Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[JaysonR]

Doesn't the criterion of dissimilarity, or whatever you call it, also (when applied to the gospels), point up the attempted air-brushing of various incidents? For example, with the baptism by John, it is often said that this is gradually softened, and then removed. Or the origin of Jesus in Nazareth is cross-hatched by the supposed tradition of birth in Bethlehem. Or the death of Jesus is gradually converted from ugly to magnificent. I suppose this kind of Technicolorization could be explained in other ways; maybe just a tendency towards narrative romanticism?

The problem with this approach is that it assumes that the canonized gospels are of a singular and directly connected tradition, and that the paleographic dating is perfectly verified and fixed.

Or as I call it, "Baton Relay".
We have no direct verification that these texts were directly handed off one to the other in such a fashion.

We have awareness that these texts were selected by groups who vetted various texts over time in an attempt to determine which texts were authentic texts accounting of Jesus.

We also understand that these groups were not secular, but instead bias toward their end and began with the axiom of both Jesus' existence and that figure's divinity.

There was no regard for concern over which culture produced each textual tradition, or which cultures modified a given textual tradition to their culture after a previous culture; all texts were assumed to be authored by specific and mostly singular authors in most part.

As such, we can understand that the only motive for a gradual reduction of a particular account is not actually singular at all, but capable of several motives depending on which culture at which time we are granting as our axiom for a given textual tradition.

Anatolia has a very different interest in a text than Alexandria; Athens has a very different interest than Antioch; Galatia has a very different interest than would Palestine.

Further, what if Matthew was first in a previous variation and then Mark came later?
Then the entire notion of gradual erosion is entirely obsolete.

But Mark is so slim on lavishness, while Matthew is more grand; clearly Matthew came after Mark, right?

Why?
Could not Mark have been written after Matthew by a culture who did not value the grander scale version of story telling?
Could not Mark have been written before Matthew added the opening and ending grandness?

While the latter of these questions requires suggesting some kind of proof that Matthew was possibly of a different form before (which can be proposed and suggested, but takes far too long for this post here), the former is readily sensible to consider since Markian grammar, noted for being aloof and clumsy in Greek, is more fluent and graceful when converted to Hebrew.

"I wanted to begin with the Gospel of Mark. In order to facilitate the comparison between our Greek Gospels and the Hebrew text of Qumran, I tried, for my own personal use, to see what Mark would yield when translated back into the Hebrew of Qumran.

I had imagined that this translation would be difficult because of considerable differences between Semitic thought and Greek thought, but I was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that this translation was, on the contrary, extremely easy.

Around the middle of April 1963, after only one day of work, I was convinced that the Greek text of Mark could not have been redacted directly in Greek and that it was in reality only the Greek translation of an original Hebrew." - Jean Carmignac (former Dead Sea Scroll editor)

If the condition is that Mark was indeed originally in Hebrew, then that would change the authoring culture considerably.
As a result, it would remarkably change in which way the story is told for the prose and poetic of Hebrew literary art writes for an entirely different purpose than simply telling a story.
It tells a story, true, but it also aims to format in a sort of Hebrew-like Haiku which are governed by particular repeating patterns and paragraphed or sentenced double entendre and palindrome.

Point being here; there is an entirely different style interest to be satisfied if Mark is of Hebrew formatting in origin.

Matthew, on the other hand, should raise a few eyebrows right in the opening with the 3 Magi verifying the value of Jesus, as that is not something a Hebrew culture would value much (yet the body of Matthew is repeatedly Hebrew favored), and yet it is something that the Hellenistic cultures would value rather easily - indeed it would help if some other culture verified the value of Jesus aside from the Hebrews as who, in the Hellenistic cultures, really trusts or cares about who the Hebrews claim are great men?


So in this approach, we have cultural motive for the differences between the texts, rather than just a gradual shifting through the texts, rather than just a reasoning that something must be either true or false as an account.

There is a rather large grey area called anthropology to take into account.

 

[JaysonR]

I hate it when people make a strawman version of the Criterion of Embarrassment. Fair enough to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it is, not for some strawman version of it. It's like arguing "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Creationists misunderstanding evolution is not a problem for evolution.

From the Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the criterion of discontinuity and the criterion of multiple attestation, along with the historical method... The criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria.​

Note that this criterion "must always be used in concert with the other criteria". So using examples where the criterion is NOT being used in concert with other criteria is using a strawman version of the criterion.

One reason it is used is that we have four Gospels, written over a period of probably 50 years, where we can see changes in material reflecting a changing mindset. An example is how the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is treated in each Gospel.

Now, I'm not a fan of the criterion. I think the criticisms of it show it is problematic. But the criterion is NOT just "it is embarrassing therefore it is true". If you are giving examples of the Criterion of Embarrassment where it is not being used in concert with other criteria, then you are using a strawman version of it.

A very appropriate point, and which causes my point to be addressed more clearly.

For, "An example is how the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is treated in each Gospel." arises an immediate question:
Which culture wrote which text?

We can't very well identify what is embarrassing or what the motive for the embarrassment is without firstly understanding which cultural social values to apply; we cannot apply our own values upon these texts and from this derive a motive.

 

[zugzwang]

JaysonR

Very interesting points in your long post above. GDon has expressed my point better than I did, simply that the criterion of embarrassment does not mean, 'if X is embarrassing, it must be true'. Not really a straw man, a sort of Wicker Man.

But you are right that the ideas of 'softening' or 'air-brushing' of a theme through a number of texts, presuppose a series of texts, occurring one after the other, and edited from a roughly similar point of view or Sitz im Leben, and as you say, one would have to establish those things first.

 

[GDon]

We can't very well identify what is embarrassing or what the motive for the embarrassment is without firstly understanding which cultural social values to apply; we cannot apply our own values upon these texts and from this derive a motive.

That's right, and that's why the criterion needs to be used with other criteria if it is to be used at all. Like you, I think the difficulties of determining cultural social values, etc, in the first place makes the criterion difficult to use; and then there are many valid criticisms of it even then. As I said, I'm not a fan of the criterion. But that shouldn't excuse those attacking the criterion where they use a strawman version of it to do so.

 

[JaysonR]

I agree GDon and zugzwang.

And for the same reason as outlined in this issue, I don't accept the proposal of 2nd through 4th c CE hoax authorship: it doesn't supply us with any information of context and cultural authorship to check against.

This doesn't mean I'm pro-HJ, however; it means that I'm anti-2nd/4th c CE hoax hypothesis (at least as it stands presented).

I think culture is really quite important to determine, and I find it truly remarkable that such consideration and investigation has not only been undervalued, but strikingly almost entirely absent from the field's discussion...except after the fact of an already granted axiom of cultural authorship (X account has Y meaning to Z culture; wait...why do you think Z culture to begin with?).

 

[tsig]

Tsig, the two meanings are VERY different. You KNOW that this is what I meant. Why do you persist in being impossible, here ?

You said: "We know it must be true because it's embarrassing to them"

Nobody said that the criterion of embarrassment implies that it's true. NOBODY. It's your strawman.

Guess you need to tell Wiki then.

The criterion of embarrassment is a critical analysis of historical accounts in which accounts embarrassing to the author are presumed to be true because the author would have no reason to invent an embarrassing account about himself. Some Biblical scholars have used this criterion in assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.[1]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

ETA: bolding does not increase the truth content of a post.

 

[dejudge]

Now, I'm not a fan of the criterion. I think the criticisms of it show it is problematic. But the criterion is NOT just "it is embarrassing therefore it is true". If you are giving examples of the Criterion of Embarrassment where it is not being used in concert with other criteria, then you are using a strawman version of it.

I hate it when people who are not a fan of the C of E and know it is problematic try to give the impression that it can somehow magically help the HJ argument when used with "other" criterion.

Since the C of E is useless on its own then you might as well use the "other" criterion.

C of E is an embarrassment.

The C of E produces bogus results and turns fiction into historical accounts.

 

[JaysonR]

I really didn't get that impression from GDon's review of CoE, Dejudge.
He seemed rather open to the admission that even with the appropriate application and understanding of CoE that it is easily criticized and faces multiple unresolved challenges.

 

[dejudge]

I really didn't get that impression from GDon's review of CoE, Dejudge.
He seemed rather open to the admission that even with the appropriate application and understanding of CoE that it is easily criticized and faces multiple unresolved challenges.

I am so sorry. I didn't get that impression.

It is well established that the C of E is useless to determine veracity.

It is well know that fiction novels and myth fables contain embarrassing accounts.

 

[zugzwang]

I agree GDon and zugzwang.

And for the same reason as outlined in this issue, I don't accept the proposal of 2nd through 4th c CE hoax authorship: it doesn't supply us with any information of context and cultural authorship to check against.

This doesn't mean I'm pro-HJ, however; it means that I'm anti-2nd/4th c CE hoax hypothesis (at least as it stands presented).

I think culture is really quite important to determine, and I find it truly remarkable that such consideration and investigation has not only been undervalued, but strikingly almost entirely absent from the field's discussion...except after the fact of an already granted axiom of cultural authorship (X account has Y meaning to Z culture; wait...why do you think Z culture to begin with?).

Now you make me want to go back to the advocates of a 'Jewish Jesus', such as Vermes and Amy-Jill Levine, to see how they introduce the idea of a Jewish Jesus, or if they simply assume it as a kind of sine qua non.

 

[JaysonR]

It's not so much determining if Jesus is a given culture, but determining which culture a given text that we have came from.

 

[IanS]

I hate it when people make a strawman version of the Criterion of Embarrassment. Fair enough to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it is, not for some strawman version of it. It's like arguing "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Creationists misunderstanding evolution is not a problem for evolution.

From the Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the criterion of discontinuity and the criterion of multiple attestation, along with the historical method... The criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria.​

Note that this criterion "must always be used in concert with the other criteria". So using examples where the criterion is NOT being used in concert with other criteria is using a strawman version of the criterion.

One reason it is used is that we have four Gospels, written over a period of probably 50 years, where we can see changes in material reflecting a changing mindset. An example is how the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is treated in each Gospel.

Now, I'm not a fan of the criterion. I think the criticisms of it show it is problematic. But the criterion is NOT just "it is embarrassing therefore it is true". If you are giving examples of the Criterion of Embarrassment where it is not being used in concert with other criteria, then you are using a strawman version of it.

I think what appears to many to be the weakness with all those criteria, is that they are too subjective and too open to religious scholars in particular (i.e. as distinct from historians investigating other non-religious history) trying to justify their pre-conceived Jesus beliefs by counting all sorts of highly debatable “evidence” under any of those criteria.

For example, apart from the rather obvious fact that it is by no means clear what would have been embarrassing to 1st century Jewish religious belief within what was originally (apparently) only quite a small group of people preaching Jesus as a messiah risen from death, in his book Did Jesus Exist, Bart Ehrman says that out of all figures in ancient history, Jesus is supported by an exceptional level of “independent attestation”, and he says that such a large degree of independent attestation is very strong evidence of his existence.

But what Ehrman then describes as this exceptional level of “independent attestation”, is nothing other that the four canonical gospels! And for those 4 gospels, Ehrman claims they add up to no less than SEVEN independent attestations to Jesus!

Now any reasonable reader might wonder how on earth Ehrman can get the number 7 from the 4 gospels. And how on earth he can count any of the gospels as “independent”?

And Ehrman’s explanation is to claim that because each of the 4 gospels has elements that are not included in the other three gospels, that means they are all independent sources! And how did he turn 4 into 7? He says that g-Mark must have been using some earlier lost “written” source called Q, and he says that similarly g-Mathew must have been using some other also lost but different/independent “written” source called M, and further that the same applies to g-Luke which he says must have come from a lost written work called “L” (for some reason draws the line at claiming the same for g-John). So that now adds up to what Bart Ehrman claims is an exceptionally good level of attestation of no less than seven independent written sources all attesting to a real Jesus.

In saying that, I am not trying to take a “cheap shot” at Ehrman or to be unkind or unfair to him, and as a matter of fact I agree with a remark just made by Paheka about the quality and clarity of much of Ehrman’s earlier writing on this subject - his book Did Jesus Exist is at least, in my opinion, far better written than any of Richard Carriers books.

But when a bible scholar as prominent and highly regarded as Bart Ehrman writes to claim that he, and presumably therefore other bible scholars, count the 4 canonical gospels as "seven independent very early written attestations" to a real Jesus (see footnote), it should cause readers of his book, inc. posters in threads like this, to register serious concerns over the validity and objectivity of his and his colleagues methods.



Footnote - “very early independent written attestations” because Ehrman says that Q, M, and L must have pre-dated g-Mark and g-Mathew which according to Ehrman and other bible scholars were themselves first written around 70AD-90AD. On which basis he concludes that Q, M, and L would have been written earlier than 70AD and hence not long at all after the death of Jesus. Why he says that Q, M and L must have been "written" sources I don't know, but iirc he does actually say that.

 

[Craig B]

Now you make me want to go back to the advocates of a 'Jewish Jesus', such as Vermes and Amy-Jill Levine, to see how they introduce the idea of a Jewish Jesus, or if they simply assume it as a kind of sine qua non.

If you assume or propose the reality of any Jesus it is inescapably a Jewish Jesus. Perhaps a heretical or unorthodox Jewish Jesus, but Jewish in general belief and practice, and part of the Jewish community of the temple and synagogues. What else could he have been, once we have concluded that he was not a god?

 

[zugzwang]

I thought that the seven independent sources were usually reckoned to be Mark, M, L, Paul, John, Q, Thomas. M = material unique to Matthew, L = material unique to Luke, and Q = material common to Matthew and Luke.

Certainly Q and Thomas are hotly contested as actual sources; Q, because there is no record of such a source, and Thomas, because it is often dated late.

 

[Belz...]

Guess you need to tell Wiki then.

First of all, you were parodying posters here. Second, again, what Wiki is saying isn't what you claimed.

At this point you are totally out of arguments, I know, but ridiculing your opposition should require you to actually understand what they are saying.

bolding does not increase the truth content of a post.

It's meant to direct your attention to important words. Of course you're going to "misinterpret" that. I know you're doing it on purpose, but at least try to make it appear like you don't understand stuff in a believable way, ok ?

"Oh, look. He bolded a word. Now I can focus on the act of bolding the word rather than address the substance of his post. Yay !"

My point is that your post was hyperbolic, and deliberately misrepresented what people are saying. Mind you, I don't really buy the embarrassment argument, so it's not as if I'm defending it.

 

[eight bits]

CoE is a proposed heuristic, or a group of related heuristics. Disregarding Wiki's advice about how best to apply a heuristic is not making a "straw man."

The basic idea, that giving some weight to the speaker's motives when evaluating the reliability of what the speaker says, has general intuitive appeal. The chief difficulties in applying this intuition to the canonical Gospels are two:

- it is not trivial to discern what the speaker's motives actually are

- that none of the four evangelists has personal knowledge of the facts

The first has already been discussed: Is there anything embarrassing to Mark about Jesus being baptized to the accompaniment of heavenly fireworks? Having misread scripture to conclude that Jesus' mother hadn't had sex and that Jesus rode two asses into Jerusalem, is Matthew capable of embarrassment?

The second difficulty is more troubling, though. The heuristic, to have force, imagines the canny speaker to know the truth, and to be choosing whether or not to tell that truth, or how much of it to tell. If the speaker doesn't know the truth, then (s)he is choosing only among various stories on offer. Luke admits as much, and John can say outright that his source contradicts other teachers. Choosing an "embarrassing" story may be remarkable, but truthfulness simply has nothing to do with the choice, because truth isn't available as an option; only stories.

Notice that the second factor does not impeach the attractiveness of the intuition in general, but only in this specific application. That is not "special pleading," but a close examination of why the heuristic ever has any force. That force depends on the speaker knowing the truth of the matter, and there is no reason to suppose that any of our four authors actually do.

zugzwang brings up the question of sources - but we can see that the source roster is simply a parititon of text into "definitely copied from one another" and "not defintitely copied from one another," with the former being subdivided into who-copies-whom clusters. This is simply an observation about the texts, and a description of them, not evidence that there were any sources except the four writers themselves and Paul (and some material in "core" Thomas among those who believe there was a much earlier version than anything we have in hand).

 

[Craig B]

Is there anything embarrassing to Mark about Jesus being baptized to the accompaniment of heavenly fireworks? Having misread scripture to conclude that Jesus' mother hadn't had sex and that Jesus rode two asses into Jerusalem, is Matthew capable of embarrassment?

Yes. Having unashamedly created a virgin-born Jesus who rides into Jerusalem on two donkeys (both misunderstandings by Matthew of the text of the Tanakh, occasioned respectively by a mistranslation into Greek, and an unappreciated poetic figure of speech) Matthew is then embarrassed by having Jesus baptised by a hairy insect-eating desert-dwelling prophet, so he puts Jesus in charge of the affair by adding this non-Markan passage.

Matthew 3:14 But he [John] hindered him [Jesus] saying I need to be be baptized by you, and you come to me? 15 But answering Jesus told him Permit it just now, for this is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he permitted him.

Embarrassment verily drips from Matthew's pen here.

 

[zugzwang]

Eight Bits

Good points about sources and texts. If you take, say Matthew, and you divide it into 3 sub-texts - material apparently copied from Mark, material unique to Matthew, and material similar to some in Luke (giving rise to the hypothetical Q), you are quite right to say that a sub-text is not a source. That takes a further step in analysis, I suppose.

This is particularly apt with regard to Q, since there has been a lot of criticism of the inference that a common element (in Matthew and Luke), implies a 'source' document, especially since such a document has never been found, or is even referred to.

Of course, there are other possibilities, for example, that M or L copied from the other, actually a simpler solution.

I think interest in Q was rekindled when Thomas was discovered, since Q had been postulated as a sayings collection (with little narrative), and Thomas is a sayings collection. And then Thomas was claimed to have overlaps with John! But Thomas is also interesting as not mentioning the crucifixion or resurrection.

 

[pakeha]

I hate it when people make a strawman version of the Criterion of Embarrassment. Fair enough to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it is, not for some strawman version of it. It's like arguing "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Creationists misunderstanding evolution is not a problem for evolution.

From the Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment

This criterion is rarely used by itself, and is typically one of a number of criteria, such as the criterion of discontinuity and the criterion of multiple attestation, along with the historical method... The criterion of embarrassment has its limitations and must always be used in concert with the other criteria.​

Note that this criterion "must always be used in concert with the other criteria". So using examples where the criterion is NOT being used in concert with other criteria is using a strawman version of the criterion.

One reason it is used is that we have four Gospels, written over a period of probably 50 years, where we can see changes in material reflecting a changing mindset. An example is how the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is treated in each Gospel.

Now, I'm not a fan of the criterion. I think the criticisms of it show it is problematic. But the criterion is NOT just "it is embarrassing therefore it is true". If you are giving examples of the Criterion of Embarrassment where it is not being used in concert with other criteria, then you are using a strawman version of it.

I hate it when those who poke fun at the CoE are openly compared to Creationists.
"I hate it when people make a strawman version of the Criterion of Embarrassment. Fair enough to criticize it, but at least criticize it for what it is, not for some strawman version of it. It's like arguing "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Creationists misunderstanding evolution is not a problem for evolution."

I had no idea I'd reap such vehement defenses of the CoE when I ridiculed it recently.
Are proponents of an HJ really quite so unwilling to acknowledge its uselessness in discussing the evidence for an HJ?

 

[JaysonR]

Ian,

"apart from the rather obvious fact that it is by no means clear what would have been embarrassing to 1st century Jewish religious belief"
Why assume the embarrassment is from the perspective of the Jewish culture in every text?

Are other cultures unable to write of other cultures and when doing so value their own interest over that of the culture they are pulling a figure from?


zugzwang,
And the issue there that I have is that we have assumed an infallibility with "Q hypothesis" when instead, Q hypothesis is actually not a very strong case.
It is effectively Markan priority with some wiggle room added here and there since we don't have this thought up text.

If you start with Markan priority, as Q hypothesis does (regarding the 4 gospel texts), and begin in the Levant region with Mark moving North and South, Matthew coming from Alexandrian areas, John coming from Anatolia and impacting long-form Mark possibly, and Luke coming from the region of Athens prior to John arising and pulling from Matthew from the South and Mark from the North, then the geography of the Mediterranean is as easily capable of explaining the variations attempted to be answered by Q hypothesis without the requirement of an additional thought up and unknown text (http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259816 <- scroll to the maps and read that area for an idea of these details).

This doesn't mean this is the case; only that it is incredibly easy to show how dispersion logistics could create the same effect which provokes the want for the Q hypothesis.