2010-04-03

Dying to Win. What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Politics & Society
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Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has analyzed suicide bombings internationally since the 1980s. In Dying to Win he demonstrates that the earliest case of modern suicide terrorism was carried out by mixtures of Islamists, Christians and Socialists without any particular allegiance to religion in Lebanon. In Sri Lanka many were Buddhists. It is not restricted to any particular religion. The cause was in every case political and national. Religion might help some muster a Dutch courage to carry out those missions, but it might just as often restrain many others from surrendering their lives through such an act. Pape’s latest discussion (co-authored) of Chechen suicide bombings in the New York Times adds to this case. An easier-to-read form of this article can be read on InformationClearingHouse.info.

Dr Jim hits the nail on the head whenever he trashes Richard Dawkins’ too-often “pretty pathetic” [Link //drjimsthinkingshop.com/about/ and blog is no longer active… Neil, 23rd Sept, 2015] treatment of religion. I love a lot of how Dawkins handles religion, but as Dr Jim has put it, he can also show himself up as not really understanding “the humanity” (too busy focussed on “the stupidity of it”). Ditto for Sam Harris. Discussed something like this once before.

Simplistic discussions like these do not contribute to the most constructive way to remove this threat.

Reviewing The Burial of Jesus

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies
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Sabio Lantz is reviewing in detail The Burial of Jesus, by James McGrath. Because it sets out James’ approach to his historical method I have referred to it a few times (I also addressed its section on Joseph of Arimathea). See The Burial of Jesus: a review.

(I had overlooked that it is self-published. I wonder if McGrath has copped the same flack as Doherty has for “vanity publishing” one of his books.)

2010-04-02

Biblioblogs again

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by Neil Godfrey

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Alexa rankings are listed here on the Free Old Testament Audio Website Blog.

Anyone interested can check out traffic and stats on any website at the Alexa site.

According to the demographics page of Alexa (searching by blog url), if you read this blog chances are you are

  • American
  • Either 35-44 or 55-64 years old
  • Male
  • Without children at home
  • Have a graduate education
  • And just as likely to be reading it at work as at home

But there’s also a chance you are Finnish, and a few with kids at home do get a tiny bit of time to read this.

And the “time on site” stats say you will average 19 and a half minutes on the site, the same time as the Mormons spend on the Joel Watts’ site 🙂

(Given the recent exchanges with James McGrath’s, maybe it is not out of place to note that readers of ExploringOurMatrix are far more likely to be between 45 and 54 years old, much more likely to be American — with a 0.8% likelihood you are from Singapore of all places, have children at home, and be reading his blog at work — but only for a minute with each visit. Well there ya go! We are from different planets 🙂

Not found in the Alexa data, but the one that I have to live with from my own stats, is that the most popular Vridar post of all continues to be my whimsical Venus of Willendorf resurrected 100 years that has attracted an embarrassing 11,612 visits since it appeared in August 2008.

How Jesus became a carpenter

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

It looks to me very much as if the association of carpentry (or artisan of any kind) being associated with Jesus originated as a clever rhetorical device. Mark is regularly associated with “irony” and maybe that trait was also the origin of Jesus’ first job description.

The word Mark uses is tekton, and BibleStudyTools offers its meanings (bluntly and without discrimination as to the when’s and where’s of such meanings) here as:

a worker in wood, a carpenter, joiner, builder
a ship’s carpenter or builder
any craftsman, or workman
the art of poetry, maker of songs
a planner, contriver, plotter
an author

Mark wrote 6:1-6:

And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow hm.

And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

The interlinear Greek and English for the critical verses 2-3 can be viewed here.

I can’t help being a little curious about a couple of details here, and one is the way the tekton word is introduced.

Jesus is called a ‘tekton/artisan’ in response to the rhetorical reference to “mighty works wrought by his hands“. (Mark 6:2-3).

Now “handiwork” is exactly what a tekton does.

Doesn’t this come across as another example of Mark’s portrayal of the spiritual blindness of the lesser mortals — similar to sceptics saying: Is this the shepherd/potter of Israel? And the narrator has them trip over themselves by replying: Nah, just a shepherd/potter.

Whether the tekton reference is historical or not, there certainly appears to be literary artifice in the way it is introduced. And perhaps not only literary artifice, but also theological intent. Does not Mark regularly depict spiritual blindness by mundane images taken at face value, and elsewhere lace his stories with details that are really spiritual symbols? (the fruitless fig tree, leaven, temple destruction and rebuilding in 3 days, blind Bartimaeus’s garment, healing the blind, 40 days in the wilderness, Simon-Jairus inverted parallels, etc.)

Does not this literary and theological context of Mark give some cause to pause before assuming the tekton reference is referring to historical reality?

Does it not look as if the tekton/carpenter/artisan job of Jesus is planted there by Mark in “Markan-ironic” response to the charge that he was rumoured to have produced so many “great works by his hands”.

And if there is a literary-theological explanation for such a detail as Jesus’ job description at hand, on what basis can we take a leap into wherever and assert that Jesus really was, historically, a carpenter, or even a son of a carpenter?

Afterthought: I should add to the above the additional irony (if it were intended) that according to both Cicero and Sirach people of the artisan class were incapable of aspiring to any sort of higher “wisdom”. Note the cynical reference to “wisdom” in the Markan passage.

See Sirach 38:24-34 and Cicero, Off. 1.150-51 as evidence that Jews and Romans did not believe an artisan can be “counted among the wise, educated, and learned”.

2010-04-01

The Myth and History of Masada and Jesus’ Passion

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography, New Testament
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מצדה מהאוויר, תמונה שצולמה על ידי אסף.צ. התמונ...
Masada. (Image via Wikipedia)

I was recently reading a historian’s discussion of the events of Masada that attempted to unravel the myth from the historical fact. The similarities and differences with the way biblical historians attempt to unravel the myth and history of the Passion of Jesus were unavoidable.

Masada

Josephus created the myth of Masada — 960 Jewish defenders mass-suicided when faced with defeat at the hands of the Romans. The historical facts can be uncovered by

  1. archaeological evidence, and
  2. adding a dash of common sense to literary criticism of the narrative of Josephus.

Not that we “need” archaeological evidence for every detail Josephus ever pens. Many details are not all that critical to our understanding of the basic outline of events associated with the Jewish war. But we do have external controls for enough of the narrative of Josephus to give us confidence that when he writes about the Jewish rebellion against Rome from around the mid 60s to early 70s ce, he is indeed tackling a real event — unlike when he paraphrases some of the early mythical biblical “history” such as the creation of Adam, Noah’s Flood and the Exodus. It may be that when Josephus is discussing externally verifiable events, his narrative is not always pristine accurate. But the historian of such ancient sources can attempt to weave her way through the narrative details with a mix of common sense and literary criticism and arrive at a “probability range” statement about what might or might not have occurred, (and still never be absolutely sure).

Historian Shayne Cohen‘s discussion of the Masada myth and event illustrates this perfectly.

External and primary evidence

Archaeological evidence confirms that there was indeed a historical conflict between Jews and Romans at Masada. We have remains of a Roman military camp, Jewish defensive structures, and evidence of violence. Unfortunately for the Josephan account, however, not all this evidence is so supportive. Josephus says the food reserves were not burned, that there was but one grand bonfire to consume all property chosen for destruction, that all agreed to suicide, and to do so in a palace area. The archaeological evidence tells us that:

  • food reserves were burnt
  • many disparate areas were burnt
  • remains of bodies have been uncovered in different locations, including in a hazardous-to-access-cave outside the defended area
  • the area where the 960 were said to have suicided was too small for such a number

Common sense

Common sense delivers its contribution to reality. Josephus informs us that at the moment the Romans finally breached the defensive wall, they decided to have a break and go and have a nap for the night. That defies common sense. The Romans were quite used to attacking at night. To retire after the breach only meant they would have to maintain a careful watch to ensure the Jewish rebels did not attack the Roman fortifications or camp.

Meanwhile, Romans were able to continue monitoring the situation within Masada from the heights of their siege engines. Despite all the goings-on with the rebel encampment that Josephus relates, when the Romans did enter through the breach the next morning they were supposedly completely unprepared for what they discovered. Somehow the Roman observation posts had failed to detect anything unusual at all during the night, such as the inhabitants all retreating to a single Tardis-like building (too small for all those Josephus says entered it) and suiciding.

Besides, how could Josephus have had any idea of what transpired in Masada on that final night?

Common sense does not support the historicity of Josephus’s narrative.

Literary analysis

Now bring in literary criticism. Meanwhile, the Jewish rebel leader, Eleazar, delivers a long speech in which he lays the total blame for the failure of the Jewish rebellion on his own party, the Sicarii, and  in which he declares that the imminent fate of both himself and all his colleagues at the hands of the Romans was justly deserved. He once again delivers another lengthy discourse on the rationale for suicide and the nature of the soul. When we think of these two speeches alongside what we know of Josephus’s negative view of the Sicarii, and alongside Josephus’s own earlier reasonings for avoiding suicide (when it involved his own life), we begin to see authorial motives for the creation of these eloquent speeches.

Literary analysis further enables us to see how Josephus used the delay of a whole night to enhance the dramatic effect of the Roman entry the following morning. The Romans are depicted as entering cautiously and being mystified by the silence and emptiness of what they did encounter. It is all a most dramatic build-up to the discovery of the “facts” that did eventually confront them. Continue reading “The Myth and History of Masada and Jesus’ Passion”

2010-03-30

Biblical history, literary criticism and logical method

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography
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The comments originally sent to my previous post, and my replies to them, were lost. I have retrieved the comments of others but my own are lost (unless someone reading this did catch them in an email — if you can forward them to me that would be great, thanks — my address is in the contact info on the right margin.)

A big thanks and free virtual beer to the subscriber who was able to email me my original comment. It was written early in the morning when I was alert, unlike the ponderous and detailed response of this post that was written late at night at the end of a long day. My original brief response is now returned and reunited with the comments of the previous post.

Anyway, I am replying here more fully to James McGrath’s original comment on the off-chance that there are others also reading this who share his criticisms of my original post. James wrote in his first paragraph:

Two things, neither of which has to do with Crossley’s or Seeley’s arguments but which have to do with methodology. First, you wrote “Crossley does not like literary criticism when it counts against historicity (as it so often does).” I’ve never encountered a literary critic who considered their method as a means to answering historical criticism. Literary criticism treats a text as a piece of literature and sets aside historical questions. Historical criticism asks historical questions. To say that literary criticism counts against historicity sounds to me like utter nonsense, but perhaps you wish to clarify.

Literary criticism and history

Certainly. I was responding to what I understood were James Crossley’s views on the role of literary criticism in history. In my original post I quoted part of a sentence of his in Dating Mark that spoke negatively of those approaching historical questions from a literary-critical perspective, and this jells with what he writes in a book Crossley co-edited, Writing History, Constructing Religion:

Some historians have been completely unaccommodating to all things post-modern. One of the most famous critics was G. R. Elton who claimed that historians are, in a way, fighting for their lives in the face of ‘people who would subject historical studies to the dictates of literary critics’.

So it looks as though post-modernists and a few others do at least acknowledge an overlap between literary criticism and history. But I had only read that sentence of Crossley’s in its original context in his “Writing History, Constructing Religion” book after I published my blog post. I had originally encountered that quote in a context that led me to think Crossley himself was as opposed to the role of literary criticism in history as was Elton. But that is clearly not so, as I have since learned. Live and learn. Always check sources for oneself even/especially if they’re from your grandmother!

But literary criticism at some level is inevitable in the historical process — even in biblical historical studies.

If a historian reads a text as a factual historical account she is bringing to that text a certain literary-critical perspective or judgment. Conversely, if she reads it as a totally fictional piece of escapism, she is bringing to her reading a different literary-critical judgment. Neither perspective means that the text is 100% historical fact or 100% fictional. Actual historical data might still be a matter of a second-layer of judgment, but the initial literary-critical assumptions brought into play will inevitably steer the way a historian analyzes the text.

And at a more micro level, we can take the Temple Action of Jesus as a case in point. Seeley, Mack and Fredriksen all question the historicity of the Temple Act of Jesus. And they do so on the grounds that the narrative details of this pericope are best explained by broader literary-thematic interests of the author when compared with the rationales offered for it as an historical event. Fredriksen (as originally quoted here along with Mack et al) sums up the literary-critical basis for denying its historicity:

Actual history rarely obliges narrative plotting so exactly

If one can see an immediate tangible literary explanation for a detail in a narrative and has to balance the odds of its historicity against a number of layers of assumptions (with no visible means of support) of oral transmission, theological interests and genuine historical events, then what does Mr Occam advise?

I side with Seeley, Mack, Fredriksen and a few others I am sure who believe it is literary critics who beat the historicists in the detail of the Temple Action of Jesus.

In my original (previous) post I pointed to Crossley’s use of literary criticism in coming to his estimation that the author of Mark’s gospel was exaggerating with respect to point X rather than narrating a literal exact fact. Crossley, and no doubt most historians, acknowledge that some degree of literary criticism is necessary in order to sensibly determine what an author is really intending to convey.

So literary criticism works at several levels of reading in any text, and each one is to some extent unavoidable in any endeavour to assess the historical value of a text. We may not always be conscious that we are making literary-critical assumptions or judgments when we read a text, but it is always inevitable that we are in fact doing so whether we realize it or not.

Part Two of James’ comment

Continue reading “Biblical history, literary criticism and logical method”

How (most) biblical “historians” work: a case study

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography, New Testament
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Christ cleansing the Temple
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

James Crossley’s argument for the historicity of the Temple Act of Jesus (in The Date of Mark’s Gospel) demonstrates the hollowness of biblical historical assumptions generally. It’s not that James Crossley is any different from other biblical “historians” (e.g. E.P. Sanders, James McGrath, Craig Evans, James Dunn, Maurice Casey, Richard Bauckham, etc) in what he does. I am using here his response to David Seeley’s argument that Jesus Temple Act never happened to illustrate how biblical “historians” base their arguments for historicity on arbitrary assumption.

A surreal game

Seeley takes the view, in effect, that if Jesus had really gone into the temple and started throwing tables around and angrily shouting for the money-changers to get out, the most natural thought that would have come to the minds of onlookers was that he lost his cool on discovering he was cheated over the price of a dove. (D. Seeley, ‘Jesus’ Temple Act’, CBQ 55, 1993 pp. 263-283)

He is specifically responding to Craig Evans’ claim that Jesus was protesting against a corrupt priesthood. There are two problems with this, he argues:

  1. Jesus is giving the money-changers the hard time, not the priests.
  2. There is no evidence for such financial abuse anywhere outside the gospels.

The first thing to notice here is that Seeley does not address any evidence for historicity that Evans might have advanced. Evans is

  1. simply making an assumption that the Temple Act is historical
  2. attempting to find plausible rationales for what he assumes really happened.

Seeley responds by challenging Evans’ rationales and showing they are either not plausible or lack supporting external evidence.

This is a strange game being played here. In order to knock down one scholar’s rationale, another scholar declares that it lacks supporting external evidence. Yet neither scholar appears to notice that the absence of supporting external evidence for the very historical existence of Jesus or historical origin of any of the gospel narrative! It’s like those cartoon characters who are so preoccupied with making the most of a task at hand that they fail to see that they have run off a cliff and are standing in mid-air while continuing obliviously in myopic “reality” until they decide to look down. But these scholars never seem to look down. They are standing on nothing but tradition.

But Crossley takes Seeley to task and attempts to restore grounds for believing this Temple Act really did happen in history. Recall the first of Seeley’s points in which he discounted the rationalization that Jesus was protesting against corrupt priests:

Continue reading “How (most) biblical “historians” work: a case study”

2010-03-29

Mark’s rent-a-crowd

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by Neil Godfrey

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crowdI love the ease with which Mark can get a crowd together any time he likes, and dismiss them just as easily whenever he needs them out of the way. And most amazingly of all, he can even have a crowd of thousands organize themselves methodically and efficiently into groups of 100s and 50s. Event organizers today would surely be more impressed with that miracle than merely leaving 12 basket loads of food scraps to clean up after the event.

First of all, John the Baptist has to prepare the way of the whole nation, so the whole nation conveniently comes out to him. Being in the wilderness was no problem. It was just like in the days of Noah when all the animals came to the ark.

And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem. (Mark 1:5)

When it came time for the story of the paralytic being let down through the roof (Mark 2:1-12), he needed a device to get him up on to the roof in the first place, and the crowd blocking the doorway did the trick. But once healed, Jesus tells him to take his bed with him and skip off back home. Suddenly we have a clear passage way at the door and off he goes. The rumour of just another healing miracle about to take place seemed to have the effect of instilling one giant collective yawn among the mob and off they went muttering how they had seen it all before.

And the crowds came just from the right places, too, on cue, to re-enact the Exodus scene. The king and his court plot to kill him, he escapes with a vast mixed multitude, towards the sea. Instead of bringing down great curses, however, he had won fame far and wide for removing plagues. Thousands were suddenly free to take time off work and  leave their homes and travel vast distances to join the event at this right time. And then he ascended a mountain with just a few close associates, all in perfect emulation of of the ancient Mosaic event.

6And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. 7But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea, 8And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him.

9And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. 10For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues. 11And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. 12And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known.

13And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. 14And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach (Mark 3)

There was also that need crowd of just the right size to fill a house and no more. Jesus had come down with his twelve disciples, entered a house, and in came the multitude to sit around him. There was no room for anyone else to get in, so his family had to stand outside asking for him (Mark 3:19-35). The coincidence of the symbolism was just perfect. Mark, obviously an eyewitness who was standing just inside the doorway, could see that his family were on the outside and Jesus was able to address those on the inside as his brethren, his mothers and true family.

Also amazing was Jesus’ power to be able to get away at will from a crowd that had assembled just to see him. A deaf and dumb man asked Jesus in the midst of a crowd to heal him, so Jesus simply took him aside away from the crowd, and the crowd magically just stood there without any natural curiosity as to where he was off to or interest in seeing another miracle and let him get away. Then the man came rushing back to them — had he and Jesus hidden behind a tree to perform the miracle? — to show them he had been cured. Mark 7:32-36:

32And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. 33And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; 34And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. 35And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. 36And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;

Crowds were much more cooperative in those days.

So cooperative, indeed, that when they were needed to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as the coming Messiah and King, they all assembled at the main road and gateway and cheered him on in (Mark 11:8-10):

8And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way. 9And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: 10Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.

And when they were needed to ensure Jesus had a bit more time to preach a few more things to be recorded in the gospel, and to get away with disturbing the peace in the Temple, the crowd was there to keep him safe (Mark 11:18):

18And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.

What is most amazing here is the remarkably perspicacious insights of this mob. They could tell immediately that Jesus was acting out something quite meaningful here, and definitely not just throwing a tantrum because he had been cheated by a money-changer (Seeley, Jesus Temple Act, CBQ, ’93, Vol. 55, p.263).

They were also needed to give him time to give us all the Last Supper, too. So they were there when needed once again (Mark 14:1-2):

1After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. 2But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.

But when they were needed to have him crucified, then they could all cooperatively (for the sake of humanity’s salvation) switch from adulation and insight into a lynch mob at the behest of a few priests.

11But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them. 12And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? 13And they cried out again, Crucify him. 14Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him. 15And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified. (Mark 15)

David Seeley comments on this:

the unexplained ease with which the crowds are turned against Jesus makes one suspect that to a large extent they are simply a literary device, functioning as protectors or as betrayers as narrative need dictates. (D. Seeley ‘Jesus’ Temple Act’ CBQ 55 1993 pp. 263-83)

Indeed.

And their literary function extends as far back as chapter 1. As a deus ex machina they even get more use than God and demons.

2010-03-28

Elijah manifests a Sun God?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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In a Singapore bookshop I recently picked up a reprint from an 1877 publication date and titled Mythology Among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development by Ignaz Goldzhier of Hungary (translated by Russell Martineau). And even more recently I was listening to a podcast by Robert M. Price in which he mentioned the same book. So I pulled it off my shelf and decided I’d see if I should get around to reading it at last.

I have sometimes heard that so many of the characters from the Jewish Scriptures can be traced to mythological figures, but not knowing anything about this field of study I simply did not know what to make of the claims, so generally shelved them.

Today I looked up Elijah in the index and here is what I found:

Hairiness was a typically associated with the Sun, representing its rays of course.

The Sun punished the earth with drought.

The Sun also regenerates life.

The Sun is also symbolized by a pool or well of water.

The Sun descends into water before rising again to bring renewed life.

There are also sunny descriptions associated with David (stone throwing and ruddy complexion) and Samson (blinded at the end of his days).

It still looks like a Rorschach inkblot test to me. But then I see in the translator’s introduction a note about comparative mythology not being studied in England, etc. I don’t know this field. I don’t know what the current studies “in England” or any English speaking country are.

Still on the question shelf with this one.

The origin of the ‘Oral Tradition’ hypothesis

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography, New Testament
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Thomas L. Thompson has hit the nail on the head when he explains why “historians” of the Bible place so much emphasis on oral tradition. Oral tradition, of course, is not a fact. That it existed cannot be verified. It is nothing more than a hypothesis, or really more an assumption of necessity than a hypothesis. And the necessity is the trap that scholars have built for themselves by assuming — the great unquestionable assumption — that the gospels ultimately get their stories from some historical events and persons.

Before we can speak of a historical Jesus, we need a source that is independent of Matthew, Mark and Luke and refers to the figure of the early first century. Such an ideal source, of course, is hardly to be hoped for . . . . The problem with using the far from ideal gospels as sources for history has attracted great attention to oral tradition.

And the necessity for these oral traditions?

They could help, however, in bridging the considerable gap between the time in which the gospels were written and that earlier time in which they set Jesus.

Enter the Gospel of the Gaps

Before the Gospel of Thomas was discovered, this oral source for the sayings common to Matthew and Luke (Q) was defined by the striking similarity of Jesus’ sayings in a fourth-century translation reawakened these old speculations about Q. . . . [This Gospel of Thomas was] corroborating evidence for an oral tradition of sayings [that] supported the hope that a comparison of Q with Thomas could help in distinguishing earlier from later sayings. If the sayings in Thomas are earlier than the gospels, scholars would be closer to identifying the earliest of them as Jesus’ own.

Meaning?

Necessity, once more, was the mother of invention. Even though the Greek original of the Gospel of Thomas could hardly have been earlier than the second century, the similarities of the sayings in Thomas to Q have seduced many. Thomas can fill the gap separating a historical Jesus from the earliest of the gospels and therefore it does.

Leaving Thompson aside for a moment, Nicholas Perrin’s book (sorry April DeConick), Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron (link is to Google books) points to many word plays and various Syrian literary linking details that set the work apart as a literary, hardly an oral, creation.

The unlikely assumption (again)

This accepts the unlikely assumption that the sayings from Thomas were based on an oral tradition, rather than on the known gospels or on a tradition harmonizing them.

Thompson then alludes to Crossan’s and others’ efforts to distinguish the wisdom sayings from the apocalyptic ones. The idea of this distinction has been to identify the sayings of a wisdom ‘historical’ teacher from a later layer of apocalyptic sayings introduced subsequently by followers. Thompson rejects this distinction and argues (from a range of Jewish scriptures and other Middle Eastern sayings) that the apocalyptic and wisdom motifs as a rule went hand in hand throughout the centuries.

So why the conjuring up of oral tradition?

The tendency to evoke oral tradition to transmit the sayings from event to the writing of the gospels is required only by the assumption that the text is about a historical Jesus. The projected function of the sayings of Q and Thomas as oral sayings is to link the gospels with their text’s heroic teacher.

What’s wrong with what we’ve already got?

If, instead of Q and the collections of sayings in Thomas, we were to consider actually existing Jewish collections and sayings, such as the proverbs of Solomon, the songs of David or the laws of Moses, would we also conclude that such sayings originated with the figure to which the Bible attributes them? . . . . Such collections tell us nothing about a historical Solomon, David or Moses — not even whether they existed.

There is much more, of course. I’ve just hit a few salient points for a quick read on a blog.

Thompson’s book does not attempt to cover all that needs to be covered. He makes it clear that his goal is to demonstrate, in response to the historical Jesus research of Schweitzer and Crossan, that the sayings of Jesus can potentially derive from a far deeper pool of known literature than “fictive texts like Q”.

Unfortunately his work lacks the detail required to settle the question. But it is a provocative starter. Hopefully he will publish more to begin to flesh out some of the possibilities in detail.

The above quotations are from chapter one of Thompson’s The Messiah Myth.

 

2010-03-26

Robert Price on Earl Doherty’s new book

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Following on from Professor Stevan Davies comments on Earl Doherty’s initial appearance in a Crosstalk discussion in 1999, here is Robert Price on the latest version of Earl Doherty’s argument (Jesus: Neither God nor Man) for a mythical Jesus:

“Another book you might want to look out for, I don’t think it’s on Amazon quite yet, is by Earl Doherty, and it’s a double-size expanded version of his great book, The Jesus Puzzle, and this one is called [Jesus] Neither God Nor Man, and it is really super. This man has just this incredible x-ray vision into the text. I’ve studied the New Testament from various perspectives for decades, and I’m reading this guy and I’m thinking, ‘What an idiot I am! Why did I never see this? Why did I never think of that?’ Just astonishing stuff. Some may object and carp that, ‘Well this can’t be much; he had to resort to publishing his own book.’ Yeah, well so did Hume. Enough said.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gouJ1_mYtDo]

2010-03-25

The Benign, Attractive Persona of the Bible

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Religion and Atheism
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One of the books I read while in the process of questioning my faith some years ago was The Mind of the Bible Believer by Edmund Cohen. I loved parts and hated much of it. My copy of the book is still pencilled through with many indignant notes I made at the time. Now I can look back and see these notes as indicators of how I was struggling at the time with leaving religion and how there was much I could not immediately bring myself to admit.

He begins a chapter on “The Evangelical Mind Control System” with a section headed the same as this post. I have seven pencilled marks in this two page section (pp. 170-1), questioning and disagreeing strongly with what he wrote. I read it now and see what a different person I was back then.

He begins:

The best things in the Bible are superficial. . . .

What I mean by persona of the Bible . . . is an apparent relevancy of teaching and promise of benefit that finally turn out to have totally different from what the new inductee was led to think. . . . Little by little, newcomers are brought along to understand the teachings to mean something altogether different from what appeared on the surface — and oriented toward the next life, not this one. But one kind of promise, the kind that indicates a tranquilized, soporific, guilt-assuaging state of mind will be experienced, is kept, albeit by a means with a net detrimental effect on mental health.

This was written in 1988 before the advent of “prosperity gospel” fad. But then again, the idea that God blesses materially the righteous has been around ever since the Protestant Reformation. I recall living in dire economic straits through much of my religious life, and whenever a small blessing or boon, however temporary, came my way, I would be so thankful for such a small or momentary blessing, or slight relief. It mattered not that my basic condition was not substantially better. One learns to interpret the smallest and ephemeral chance lucky breaks as showers of blessings from heaven.

Cohen shows how the believer is weaned away from

the surface notion that ministry to assuage physical want and suffering is called for, toward the view that only ministry of the salvation message is proper, to bring the huddled masses of the world into bliss in the next life so as to make irrelevant whatever whatever they may have suffered in this one, and away from the notion that freedom in the Bible means political freedom, toward the “insight” that there is no such thing as freedom, except from bondage of sin.

This is surely one of the most pernicious of biblical/evangelistic teachings. How many wives endure beatings because they feel they must never let a sinful thought or feeling raise itself against their husbands. How many injustices are observed with an aloofness borne of one self-obsessed with the purity of one’s own thoughts and feelings. Or with a Pharisaical detachment that convinces oneself that nothing significant can be done in this life, so all one can do is pray for the next one to come. (I know, Pharisees weren’t historically like that as a group really. I’m using the term with the meaning it as comes to acquire from the gospel teaching.)

the believer must be weaned away from the come-on notion that healing of his own or his loved ones’ physical illness — or this-worldly personal success or prosperity — is in view, or else practical experience will conflict with the religious scheme and discredit it. . . .

Yup. Exactly how it was. And it’s deadly. Too many die in the process. Both from the administration of prayer instead of medical care and from poverty that is inevitably associated with a shorter life-span for a host of reasons.

the more deeply indoctrinated convert softens himself up to be sold some reactionary political teaching, and if he gets well enough indoctrinated to know that teaching to be unbiblical, he goes on doing his discipline relentlessly and ends up despising nothing so much (or so defensively) as genuine human spontaneity and cheerfulness.

And there are real innate radicals and lefties in such religions. But they keep it under wraps and manage to think in some kind of double-bind.

But that last sentence there brings to mind a brief discussion I once had with a Bishop, John Shelby Spong, whom I thanked for his book that helped me on my way to atheism! 🙂  He’s heard it all before, of course, because he remains disappointed that his own biblical studies mentor, Michael Goulder, became an atheist. I remarked how much more relaxed and “at peace” I felt since becoming an atheist, which was ironic because I always thought as a believer I was imbued with a real inner peace of God. (Recall, rather, Cohen’s more honest description above: “a tranquilized, soporific, guilt-assuaging state of mind“.) Spong replied that he has noticed this many times with those who leave the faith and become atheists, and noted how there really is “an uptightness” about so many (most, I think) believers. And that’s what came to mind when I re-read that last line of Cohen’s above, “despising nothing so much . . . as genuine human spontaneity . . .” That, thinks the believer, is the way to sin.

If a picture is worth a thousand words a joke is equal to the two pages I discussed here:

Sam and Joe are taking a walk, when they come upon a church. A sign says “CONVERT AND RECEIVE A THOUSAND DOLLARS”. Sam says “You stay here. I’m going in to convert. “Some time later, he comes back out. Joe says, “Well, did you get the thousand dollars? “Sam says, “What’s the matter? Is that all you people think about?”

The Joker

Another Professor’s Response to Earl Doherty

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Given the hostility some mainstream biblical scholars have demonstrated (recently, again) against Earl Doherty’s argument for a mythical Jesus, I am copying here the bulk of a comment by Stevan L. Davies, Professor of Religious Studies at Misericordia University, that he made in response to the peremptory reactions of a number of his academic peers to Doherty in 1999.

Davies is not a mythicist. (Well, I am assuming he is not. I don’t really “know”. He wrote Jesus the Healer, summarized here.) His following statement is copied (with permission) from the 1999 Crosstalk discussion forum where a number of scholars and others discussed the historical Jesus and Christian origins. In the course of these discussions, the topic of Earl Doherty’s Jesus Puzzle was introduced, Earl himself joined the discussion on February 10 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk/message/5011) and a very lively series of exchanges followed. After one of the contributors complained that he wanted to hear no more about a new  paradigm regarding the historical Jesus, Professor Davies wrote:

Continue reading “Another Professor’s Response to Earl Doherty”

2010-03-24

Introducing Doherty: his preliminary observations on ‘A Heavenly Christ’

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by Neil Godfrey

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Cosmic Christ
Cosmic Christ by Alex Grey: Image by eworm via Flickr

In between (re-)reading at least half a dozen other works I have had a chance to catch up again with Earl Doherty’s new book, Jesus: neither God nor man: the case for a mythical Jesus. My last post with reference to Doherty was my response to the introduction to this work. Here are some comments on my reading of his first chapter.

My notes do not by any means represent the extent and depth of Doherty’s work. I am merely picking out tidbits that I find easy and interesting enough to share in a few words.

The natural way to preach the message

Doherty refers to Peter’s speech in Acts 2:22-36 as being the sort of message that one might expect the early Christian evangelists to preach among new audiences. He talks about Jesus the man, his astonishing deeds on earth, and though crucified, how he was exalted to heaven where he was made Lord and Christ.

This would surely have been the most natural and inevitable way Christian discussion and preaching would proceed. The movement had supposedly begun as a response to a human man. (p.19)

It was the man Jesus who had had such a profound impact on his followers and that led them to abandon their homes and families, their old customs and livelihoods.

But it’s not how the evidence tells us it happened

But what do we find in the letters of Paul and other early writers? They start with the divine Christ, the figure of the Son in heaven, and make their faith statements about him. And there is no equation with an historical man, a human preacher and prophet who had recently lived. Paul believes in a Son of God, not that anyone was the Son of God. (p. 19)

Paul summed up the core of the message he had passed on to the Corinthians:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor.15:3-4)

Doherty wonders why the identity of the human incarnation of this Christ was not part of the central message — even why the incarnation itself is not central. But he grants that we may suspect Paul omitted such “preliminaries” in a summary like this. So he turns to Paul’s “definition” of Father and Son:

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (I Cor.8:6)

Doherty opines:

This is language very reminiscent of Greek philosophy. But it would seem that a fundamental description of the Son is not to include the fact that he was incarnated in the person of a human Jesus, the man through whom information about the Son was presumably derived. Such an idea Paul never mentions. (p. 20)

Faith is very important in Paul’s writings:

  • Faith in Jesus as the way to life
  • Faith God raised Jesus from the dead
  • (Faith that Jesus died, apparently from some passages)
  • Faith God has revealed the mystery about Christ now
  • But no reference to faith that the man Jesus of Nazareth had been incarnation of this Son, etc.

Other epistles contain “quite fantastic” descriptions of this Son:

He is the image of the invisible God, his is the primacy over all created things. In him everything in heaven and on earth was created. . . In him the complete being of God, by God’s own choice, came to dwell. Through him God chose to reconcile the whole universe to himself. . . . (Col.1:15-20 NEB)

Here is a being who is the very reflection of God, the very agent through whom God created the universe, the same one through whom he holds it all together, yet there is not a single mention in the entire letter that this same supremely exalted being was once a man on earth who had died the death of a criminal and had been exalted to become part of the Godhead. Was not faith in such a man able to find any place any such writings? Compare also the book of Hebrews.

The question that scholarship has never asked, yet is the most natural one of all

Continue reading “Introducing Doherty: his preliminary observations on ‘A Heavenly Christ’”