismiss parts of the following reconstruction with a generic claim that “this is insufficient” or “there is still not enough evidence.” If this is the evidence that we have and it explains the data in the best existing fashion, then the correct scientific conclusion must be to endorse it and not to complain that we need more data that unfortunately does not exist. (18)

That may sound like a correct scientific approach but it is not. A scientific hypothesis must rely on multiple datasets. A single experiment is never sufficient. An experiment, a survey, must of necessity be repeated in different places with different samples to be sure of the results. The medical profession will not rely on a single survey of data to recommend a particular program to treat a physical condition.

The scientific method does not build on “slender snippets of evidence” if there is no other choice. If the evidence is inadequate to answer a particular question, or on which to base a certain line of inquiry, then it is the question and the line of inquiry that must be changed.

I frequently encounter the following kinds of statements in by biblical scholars in their works relating to early Christianity or Judaism:

We historians confront a supposed event in the past, as in some text or object, as though to “try it in court,” in order to reach a verdict to establish the truth of the matter. And the principles we can best employ are those used in the practice of law:

(1) The accused is presumed (not judged) innocent unless proven guilty.
(2) The preponderance of the evidence (anything over 50%) is decisive.
(3) The verdict rendered is considered proven beyond reasonable doubt (not absolute).

(Dever 140f — Old Testament scholar arguing against fundamentalist readings of the Bible)

and arguing the case for accepting the overall integrity of the canonical text of New Testament writings…

As in a court of law, the evidence deserves to be judged innocent of being an interpolation until proven guilty. This proof must be able to stand up before the jury of scholarship, which must decide whether “guilt” has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is reasonable doubt about the extraneousness of the accused data then it should not remain any longer under a cloud of suspicion. In that case the verdict must be acquittal in order to protect the innocent. If scholarship does not follow such a “rule of law,” serious injustice will be done to much innocent data.

(Wisse 170)

Livy (Wikipedia image)

Sometimes the biblical scholar will cite a (“nonbiblical”) historian for support:

Unless there is good reason for believing otherwise, one will assume that a given detail in the work of a particular historian is factual. This method places the burden of proof squarely on the person who would doubt the reliability of a given portion of the text. The alternative is to presume the text unreliable unless convincing evidence can be brought forward in support of it. While many critical scholars of the Gospels adopt this latter method, it is wholly unjustified by the normal canons of historiography. Scholars who would consistently implement such a method when studying other ancient historical writings would find the corroborative data so insufficient that the vast majority of accepted history would have to be jettisoned.29 In the words of the historian G. J. Renier:

We may find . . . an event is known to us solely through an authority based entirely upon the statements of witnesses who are no longer available. Most of the works of Livy, the first books of the history of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, belong to this category. Since there is no other way of knowing the story they tell us, we must provisionally accept their version. This brings us back full sail to accepted history as the starting point of all historical investigation.30

30. Renier, History, pp.90–91.

(Blomberg 304)

Although Blomberg cites a 1982 reprint of the classical historian’s (Renier’s) work, the original publication date stands at 1950. That is important for a reason I will explain.

But first, note the muddled metaphor in the above quotations. In a court of law it is not the witness who is “presumed innocent until proven guilty” but the one charged with a crime. Witnesses are cross examined to test their claims. Though the witness swears an oath to tell the truth their testimony is never accepted at face value. Their claims must be tested. Yet the above comparisons of the historical method confuse witnesses (sources) with the person who is on trial and seeking to prove his innocence.

In response to Dever above: In a court of law it is the one accused and on trial who is presumed innocent: it is the claims of the witnesses, the sources — not the accused — that must be tested.

In response to Wisse above: It is not the “evidence” that “deserves to be judged innocent”. It is the evidence that is tested for authenticity, relevance and reliability to determine the guilt or innocence of the one on trial.

Finally, in response to Blomberg: The Renier method of accepting the testimony of Livy for believing in the historicity of events for which there is no other evidence may have been par for the course among classicists in 1950, but by 1983 that naive approach was well and truly debunked by a series of lectures delivered by the classicist historian Moses Finley:

For reasons that are rooted in our intellectual history, ancient historians are often seduced into [accepting as historically factual] statements in the literary or documentary sources … unless they can be disproved (to the satisfaction of the individual historian). This proposition derives from the privileged position of Greek and Latin, and it is especially unacceptable for the early periods of both Greek and Roman history…

(Finley 21)

Renier referred to Livy as an example of a historian whose word he felt he had no choice but to follow. Finley pointed out the cruel truth, however:

Yet a Livy or a Plutarch cheerfully repeated pages upon pages of earlier accounts over which they neither had nor sought any control. . . .

Where did they find their information? No matter how many older statements we can either document or posit – irrespective of possible reliability – we eventually reach a void. But ancient writers, like historians ever since, could not tolerate a void, and they filled it in one way or another, ultimately by pure invention.

The ability of the ancients to invent and their capacity to believe are persistently underestimated. How else could they have filled the blatant gaps in their knowledge once erudite antiquarians had observed that centuries had elapsed between the destruction of Troy and the ‘foundation’ of Rome, other than by inventing an Alban king-list to bridge the gap? Or how could they contest an existing account other than by offering an alternative, for example, to provide ideological support for, or hostility to, a particular ethnic group, such as Etruscans or Sabines, who played a major role in early Roman history? No wonder that, even in the hopelessly fragmentary state of the surviving material on early Rome, there is a bewildering variety of versions, a variety that continued to increase and multiply as late as the early Principate. Presumably no one today believes the Alban king-list to be anything but a fiction, but any suggestion that there is insufficient ground to give credence to the Roman king-list is greeted with outraged cries of ‘hyper-criticism’ …. (8f)

There was a time — it is long past — when classicists would reconstruct ancient history from their Greek and Latin sources as naively as many biblical scholars continue today to reconstruct the origins of Judaism and Christianity from the texts in the Bible. Finley added:

I suspect that Ogilvie’s slip [naive readings of ancient historians] reflects , no doubt unconsciously, the widespread sentiment that any thing written in Greek or Latin is somehow privileged, exempt from the normal canons of evaluation. (10)

Classicists have long since moved on. Perhaps it’s time for more biblical scholars to follow them.


Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. 2nd edition. Nottingham: IVP Academic, 2007.

Campbell, Douglas A. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, 2014.

Dever, William G. “Christian Fundamentalism, Faith, and Archaeology.” In Misusing Scripture: What Are Evangelicals Doing with the Bible?, edited by Mark Elliott, Kenneth Atkinson, and Robert Rezetko, 131–52. Routledge, 2023.

Finley, M. I. Ancient History: Evidence and Models. London: Chatto & Windus, 1985. [Chapter 2 was part of a series of J. H. Gray Lectures at the Faculty of Classics of the University of Cambridge]

Wisse, Frederik W. “Textual Limits to Redactional Theory in the Pauline Corpus.” In Gospel Origins & Christian Beginnings : In Honor of James M. Robinson, edited by James E. Goehring, Charles W. Hedrick, and Jack T. Sanders, 167–78. Sonoma, Calif. : Polebridge Press, 1990.


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36 thoughts on “Are Historical Sources “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”?”

  1. The problem as I see it with regard to acceptable interpretations/analyses and whatnot is similar to the lame AI programs we have been fed. If you ask any of those programs to generate an image of Jesus Christ, what you get, at least what I see, is an Anglo-Jesus. He doesn’t look at all Mediterranean or Palestinian, almost WASP-ish. This is because the AI is trolling the internet and collecting all of the biases and whatnot and weaving them into new images and new essays. In essence it is incorporating as a foundation in all of its output all of our pre-existing biases.

    I don’t know whether AI-Jesus in India would look Indian or AI-Jesus in China would look Chinese but the results would be interesting were those sites to be tested (limiting the AI to local sources).

    The problem as I see it is the whole field (above) only has one weak final arbiter and that is archeology (and its related subjects). In the natural sciences, there is a strong final arbiter, nature. We can get off track but nature has the final say. Get too far off track and you can expect to be bitch-slapped back into your place.

    Biblical scholars can hide in various enclaves and refuse to look at some sources, and as we saw in the Dead Sea Scrolls, even keep sources out of circulation. In those cases one cannot do an end run and interrogate nature directly as natural scientists can.

    1. the whole field (above) only has one weak final arbiter and that is archeology (and its related subjects)

      You are a step ahead of me. I stopped short mid-sentence with my first Moses Finley quote. Here it is with a bit I omitted in the post:

      For reasons that are rooted in our intellectual history, ancient historians are often seduced into two unexpressed propositions. The first is that statements in the literary or documentary sources are to be accepted unless they can be disproved (to the satisfaction of the individual historian). This proposition derives from the privileged position of Greek and Latin, and it is especially unacceptable for the early periods of both Greek and Roman history, where the archaeological evidence bulks so large (and daily grows proportionally still larger) and where the quantitatively far from inconsiderable literary tradition is particularly suspect. The second proposition is that the most insistent historical question one can put to an archaeological find is, Does it support or falsify the literary tradition? That approach gives automatic priority to literary evidence, and, in the history of early Rome, for example, has led to optimistic claims of archaeological support for the literary tradition, resting on highly selective tests.

      The sins of the field of classical history have by and large been buried. It is just as fallacious to use archaeology to “prove the Bible”. Let the archaeological record speak for itself. ONLY THEN compare with the written narrative for which we have no sign of its existence till generations later.

      (Ditto for Nazareth and the NT, too! — apologists and Ken Dark notwithstanding.)

  2. “We historians confront a supposed event in the past, as in some text or object, as though to “try it in court,” in order to reach a verdict to establish the truth of the matter. And the principles we can best employ are those used in the practice of law:

    (1) The accused is presumed (not judged) innocent unless proven guilty.
    (2) The preponderance of the evidence (anything over 50%) is decisive.
    (3) The verdict rendered is considered proven beyond reasonable doubt (not absolute).

    (Dever 140f — Old Testament scholar arguing against fundamentalist readings of the Bible)”

    The above quotation is an incorrect statement of the legal principles it cites. Items (1) and (3) are principles used in criminal law. The first is the presumption of innocence, and the second is the standard burden of proof for a finding of guilt. Item (2) is used in civil cases, not criminal cases. It is the burden of proof used, except where the burden is clear and convincing evidence, which is a higher burden sometimes employed; for example, in many juvenile court issues. Burdens of proof can shift, and they are assigned to one party. For example, the burden of proof is typically assigned to the plaintiff, but the burden for an affirmative defense belongs to the defendant. In a criminal case, an example of an affirmative defense is a claim of self-defense. The burden of proof on an affirmative defense is a preponderance. In the example, the speaker is mixing types of burdens and not being clear in assigning them. The example therefore has no application to legal principles and can only lead to confusion.

    1. Another example of muddled thinking / superficial assertions.

      Besides, would researchers in the hard or social sciences be content with a hypothesis if “anything over 50%” of the tests and surveys leaned in its favour?

  3. Campbell betrays himself when, on the one hand, he argues that the existing (literary) evidence is to be accepted if it fits the available data, but, on the other hand, says it is “unfortunate” to have no more data.

  4. Hello Neil, I studied Descartes quite closely as part of my Masters philosophy thesis, with focus on the existential deconstruction of his method proposed by Heidegger, who argued we must presuppose the reliability of our shared experience of being in the world, a similar view to what you cite from Wittgenstein, and that Descartes’ radical doubt creates an individual isolation
    that destroys the relational ontology of care. However, with Biblical studies, the method of radical doubt is justified by the problem of the Big Lie, the concern that the data is systematically corrupted by methodical deception, on the hypothesis that the Gospel authors grounded their intent in Plato’s principle of the Noble Lie. With the Gospels, the methodological intent is summarised in John 20:31, “these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” If the entire purpose of the texts is to inculcate a psychology of mass belief as the basis of salvation, then Cartesian method suggests the principle of systematic doubt is justified, especially given the numerous anomalies that indicate the Gospels are entirely fictional. Descartes is central to scientific enlightenment, with its principle that logic and evidence should be prioritised over tradition and authority. Of course enlightenment thinking has never been allowed to fully enter Biblical studies, due to the centrality of the emotional commitment to the traditional authority of the Gospels as witness to the purported historical Jesus.

    1. on the hypothesis that the Gospel authors grounded their intent in Plato’s principle of the Noble Lie.

      A problem I have with this view is that I imagine for it to be true it would require a collective effort of a guild of author to work with the same agenda. But does not the evidence indicate competing authors producing competing gospels. Is it not difficult to imagine competitors all being motivated to produce a Noble Lie?

      1. The Noble Lie that unites the Gospels is their shared claim that the imaginary figure of Jesus of Nazareth was actually a historical person. My hypothesis is that all of the original schools knew this was untrue, but they presented it as fact on the basis advised by Plato in the Republic, to promote cohesion, stability and hierarchy, with themselves cast in the role akin to philosopher kings. However, the mass popularity of their stories totally overwhelmed their agenda, and their secret mystery content was suppressed in favour of simple orthodox literalism. This process of intense censorship generated such destruction of records, extending through the millennium of Christendom, that it seems impossible to know whether the authors of the different gospels were actually in competition or not. I prefer to see them as cooperative, just with different emphases.

          1. Dear Neil, thank you very much for this question. I see understanding the Platonic role in early Christianity as part of a broader paradigm shift in Christ Studies, outlined below.

            The Precession Model in Christ Studies

            I posit that Jesus Christ was deliberately constructed to personify the shift in Astrological Ages imagined in ancient observation of precession of the equinoxes.

            Testing this hypothesis involves a number of steps, aiming to create a comprehensive scientific paradigm shift in Christ Studies.

            Anomalies in the Historicist Paradigm must be documented to establish that all variants of the traditional theory of Gospel Truth are improbable. This includes showing that invention of a fictional Jesus better explains all available evidence than the existence of a historical Jesus. This step has largely been accomplished within Christ Myth Studies, notably by Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier, although these authors have not taken the next step of constructing a plausible cosmology for the invention process.

            Existence of concealed evidence for the Precession Model must be established. While difficult, this is entirely probable. It first requires compilation of textual data that indicates a deliberate secret agenda of Biblical authors to use precession as their temporal model to construct the Jesus story, with this original agenda remaining extant in the concealed presence of fugitive traces in the Gospels, the Book of Revelation and Christian tradition.

            Given that this Precession Model is broadly unrecognised, explanation of how and why this evidence has been suppressed, ignored, hidden and forgotten is needed. The implication is akin to a world historical crime where forensic analysis of method, motive and opportunity is required, addressing both the authors of the Precession Model and those who suppressed it.

            The connection between the original construction of the Christ Myth and secret mystery traditions must be established. This includes diverse syncretic sources, including Platonic philosophy, Jewish tradition, and sources from Egypt, Syria, Babylon and India, recognising the widespread intimate connection between religion and astronomy. Anthropological context can be seen in the well documented universal pre-literate religious method of oral initiation into secret mysteries transmitted by memory and never written down except in coded allegory.

            This context suggests that the emergence of Platonic philosophy within the Hellenistic Empires served as a method to invent Mithras in Babylon, Serapis in Egypt, and Christ in Israel, all applying a model grounded in the visual cosmology of precession. Analysis of the plausible relationship between early Christianity and Platonic texts such as the Republic and the Timaeus, as well as the Homeric hypothesis advanced by Macdonald and the Septaguint hypothesis of Gmirkin, can support the broad hypothesis of Greek input. This model suggests that Jesus Christ was invented as a philosopher king on the model of Plato’s Republic, applying the Hermetic principle as above so below.

            The role of precession is highly contested, as seen in Neugebauer’s critique of the Pan-Babylonian school which advanced this idea in the early twentieth century. Scholarly consensus is that precession was first noticed by Hipparchus around 134 BC. While this gives ample time for Greek philosophy to elaborate a messianic model in the Gospels grounded in the cosmology of precession, there is also evidence of much older and more extensive knowledge of precession in India, Babylon and Egypt. Lockyer’s work on Egyptian Star Temples is one important indication.

            The absence of obvious evidence for the Precession Model is the most important problem to be solved. This involves work in mass psychology, history and politics. Orwell’s theory of mass deception in Nineteen Eighty Four provides indication of the possibility of this outrageous idea, that the human species is sufficiently stupid and gullible to almost fully believe a totally false world historical myth for two millennia. This requires that the Christian church collaborated with the Roman Empire to totally eliminate public memory of the actual process of its own origins. This expurgation clearly occurred with the establishment of heresy as a capital crime for more than a thousand years under Christendom following the Edict of Theodosius in 384 AD.

            This process meant all explicit literary records that undermined the Gospel Truth paradigm were lost. The process of loss is first indicated in the earliest Christian writings, notably the condemnation in the Epistles of John of those who reject the historical Jesus as Anti-Christs, and the similar condemnation by early Church Fathers such as Ignatius, followed by the distortion of the actual origins under the false title of Docetism.

            The Precession Paradigm requires that the role of astronomy was held as a tightly guarded secret within the original Christian communities, and that military and church oppression by pen and sword led to the rapid fragmentation and loss of this knowledge. Even the later Gnostic literature preserved only at Nag Hammadi (at the very edge of Empire) failed to be aware of this claimed actual story of Christian origins. The Nag Hammadi find shows the almost total success of the late Roman Empire in physically eliminating all records of alternative memory.

            The preliterate tradition posited for transmission of the Precession Model was no match for the systematic imperial suppression of it. The hypothesis requires that the actual high theology of precession was simply too complex for an illiterate public to understand, and as a result was almost totally lost from view due to the cultural power dynamics of empire.

            Suppression was abetted by the wild popularity of Gospel Truth as an emotionally comforting story able to justify imperial stability and security, among Gibben’s three crucial audiences, the magisterium, the public and the philosophers. This popularity enabled the rise to power of bishops on the Ignatian model who violently rejected any language that might cast doubt on the veracity of the Gospels.

            1. In other words, conspiracy theory. Unknown agents but “known” motives. Secret evidence — hidden from view, but real and discoverable to those who have taken the red pill.

            2. Robert, your approach here — hiding your true agenda and attempting to engage under the cover of a benign spirit and finally delivering your payload through channels that seek commonality of understanding — is an exact carbon copy of the tactics used by cults. I despise the method as fundamentally dishonest.

              So that’s my rejection of your comments on two grounds: the content (conspiracy theory) and the method (“sly as a serpent”).

      2. The 4th century “Historia Augusta” on the surface claims to have been written by — a collective effort of a guild of authors — two separate “fake” groups of six “fake” authors. A 19th century conjecture that it is the product of just one single author has been confirmed by stylometric analysis. The author is obviously guilty of professional dishonesty.

        Perhaps the NT as a “Big Lie” is in the same category. It is not difficult to imagine competitors all being motivated to produce a Noble Lie if these authors were part of a “literary school” (Brodie) or were part of “an elite social or literary network” (Robyn Walsh). Especially if they operated out of the same scriptorium and were sponsored to fabricate a “Big Lie” in the format of not one, or two, or three, but four different eyewitness accounts.

        In the earliest codices the gospels were invariably prefaced by the Eusebian Canon Tables. So it didn’t really matter how much the gospel writers disagreed with each other. These canon tables provided an executive overview to the readers about the agreements between the gospels. Who at that time was going to focus on the disagreements and thus argue against the executive overview?

        1. It is evident that you are reading a dishonest motivation into the evidence — and interpreting the data through that preconception of dishonesty. I can’t see how that kind of reading can be justified on the basis of the evidence alone.

          1. The comment in relation to the Historia Augusta that “The author is obviously guilty of professional dishonesty.” is a quote from Arnaldo Momigliano who also was not averse to making the statement that ““Priests are notoriously inclined to pious frauds in all centuries”.

            There is sufficient evidence in each and every century that (pious) fraud exists. One would have to purposefully exclude fraud in order to make any other reading.

            Here is a good working definition of pious fraud:

            “Hence the interesting conclusion that the notion of forgery has a different meaning in historiography than it has in other branches of literature or of art. A creative writer or artist perpetuates a forgery every time he intends to mislead his public about the date and authorship of his own work.

            But only a historian can be guilty of forging evidence or of knowingly used forged evidence in order to support his own historical discourse. One is never simple-minded enough about the condemnation of forgeries. Pious frauds are frauds, for which one must show no piety – and no pity.” [p.7, “On Pagans, Jews and Christians”: Arnaldo Momigliano, 1987]

            1. You are only confirming my point. If you approach the sources with the ideological conviction that they are forgeries (because of an anti-religious bias, rationalised by a flippant remark by one historian — a historian who never said all authors of religious texts were dishonest though that appears to be your position with respect to the NT) you are not doing history but you are doing partisan propaganda. It is contrary to the fundamentals of historical method to begin with an assumption of a “guilty/lying witness/source”.

              That approach is the converse of the one I criticize in the post and is just as culpable and unprofessional. (I don’t believe Momigliano ever suggested that any document written by a church official was “a forgery”.)

              The honest approach is to have a neutral position from the start and analyse the source to see what it can yield for the investigator.

              I don’t think you have actually done a literary/textual critical study of, say, the Gospel of Mark or or the works of Irenaeus to demonstrate that they are “fourth century forgeries”, demonstrating that their contents are products of the fourth or later century and not the first or second. You come across as beginning with that view and by confirmation bias seek to collate any strand of a notion to “prove” it.

              1. >> You are only confirming my point. If you approach the sources with the ideological conviction that they are forgeries (because of an anti-religious bias, rationalised by a flippant remark by one historian — a historian who never said all authors of religious texts were dishonest though that appears to be your position with respect to the NT) you are not doing history but you are doing partisan propaganda. It is contrary to the fundamentals of historical method to begin with an assumption of a “guilty/lying witness/source”.

                You appear to be assuming I have an anti-religious (etc) bias and do not subscribe to the historical method. This is a false assumption. How is one supposed to invoke the historical method to the evidence represented by the 4th century invention of the cults of the saints and the martyrs and the holy relic trade which flourished for more than a thousand years? What does the historical method have to say about fraud?

                Somewhere or another (if I remember correctly – I may not have understood your position) you appear to, as I do, treat the products of the church as representative of a single source responsible for the preservation and transmission of the manuscript and archeological evidence from antiquity and through the middle ages to the present day.

                One may wish to jump back directly into a supposed 1st or 2nd century composition for the Gospel of Mark or the Greek writings of Irenaeus but my approach is to peel back the layers of evidence from the middle ages and the 4th century in order to discover what may have existed prior to that epoch. It is by this method that we have to confront the abysmal forgeries of the Nicene church such as the “Holy Relics” of the later 4th century. Bishops and Christian elites of the Nicene church, who would later become eminent “Doctors of the Latin Church” and “Doctors of the Greek Church” dreamt dreams of where to “discover” such “historical relics”. This was a coordinated and harmonious collaboration between the east and the west.

                The manuscripts of earlier centuries passed through the hands of these same “Doctors of the Church” who would become similar to the founding fathers of the church education system of the middle ages. It is not propaganda to point these historical facts out or to be in part guided by them.

                Let’s be clear. I do not subscribe to the notion that the church “history” is to be regarded as the product of a “divine institute”. These historical sources are IMO to be regarded as the product of an extremely powerful and influential organisation of men from at least the Nicene epoch. We all know that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Such historical knowledge should not be set aside in the task of reconstructing the history of antiquity. Fraud has been part of the fabric of human culture since the beginning and still is. Any refusal to countenance the existence of fraud is not conducive to either plain and simple common sense or the application of the historical method.

                This is not an argument that the NT is a later fabrication. It is an argument that such an outcome cannot and should not be arbitrarily ruled out of bounds. There is a big difference between these two arguments. One should not confuse them.

              2. I do not discount the possibility of fraud (and I don’t know any historical researcher who does), but it is clear from your comments that you believe fraud should be assumed. That is not how the historical method works. You seem to have missed the point of the post itself as well as that of my previous comment.

                As for your bias, no-one needs to assume it. You make it very clear why you believe your bias is justified.

                Why not demonstrate your case by the method I have already explained would do it.

              3. Just to try to clarify a little…. You wrote:

                These historical sources are IMO to be regarded as the product of an extremely powerful and influential organisation of men from at least the Nicene epoch. We all know that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Such historical knowledge should not be set aside in the task of reconstructing the history of antiquity. Fraud has been part of the fabric of human culture since the beginning and still is. Any refusal to countenance the existence of fraud is not conducive to either plain and simple common sense or the application of the historical method.

                This is not an argument that the NT is a later fabrication. It is an argument that such an outcome cannot and should not be arbitrarily ruled out of bounds. There is a big difference between these two arguments. One should not confuse them.

                You seem to be assuming that we should begin with the assumption that our historical source material should be assumed to be forged from the get-go. That is just as invalid as assuming a face-value acceptance of the writings should be assumed genuine from the get-go. Each source document needs to be tested independently. If you can provide evidence that, say, the writings of Irenaeus were written in the fourth century or later then it would be welcome among any serious researcher. That can be done by showing that contents of the works make best sense in a setting post the late second century and that details that fit with the second century do not add up. That’s one way the historical method detects forgeries. Ditto for the gospels. If you can show their contents match the fourth or later century better than an earlier time then by all means set forth the evidence.

                But simply saying that a centralized church organization controlled everything and we have to presume forgery because the church was famed for forgery is a sweeping assertion that needs backing up if it is going to be used to apply to say, the gospels or Irenaeus or Justin etc.

              4. Let me add further response. You wrote:

                . . . the products of the church as representative of a single source responsible for the preservation and transmission of the manuscript and archeological evidence from antiquity and through the middle ages to the present day.

                I don’t think the evidence supports a single originating source for ALL the biblical works, new and/or old testaments and related apocrypha and church fathers. Of course the church — and Arabs — have preserved the bulk of what we have today. But Nag Hammadi and Gospel of Peter and fragments of the Didache and other documents have come to us independently of “centralized church transmission”. Archaeological evidence is not presented to us from the church but from the work of archaeologists — the finds of Nazareth, for example, can and have been studied independently of “the church”.

                One may wish to jump back directly into a supposed 1st or 2nd century composition for the Gospel of Mark or the Greek writings of Irenaeus but my approach is to peel back the layers of evidence from the middle ages and the 4th century in order to discover what may have existed prior to that epoch. It is by this method that we have to confront the abysmal forgeries of the Nicene church such as the “Holy Relics” of the later 4th century. Bishops and Christian elites of the Nicene church, who would later become eminent “Doctors of the Latin Church” and “Doctors of the Greek Church” dreamt dreams of where to “discover” such “historical relics”. This was a coordinated and harmonious collaboration between the east and the west.

                There were many forgeries, but it does not follow that everything was a forgery. On the contrary, forgeries are manufactured to meet a need that arises from some other inherited and embraced information. Forgeries meet a need of the time. If certain texts did not exist prior to the fourth century to generate a need for their veracity in the fourth century …. you see what I mean? One does not forge a strange name and tradition, call it belief in Zykomephastasis, and win a following for belief in this thing, and then create forged documents to support that belief. But where there is a pre-existing claim from the past, such as a belief that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, then one goes out looking for evidence and forging it if it cannot be found.

                The manuscripts of earlier centuries passed through the hands of these same “Doctors of the Church” who would become similar to the founding fathers of the church education system of the middle ages. It is not propaganda to point these historical facts out or to be in part guided by them.

                But it is “propaganda” to assume that everything preserved by the church was forged — both documents affirming a theology and even documents contradicting the theology of the forgers, presumably because they were ever so clever to think of that.

                Let’s be clear. I do not subscribe to the notion that the church “history” is to be regarded as the product of a “divine institute”. These historical sources are IMO to be regarded as the product of an extremely powerful and influential organisation of men from at least the Nicene epoch. We all know that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Such historical knowledge should not be set aside in the task of reconstructing the history of antiquity. Fraud has been part of the fabric of human culture since the beginning and still is. Any refusal to countenance the existence of fraud is not conducive to either plain and simple common sense or the application of the historical method.

                But was the church so all-powerful from the early fourth century? We can see it was not in its failure to create total uniformity of thought and ideas in the earliest times.

                Yes, we have proverbs about power and corruption, but historical evidence needs more than proverbs. It would be a stretch to say that every person in the church was dishonest at all times and not a single document the church was responsible for is “genuine” — that everything, without exception, was a forgery. That is clearly a biased and impossible to prove assertion.

                Biblical scholarship fully acknowledges possibilities and actualities of fraud. Most NT letters claiming to be by apostles are acknowledged as frauds. No-one believes Moses really wrote the Pentateuch. But belief in first or second century dating of certain gospels is argued, with evidence, not assumed. One needs evidence to counter those arguments — not sweeping assumption, on the basis of mere generalizing proverbs about power and corruption.

                That is why I have asked you to provide evidence for your claims and not be content with mere assertion. From what you have given so far I do not see how any argument could possibly refute your claims. That is a standard sign of a faulty hypothesis. You do promote a conspiracy theory and think by justifying your theory with proverbs about power and on the basis of some known forgeries at a particular time that you have made the case. We need evidence for all claims.

  5. Alright, so I haven’t read Wittgenstein, but shouldn’t the fuzziness of language exactly be the reason we should be highly skeptical of any ancient texts we’re so far removed from in almost any sense? Some of us have only ‘some literacy’ and ‘species’ in common with the author of whatever text we’d have in front of us!
    If I have to doubt whether a ridiculous statement on the internet is satire or genuine, a complete and full text written quite recently in a language I’m fluent in, why do biblical historians get to lower standards of evidence when they don’t have a lot of it, and still have so much confidence in their conclusions? They shouldn’t have this confidence even if we HAD a complete 1st century tome!
    If that means we can’t draw any solid conclusions – so what? That’s what you get when you study history. We can never know what Baruch Spinoza really looked like either, or his maternal grandmother for that matter. Assuming this or that portrait of his is right because otherwise we have nothing is bizarre.
    It would also heavily privilege the authors who happen to be preserved, and Greek-Roman privilege aside, a good story often gets told more than a true story. In a roundabout way we’re back to the weird ‘amount of manuscripts’ argument again.

    But first, note the muddled metaphor in the above quotations. In a court of law it is not the witness who is “presumed innocent until proven guilty” but the one charged with a crime.

    Also, people are presumed innocent unless proven guilty because otherwise it would be quite easy to ruin people’s lives on snippets of evidence. Things on the other hand can’t have their social life or feelings hurt. As long as we’re not destroying them because of it they can withstand being called unreliable. When people talk about biblical manuscripts as if they’re defendants on the stand, it feels like they’re actually talking about what they perceive the authors and scribes to be – perhaps even silently including their god as the editor.

    The preponderance of the evidence (anything over 50%) is decisive.

    Maybe it’s too late over here for me to think straight, but what does this even mean here? Speaking of fuzzy language, I don’t think I am thinking of the same meaning of ‘decisive’. Common things sometimes don’t happen, unusual things sometimes do. I’m not going to claim certainty if I’m only 60% sure.

    1. why do biblical historians get to lower standards of evidence when they don’t have a lot of it, and still have so much confidence in their conclusions? They shouldn’t have this confidence even if we HAD a complete 1st century tome!

      I don’t want to come across as flippantly bashing biblical scholars. I have learned a great deal from very many of them. That there are some flaws in their methods relating to certain topics is a problem of the discipline itself and its historical inheritances.

      As for having a complete tome from the first century, we do indeed have complete tomes from that era. One of them is Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, for starters.

      1. Oh, you don’t, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t enjoy learning stuff from Biblical scholars, I might come across as a little more frustrated in my replies on this blog than I am reading their works or watching their talks.
        Yes, I meant any of the ‘canon’ Biblical works. I might have phrased that awkwardly because it was way past my bedtime 😛

        1. As for the question of having a complete set of early Christian work, the only reason we have to think that many of Paul’s letters did not survive is a naive reading of the surviving letters themselves. If Paul had so little reputation that most of his letters were lost in his own time, how can we explain his resurgent reputation for a later generation? It is not inconceivable that we have all the letters of Paul that we were ever meant to have from the get-go.

  6. This is a claim of Campbell’s I specifically addressed in my book on Philemon, because I found it just so strange and suspect (and inherently designed as a protectionist strategy for Christian literature). I personally think that when it comes to these kinds of positions, authenticity is not a null.

  7. “As in a court of law, the evidence deserves to be judged innocent of being an interpolation until proven guilty. . . . .
    (Wisse 170)

    “This method places the burden of proof squarely on the person who would doubt the reliability of a given portion of the text.”

    This method is absolutely NOT that of “a court of law.” As an earlier commenter noted, the criminal burden of proof is applied to the finding of guilt of the accused, and not to the evidence. Evaluation of evidence is done under extensive Rules of Evidence, which begin with determination of relevance. Most non-lawyers are familiar with the rule against hearsay, and lawyers are familiar with all the exceptions to it. There are foundational rules, rules governing character evidence, rules for the admission of documentary evidence, and on and on. If historical evidence were to be subjected to legal rules of evidence, most books of history would never get written. What the writer is trying to do here is claim some gravitas for his position that we must accept the hypothesis in the absence of evidence that clearly rules it out. This is a formula for promoting fantasy.

    1. I wonder if a psycho-analytical study might point towards an interesting motivation for drawing upon the “unjust trial of an innocent witness/accused” analogy in the field of biblical studies. Might we wonder if there is a latent echo of a scholar siding with the innocent Jesus on trial against his accusers? Purely speculative, of course.

  8. A scholar has a duty to strive to avoid obvious ignorance and blatant sophistry. We all make mistakes. We sometimes overstep our proper bounds. As a retired trial lawyer, I often see portrayals of legal scenes in movies and in books (even in prize winning books!) that are way off the mark. I know I make mistakes, and I try to be cautious about making claims, especially in fields in which my own expertise is limited. Like you, Neil, I try to be respectful of New Testament scholars because (1) I appreciate the legitimate knowledge they offer us; and (2) I recognize the effort and dedication it takes to earn a degree in a field, and to publish in that field. What never fails to amaze me is how ready some writers are to use a legal analogy (“as in a court of law”) to shore up some argument they have–in this case against the “radical doubt” derived from Descartes and allegedly employed by modern Biblical scholars devoted to a critical theory model–and to demonstrate thereby that they don’t have a clue what actually takes place in a court of law, and that they have no scruples whatsoever about the likelihood that they will, as a result, distort the process in a way that misleads others and invites them to make similar foolish analogies.

    Notice what the writer is doing in his citation of how things are supposedly done “in a court of law”:

    “(1) The accused is presumed (not judged) innocent unless proven guilty.
    (2) The preponderance of the evidence (anything over 50%) is decisive.
    (3) The verdict rendered is considered proven beyond reasonable doubt (not absolute).”

    Item (1) argues that a historical event is to be assumed to be true because in courts of law people accused of a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
    Item (2) argues that when we evaluate a posited historical event, we should use the preponderance burden of proof, because the preponderance standard is used in courts. At this point, the argument is already flawed and intellectually dishonest, because the presumption of innocence is applied in criminal cases, which do not employ the preponderance burden. But the preponderance burden is more easily met than the criminal burden (beyond reasonable doubt), and it therefore serves the purpose of lessening resistance to the proffered credibility of the historical event.
    Item (3) says that the “verdict rendered” [under the easier, preponderance burden] “is considered proven beyond a reasonable doubt”. Not in a court of law it’s not! Not where the burden at trial was a preponderance! The writer is switching courts here (from criminal to civil) in order to make the easy conclusion more difficult to attack–because it’s judged under “preponderance” but upheld under “beyond reasonable doubt.”

    The argument is so far off base that it is an insult to the legal profession. If the writer were drawing his analogy from medicine or physics, he would not be so cavalier. But everybody thinks they know how law courts operate, because they’ve watched a few legal dramas on the screen. So, to me, it doesn’t matter what the psychology is. We all know Jesus was innocent. Pilate himself said so. That’s a story. This writer is purporting to tell us how to evaluate historical claims. He ought to be more serious in his methodology.

  9. OK, I see that I mischaracterized what was happening in the article, and that the author I quoted was not referring directly to the Cartesian issue. The critique stands as to the examples. If the issue is how to assess historical claims, I suppose we must go to theoreticians of historiography. I have read some of those, but not enough to speak authoritatively. However, it seems to me that analogies to other fields of endeavor–law, medicine, or even philosophy qua philosophy–will not necessarily serve well. There are all sorts of issues unique to the study of history, such as, for example, “How important is it that Claim X be asserted?” This kind of issue is not nearly so important in a practical field such as law, and I would think probably in a field like medicine, where those questions are answered by the serious effects on real people that do not enter the picture as much for a historical claim. The effects of accepting Historical Claim X are widespread and important, but they are not the same in nature as in law (or, I would think, in medicine). There are precedential and ideological effects that can be very great, but they’re not the same. And then we can go right down the line of all the myriad questions that apply to assessing the validity of a particular claim. Not all claims will be subject to the same test or tests.

    1. 1. Are you referring to the Dever chapter I referenced in the post — “Christian Fundamentalism, Faith, and Archaeology”?

      2. Can you expand a little on your comment:

      There are all sorts of issues unique to the study of history, such as, for example, “How important is it that Claim X be asserted?”

      Are you thinking of the implications of a historical narrative for societies, groups, etc? (That seems to be so from the thrust of your following statements.) Or are you referring to the question of how authenticity/facts might be determined from a source?

      1. 1) Yes, I read the piece too fast and conflated the Campbell with the Dever. The gross mis-characterization of legal process came in the Dever example. The philosophical application is to Campbell’s objection.
        2) Yes, largely the impact on subsequent history and on the broad interpretation of events, but it could also involve the latter question. I was simply imagining the very first consideration a historian will have with regard to a narration, which is, “Does this need to be said?” “What effect will it have?” “Is it essential to what I know must follow?” etc.

        One can easily see how a historian dealing with ordinary secular history will be dealing very differently with a question such as “Does this need to be said?” than someone trying to find history in a religious document. My point (or the point that was in my mind, anyway) was that this foundational question is already determined in a legal case by the complaint and the answer (or the defense), and the application of the law to the fact claims. The question is easily answered in that setting, whereas that’s not often so true for someone writing a history book.

        1. Thanks. I was curious because I am about to take up a masters degree in history and have already buried my head in more works addressing the “history of history”. Meanwhile, I don’t think one needs to grasp the nuances of Foucault to observe that the selection of content and allowable questions in biblical studies is in large measure serving the power and status interests of theologians.

        2. a historian dealing with ordinary secular history will be dealing very differently with a question . . . than someone trying to find history in a religious document.

          History (“secular history”) is primarily about understanding, explaining, narrating the events of the past…. A significant core of “religious history” is, on the contrary, about “trying to find” a history “beneath/behind” narrated events (as James McGrath helpfully explained in his The Burial of Jesus).

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