2010-02-09

Historicist Misunderstanding : a reply to James McGrath and others

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by Neil Godfrey

James McGrath has expressed his concerns about apparent misunderstandings of the historical process on the part of those who argue that Jesus was probably not an historical figure in his blog post: Mythicist Misunderstanding

I wish to address his post in some detail, because he brings together the sorts of objections one regularly sees raised by “historicists”. Obviously my comments are mine alone, my perspective on things, or my interpretation and application of the words of others.

James writes:

I’ve long been perplexed by the frequent complaint from mythicists (i.e. those who claim that Jesus was a purely invented figure, not even based on a real historical human individual) that those working on the historical Jesus simply assume as a presupposition that Jesus existed, rather than addressing the question directly. I think such individuals are looking for a demonstration by historians, in the introductory part of their book about Jesus, “proving” he existed, before going on to discuss anything he may have said or done. That this is what is meant seems clear because one may cite a saying or incident that is generally considered authentic, only to be met with the retort, “But how do you know he even existed?” Such objections reflect a serious misunderstanding of the historical enterprise. I think it is safe to say that there is no historical figure from the past that we know existed apart from evidence for actual things he or she said or did. We know George Washington existed because he wrote documents, because he served as President of the United States, because he slept here or there. There is no such thing as proof of a historical person’s existence in the abstract or at a theoretical level. There is simply evidence of activity, of speech, of things said or done, of interaction with others.

Here is reference to “evidence of activity, of speech, of things said or done, of interaction with others”, but without any indication what this evidence actually is. Is he referring to letters? diaries? monumental inscriptions? newspapers? pamphlets? By referring vaguely to “evidence of activity” this comment bypasses all serious conversations about historical methodology. The vagueness of the term covers a multitude of sins.

And so when historians engage in the tedious but ultimately rewarding process of sifting through the relatively early texts that mention Jesus, and painstakingly assess the arguments for the authenticity of a saying or incident, they are not “treating the existence of Jesus as a presupposition.” They are providing the only sorts of evidence we can hope to have from a figure who wrote no books or letters, ruled no nations, and did none of the other things that could leave us more tangible forms evidence. And so I will state once again what is obvious to historians and New Testament scholars but apparently unclear to some who are not entirely familiar with how historical investigation works. Historians are confident Jesus existed, first and foremost, because we have sayings attributed to him and stories about him that are more likely authentic than inauthentic. We have enough such material to place the matter beyond reasonable doubt in the minds of most experts in the field.

Here the sins take root. What is it that gives historians confidence that Jesus existed? We are told that this confidence rests on early texts that attribute sayings to and narrate stories about him. Moreover, historians are discerning enough to sift out those sayings and stories that are “more likely authentic than inauthentic”, and this process is said to add weight to the evidence for the existence of Jesus.

But the idea that a document can give us some measure of confidence in the historicity of its narrative just because it is “early” and purports to narrate sayings and deeds of a hero is a baseless assumption. A narrative cannot logically testify to the “historical factualness” of its own tale.

Simply removing the miracles will not work. As others have shown, and as I have also repeated here, that sort of “rationalization” usually only results in destroying stories and their meanings, not in finding some “historical core”.

Sifting through layers of speech to identify what words conform to some criteria such as that of “dissimilarity” can only tell us what words in the narrative are “dissimilar” from some other words. This process can never logically unearth a true artefact of bedrock history. Stripping away everything to reach a “reasonable plausibility” cannot, by itself, bring us any closer to qualitative probability of a “true event”.

Self-testimony of a narrative, alone, can never by definition establish historicity of its own tale. Not even if the same basic tale is told in various ways in several documents. We need first to establish some evidential link or testimony to the narrative from a source that can claim to be an external witness to that tale.

To think that by reaching a “more plausible” narrative in historical terms we somehow magically arrive at a “more probable” historical tale is to think like a child who wishes hard enough for a story be true till she can find enough confidence to finally really believe it. Except that with maturity the child learns to replace “really believe” with “believe it was probably” so.

Here is the heart of an historicist misunderstanding. (But not all historians of the Bible share this misunderstanding. From my lay perspective I have the impression that Old Testament studies have become increasingly aware of this statement’s critical logical and methodological flaws since the advent of the so-called “minimalist” perspectives emanating from the likes of Davies, Lemche and Thompson.) Continue reading “Historicist Misunderstanding : a reply to James McGrath and others”


2008-07-14

Doherty discusses the Tacitus’ Annals Renaissance forgery question

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by Neil Godfrey

Found at ..... www.jasa.net.au/images/scribe.gif
Found at ….. www.jasa.net.au/images/scribe.gif

This can be found on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board here [Link no longer active, 19th August 2015, — Neil. See below for the pdf version of this discussion.]

His argument is that the notion that the whole of Annals was a Renaissance forgery should be put to rest.

I’m pleased. I really do squirm at the thought that there was once a medieval monk who had an obsession for writing hundreds of pages of fictitious turgid Tacitean prose.

See the attached discussion, Is the Forgery of Tacitus’ Annals in the Renaissance an Untenable Position? led by Early Doherty . . .  Continue reading “Doherty discusses the Tacitus’ Annals Renaissance forgery question”


2006-12-05

Is Earlier Truer?

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Last night I began reading Majella Franzmann’s ‘Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Writings‘ (1996) wondering all the while what value such sources could have for the study of “Jesus” as anything but a theo-philosophical construct. But Franzmann challenged the assumption underpinning this question deploring the way the vast bulk of “historical Jesus” scholars have allowed those gospels that eventually won out politically over their many rival texts to be regarded as the only sources of historical value. (The only exception being a few occasional sideways glances at the Gospel of Thomas.)

Getting tired I put the book down at that point and starting thinking, and woke up this morning still thinking:

Do secular historians as a rule treat the earliest available evidence of a person or event as more reliable than later testimonies? Where am I more likely to find a more accurate portrayal of the emperor Augustus? By comparing his propagandist poet Virgil with his own propaganda inscriptions or by comparing and analyzing texts written by both historians and literary artists after his time? Ditto with Chairman Mao: by comparing the stories told through art, literature, political and news reports about him in his lifetime or by looking at the art, literature, political and news reports that have appeared long after his death?

Okay, those may not be fair comparisons with the gospel evidence. We assume there was no-one threatening to kill dissidents in the earliest days of Christianity. But the point has been made that it is not a blanket truism that the earliest surviving evidence is more likely to be the more historically or biographically accurate simply by virtue of its ‘earlier-ness’. This is crazy. Why have I gone along with this false UNhistorical assumption of just about every “biblical scholar” I have read about the “historical Jesus” till now.

So what about situations where there is no threat against those who tell the truth? Australian newspapers and much general public talk contemporary with the Suharto massacres in Indonesia noted the bare bones outlines of “facts” about what was happening at the time. The general public had to wait for the novel and film, The Year of Living Dangerously, fictional works, to get a much more factual, truer and detailed account (even through fiction) of what really happened at that time. No one at the time was threatening Australian media from speaking out more strongly about what was really happening.

What of biographies? Who has presented a more real portrait of the private John Lennon? Yoko Ono in the earliest days and since or his ex-wife Cynthia nearly 40 years later?

How often is it that we find the closest followers of cult leaders are the last to learn, if they ever do, the “real history” of their cult leaders? And how often is it that even the wider public is unaware of their real lives until time has corroded the outer veneer?

Why on earth have I not before now stopped to think through and confront this unhistorical assumption that the earlier evidence by virtue of its “earlier-ness” is somehow going to be “more historical”? “Early” certainly tells us much about the person or events, but “what” it actually tells us may be the very opposite from the “true” person or events.

I look forward to reading and thinking through the remainder of Majella Franzmann’s book.

Neil