RJH January- June of 2012 Part 3

 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 23, 2012 at 5:05 am
I’m even disappointed by the quality of your ballyhooed “research”. What you call research is a compilation of quick pickings from the Web, without any additional outside checking.
 Real definitive research would have involved an email to the Registry of the graduate School at Columbia, or the chairman of the History Department, just to ask for the title of Carrier’s thesis for instance. But you never went to any such trouble, for sure. You’re happy with your blank condemnation statements as if they expressed some truths that we had never suspected.
 You could also have sent an email directly to Carrier asking for information or confirmation. That too, you never did.
I think that Carrier’s Ph.D. thesis was in history of philosophy, probably on a subject of ancient Greek philosophy (my guess), which is intimately connected with the field of ancient Greek literature and religion. Carrier’s final degree was a History Ph.D from the History Dep’t of Columbia.
This is a field infinitely more complex and vast than the field of Christian origins, with has only a pretty limited stock of primary sources, a limited gallery of original characters, and only an immensity of subjective interpretations.
 Christianity scholars have a relatively easy life compared to any research in ancient Greek civilization. My own favorite author in this field remains Gilbert Murray.
Similarly, in 1930, Alvin Boyd Kuhn had obtained his Ph.D. in History from Columbia with a thesis on “Theosophy: A Modern Revival of the Ancient Wisdom” (at the remarkable age of 50!)
The Columbia Dep’t of History must have granted quite a few similar Ph.Ds. But only an inquiry with the right office at Columbia could provide data and statistics.
 What you present as “research” is, I suspect, superficial culling on the Internet, which certainly is valuable, but remains only the first step of the effort, and not much more. It is too simplistic and secondary to have final scholarly value without verification and authentification from original sources.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Roo writes: “This [ancient history?] is a field infinitely more complex and vast than the field of Christian origins, with has only a pretty limited stock of primary sources, a limited gallery of original characters, and only an immensity of subjective interpretations. Christianity scholars have a relatively easy life compared to any research in ancient Greek civilization.”
This is absolute nonsense. A field whose members have to study everything from the Qumran scrolls to the Nag Hammadi papyri in Coptic and a thousand years of patristic literature in about five languages? I am embarrassed for you.

 
 
 
 The Jesus Process on The New Oxonian | Ge??aµµ??a says:
 May 22, 2012 at 12:08 pm
[...] Louise Fischer, “An Exhibition of Incompetence: Trickery, Dickery, Bayes.” Share this:FacebookTwitterE-mail Dit bericht werd geplaatst in Bijbel, English, [...]
Reply
 
 Jeffery Jay Lowder 
 May 22, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I’ve posted a brief defense of the applicability of Bayes’ theorem to historical claims here:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/05/is-bayess-theorem-irrelevant-to-history.html
Reply

 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 22, 2012 at 8:58 pm
Interesting “defence” but it does not contribute anything new or demonstrate how a mathematical theorem is relevant the complex historical data. You make a claim and contradict the conclusions here, without providing evidence and argument.
Reply

 Jeffery Jay Lowder 
 May 23, 2012 at 3:30 am
(1) Inferences based upon historical data, including complex historical data, involve uncertainty. (This is the essence of the first paragraph, where I said that T’s report is at best evidence that E occurred.)
(2) Uncertain inferences are by nature probabilistic, i.e., the strength of the evidence for a conclusion can be measured as the probability of the conclusion conditional upon the evidence. (This was the first 3 sentences of the 2nd paragraph.)
(3) Therefore, conditional probability is relevant to inferences based upon historical data, including complex historical data. (3rd sentence of 2nd paragraph)
(4) Bayes’ Theorem can be derived from the axioms of the probability calculus and the definition of conditional probability. (last sentence of 2nd paragraph)
(5) Therefore, Bayes’ Theorem is relevant to inferences based upon historical data, including complex historical data. (last sentence of 2nd paragraph)
To expand on (5), logically (inductively) correct inferences based upon historical data, including complex historical data, must conform to the pattern of probability relations expressed by Bayes’ Theorem. I freely grant that one can “do history” without having ever heard of Bayes’ Theorem, much less use it. But that doesn’t deny the point that Bayes’s Theorem is *relevant*, since any logically (inductively) correct inferences will conform to the pattern of probability relations expressed by Bayes’ Theorem.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 23, 2012 at 10:35 am
JJL:
You begin with the “necessarily true” tautology that ” Inferences based upon historical data, including complex historical data, involve uncertainty.” I understand how probabilism works.
1. Neither historical data nor especially complex historical data is quantifed in this assertion [I won't argue differences between assumptions, assertions, prior assumptions and premises here, but they are often tossed around interchangeably]. What counts as complex historical data?
 2. To arrive at the point where Bayes might be applicable, there are technical preconditions: To educe such data, even if it assumed that documents like gospels contain complex historical data, linguistic, textual, provenantial and chronological conditions apply. These are lower order conditions involving the nature and state of the evidence itself; higher order conditions involve the training and skills of the interpreter or analyst, just as in the sciences. These are hermeneutical and “skill” sets that affect the epistemic conditions under which basic assumptions are formed. In Bayes, these assumptions should become part of the calculus, although they are mot made explicit at any stage.
 3. Bayes attempts to compensate for this by frontloading (your contention) that “Uncertain inferences are by nature probabilistic, i.e., the strength of the evidence for a conclusion can be measured as the probability of the conclusion conditional upon the evidence.” This of course is also true because it is tautological: something is true (or probably true) if the evidence adduced in its favor shows it to be true, allowing for the nature/quality of the evidence. This sounds good–especially a word like probabilistic–but it is simply the philosopher’s way of saying that every inference is defeasible based upon the conditions that apply in forming assumptions. (Every student in basic logic knows that a conclusion is valid (argumentatively sound) no matter how false as long as the terms are distributed correctly in the two premises.).Bayes turns this into values for probability of occurrence and based on the (often fatally flawed) assumptions that have been frontloaded into the equation can then declare the game over and the conclusion unarguable. But this isn’t history; it’s a parlor game.
4. Another, crueler way of saying this would be to say that Bayes fails because the way it will work for Richard Carrier, lacking as he does the technical skills to form the assumptions that would lead to greater or lesser confidence in the probability of a conclusion, is very different from the way it would work for a Maurice Casey, who can bring with him a greater degree of sophistication in satisfying the technical requirements under which such premises can be formed. Bayes may be an atttempt to level the methodological playing field to permit Carrier to play ball, but in fact, rightly deconstructed, it simply calls attention to how uneven the field is and how difficult it is to achieve certainty.

 
 J. Quinton 
 May 23, 2012 at 1:01 pm
If you are dealing with uncertainty, and building arguments that depend on those uncertainties, then you have to follow the laws of probability. Even if you make educated guesses on “complex historical data”, the rules of probability still apply.
Case in point: The princieple of falsifiability follows necessarily from Bayes’ Theorem. It’s not just a handy demarcation between science and non-science, but a way of separating a more probable hypothesis from a less probable hypothesis (wouldn’t it be nice to know if mythicists were positing unfalsifiable interpretations of evidence…).
Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence? That is Bayes’ Theorem; the Humean principle that Dr. Hoffmann alluded to in his essay ([a story] even more incredible than the story they are trying to debunk) itself follows necessarily from Bayes’ Theorem.
Rejecting such a ubituitous and powerful tool just because someone you don’t like (or whose conclusions you disagree with) is using it is likely to do yourself a disservice. Just like you implicitly use formal logic correctly when you reason and argue correctly, you also implicitly use Bayesian epistemology correctly when you reason and argue correctly. It can only help if you become consciously aware of these tools.

 
 Jeffery Jay Lowder 
 May 23, 2012 at 1:25 pm
RJH:
You wrote:
“1. Neither historical data nor especially complex historical data is quantifed in this assertion [I won't argue differences between assumptions, assertions, prior assumptions and premises here, but they are often tossed around interchangeably].”
What does “this” refer to in your first sentence?
“What counts as complex historical data?”
I was re-using Fisher’s wording, so I’ll defer to her to define it. My point is that data is data: it makes no difference to BT whether the data is “simple” or “complex.”
“2. To arrive at the point where Bayes might be applicable, there are technical preconditions: To educe such data, even if it assumed that documents like gospels contain complex historical data, linguistic, textual, provenantial and chronological conditions apply. ”
I am happy to agree with you that “linguistic, textual, provenantial and chronological conditions apply.” In fact, nothing I’ve written contradicts this. In fact, I would think that all of the conditions would need to be included in the background information (B), the evidence to be explained (E), or both, in a proper application of BT to a historical issue.
“These are lower order conditions involving the nature and state of the evidence itself; higher order conditions involve the training and skills of the interpreter or analyst, just as in the sciences. These are hermeneutical and “skill” sets that affect the epistemic conditions under which basic assumptions are formed. In Bayes, these assumptions should become part of the calculus, although they are mot made explicit at any stage.”
I see your point. In that sense, I guess you could describe BT as a sort of “high-level” methodology which specifies the questions that need to be asked without telling you how to get the answers. That doesn’t invalidate the relevance of BT to history, but it does show that BT, by itself, is insufficient to address historical questions. Again, I am happy to agree and nothing I’ve written contradicts that.
“3. Bayes attempts to compensate for this by frontloading (your contention) that “Uncertain inferences are by nature probabilistic, i.e., the strength of the evidence for a conclusion can be measured as the probability of the conclusion conditional upon the evidence.” This of course is also true because it is tautological: something is true (or probably true) if the evidence adduced in its favor shows it to be true, allowing for the nature/quality of the evidence. This sounds good–especially a word like probabilistic–but it is simply the philosopher’s way of saying that every inference is defeasible based upon the conditions that apply in forming assumptions. (Every student in basic logic knows that a conclusion is valid (argumentatively sound) no matter how false as long as the terms are distributed correctly in the two premises.).Bayes turns this into values for probability of occurrence and based on the (often fatally flawed) assumptions that have been frontloaded into the equation can then declare the game over and the conclusion unarguable. But this isn’t history; it’s a parlor game.”
I agree there is a sort of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ risk with BT. The fact that BT can be abused by “frontloading” “(often fatally flawed) assumptions” is not of obvious relevance to the fact that uncertain inferences based upon evidence must conform to the pattern of probability relations specified by BT.
“Bayes may be an atttempt to level the methodological playing field to permit Carrier to play ball,”
My defense of the relevance of BT to history has nothing to do with Carrier. Attributing motives like this–either to Carrier or to others (?)–is not helpful.
“but in fact, rightly deconstructed,it simply calls attention to how uneven the field is and how difficult it is to achieve certainty.”
I agree that BT can show how difficult it is to achieve certainty. It can also do more than that. Again, it can be used to specify the pattern of probability relations that must exist for logically (inductively) correct inferences to be made.
Regards,
Jeff

 
 
 
 Soloview 
 May 22, 2012 at 2:52 pm
It seems there are only two kinds of students of the NT texts in Ms Fisher’s world: unassailable scholarly sages and ‘self-promoting pedlars of incompetence’ with ‘total inability to understand’. Some of her deep thoughts and sommersaults in logic are truly a thing to behold:
“Cohn was a German Jew who emigrated to Israel, where he
 became Attorney General of Israel, and Minister of Justice,….
He was a member of the “T’hila” Movement for Israeli Jewish
 secularism. It is culturally ludicrous to expect anyone like Cohn to
 give a fair account of a New Testament narrative, especially one
 which has played such an appalling role in the history of Christian
 anti-Semitism. ”
It is not at all clear what Ms. Fisher finds in Mr Cohn credentials that makes it “culturally ludicrous” to expect an intelligent – independent – view of NT from him. Lost a connecting thread perhaps ? Another triple salto with sure-footed landing:
“Are [the synoptics] pristine, objective, verbatim accounts of the life
 of Jesus? Hardly. Are they infused with assumptions about who
 Jesus is and approximations of what he said? Yes. Can we
 find “heresiological”, or more properly controversial material in
 them—material intended to defend a sketchy proto-orthodox
 teaching about Jesus against less acceptable beliefs?
 Of course—as John Fenton showed,especially in relation to
 Matthew’s gospel. These considerations, however, are the
 surest proof that Jesus really lived and that the
 preservers of the Jesus-tradition knew what they were
 defending: they were squeamish about the divine man
 Christology [sic] that dominated in much of the church, and
 is at least “available” in the gospel of John. ”
This is precisely this type of vacuous rhetoric that invites deep skepticism if not outright scorn. Why should this kind of “surest proof” sway me one inch from believing the gospels to be allegorical narratives, or as Jan Wojcik called them, samples of “narrative gnosticism” ? Why should I not read Ms. Fisher’s method of reading the texts, an excellent illustration of what A.N. Whitehead called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness”? Why was Jesus first not an agreed- on form of personifying what the early Christ visionaries believed was the holy spirit of God that was abroad announcing the end of times ? Is it because Steph Fisher’s mentor invented yet another form of a (not yet) academically vetted testimonial that Jesus walked on earth and was recorded early in yet another non-existent, unprovable screed, tablet or plurality thereof ? Why should I take them seriously when the best they can do is self-serving pap like :
Casey: ” I hope…that the forthcoming book by Stephanie Fisher will
 establish it (a new theory of gospel sourcing) beyond
 reasonable doubt as the normative view of New Testament
 scholars. ” (Jesus, p. 80)
“A normative view of NT scholars” ? This statement best testifies of a seriously impaired sense of not just academic standards (since when one comments on as-yet unpublished work ?) but an elementary struggle with reality. Ms Fisher so far overwhelms only the intellectually destitute with her wayward Jesus Process of thinking, to wit:
“All competent and critical New Testament scholars investigating the history of early Christianity, should be competent in methodology in order to pursue academic enquiry.”
Mind-boggling.
Best,
 Jiri
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 22, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Jiri retorts: “Why should this kind of “surest proof” sway me one inch from believing the gospels to be allegorical narratives, or as Jan Wojcik called them, samples of “narrative gnosticism” ?
I suspect nothing will sway you as you are determined not to be swayed. But commenting only on Wojick’s illiterate view of the gospels as “narrative gnosticism” I suggest that you prefer reading fairy tales to real history. Wojcik knew zilch about the modern study of gnosticism and would have called breakfast a myth if it was lunchtime. Try to do better and read more carefully. The very fact that you cite Wojcik as a reliable standard authority is embarrassing enough, were it not for the fact that this is exactly the kind of silliness that all mythicists do, stretching for supporting footnotes into the land of non-specialists. If you want (to repeat) the best proof that the gospels are not allegories, get a cheap copy of the Nag Hammadi Library in English (no Coptic needed) and read through it. Then after a breath of fresh air, sit down and read the gospel of Mark. If that doesn’t cure you, nothing will.
Reply

 Soloview 
 May 22, 2012 at 6:19 pm
The thing is this: There is this bright guy, Mark Vonnegut, the son of a famous American writer, who is an MD and who like myself has a challenge called “bi-polar disorder”. (I am a retired computer engineer). He wrote a memoir called “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So” asking why there are not more questions about Early Christianity. Do you understand what he is saying ? I bet you haven’t a clue.
Not because you have no personal familiarity with the phenomena which the texts advertize and seek to interpret, but because you don’t even know that should know something about that. You will read in Mark 10:46 that Jesus and Co went in and out of Jericho without incident, and you have no way to interpret that. (It’s not because of Secret Mark I pray you; Mark waves the same flag with Bethany 11:11-12). You have no idea why the trip to Bethsaida in 6:45 – with Jesus in the boat ends – in Gennesaret. You are at a loss to explain the defiance of the ‘multitude’ in 7:36 : ‘he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them the more they proclaimed (him)’. You probably even think there was a multitude. How about Jesus curing Jarius daughter and people laughing when he says she is only sleeping. Why would they do that ? Would that be the expected human reaction in the context for which it is suggested ? Ie, human life believed lost and a hope for it is rekindled by the expert brought into the house for that very purpose. Ha, ha, ha ! That’s funny ! How about people so busy when they have Jesus around they cannot even eat ? Hello ? Any idea what this alludes to ? I bet not ! Bartimaeus throwing off his cloak when asked to join ? Not either, good. Jesus tells his apostolic angels to go by themselves to a secluded place, but everyone knows where they are going and arrive there before them. No problem: true story ! And then the Lord shortening the days of the elect (it appears it already happened) as a way to save them through the future tribulations ? Makes perfect sense in Aramaic, I bet !
Now all of this – and there is more, trust me – argues vigorously against Mark writing actual events. It looks rather obvious he was writing for his friends, potential converts and pulling the leg of accredited scholars of his time who were wont to swoop on the Jesus apparitions from Jerusalem and declare his (!) cures the work of the prince of devils.
Yep, I have read Mark and made my independent assessment of him. Over twenty four years. Final verdict: He is a Pauline allegorist. The women running away from the tomb without telling anyone anything is a way to assert the primacy of the Paul’s gospel over the claims of the traditions associated with the disciples. The missing body in the tomb is a pun carried over from 4:10, ‘those around Jesus’ (hoi peri Iesou) when he is alone (kata monas) are the ‘body of Christ’ as per 1 Cor 12:27. They are in the mythical Galilee. The disciples, or rather their followers, are asked to accept the cross and join !
Don’t believe it ! Gnostic black magic ! Sure, sure ! Except you see, there are the statistical odds against finding the second half of the hidden Malachi 3:1 reference (from Mk 1:2) in the messenger’s reporting in the tomb. What would they be, I wonder, if Mark was reporting and not composing : one in a million, two in ten million ? Oh, you have not found the reference was explicit enough ? What a pity ! We could have had a reasoned conversation.
Best,
 Jiri
ETA: ok, I give you the solution for 7:36. The ‘disobedience’ relates to glossolalia. The multitude cannot stop the praise of Jesus, because the visions of him themselves are ‘apo kyriou pneumatos’ (2 Cor 3:2). Typical ecstatic humour of Mark !

 
 Rabbie 
 June 4, 2012 at 12:03 pm
You might demonstrate your faith in the non-allegorical nature of Mark by adopting several pet rattlesnakes, allowing them to slither freely around you as you write your posts. Things might have gone better for a recently deceased charismatic preacher had he not taken Mark “au pied de la lettre”.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 4, 2012 at 12:17 pm
@Rabbie: yes, of course: we were all taught in our graduate classes to take Mark literally. I regularly let my children play with black mambas while they were growing up just to test the word of God. In fact, I used Bayes’s Theorem to decide the probability of their getting bit, and then, of course, of their dying should they get bit. I kept getting .50 because the verses occur in the longer ending of Mark and there is a 50% chance it was added after Mark, and then of course only a 50% chance that Mark had ever seen a snake. Taking account of this, the solar eclipse, and the fact that I had had tacos for dinner and rushed through the equation, I finally was able to push the envelope to get 75% prob. that they would survive a venomous attack. God rest their souls.

 
 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 22, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Repeat and contradict. Your comment is indeed mind boggling Jiri. It fails to have apprehended the main points outlined above. It fails to contribute anything helpful to the conversation. And Jiri, I’m an Antipodean and we don’t believe in ‘mentors’ – they’re dangerously close to tall poppies. The little idea that I have a ‘mentor’ is constructed in your own imagination to satisfy your own beliefs. Your inability to perceive bias is probably a reflection of your own
Reply

 Soloview 
 May 23, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Steph,
 do you really, truly, believe that when people see a quickie off-the-cuff essay titled ‘An Exhibition of Incopetence: Trickery Dickery Bayes’ they’ll figure, ‘Aha, Steph wants to stimulate a rational conversation’ ? Really, truly ? Because you see, it looks to this former dummy-half more like a regular ‘haka’.

 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 12:27 am
and what do you mean by a ‘regular haka’? It sounds not just culturally insensitive but a massively ignorant racist slur.

 
 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 22, 2012 at 8:54 pm
Jiri, you repeat and contradict. Your comment is indeed mind boggling. It fails to apprehend any main points outlined above or contribute anything relevant of helpful to the conversion. Indeed, it seems to reflect a lack of elementary skills of reading comprehension. And Jiri, I am an Antipodean and I don’t believe in ‘mentors’ or titles. The idea of ‘mentor’ creeps dangerously close to the idea of tall poppies. Your failure to recognise bias where it exists probably reflects your own.
stephanie
Reply

 Grog 
 May 23, 2012 at 12:22 am
I’m really glad you said this twice, because I didn’t get it the first time.

 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Not surprising.

 
 brettongarcia 
 May 26, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Is the “debate” between Historicists and Mythicists, really an objective debate?
The language, the emotional tone and axis of blogs, is not really objective scholarly debate; though ideas are often advanced, deeper underneath it is all to often, normally, a simple contest of adolescent egos, rivals. One in which the players all see themselves in terms that are finally, rather too much like cartoon superheroes: heros vanquishing evil villains. “Brilliant” heroes vanquishing “fools” and so forth. But of course? Tthere is something far from scholarship in the prevailing ego contest, fo the internet,
And in fact, there is something even psychologially dangerous, in this self-vs.-others agonism of Internet blogs: there is something that feeds into/creates more serious disorders. My own theory of one “antipodean” mode for example – Manic Depressive disorder – sees it as stemming from an exaggerated sense of self. And for that matter, sees it in nearly biblical or ethical terms: as beginning with 1) simple Vanity. With an exaggerated sense of self, of the self as powerful hero, in the manic phase. But 2) then, after having committed excesses of Vanity, and errors of overselfconfidence in that phase? Next comes the depressive phase. Which need not be seen as hopelessly inexplicable or arcane. But which I see as … simply natural sense of Remorse; or contrition. Which is called “depression.” But is more properly, simply? Remorse.
In the lower realms of academe there is a sense especially, that the most erudite voice is the superhero, that is always right. And that always wins; since the erudite voice knows the rules of The Game better than anyone, and plays by them better than the untutored. And yet however? There are so many cases where the best knowledge base that we have is by no means enough. So that the most academic and erudite discussion, amounts to mere wheel-spinning. And the showest exihibitions? Failing, soon lead to simple … Remorse.
The task of vanquishing “fools,” and “miscreants,” and evil mythicists … interfaces all too completely, with the basic character of the Internet. Or for that matter, with a moral, CHristian evil: Vanity. One hopes that this character is presented in so obvious a way on blogs, exaggerated, in order to be obviously, self-parodying.
Though if the perpetrator is experiencing Remorse later on? Undoubtedly it was all too real, for all too many participants.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 26, 2012 at 4:26 pm
@Garcia: This is thoughtful. I can assure you that what precipitates this discussion–which is not a debate because the sides are not matched as they would be in serious academic interchange–is the increasing adventurism of the mythtics and their repeated sniping at scholarship. Many of us on what is being called the “historicist” side of the discussion are concerned that left unchallenged, a whole generation of people who get most of their information from the internet will simply assume that the idea of the historical Jesus is equivalent to belief in a divine savior. The propositions are entirely different and openly acknowledged by members of the profession–many of whom–myself included–do not mind being called unbelievers. But “belief” is not the issue here: it is how historical sources are handled. Is the internet the best place for serious discussion–of course not, and Professor Casey has said as much in his opening remarks. Should scholars respond to suggestions that a profession–to quote Mr Carrier-is “fucked up”– when, as far as anyone can determine, the religious studies and cognate departments at Chicago, Yale, Harvard, Oxford, Nottingham and Stanford are chugging along just fine and turning out methodologically sophisticated scholars. Of course. There is no reason to be moralistic about this and to accuse people who are stating confidently the facts as they know them of ‘acting superior.” Scholarship is not an internet debate: you are right about that. But ideas that can be substantiated are superior ideas. What I am discovering is that this discussion is long overdue, and if it prevents even five people from accepting the appeals to unreason and superstitious reading of texts using discredited “authorities” a century old, it will have been worth the trouble. Let me say also for the benefits of those who are just looking in on tis discussion and may surprised at its tone: atheist like to say that the belief in God is irrational and that atheism is therefore a reasonable position. I’ve often said, that is a perfectly valid position to take and has to be argued philosophically. There is NOTHING remotely similar between that position and the “belief” that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical individual. Philosophy and especially logic play implicit roles in this discussion, but they are not the primary tools for deciding the question. The fact is, we need the most efficient, simplest, and most plausible explanation for the beginning of the Christian movement which developed not in a haze but in the full glare of antiquity. Our primary sources offer a sufficient if loaded explanation for that event. The mythtics offer us jello.

 
 
 
 Ananda 
 May 22, 2012 at 9:49 pm
“At no point in such a process does a critical scholar throw his or her hands in the air and pronounce a fatwah on all preceding efforts”
Well Stephanie that was so funny and so true for not until we let go of the literal letter can we begin to appreciate the life of the spirit.
Now this matter of Joseph’s breakfast might just take on a new light if one were performing deep self inquiry , “Is the self that had breakfast the same as the self now eating lunch” Yep a brand new critter is having lunch and we can take Paul literally here……2 Cor. 5:17; Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. You can be very thankful we are not in a historical Christ……lol….. It’s the Magic of ordinary life ! We are all mythical creatures for nobody is who they “THINK” they are.
Actually it’s the NHC which may actually assist in opening the understanding of the spiritual allegories in the canon.
Stephanie says;
“But all extant Gospels are already very late stages of the “Gospel tradition”, the Gospel having already been preached for nearly an entire lifetime across three continents before any Gospel was written”
I wonder who‘s gospel’s you are thinking about, maybe Maricon or Valentinus , Cerinthus, or perhaps even Philo and Basilides. Bet ya Simon Magus, Apollos and Cephas had mighty gospels as well. I would even contend that Ecsebius merged four entirely different traditions into one universal ring to rule them all. Perhaps you consider Paul the end all which could live and guide a community entirely without the gospels as Maricon did without the OT. How many pagan oral traditions were whirling around in the soup as well?
Reply

 Ananda 
 May 29, 2012 at 9:47 am
Much Expanded……………
.Alogi
Apellianists
Artemonites
Basilidians
> Cainites
Capocratians
Cerdonians
Cerinthians
Cleobians
Dosithereans
Ebionites
Elchasaites
Encrites
Manicheans
Marcelinians
Marcionites
Menandrians
Montanists
> Nazarenes
Nicolatians
> Noetians
Novatians
Ophites
Praxeans
Proto-Orthodox
Saturninians
Sethians
Simonians
Theodotians
Valentinians
Thanks to Jake Jones IV at Jesus Mysteries
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/messages/62654?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 29, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Nice list; what’s it for? Is the girlfriend a myth, too? Darn

 
 Ananda 
 May 29, 2012 at 2:03 pm
“Nice list; what’s it for? Is the girlfriend a myth, too? Darn”
Well,I was thinking again, of that old Latin saying; “Never less alone than when alone”
The proto-orthodox were not alone………………lol

 
 
 
 neodecaussade 
 May 22, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Reblogged this on Neodecaussade’s Weblog and commented:
 Excellent read.
Reply

 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 12:27 am
Thank you. :)
Reply
 
 
 alnitak 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:00 am
“Atheist blogger Richard Carrier, has now added to his passionate flushings of incompetence with another book,…”
I’m afraid you lost me at that early point. If you are a reputable academic (sorry, I don’t know -your- credentials, for all your shaming of his) then you have not only the weight of an in-depth formal education in this or related subjects coupled to years of thought, discussion, and analysis, but you are also trained to communicate your ideas effectively. Surely you are prepared to deal concisely with the facts of Carrier’s presentation, firmly but without rancor. It should be easy if he is as inept as you imply. I gather that he used has used intemperate language in the past; perhaps that fault of his is worth a footnote, perhaps not.
I am perhaps overly affected by my own field, biology, where ideas are dealt with in egalitarian fashion, and even the most rank amateur can present an idea or ask a question that provokes discussion, sometimes among the most learned in their field. In a field like mine, “having written several books” often equates to “being learned about -past- research.”
I will try to more than scan your essay, but it is made difficult by the hyperbolic tone, which has been used by authors less knowledgeable than yourself to hide insufficiency of thought or fact.
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 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 23, 2012 at 9:59 am
Alnitak, that is a great point.
This lady Fisher does not realize that she undermines her own message (assuming there’s one) with her abundance of vitriol, because there’s so much of it that it’s hard to see what else is there she wants to communicate.
 It often seems that her only satisfaction is to throw aspersions on the victims of her anger. Even after having read her stuff completely, I have a hard time remembering the points she is trying to make, whereas I remember more distinctly what Casey is trying to prove.
For your amusement, and possible use in the future, note that scholars and debaters of the 19th century had some cute, Latin expressions to express those two aspects inherent in most debates on religion: If your opponent criticized you without even having read or understood your stuff, you would say that he/she attacked you “sine studio” (without any examination), which you would answer, in your high-minded nobility of mind, “sine ira” (without anger, or resentment).
 This lady Fisher could try to use this “sine ira” mode of response. But it goes against her grain and freedom of expression. It is not possible to switch centuries so easily.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Roo: It is astonishing that you seem not to have evolved since the nineteenth century, and joined the modern convention of addressing human beings equally without being sexually discriminating and derogatory to boot.

 
 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Carrier makes unqualified pronouncements without sound argument or evidence and accompanies it with plenty of vitriol against New Testament scholars and their work. I am in favour of discussion and debate and interested people being involved. However this is not how Carrier approaches the study of history. I am glad you appreciated Professor Hoffmann’s essay so much. I did too.
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 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Alnitak:
You were hoping for fair dealings “without rancor”, that is “sine ira.” However, the opposite, “cum ira” is this lady Fisher’s modus vivendi. She seems to thrive only when venting out invectives, derogations and deprecations.
 Coming from we don’t know where, she suddenly arrogates to herself the right to “express the fact that [Carrier] is not qualified in New Testament studies”, that’s right, as if she’s been designated by the Holy Spirit to declare incompetences and adjudicate qualifications about who can do what.
 After 15 years of studies, he’d been waiting for her kind of final endorsement, and, surprise, he’s finally been given his pink slip from the profession. How is he going to make a living and support his wife and children?
That this is promoted as a site for learned discussions of Christian interpretations, when it is in fact a site for pouring out hostility on certain visitors and scholars she despises like Richard Carrier or Earl Doherty (a harmless, aging man who’s not even given a modicum of respect for his silver hair) is discouraging. I was naively expecting quality of tone, and some depth of insight, but nothing like this no-holds-barred mano a mano. Even Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason, was more gracious in style than this modern Fury.
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Neil Godfrey’s response 1 to Maurice Casey and Stephanie Fisher « Vridar says:
 May 23, 2012 at 2:06 am
[...] on his blog ‘I’m a librarian, but I never see or touch a book.’[43]  (Stephanie Fisher, An Exhibitions of Incompetence . . . accessed [...]
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 11:45 am
Our comments Neil, were slightly tongue and cheek. I didn’t find it the post accidentally. I noted it at the time. Yes I commented at the time about the benefits outweighing the risks of living on a faultline but could hardly forget your light hearted post which was a consequence of an earthquake that subsequently devastated the lives of many people, some of whom I know. I also took note of that particular post because it was ironic considering the fact that you constantly misrepresent scholarship you claim to have thoroughly read. Hence literal interpretation: tongue and cheek to ‘explain’ your misrepresentation of scholarship conveniently.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 11:40 am
Poor Neil – he goes on, really scraping the barrel.

 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 11:41 am
… reflecting more about themselves than anyone else.

 
 
 
 Ben Schuldt 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:34 am
Subscribing.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Be happy and smile.
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 steph 
 May 25, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Aw isn’t this sweet Ben Schuldt, all this effort for your mate Dick Carrier. And all this effort in addition to all the foul language you direct at us. “War on Error” – but that’s so characteristic, isn’t it. You have alot of “courage” coming here don’t you. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/268
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 David Mills 
 May 23, 2012 at 4:18 am
Stephanie,
‘Speaking’ as an agnostic on the issue of Jesus’ historicity, my uncertainty about ‘Brothers of the Lord’ in 1 Cor 9.5 is that if this is siblings, then it it eminent/privileged members of the upper end of the church, indeed arguably travelling missionaries.
Given what I think is a complete absence of any tradition in which siblings had such roles or held such positions, I feel that the suggestion that this is a clear reference to siblings is unwarranted. They do not even, for example, appear on the list of witnesses later in the same book. As far as I know, they do not appear anywhere.
As for looking for a distinct group, why not just those brothers who are far enough up the pecking order to qualify for privileges? Does it have to be a clear and distinct group, in those very early days in which we might reasonably expect a degree of flux? One word which springs to mind is ‘elders’.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 1:18 pm
David: The tradition in Mark 6.3 points to Jesus having siblings. There does not seem to be any reasonable argument to doubt that this tradition is true. Interpreting Paul, he refers to brothers in the Lord as plural suggesting close followers, which is distinguished from brothers ‘of’ the Lord in 1 Cor 9.5 which suggests siblings. For example when Paul refers to a brother of the Lord, ?de?f?s t?? ??????, in Gal 1.19, it is reasonable to interpret a sibling. The assumption that traditions must be repeated and repeated if they are true is not reasonable considering the limited writings preserved of Paul, the expectations of his audience who didn’t need to be constantly reminded, and ultimately the limited evidence from early Christianity.
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 David Mills 
 May 23, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Thanks Stephanie.
Regarding Mark, didnt Paula Fredriksen once offer the observaton that the names of Jesus’ brothers were, er, notably symbolic. I believe the analogy she used was that it was a bit like describing a significant American as having brothers named Washington, Lincoln and Truman. I may not have recalled the correct prsidents there. :)
My problem with Mark is that a lot of it seems as if it might be allegory, not history, and I don’t know how one can reliably tell the difference.
I take your points about 1 Cor 9.5, but I can’t honestly say I can agree with them. To me, 1 Cor 9.5 is pretty ambiguous, if not in fact accessible to a more coherent explanation as non-siblings, in my humble opinion, for a variety of reasons, including the ones I mentioned.
I do accept that Gal 1.19 seems more like sibling, but, rational sceptic that I am, I find it hard to justify any certainty, or even decisive likliehood. And Gal 1.19 depends on 1 Cor 9.5.
As an agnostic, I can agree with a lot of what is said about mythicists, including a number of your points. I do wish there was more agnosticism though, since I feel it is the most warranted position.
David

 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 2:39 pm
We all evolve in thinking as critical and self critical human beings. I began as a complete agnostic two decades ago, when I first specifically approached the history of religions, as to the historicity of a Jewish Jesus. I had never believed in any religion and had no crosses to burn, but alot of burning questions about the origins of religions, why they came to be, why humanity needed them and how they developed and who developed them and other things. I have since studied and learned and read broadly and specialised in early Christian origins. I have researched and enquired and questioned and contradicted and changed my mind a million times. However gradually over the last six years cumulative weight of argument and evidence has led me to conclude that I think I have moved beyond the question of actual existence to questions of what to do with the evidence and argument. Despite this, evidence will always be debatable and precision is unattainable… and new evidence could change my mind. However not everyone has the luxury of time and training to read or know what to read so the most honest non specialist critic may always hold an agnostic view. There will always probably be those who for various reasons will create myths out of their agnosticism to deny any historical figure at all, behind a religion they might want to dismiss. I am still agnostic about most things to degrees and rely on specialists in other fields to help me reach tentative conclusions.

 
 
 
 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 1:25 pm
“….that if this is siblings, then it it (sic, presumably “they were”) eminent/privileged members of the upper end of the church, indeed arguably travelling missionaries.”
It is a pity none of them could write or even dictate then we wouldn’t have had 2,000 years of non-stop argumentation. Could it have been so difficult for a real person or his brothers to have set down his ideas in a clear and concise manner in a form which would have survived until the present day? Given that Matthew, Mark etc managed it then why not Jesus? Perhaps the problem is that he was born just 40 years too early. What a convenient cock-up.
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 Dustin Cooper 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:35 pm
Given the apocalyptic nature of much of Jesus’ teaching, are you really surprised that neither he nor his earliest followers didn’t see an immediate need to preserve Jesus’s words and deeds for posterity?
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 Thom Stark 
 May 24, 2012 at 12:40 am
Exactly right, Dustin.

 
 
 
 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Stephanie,
“the crowd stoned them with such violence that most of the cohort were killed. Archelaus then sent in his army in force: the result was 3,000 dead Jews and the wreckage of a major festival (Jos. War II, 5-13: Ant XVII, 206-8). This is arguably what the chief priests were avoiding by not arresting Jesus in public in the Temple, yet Carrier shows not a glimmer of awareness of the event in the time of Archelaus ever happening..”
Good point. So Jesus having been arrested secretly to avoid a riot is then just a few hours later put in front of a baying mob who, presumably, had been first checked out by the new stone-detector machines just introduced by the Romans.
I also like another point you make that Luke thought Matthew a complete liar on the matter of the nativity. In that, I agree with Luke. But I go one step further and think Luke was a liar too in his claim to be writing history. Clearly, he was writing theology.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Hi Sam, Thank you for your comments. I think Maurice discusses this, but I say too, that the nativity stories are far from historical truth! I hope it is implicit that storytelling in ‘Matthew’ is replaced by storytelling of ‘Luke’. However I wouldn’t call Matthew or Luke ‘liars’. I think that’s anachronistic. It was storytelling, and ‘Luke’ was replacing the mess in ‘Matthew’ with something ‘better’ and more fitting. The author of Matthew was also a horrendous misogynist and ‘Luke’ wasn’t. The late great Michael Goulder pointed that out. Goulder wrote: “Matthew, as is evident from his recasting of Mark’s divorce ruling, was a conventional Jewish male chauvinist, to whom it was natural to think of Jesus’ birth from the angle of the putative father. But Luke was of a more liberal cast of mind, for which women were in many ways the spiritual equals of men” (LNP 221). If only Roo Bookaroo (thread above), was a little more like ‘Luke’. :-)
Reply
 
 
 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 1:45 pm
“….that if this is siblings, then it it (sic, presumably “they were”?) eminent/privileged members of the upper end of the church, indeed arguably travelling missionaries.”
It is a pity none of Jesus’ siblings could write or even dictate then we wouldn’t have had 2,000 years of non-stop argumentation. Could it have been so difficult for a real person or his real brothers to have set down their ideas and histories in a clear and concise manner and in a form which would have survived until the present day? Given that Matthew, Mark etc managed it then why not Jesus or Jacob? What an incompetent way to run an apostolic church.
Perhaps the problem is that Jesus was born just 40 years too early. What a convenient cock-up.
P.S. I love it when Stephanie quotes dirty.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:17 pm
The problem with amateur detectives applying their “skill set” to the gospels is that they ask questions like the following without realizing how obtuse they are:

 Could it have been so difficult for a real person or his real brothers to have set down their ideas and histories in a clear and concise manner and in a form which would have survived until the present day?
The answer is, yes. Probably impossible. And why would they? Have you read the autobiography of Alexander the Great? Do you know why?
Augustine did leave us one, in the 5th century–sort of–and good luck sorting out fact and fiction in that.
My non-sarcastic point is that the road back through time is riddled with potholes and sinkholes and the farther back you go the more treacherous they become. The argument against the mythicists isn’t about authority and credentials–except when a surprising number show that they believe they can fly over these anachronisms (like angels?) without ever learning how to drive.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 2:48 pm
A couple of useful references on the realities and difficulties of reading and writing in antiquity might be found with:
Alan Millard, Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
R. A. Derrenbacker Jr., Ancient Compositional Practices and the Synoptic Problem (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 186; Leuven: Peeters, 2006).
and a brief article for luck (very good)
R. A. Derrenbacker, “Greco-Roman Writing Practices and Luke’s Gospel” in Christopher A. Rollston, The Gospels According to Michael Goulder: A North American Response (Harrisburg: PA; Trinity Press, 2004).

 
 
 
 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 6:23 pm
“The answer is, yes. Probably impossible. And why would they? Have you read the autobiography of Alexander the Great?”
Not yet. The 40-ton 32 wheeler lorry with the tablets containing Chapter 1 arrives tomorrow.
“Do you know why?”
Yes – but Alexander wasn’t the Son of God. It doesn’t matter to me or the rest of mankind whether Alexander existed or not any more than it matters to me and my fellow English whether or not King Arthur was real or mythical.
I’m told that the entire and perfectly-preserved New Testament was completed within 100 years of the date a resurrected body (in a form St Paul and William Lane Craig cannot agree on) disappeared upwards into a conveniently placed white cloud.
This is my eternal soul and those of another 100 billion people I’m talking about here. Why couldn’t Jesus or his brothers do what St Paul did? Nothing startling in data recording and transmission was invented in between the supposed crucifixion and the date “St Paul” allegedly started writing to his flock so what’s your objection to Jesus and/or his brothers jotting down a few notes to convince me and my fellow 100 billion of the reality of his historical existence?
Let me spell it out. Jesus could have written or dictated stuff to Cephas and/or James. Cephas and James could have had the memoir copied and they could have given one of the copies to Paul when he visited them in Jerusalem. Paul could have then copied the copy and stapled a copy to each of his letters etc etc. But this perfectly technically-acheivable process did not happen. Why not? Because faith is more important than truth?
In view of the fact that the whole purported point of christianity is that it achieves the reconnection of mankind to God for all time are you suggesting that, unlike Mohamed, the Son of the genuine God couldn’t afford the cost of a few leaves of papyrus and half a pint of squid ink to ensure that his message was transmitted down the centuries?
Why couldn’t God achieve what Paul is supposed to have managed time after time?
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 David Hillman 
 May 23, 2012 at 6:30 pm
I can not get to the arguments through all the ad hominem attacks, name dropping. snobbery, and abuse. When I argue with Physicists about quantum theory I get to grips with their ideas and their arguments and facts, not with what degree they got or whether they once believed in the Copenhagen interpretation. Does it matter, really, if someone was once a fundamentalist? This supercilious attitude makes getting to any real contribution to history like treading through treacle – and after several tries I give up.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 23, 2012 at 7:10 pm
I can not get to the arguments through all the ad hominem attacks, name dropping. snobbery, and abuse. When I argue with Physicists about quantum theory I get to grips with their ideas and their arguments and facts
Good for you. And your qualifications in Biblical studies are….what? I’d be very happy to argue with you.
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 David Hillman 
 May 24, 2012 at 5:05 am
Yeah, O.K., I have a B.A. and M.A. in History from Oxford and also first class honours in Physics and Maths. But these mean less than my own studies over 50 years, including many visits to the holy land. I am not interested in peoples’ qualifications, rather in the quality of their arguments. Thank God people love my poetry without asking if I’ve done a course in creative writing.Long live Faraday and William Blake who spoke with authority but not as the scribes.

 
 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Sounds like it’s long past time for you to give up David. Yes it does matter if someone has deconverted from some form of fundamentalist belief in which they held convictions without argument or evidence. Nobody can approach problems in life with pure objectivity. We are human beings who necessarily begin and continue our lives within some kind of social framework and we are shaped by our environments life experiences.
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 David Mills 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:11 am
I could not agree more, David. Though you forgot arguments from authority.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Eh – talking to yourself? See comment currently at bottom of entire comment thread by rjosephhhoffmann on authority.

 
 
 
 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Stephanie,
“A couple of useful references on the realities and difficulties of reading and writing in antiquity might be found with:…”
I’m not naive. I understand the difficulties in the writing and transmission of delicate documents down the ages but fundamentalists tell me that the New Testament (and, indeed, the OT) have indeed arrived on our doorstep pretty much in the same form as in the original autographs all of which proves, despite the extreme difficulties and Mr Hoffman’s opinion, that such transmission is possible. But, Mr Hoffman tells me, that in the case of Jesus and his brothers such transmission is “probably impossible”. Even for the Son of God?
So please tell me why Jesus couldn’t do what Paul and the evangelists seemingly did without difficulty.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 23, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Oh Gish Samphire : Do you really want me to respond to this?
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 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Yes, please. Please explain why the historical Jesus Christ and/or his brothers couldn’t do what Paul manage to do many times? Well, seven times, maybe.
And don’t gallop through it.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 23, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Let me spell it out. Jesus could have written or dictated stuff to Cephas and/or James. Cephas and James could have had the memoir copied and they could have given one of the copies to Paul when he visited them in Jerusalem. Paul could have then copied the copy and stapled a copy to each of his letters etc etc. But this perfectly technically-acheivable process did not happen. Why not? Because faith is more important than truth?
I am sure this sounds reasonable to you. That is sad. Because it is unreasonable to not just me but to anyone in ancient history or classical studies. Are you for example saying that if there had been a historical Jesus who knew he was the son of God he should have … x,y, z? Fascinating thought. But that is not what scholars are saying or thinking. Except perhaps the mythicists like Carrier. The fact that you do not know why it is ludicrous is why we need the Jesus Process. But in language I think you will understand, your question is an inductive fallacy: hypothesis contrary to fact.

 
 Grog 
 May 24, 2012 at 1:44 am
RJH
“Are you for example saying that if there had been a historical Jesus who knew he was the son of God he should have … x,y, z? Fascinating thought. But that is not what scholars are saying or thinking. Except perhaps the mythicists like Carrier.”
Hmmm…This strikes me as a mischaracterization of Carrier’s views. Care to defend?

 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:57 am
Well ‘grog’ – why for example, does Carrion struggle so desparately, contrary to critical argument and evidence, to deny that Jesus had siblings? Without x=siblings Jesus has less historical verisimilitude and the mythtic illusion is perceived by themselves as necessarily ‘unarguable’.

 
 
 David Mills 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:43 am
Samphire53,
He/they could have done, but apparently he/they didn’t. It doesn’t seem unusual to me. I don’t think we should infer anything from it.
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 Dustin Cooper 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:53 am
Samphire, I think you (and really most mythicists) should read up on the Positivist Fallacy:
http://www.livius.org/th/theory/theory-positivist.html
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 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 7:14 pm
Hi Steph
“I think Maurice discusses this, but I say too, that the nativity stories are far from historical truth! I hope it is implicit that storytelling in ‘Matthew’ is replaced by storytelling of ‘Luke’. However I wouldn’t call Matthew or Luke ‘liars’.”
I agree. As I wrote above, the gospels are theology and not history (IMAO).
I was taught never to call anybody a “liar” – a very nasty word – so, when we were caught lying, we were told “not to tell stories”. This could mean not gossiping or sneaking but it also had this second meaning of not lying. In an historical setting telling stories not based upon historical actuality is telling untruths or lying. In a theological setting one can say what one likes because some-one will always find theological truth within the historical falsity.
“I think that’s anachronistic.”
As in “thou shall not bear false witness”? Or is the admonishment against bearing false witness purely relevant solely in a legalistic setting?
“It was storytelling, and ‘Luke’ was replacing the mess in ‘Matthew’ with something ‘better’ and more fitting.”
And inspired?
“The author of Matthew was also a horrendous misogynist …….”
So not inspired?
“If only Roo Bookaroo (thread above), was a little more like ‘Luke’. ”
Beardwise, they are very similar. But Luke never wore white socks with sandals, I bet.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Ancient storytelling is not synonymous with 21st century lying to deceive. The gospel authors were following cultural conventions and norms in an historical context far removed from our own where we have the post enlightenment clear distinction between myth and reality.
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 samphire53 
 May 24, 2012 at 5:08 am
These things I’m aware of. But it is this colloidal mix of fact and myth which makes Mr.Casey’s apologetics of why Paul failed to provide any history of or reference to a recently living man so risibly incongruous as, indeed, is Paul’s claim that he failed to meet the other apostles on his visit to Jerusalem, a city of 60,000 and which any healed cripple could limp across in half an hour.
Is it likely a real Paul who had walked hundreds of tough miles along rough stoney tracks to a far off city to meet his co-religionists would fail to seek the company of most if not all of Jesus’ death-defying proselytising and closest mates? Would anybody fly across the Atlantic in relative comfort to stay a fortnight with Billy Graham and not seek out an evening’s entertainment with George Beverley Shea? But when it comes to discussing the mythic virginity of Mary it isn’t necessary to talk to the entire College of Cardinals to discover what the Catholic church’s teaching is on the matter; one man in a red hat and red shoes will do. In Paul’s story, only if Jesus was a mythic Son of God character who none of the lads had actually ever physically met would this tale make any sense.
Or, perhaps, if Paul himself was mythic.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 24, 2012 at 7:18 am
“Paul himself was mythic.” You really are reading selectively aren’t you mate?

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 24, 2012 at 9:10 am
http://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/hoffmann-cold-cocks-mythers/

 
 David Mills 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:27 am
Joseph,
How has it come to this? Only a few years ago you were describing the historicity question as open and unanswerable. At that point, I admired you for saying what I personally thought was the most reasonable, rational thing I believed I had ever heard from an NT scholar. Now it’s derision and not much else.
I can understand exasperation with mythicists, really I can, but what about a return to a healthy dash of uncertainty? :)

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 24, 2012 at 11:02 am
@David: It is clear alas! David that you have not read my essay at all; you are not even posting this comment on it. There is nothing derisive in it except derision of some bad ideas. I say repeatedly ” I have come to the conclusion.” That is a process, not a fixed position. Some of us see that process as reasonable as we learn more and investigate more. At this moment, the cumulative weight of what I know makes the existence of Jesus the reasonable position. Of course, that could change, but it will not change without substantial additional evidence to the contrary: that is to say, not on the basis of a contrived method that turns analogies and bad assumptions into premises at the touch of Midas’s finger.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 24, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Samphire: “Is it likely a real Paul who had walked hundreds of tough miles along rough stoney tracks to a far off city to meet his co-religionists would fail to seek the company of most if not all of Jesus’ death-defying proselytising and closest mates? Would anybody fly across the Atlantic in relative comfort to stay a fortnight with Billy Graham and not seek out an evening’s entertainment with George Beverley Shea?” It is always difficult to have to invent an imaginary and anachronistic scenario to get to a “probability” as you have done here. This is a good example of why the Bayes Machine produces sausage rather than conclusions.

 
 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:49 am
Sam… what is the point of inventing 21st century analogies from your own culture? It is all completely irrelevant. Apologetics is defence of a faith. Providing historical evidence combined with textual interpretation and analysis is not apologetics.

 
 David Mills 
 May 24, 2012 at 1:49 pm
@ Joseph.
No, Joseph, it is not ‘clear’ that I haven’t read your article, but since I accept that my saying ‘derision and not much else’ was not a good choice of words and not accurate, I can understand why it seemed like that to you.
Yes, you do spend a lot of time on decent arguments, IMHO, but I am not the only poster here, nor elsewhere on other discussion forums where I have currently seen the issue discussed, who feels that there is a tad too much of a, shalll we say, less measured and mannered debate.
However, that is bye the bye, and arguably a proto-ad hom in itself. :)
My general impression is that there is not much of a middle ground in this matter, which I think is unfortunate for any debate, and that was why I was curious to know how it was that you came to go from ‘open, unanswerable question’, to your present position, since it was, I think, only in 2009 that you wrote that.
So, I would like to ask you the same question again. It’s not a leading question. I am a genuine agnostic.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 24, 2012 at 2:07 pm
@David Thanks, and I do detect a sincere open mindedness on your part. Unfortunately the positions are emotionally charged on both sides. There are undoubtedly a few who think that a mythical Jesus would “serve the Church right” for the harm it has foisted on people. I take it for granted that people in that circle are merely looking for emotional support. There are at the other extreme people who see the historical existence of Jesus as the sine qua non of their born-again belief system. The idea of a mythic Jesus is repugnant to them. For about three centuries now, liberal theology has stripped away the supernatural garments of the divine man and has done such a good job of deconstructing him that there is not much left of Paul s savior figure, the fully divine-full-human hybrid that the church eventually taught. Neither the old mythtics nor the new dispatched him; liberal theology and various schools of biblical criticism did. In the long run, the historical existence of Jesus may not matter very much: it certainly does not matter to me at any emotional level. The early deists and rationalists like Paine would have been much happier with a merely human Jesus who did exist than with a myth–and said as much–but I think (and have said so) that we are in the throes of certain thoroughgoing atheists who think that Jesus denial is a logical complement to God denial. I happen to think that while you can account for the beginnings of any religion without postulating an historical founder, it is ludicrous to think that historical religions like Judaism, Islam and Christianity developed as the result of some religious big bang or as the work of an overzealous fiction writer or story teller. Those of us who consider ourselves ‘experts” in this field would do better to explain our reasoning in archaeological terms because we look at the details by strata and try not to mix the beliefs of say the year 100CE into the formative beliefs of, say, the year 40CE. I would be the first to say it is risky business. Also the first to say that it cannot be done by intuition, appeals to analogy or to “common sense,” which has led many a scholar down the road to disaster. A lot of what I am seeing on this site is infinitely commonsensical and almost certainly wrongheaded–e.g., If Jesus or his brothers existed they could have written their memoirs. But enough for now. Thanks for writing.

 
 David Mills 
 May 24, 2012 at 6:32 pm
@ Joseph
Thanks for that. It is reassuring and sensible. I can’t think of anything in it I would strongly disagree with. And thanks for not correcting my syntax. I think it ought to have been ‘by the by’ not ‘bye the bye’. I need to proofread more thoroughly. :)
It seems to me, as an outsider (i.e. not a scholar) that there is quite a risk in trying to discuss the issue ‘agnostically’, if that’s the correct word, perhaps ‘as an open question’ is better. I get the impression that to do so, perhaps especially these days, invites a sort of sensationalizing stampede of what I can agree are inexpert and somewhat tenuous contributors.
I have a pet theory (I’m guessing of course) that you started the Jesus Project in good faith, only to find the process hijacked, if that’s not too strong a word, by those who leaned a bit too much in the direction of mythicism.
I’m sure you and I could have a delightful discussion, had we the time. I respect your position, even if I do not entirely agree with it and think that you were on the money in 2009. :)
Anyhows, I’ll finish by saying that one of my favourite pieces on this topic was an article by linguist Elvar Ellegard, entitled ‘Theologians as Historians’ which was followed by a set of commentaries/reviews, from various scholars and historians (not many of whom agreed with him I might add) but all conducted with the sort of reasoned argument that one could hope for. The last review piece was by Professor Rolf Torstendal, not a scholar, but an historian. If any one piece summed up my own persp[ective, that was it. You are probably familiar with it.
http://www.sciecom.org/ojs/index.php/scandia/article/viewFile/1078/863

 
 David 
 May 25, 2012 at 6:38 am
@ Joseph
ps
I meant the Torstendahl commentary, not the Ellegard article, when I said it represented my approximate approach.

 
 
 
 samphire53 
 May 23, 2012 at 8:03 pm
Stephanie,
“and a brief article for luck (very good)
R. A. Derrenbacker, “Greco-Roman Writing Practices and Luke’s Gospel” in Christopher A. Rollston, The Gospels According to Michael Goulder: A North American Response (Harrisburg: PA; Trinity Press, 2004).”
i found plenty of references but no link to the Derrenbacker article. Is it available on the net and, if so, may I have the link?
At £32 for the Millard even in paperback I shall have to remain in ignorance of its contents until my winter fuel allowance comes through later this year. Could I swop a barely-opened Lee Strobel for your copy?
Thought not.
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 stephanie louise fisher 
 May 23, 2012 at 9:55 pm
It is an essay in a book. All three books I cited are available in most university libraries I imagine – check the CAT. Alternatively you can interloan them as well. I paid less than £32 for all three – try harder… haggle. :-)
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 Blood 
 May 24, 2012 at 11:14 am
“It is culturally ludicrous to expect anyone like Haim Cohn to give a fair account of a New Testament narrative…”
Oh really? It isn’t any more “ludicrous” than expecting the average Christian NT scholar to give a fair account … as if they weren’t culturally biased.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 24, 2012 at 11:29 am
I have a dog in this fight but not concerning this essay, but I do find a piece of illogic in this thread disconcerting. Many of you are complaining that Fisher and Casey have “appealed” to authority. This apparently is an attempt to make their arguments fallacious, as appeals to authority are usually considered fallacious. But they are not appealing to authority: they are appealing to knowledge and merit. It is the same sort of appeal we use in any profession to establish qualifications. Unless you want to say that qualifications and credentials are irrelevant, you need to make this distinction. If you do think this, then you have no way of distinguishing the bogus view of a Baptist preacher who says the Bible is verbatim true and the PhD of a Richard Carrier, which credential is repeatedly invoked by many of you in favour of his ideas. I am only playing umpire here, but this is very sloppy reasoning on your part: An appeal to knowledge and skill and demonstrated accomplishment vs incompetence or prejudice is not an appeal to authority, so please calm down a bit when you see words like “respectable” or “highly regarded” or “expert” used.
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 Ken Scaletta 
 May 25, 2012 at 12:46 am
Steph said
“Well ‘grog’ – why for example, does Carrion struggle so desparately, contrary to critical argument and evidence, to deny that Jesus had siblings?”
Hoffman also denies this – or at least rejects the consensus that ?de?f?? t?? ?????? in Gal. 1:19 indicates a biological relationship between Jesus and James. Hoffman obviously does not see this as an argument against historicity, but he does deny that James was Jesus’ brother, so if you’re going to disparage the scholarly validity of this view then you also have to disparage RJH (http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2007/faccidents-bad-assumptions-and-the-jesus-tomb-debacle/).
I’m not a myther, by the way, nor am I convinced by Hoffman’s argument that Paul was using the term, ADELPHOS, ecclesiastically/congregationally (for multiple reasons), but it’s not a crackpot view.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 25, 2012 at 8:46 am
@Ken: I cited the 2007 blog piece (“Faccidents”) on Talpiot in my own article in footnote 85 to reflect new considerations in the James inventory and my own thinking about the issue, especially in the light of John Painter’s illuminating study. The article you reference was in response to the use of Gal. 1,19 “dispositively” in the Talpiot tombs discussion, and as is clear my point was really to draw attention to the plurality and ambiguity of James in the tradition. Just fyi, however, I do not regard Paul’s use of the name brother in relation to James clear cut, but I do not rule it out (see below) and I do think the idea that Jesus had actual brothers and sisters a very early and probably unerasable part of the tradition—one that obviously became inconvenient as doctrines about the person of Jesus and the chastity of Mary evolved. Here is footnote 85 for the record:  [85] A credible recent survey is the study by John Painter, Just James: The Brother of Jesus in Hnistory and Tradition (SPNT; Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina, 2004), especially as it concerns his critique of Robert Eisenman’s ingenious but unconvincing identification of James with the Qumran teacher of Righteousness. Puzzlingly, Hegesippus (d. 180?) Comm. 5.1, “After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem.” I consider the “James” and “Mary” traditions instances of doublets that were unsatisfactorily resolved by the compilers, both between the gospels and between the letters of Paul and the Book of Acts. (On the multiple-Mary problem, especially see Jesus outside the Gospels, pp. 41-50). It seems clear that apologetic tendencies govern this confusion. The external evidence is unhelpful and unreliable, causing the difficulty of determining which James is in view, as well as the possibility of pseudonymity and redactional stages, rendering any discussion of the name untidy: James the (obscure) father of Judas (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13); James the son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; 15:40 [here called James the Younger]; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13); James the son of Zebedee and brother of John (Matt. 4:21; 10:2; 17:1; Mark 1:19, 29; 3:17; 10:35; 13:3; Luke 9:28; Acts 1:13; 12:2); James the Lord’s brother (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal. 1:19; called [?] simply James in Acts: 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; and in 1 Cor. 15:7), mentioned only twice by name in the Gospels (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3). Hegessipus’ conclusions however must be read back into the tradition to secure the identity of James as head of the Jerusalem church as Luke asserts. See also my online comments on the topic, “Faccidents: Bad Assumptions and the Jesus Tomb Debacle,” Butterflies and Wheels 7 March 2007, at http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2007/faccidents-bad-assumptions-and-the-jesus-tomb-debacle/ retrieved 7 May 2012. Since 2007 I have come to see Galatians 1, 18-20 as more problematical. While clearly reflecting a key element in the opponents tradition, it seems that 1.16 is in apposition to 1.18-19 as a list of the hyperlian apostoloi, though Paul does not use the language of 2 Corinthians 11.15//12.11; using instead phrases that imply historical priority (p??? t??? p?? ?µ?? ?p?st?????); for that reason, it is entirely possible that the phrase ton adelphos tou kyriou applied to James in Galatians 1.19 is meant to suggest biological relationship and as a term to distinguish James from the dishonesty (Gal 211-13) of Cephas. Rhetorically, in this section, Paul uses himself and Barnabas as a paradigm of faithful preaching of a gospel to the detriment of Peter, James and John (Gal 2.9), who merely “seem to be pillars”: ????ß?? ?a? ??f?? ?a? ???????, ?? d?????te? st???? e??a? de???? ?d??a? (i.e., of significance). Accordingly, the possibility that Paul is asserting biological relationship between James and “the Lord” in this passage between James and Jesus cannot be ruled out, since he is ridiculing the pretensions of the “reputed pillars,” not affecting to be inclusive.
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 David Mills 
 May 25, 2012 at 11:43 am
Carrion?
Please tell me that’s not a snide moniker, to go with ‘penis-nose’ on another comments section here. :)
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 steph 
 May 25, 2012 at 3:14 pm
David, Ironic but irrelevant isn’t it. It might have escaped your notice however that Carrier, in his outpourings loaded with foul language and abuse against Professor Hoffmann (see Carrier’s blog), persists in spelling Hoffmann inaccurately. His fans often imitate.

 
 David Mills 
 May 25, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Well, Steph and Joseph, I have been, if you’ll pardon a pun, no saint, when it comes to banter, and what I believe is known on internet discussion forums as douchebaggery. I guess i just wasn’t expecting to find it here, from, er, both sides. From Richard Carrier, it is not surprising. He comes across as a bit of a hothead at times.

 
 steph 
 May 25, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Excuse me? I miss typed Carrier on this thread once. Perhaps you might like to count how many times Carrier uses the ‘f’ word in connection with NT studies, method, scholarship and individuals. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/255
 I’m disappointed you are behaving like the moral authority without contributing useful conversation or engaging with actual arguments.

 
 
 steph 
 May 25, 2012 at 12:19 pm
My point was about Carrier considering the sibling evidence vital and better when conveniently got rid of. However you seem to have made some effort to determine a disagreement of opinion between Joe and myself. Now would a hypothetical disagreement of opinion in scholarship be an indication of one disparaging another? Really? Do you understand what academic discussion and debate is about? The three of us approach the texts critically with independent trained minds. We share ideas, and constantly apply critical methods self critically and our ideas evolve. If we agreed on all things we’d be prone to unhealthy convictions. Disagreement is generally healthy and can lead to advanced resolutions and we do tend to form ideas which blend. By the way you spelt Hoffmann wrong.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 25, 2012 at 12:42 pm
In fairness to the Inquirer, the majority of people tuned into this are not here for academic discussion; they are interested in debate, and that involves assuming an argumentative position, usually fixed and unyielding, and winning. It’s pretty common in atheist and freethought circles–and I see nothing wrong with it in context–but of course, trying to settle a question like this can’t be done as though the goal were to score points. I just want to say that modern universities couldn’t exist if fixed positions ruled the waves. We had that once: it was called the Middle Ages. Debates ruled; discussion was unheard of. Sic et Non, up or down, the advantage being, the Church always had the final answer.

 
 
 
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 May 25, 2012 at 3:23 am
[...] This is pretty old but people want to debate Christianity with me and this is the guidebook. You almost have to know it to debate it.The Origin Of LifeDead Sea ScrollsBlessed Are The MercifulThe Jesus Process: Maurice CaseyWhy the Bible Must Be InerrantThe Jesus Process: Stephanie Louise Fisher [...]
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 Enigma 
 May 25, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Question for Carrier fans: GIven the revolutionary nature of Dr. Carrier’s argument, can you please cite the article where he makes his case? I’m not interested in blog posts or popular books. I’m looking for the peer-reviewed journal article(s).
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 Bradley Bowen 
 May 25, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Perhaps we are trying to swallow the whole elephant, and would have better luck digesting it one bite at a time.
I’m a supporter of the use of BT in historical analysis, but there are more basic issues that should probably be addressed first, before trying to answer the question ‘Is BT relevant to historical analysis?’.
If there is agreement on some more basic issues, that could provide common grounds for further discussion of the relevance or irrelevance of BT. If there is disagreement on the more basic issues, then further discussion of the merits of BT are likely to be unproductive, because the real issues are at a more basic level.
The more basic issues I have in mind are: ‘Are quantified probabilities relevant to historical analysis?’ and ‘Are logical/mathematical manipulations of quantified probabilities relevant to historical analysis?’
I also have a specific example in mind for each of these more basic questions:
Quantified Probabilities were used by the Jesus Seminar. (The Five Gospels, p.36-37). The 0 to 1.0 scale is not explicitly stated to be a scale of probabilities, but given the descriptions on page 36, this is a natural way of interpreting the 0 to 1.0 scale. Is such a quantification of probability of authenticity helpful, useful, and relevant to historical analysis?
Logical/Mathematical manipulation of quantified probabilities was used by Robert Stein in a skeptical argument about Q in Jesus the Messiah, p.39 & 40. Stein assigns estimated probabilities to various assumptions related to Q, and then uses the simple rule of multiplication to derive the low probability that all of the set of assumptions about Q are correct. The assumptions are supposedly required by any attempt at reconstruction of the original text of Q, and so Stein concludes that we should be skeptical about such efforts.
I don’t necessarily buy Stein’s argument, but it seems to me that his use of the simple multiplication rule on quantified probabilities is useful, helpful, and relevant to the presentation of his skeptical argument about reconstructions of Q.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 25, 2012 at 2:21 pm
It has been a while since I read Stein, but I don’t recall he used Bayes and almost all recent discussion uses some form of “probability” calculus that grows organically from the sourses and incorporate basic hermeneutical principles. Am I wrong about Stein? I am looking at Mark Goodacre’s reaction to it, which calls it weak and a little unbalanced. As a judgement, however, I should have thought that the Jesus Seminar would have been a billboard warning against putting faith in probabilistic calculus in biblical studies.
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 Bradley Bowen 
 May 25, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Correct. Stein does not use Bayes Theorem in the argument I mentioned. He uses a simple multiplication rule:
If claim X has a probability of .8 and claim Y has a probability of .6, and if the probability of X is independent of the probability of Y, then the probability of it being the case that both X and Y are true is equal to the product of the probability of X and the probability of Y, which in this example is .8 x .6 = .48 or .5 rounded to one significant figure.
I was trying to get away from arguing about BT and to focus on more basic questions about the use of quantified probabilities.
It sounds like there is no disagreement here about the relevance of quantified probabilities in historical analysis.
It also sounds like there is no disagreement here about the relevance of logical/mathematical manipulation of quantified probabilities in historical analysis.
Did I understand you correctly?

 
 
 David Mills 
 May 25, 2012 at 8:21 pm
I believe someone once said that mathematizing history is like dancing about architecture. Or something like that.
At a fundamental level, I doubt if it is possible for the human mind to rationally analyse anything, including historical data/evidence, without resort to logic, maths, statististics and probability, at least informally. I think that the danger arises when it becomes a formalized approach, because the input data is usually heavily assumptive. I don’t think maths is designed to answer historical questions.
On the other hand, nor, it seems to me, is the criterion of embarrassment, so perhaps there is a case for both, so long as their degree of reliability is understood, and they are not used, at least not on their own, to support or justify any conclusions.
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 steph 
 May 25, 2012 at 9:33 pm
First of all the Jesus Seminar failed to be useful in furthering historical knowledge and determining reliable historical critical method or establishing convincing arguments for historical evidence. In fact, “The Jesus of the Westar project is a talking doll with a questionable repertoire of thirty-one sayings. Pull a string and he blesses the poor” (RJH 1993). Second Robert Stein has not been helpful in critical analysis. He teaches at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a fundamentalist Christian as demonstrated in Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ.
“Without an openness to the supernatural, the result of any investigation of the life of Christ has predetermined that the resulting Jesus will be radically different from the Jesus who was born of a virgin, was anointed by the Spirit, healed the sick, raised the dead, died for the sins of the world, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Yet it is this supernatural Jesus that humanity desperately needs, for only this supernatural Jesus can bridge the gap between human sin and God’s holiness. What the world so critically needs is a Savior, but only a supernatural Jesus can be a Savior….In writing this work I have assumed the presence of the supernatural in the life of Jesus. In other words, this life of Christ has been written from a believer’s viewpoint.”(Jesus the Messiah, p. 13)
Stein considers the virgin birth, Herod’s slaughter of the children, and the visit of the three wise men to be historical incidents. Stein concludes by saying that the life of Jesus did not end with the crucifixion, as Jesus rose from the dead and will return on the last day.
Bradley, you suggest: “It sounds like there is no disagreement here about the relevance of quantified probabilities in historical analysis. It also sounds like there is no disagreement here about the relevance of logical/mathematical manipulation of quantified probabilities in historical analysis.”
We discuss probability in relation to sources and characteristics of authors in textual interpretation, but the quantified probabilities that you are referring to, and manipulation of such, are agreed by most historians to be unhelpful for application to complex and composite historical texts. They don’t allow for human inconsistencies and fluctuations and composite nature of the texts and they are dependent on assumptions being consistently true and ‘unarguable’. There are no short cuts in method. Method is constantly evaluated and careful and cautious critical application of appropriate criteria continually assessed. We do not declare that continual discussion and evaluation in conjunction with new evidence and argument, is declaration of failure. However that is the unbelievable assumption of the author of ‘Proving History’.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 25, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Candor for a moment: Even if it could be argued that BT is useful for historical studies, and I do not grant that, it is far from clear that biblical studies and historical studies are the same thing. I will be happy to unpack that comment in another space. But for now let me make it abundantly clear that BT is not useful for biblical studies as biblical studies currently works. To put to rest any fears, I do not mean by this that “The Bible” is immune from historical analysis, but the way in which raw data can be extracted is far different and more susceptible of linguistic, anthropological and hermeneutical approaches prior to any operations that can be described as simply “historical.” Not coincidentally, the mythtics make most of their errors at these levels. As far as I know, Carrier & Co., Doherty, Godfrey and Verenna for example, have no qualifications at all to be doing research in biblical studies. I am fascinated by work in linguistic anthropology–even have a Masters degree in the area–but would e terribly gun shy about writing a professional article in the subject since I have nothing beyond that and have never studied the field in depth. So I have to ask: what makes these guys so confident, if not their errant presuppositions, that anyone who can read can read and make scholarly pronouncements about the Bible. Worse, when corrected, they pronounce the whole field askew and themselves right. That is not the way serious scholarship works–and I think, in their heart of hearts they must know that they are simply playing a game.
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 David Mills 
 May 26, 2012 at 2:55 am
Fresh as I am from a lively discussion on another forum where those arguing the case for an historical Jesus were keen to stress that biblical studies and ancient history share the same methodology, and that this lends credibility to the former, I would be curious to briefly know what distinction you would draw between biblical studies and history generally.
History is, ultimately, a humanity, arguably at least in part an art. Furthermore, when the subject matter is ancient history, and ‘hard’ evidence is largely lacking (primary and secondary evidence, archaeology etc) then it seems to me it becomes, for any similar figure, a matter of assessing texts, and this will probably pull in considerations of linguistics, hermeneutics and anthroplogy.
I hear what you say about a particularly important need for an appreciation of the subtleties in this case, and would agree up to a point, but I can’t help sometimes thinking that there is a related issue, that if we step off the well worn track of historiographical method, we may inevitably (I sometimes think) need to admit that the ground becomes quite soft, in epistological terms.
Perhaps my, er, concern is best summed up by my saying that I don’t find it reassuring that even a scholar as qualified as E. P. Sanders can say (and I’m paraphrasing from memory here) that the evidence for Jesus is on a par with the evidence for Alexander the Great, and perhaps better, since the nature of the evidence for the latter does not generally allow us to work out what Alexander thought.
In other words, I wonder if Jesus isn’t a special case, in some ways, because he is treated as a special case. :)

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 26, 2012 at 8:12 am
@David: Sorry for the delay–I am behind on moderation. Biblical studies is far more composite than what is usually classified “ancient history”; they obviously are not identical fields–not least because a great deal of textual and physical biblical history is pre-ancient and has more in common with archaeology and anthropology–and biblical studies isn’t a subset of ancient history because the primary artifacts have different historical and cultural origins. At the same time, there could be no such thing as a conclusion which would be “true” for ancient history that is not also “true” for biblical studies at a factual level. Maybe your source was trying to discuss biblical history and archaeology which is one piece of biblical studies. It has probably contributed at least as much to the study of ancient history as the study of ancient history has ever contributed to it, especially in the study and authentication of texts and dating. Finally, and far more closely related to biblical studies is classics and what used to be designated philology (historical and descriptive linguistics/linguisitic anthropology) where much of the heavy lifting usually then made available to historians of the ancient world is actually performed. I remember thinking it odd that Richard Carrier took umbrage when Bart Ehrman called him a “classicist” and how eager he was to distance himself from that designation–when he should have taken it as a compliment. My own field is patristics and early Christianity; I would frankly be unable to function if I weren’t first and foremost a classicist. As to Jesus being a special case: I think I said pretty clearly in my own wrticle that the field of New Testament studies is infested with the belief in the divinity of Jesus and that this has had methodological implications for the way the literature has been treated. But perhaps you are saying something different?

 
 
 David Mills 
 May 26, 2012 at 11:42 am
@ Joseph
Not being an historian, I can only say that my impression of ancient history generally is that it too is composite, in terms of all the various strands of inquiry and analysis that you mentioned. Though I accept distinctions for different circumstances, obviously.
I suppose what I am asking is if we, any of us, were to forage for “true facts” (double inverted commas intentional there :) ) about any minor figure from ancient history, then why would we adpot a different approach for this figure, Jesus? Or, are we going in the direction of saying he is an unusual case, evidentially?
I think I may as well be candid here, becaue I think you appreciate I have no sharp axes to grind. Is it possible that Jesus has become over-analysed? Do some scholars, immersed as they have been dring a lifetime of study, lose sight of the fact that at bottom, the evidence is, er, ultimately ,not strong’?
My basic position is that if you presented me with another figure having the same set of accounts and evidences, I believe i would be justified in having doubts.
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 Bradley Bowen 
 May 26, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Stephanie Fisher – Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments. I agree with your assessment of Mr. Stein.
My point was not that Mr. Stein is a great Jesus scholar and that since he uses BT, we ought to all jump on the bandwagon with him.
So far as I know Mr. Stein may well have never used BT in any argument about the historical Jesus.
My point was a much more humble one. Although Mr. Stein may not be much of a Jesus scholar, he did manage to produce at least one interesting argument, not necessarily a good argument either, but a skeptical argument that is interesting, at least to me. It may well be a bad argument that commits the fallacy of Straw Man or that is based on some questionable probability claims in his premises.
Nevertheless, on this one particular occasion, perhaps the only one in his career, Mr. Stein used quantified probabilities and the simple multiplication rule of probability, and I think that in doing so he enhanced his argument. Even if the argument fails to establish its conclusion, it is a better argument because of his use of quantified probabilities and use of the simple multiplication rule.
He could have presented the argument without doing this. He could have said “Look, there are a whole bunch of assumptions that scholars who are attempting to reconstruct the original text of Q are making, and none of those assumptions is certain, each is only probable at best, so given that there are many such assumptions it is very likely that at least one of them will turn out to be mistaken.” But his point was more precise and more logically rigorous by his assigning probability estimates to various assumptions that allegedly are being made by those attempting to reconstruct the original text of Q.
I’m just saying that I think there are some instances where quantified probabilities and mathematical calculations involving probabilities can enhance an argument that relates to the historical Jesus.
It appears to me that neither you nor Mr. Hoffman disagree with this point, so perhaps my example was not necessary.
Reply

 David Mills 
 May 27, 2012 at 2:55 am
Antonio,
If BT turned out positive estimates of probability in this case, I doubt there would be such an issue.
I’m kidding. :)
I see the historian Christopher McCullough has a chapter on the use of statistics in history in his book, ‘Justifying Historical Descriptions’. You can actually read it online here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dH46AAAAIAAJ&pg=PR7&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
I just love the last part of this sentence from the publisher’s blurb, because as with Rolf Torstendahl, it seems to sum up what i consider to be the most interesting, perhaps even crucial, though not in my experience often aired aspect of the matter:
‘The author concludes that no historical description can be finally proved, and that we are only ever justified in believing them for certain practical purposes.’
Incidentally, I believe McCullough has a particular interest in early Christianity, and is a committed Christian himself.

 
 Bradley Bowen 
 May 28, 2012 at 3:35 pm
David – Thank you for the Google Book reference to Justifying Historical Descriptions. Pages 58 and 59 have a couple of objections to the use of BT in relation to inferences from general knowledge to singular historical claims.
McCullagh argues that statistical inferences are much more common in historical reasoning of this sort, and that statistical inferences are superior to inference to best explanation (p. 46).
The pattern of statistical inference involves two premises involving probability, in which the probabilities are multiplied to yield the probability conferred on the conclusion by that particular evidence (not taking into account other evidence which might either confirm or dis-confirm the conclusion):
1. There is a probability (of the degree p1) that whatever is an A is a B.
 2. It is probable (to the degree p2) that this is an A.
 Therefore (relative to these premises):
 3. It is probable (to the degree p1 x p2) that this is a B.
(see p.48)
So, it appears that McCullagh agrees that quantified probabilities and mathematical calculation using those quantified probabilities has an important role to play in historical reasoning, esp. the use of the simple rule of multiplication.

 
 
 Bradley Bowen 
 May 28, 2012 at 4:24 pm
I had Chinese take out for dinner last night, and my fortune cookie contained this message: “Mathematics will figure in a fortunate occasion for you this week.” What are the chances of getting this fortune this week? (Perhaps a sign from God for me to sing the praises of probability calculations?).
I’m no math whiz. Never had a course in statistics. Only took algebra and trig in college….many decades ago. But I do enjoy math, and try to use it whenever I can in my reasoning, especially probability.
John Locke was a believer in probability. It made a nice contrast between his empiricist attitude and that of Descartes and Spinoza, who tried to turn philosophy into a branch of Geometry, with their deductive metaphysical ‘proofs’.
Locke focused probability as the critical thinker’s alternative to the unmerited and unmitigated certainty of religious enthusiasts. Like Locke, probability reminds me of our limitations as humans, and of the difficulty of achieving certainty, as well as the suspicion that is appropriate to feel towards those who frequently assert their beliefs to be certain.
I especially appreciate quantified probabilities, because they provide a bit more precision than ordinary language terms, such as ‘probable’, ‘very probable’, ‘improbable’, ‘very improbable’, ‘almost certain’, and so on. Even when the data does not clearly imply a particular probability (like .73), it is at least helpful to know the degree of confidence someone places in a claim or assumption (a probability of .6 or .7 is significantly different than a probability of .9, although .7 might be said to be ‘very probable’ in some instances, and .9 expressed as simply ‘probable’ in some instances).
Multiplication of probabilities, when multiple assumptions are required to get to a conclusion, is a simple bit of math, but I think it is common to fail to appreciate this little bit of logic.
In my job (Project Management) a common failure of project management is the failure to recognize this bit of logic. If you have a schedule with consecutive tasks A, B, and C, where task A must complete prior to starting task B, and B must complete prior to starting C, each task having a high probability of completing on time (say .8), people often fail to see how it is somewhat probable that such a schedule will fail to complete on time. Since each task must complete on time for the project to complete on time, the probability of the project completing on time is .8 x .8 x .8 = .512 or .5 rounded to one significant figure. Although each individual task is very likely to complete on time, the three phase project has only a 50/50 chance of completing on time. It is very common for people to fail to do this simple bit of reasoning and to recognize the degree of risk that the project will fail to complete on time.
I also look on conditional probability with a significant degree of affection.
P (A/B) means The probability that A is the case, given that B is the case.
A basic principle of probability is that the probability of a claim is always relative to a body of evidence or assumptions. So, the little slash mark serves as a constant reminder (to me) of how our beliefs and claims are bound by point of view. Good scholarly writing generally begins with a statement of ones basic assumptions.
Mr. Hoffmann, for example, listed several background assumptions about first century Palestine in one of his comments here concerning whether there was an historical Jesus. There are many such assumptions made by Jesus scholars, assumptions that may be generally accepted by other Jesus scholars, but not by all. For example, that Matthew and Luke used a written copy of Mark as one of their main sources is a common assumption made by most Jesus and NT scholars, but this assumption is not universally accepted. So, it is good to lay out such assumptions at the beginning of a book or article, so others can see the point of view in which one’s thinking is grounded.
It is entirely possible to spend one’s life thinking and reasoning from a particular point of view, only to discover late in life that this point of view is fundamentally in error. This is a sad and even tragic event for someone who loves to think and make intellectual discoveries, but it is an unavoidable risk of being a finite and limited human being.
In any case, the little slash in conditional probability reminds me that not only should my beliefs generally be ‘probable’ rather than ‘certain’ but also that there is an additional layer of uncertainty in all human thinking, which is the unavoidable fact that we must always think from some point of view or other, from one particular set of assumptions rather than another set, and that those assumptions themselves are subject to doubt, dis-confirmation, or revision in the light of new evidence.
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 Ananda 
 May 29, 2012 at 10:16 am
“Mathematics will figure in a fortunate occasion for you this week.”
Thats your next girlfriend….34-26-38

 
 
 Bradley Bowen 
 May 31, 2012 at 4:28 pm
I have not studied Carrier’s articles proposing BT as the solution to ‘the problem’ of ‘invalid or defective’ methodology in historical Jesus studies. So, I’m not in a position to pass judgment on his proposal.
It does seem, on the face of it, to be a rather implausible proposal, like suggesting the use of Venn diagrams or symbolic logic to turn philosophy into a science. I have nothing against Venn diagrams or symbolic logic, but (a) bad philosophy will not be fixed by such technical means, and (b) philosophy is not and never will be a science.
But there appears to be an interesting disagreement here over whether or not there is a crisis or dramatic turning point in historical Jesus studies, where an old paradigm is being widely challenged and there is a scramble to develop a new approach.
Another question, perhaps the unmentioned elephant in the living room, is whether historical Jesus studies can or should be scientific. Your comment about consensus strikes me as hitting on that issue:
“It is presently too early to expect a consensus, even on methods, among all critical scholars, in view of new evidence and new argument especially since the 1970s and in view of more recent developments in Aramaic scholarship. Consensus involving ideological extremes is impossible and this has a regrettable effect on the most critical scholarship because all critical scholars are human beings who necessarily begin and continue their lives within some kind of social framework.”
The idea that is is ‘too early’ to expect consensus on methods seems like special pleading to me, and pointing to some recent change in the field is irrelevant, because the same point could be made about any alleged scholarly or scientific field, including pseudo sciences such as astrology and Scientology.
But the problem of the failure to arrive at consensus among historical Jesus experts is one that cannot be easily side-stepped. Chemistry and biology don’t vary according to ideology. There is no ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ chemistry. No ‘Christian’ verses ‘Hindu’ biology. We have international and cross-cultural consensus in the sciences, but cannot even get American Christian Jesus scholars to come to any consensus about the historical Jesus.
Please say a bit more about your views on historical analysis, science, and the problem of lack of consensus about the historical Jesus.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 31, 2012 at 5:06 pm
“But the problem of the failure to arrive at consensus among historical Jesus experts is one that cannot be easily side-stepped.” I don’t think anyone is. It was experts in Christian origins who identified the problem, which is a residuum of source analysis–pretty technical stuff–which I’d be happy to demonstrate–which is precisely why packing the problem into predictive templates (see Albert’s useful comment on “Proving What?”) is useless. Given many of the same assumptions that are piled onto different species of ancient literature, I can plausibly argue that Alexander and Pythagoras did not exist and that he rose from the dead.
As far as I can see, it is a simple cart-horse problem which certain probablists are trying to apply to dead horses and dysfunctional carts. “There is no ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ chemistry. No ‘Christian’ verses ‘Hindu’ biology. We have international and cross-cultural consensus in the sciences, but cannot even get American Christian Jesus scholars to come to any consensus about the historical Jesus.” As you must know, these are obvious points; but then you cannot expect history to work like the pure sciences and mathematics, which is not to say that there are not relatively sophisticated and relatively objective methods for dealing with questions of evidence and composition. Besides, consensus as to method has never been an end in itself in scholarship; consensus is not the same as finding the right method, and in historical studies, conclusions remain to be overturned by the next “find,” as happened with the Dead Sea scrolls and the Nag Hammadi documents—which btw, the mythtics hardly ever mention as having toppled some of their pillar assumptions. Please try to avoid using emotive terms like “American Christian Jesus scholars”–I do not deny their existence, if you mean people who practice their religion through their scholarship; for historical reasons, we have more of our share in the United States. But no one who drives research forward in this area is unaware of the special burden they represent–just as there are apparently “respected” scientists out there who deny global warming and claim to use the same method that other scientists use. Where is your consensus then?

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 31, 2012 at 5:26 pm
@Brad: Sorry, My answer got ahead of your question.

 
 David Mills 
 May 31, 2012 at 5:46 pm
@ Joseph
Briefly, what parts of some mythicist assumptions would you say are incompatible with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi documents?

 
 
 Bradley Bowen 
 June 1, 2012 at 1:24 am
Mark Powell’s survey of modern historical Jesus scholars does, as Carrier states, “the whole confusion of contradictory opinions that has resulted from applying these methods” [i.e. the methods used for distinguishing authentic sayings and deeds of Jesus from inauthentic sayings and deeds.
However, it is important to note that what modern historical Jesus scholars have in common, is those methods, and Powell sees no problem with that fact:
“…scholars will usually rely most heavily on those sources that they determine to be the earliest. …some scholars rely more heavily upon certain criteria than others. Some also modify the criteria that are defined here, in an attempt to apply them with more precision than their peers. For now though, let us list six factors that, in one way or another, come into consideration for almost all researchers studying the historical Jesus.” (Jesus as a Figure in History, p.46)
Powell then covers: multiple attestation, dissimilarity, memorable content or form, language & environment, explanation, and coherence (p.46-50).
Jesus scholars covered by Powell’s book are: John Crossan, Marcus Borg, E.P. Sanders, John Meier, and N.T. Wright.
Carrier also quotes James Charlesworth:
“James Charlesworth concurs, concluding that ‘what had been perceived to be a developing consensus in the 1980s has collapsed into a chaos of opinions.’ ”
Again, Charlesworth does not draw the conclusion that Carrier does from this lack of consensus among modern historical Jesus scholars:
“What are the most reliable methods for discerning Jesus’ own traditions recorded by the Evangelists? Five are major.” (The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide, p.20)
Charlesworth then goes on to describe the following five methods:
 embarrassment, dissimilarity, multiple attestation, coherence, Palestinian Jewish setting/historical plausibility. (p.20-27). He then describes ten “additional supporting methods” (p.27-30).
Powell and Charlesworth acknowledge the diversity of views and lack of consensus among modern Jesus scholars, but they don’t see this as implying a crisis for the methodology used in historical Jesus research.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 3:09 am
@Brad: Yes, good points: Variety of method and even theories of method are not indicative of “chaos.” Even if you are using the term scientific method as a norm, it doesn’t consist of a single approach “but refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge” (Goldhaber, 2010) The Oxford English Dictionary says that scientific method is “a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses…” The way in which the method works on empirical data–microbes for example– will obviously differ from the way it is applied to historical data or social phenomena.

 
 
 
 Ananda 
 May 26, 2012 at 9:00 am
“Yet it is this supernatural Jesus that humanity desperately needs, for only this supernatural Jesus can bridge the gap between human sin and God’s holiness”
Didn’t we do this already for 1500 some odd years ? but we need more of the same………….lol
Also of major importance is that all supernatural events need to be understood on other levels beyond a literal past,a Gnosis so to speak…………..
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 steph 
 May 26, 2012 at 11:06 am
I was quoting a fundamentalist Christian, Stein, who is completely out of touch with ciritical historical analysis of texts. He was professing his convictions of faith. Critical scholarship distinguishes the difference between myth and plausible reality in texts. Gnosticism is a completely separate matter.
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 Ananda 
 May 26, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Still Steph, the distinctions the Critical scholars make between myth and plausible reality are contained in a vacuum of one dimensional literal interpretation in a piece of literature that is Spiritual. What is spiritual? Well beyond the material literal understanding for sure.
Example: Jesus walks on water is dismissed by historians as a myth, prop for the story or legend when taken in the literal sense however it is as oblivious as skating on ice,a walk in the park or a piece of cake if one considers waters are none other than the cares, riches and pleasures of the world and being able to enter one of the three heavens in this flesh and blood body as Paul mentioned one is not sinking into deeps of the waters attractions and aversions of worldly existence (Equanimity) It’s not like these states of consciousness have not been fully quantified in the east as the 8 Jhanas as well as in Pistis Sophia and the NHC or even the born again experience. Waters is also symbolic of the second chakra responsible for the whole host of attractions and aversions of the other kind…..lol…(sexual)
One cannot surgically remove un-plausible reality inherent for the overall comprehension of the story and expect anything other than a butchered unrecognizable patient.
 The only solution is that Critical scholars must join John of the Cross or Ibn Arabi and become Scholar mystic ships and plunge past the dark night of critical material literalism.
Ps I am a natural redhead………lol……….really
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 steph 
 May 26, 2012 at 2:24 pm
I think Joe is right: ‘when corrected, they pronounce the whole field askew and themselves right. That is not the way serious scholarship works–and I think, in their heart of hearts they must know that they are simply playing a game.’ I think perhaps the alarming over confidence, there is still a conviction that it really is all just a game.
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 steph 
 May 26, 2012 at 2:25 pm
or rather ‘despite’ the alarming over confidence.

 
 Antonio Jerez 
 May 26, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Steph,
 I think you are on to something. I often get the impression that for people like Richard Carrier and Neil Godfrey the search for the non-existent Jesus is just an intellectual game. It´s like they are testing a very odd idea to see how far they can stretch things by making intellectual acrobatics (Bayes theorem.. etc etc), making extremely farfetched mythological analogies (Comparing the death of Hercules with the death of Jesus etc etc) and thereby earn some adulation by a lot of others fools and incompetents on the Internet who think heroes like Carrier, Doherty and Godfrey have finally given a deathly blow to Christianity by sheer brainpower.

 
 
 
 Ken Scaletta 
 May 27, 2012 at 1:00 am
I would agree. Carrier strikes me not so much as an objective investigator as a hired expert witness. He’s qualified and smart enough to know how to massage and frame the data to support a desired conclusion, but it feels forced and predisposed and leans on tendentious interpretations and connections. I don’t think he’s generally reckless or dishonest. His stuff is presented in a superficially logical way, and he’s not irresponsible about facts or sources, but his arguments come off more as “clever” to me than revelatory.
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Neil Godfrey’s response 2: @ Stephanie Fisher « Vridar says:
 May 27, 2012 at 2:00 am
[...] faults me for supposedly quoting Paula Fredriksen’s words out of context. Stephanie at no point presents and dissects my own arguments that relate to mythicist conclusions. [...]
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 steph 
 May 27, 2012 at 10:48 am
think Neil is a little bit miffed my brief essay wasn’t all about him. Like Carrier he has gone to great lengths to contradict a slight allusion. Perhaps he was just too irrelevant. He thinks his ‘skills’ in analysis ought to have been celebrated and I’m a little astonished he still doesn’t quite grasp his abuse of Schweitzer. Never mind – he has his own soap box.
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 David Mills 
 May 27, 2012 at 2:25 am
@ Steph and Joseph.
As a percentage, where would you normally choose to put the strength of your view that Jesus existed, with zero as total certainty that he didn’t, 100 as total certainty that he did and 50 as completely neutral.
Yes, I know it’s a hugely oversimplified question. On the other hand, it can be interesting, and potentially constructive, because a lot of the time those discussing this hot topic can appear to slide, perhaps needlessly, into either the 0-10 trench or the 90-100 trench and end up lobbing points across a no man’s land.
Same question to any other poster who is interested in giving their answer.
For myself, I tend to fluctuate between 45 and 60, that is to say not far away from neutral and if anything usually falling slightly on the side of historicity. A few years ago, I would have said always slightly on the side of historicity, but I have widened my range a tad. :)
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 27, 2012 at 12:23 pm
@David: If you begin with facts that are supported by general agreement: Rome existed, the province of Palestine existed, the Herodians existed, Pilate existed, apocalyptic Judaism existed, radical political and dissident religious parties existed, food rules existed, sexual apartheid between men and women existed, sects existed, the Herodian bulding proejct existed, “publicans” existed, eschatological preachers existed, the Galil ha’goyim called Galilee in the the gospels existed, magicians and healers existed, cults existed, the cruicifixion of bandits and troublemakers existed, messiahs existed, baptism existed, both rabinical and synagogue Judaism (we now know for sure) existed, the Sanhedrin existed, Caiphas existed, Greek as a lingua franca of Judaea existed, Aramaic as a language of both Judaea and the region existed, .. I will stop, but not because I am out of items. Does parsimony then lead you to the following: Jesus of Nazareth, who is perfectly typical of this context, did not exist. Or are you basing an argument for non-historicity on exceptions (e.g., syanagogue Judaism may have existed but there may not have been one in Nazareth…)–or something more visercal (Resurrections and sons of god don’t exist…) or something conspiratorial (All Cretans are liars; the gospels are written by Cretans)? It seems to me an exception to the clear historicity of context would have to use some extrapolation of one or more of those bases.
The seduction of BT, for those easily seduced, is merely that Carrier is using it like a priestly argot to impresss his followers; in fact, everyone knows that Bayes is nothing more than a logic game performed on premises devised by the machine operator. Stuff in sausage out. In Carrier’s Bayes machine, the assumptions and the values are Carrier’s; Bayes is just the system. Onlookers need to be clear about that before they think this is really about degrees of certainty in relation to facts as opposed to degrees of confidence in propositions. In (for the sake of argument) John Q. Fundamentalist’s Bayes machine, the variables will be different and so will the unarguable conclusion. I am happy to play the plausibility game because that is where research takes us. But I’m not at all persuaded that throwing probability dust at unsorted assumptions–many of them real absurdities and worn down by age and criticism–gets us closer to facts. BT deals with probability as the data are loaded into the system; and anyone knows that probability in logic has nothing necessarily to do with factuality.
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 David Mills 
 May 27, 2012 at 6:25 pm
@ Joseph.
You don’t need to convince me to be sceptical about the application of BT here. I already have enough reservations not to give it undue weight, so I agree with you on that.
As to your initial question, and here I hope you will appreciate that I am temporarily considering one side of an argument which I consider to be undecided in overall terms, I would simply say this, that being plausible in context seems qite a separate thing from historicity for an individual, not least because figures who are or were taken to be historical but about whom there are doubts, often fit plausibly into the context of accounts concerning them. Muhammad al Mahdi is one example which springs to mind, but there are many others, Prester John, Buddha, Budai, Krishna, Ned Ludd, William tell, Betty crocker, John Frum, Paul Bunyan…..so I am not sure how much weight to give to that.
IMO, there are features of the evidence which are in favour of historicity, and there are features which aren’t, and when I either add up the former, starting from a hypothetical zero, or alternatively start from 1 and deduct according to the shortcomings and conta-indicators, I find myself close to 0.5 in both cases.

 
 David Mills 
 May 27, 2012 at 6:27 pm
@ Joseph. Whoops, that was meant to be ‘contra-indicators’ and ‘quite’, not conta-indicators and qite.

 
 
 Ken Scaletta 
 May 27, 2012 at 2:24 pm
I think you have to define “Jesus” here. I’ve found that it’s difficult to pin mythicists down on what would constitute a “Historical Jesus,” or what would falsify mythicism. I’ve generally try to unload the question by completely ignoring the Gospels and asking whether the basic Tacitus claim is inherently implausible. I’ve found that some of them, if pushed, will grant that some kind of historical crucifixion is possible, or that some real personality cult lies at the root of Christian origins but they are vague about whether this is sufficient to constitute a Historical Jesus. To some of them, it seems, only Bible Jesus is Jesus, and Bible Jesus didn’t exist, ergo Jesus didn’t
 exist.
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 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 27, 2012 at 3:45 pm
You’re touching the real problem.
 And it is not one for the mythicists alone, it’s equally true for the historicists.
 For us, being born in the 20th century, how do we approach the concept of “Jesus”? What is the phenomenological birth and growth of the concept in a 20th century brain? It’s got to start with the Christian Churches, the Bible documents, the popular images and icons of the Christ on the Cross. Has it not struck you that Christianity seems to be the only religion universally adoring the image of a corpse?
 Anyway, if you don’t start with the Jesus Christ of the Bible, how on earth are you ever going to define or clarify the mental concept of “Jesus”?
When Paul was writing his letters, how come his recipients were fustigated for listening to “other” Gospels of the Christ. Who were those other apostles competing with Paul? How come they were already there? Was there a pre-existing concept of Jesus Christ already circulating and different from Paul’s? Were there many Christs being already preached around the Meditteranean when Paul was travelling?
 Gabriel in Luke’s annunciation gives the future baby the name of Jesus, “the Son of the Most High,”. After the birth, an angel is kind enough to come down and advertise the event to the shepherds out in the field: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” This Jesus was a “Savior”.
Whichever way you take it, our concept of Jesus starts with the Christ of the Bible, the one and only divine Jesus.
 Then it’s up to you how to define your concept of Jesus stripped of divinity, and reduced to a normal human figure, and make sure that you can make it clearly identifiable from the multitude of other Jesuses crowding the early manuscripts of the 1st and 2d centuries.
If this figure turns out to be a pale shadow lost in the mists of times, how do we know we’re still dealing with a residue of our original Jesus? This is homeopathic theology or would-be history. Strip, reduce, dilute, bury in the fog, and you’re still dealing with Jesus? What Jesus?
 Your final remarks are just a little too glib for the fundamental problem.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 27, 2012 at 4:41 pm
@Roo: There are interesting points but a few too many assumptions in this comment. My Schweitzer is not in front of me (he is probably in front of Steff, who thinks of him as her Schweitzer) but at the conclusion of the QofHJ he says that the Jesus of the popular mind and of the church has died a death of a thousand cuts–indeed, that that  Jesus never really lived. Almost all critical Christian origins scholars agree with that assessment. I know I do. And most would also say that contemporary investigation began with that challenge; it didn’t end there. Your further point however — that you are left with a cipher — is simply not correct. And the tendency of the mythtics, who conflate the results of 19th and 20th century scholarship with their own hyper-view of “how it really happened,” is simply an attempt to fill in the gaps with fluff instead of the hard cement and reasoned conclusions based in real research. The Jesus of later Christian doctrine who had no historical existence is no more the cul de sac to investigation of the Jesus who did than the Augustus who became a god by proclamation would be an end of inquiry into the life and works of Octavian. In fact, what was done with and to the image of Jesus is also entirely plausible within its historical context: this is the way signifcant men were memorialized. We don’t get any sort of record of insignificant events and men. –Except of course Augustus had a Livy and even a Vergil and Jesus had nothing like it. Plus, as Helmut Koester used to remind his students, papyrus was expensive.

 
 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 27, 2012 at 5:36 pm
The question asked by Ken Scaletta is not being answered.
“I think you have to define “Jesus” here.” Sure, and that it s the problem.
 Accepting the divine Jesus is no problem. You simply absorb whatever the churches or theologians are willing to push down your throat, or your brain.
 Modern existence deniers have a simple solution: they finesse the problem entirely.
 Ancient skeptics couldn’t swallow the tall tales and thought that Christians were inventing their Jesus Christ.
 Modern mythicists reject the whole construction altogether. Clean the table, label all the Christian documents as great literature, or interesting fictions, or a subtle invention of a new mystery cult (an attractive hypothesis), or see in your new God a Gnostic spirit floating somewhere and connected by holy radio to human brains. Sublunar? Why not? Supralunar and in the clouds? Why not?
 Or a construct of a preacher spewing out Seneca-like wisdom, like with Bruno Bauer, or cynic-like morality, as is the modern fashion? Any way you want to conceive this imaginary figure.
But the problem is more acute for historicists. They can’t sweep all the biblical stuff under the carpet. Something has to be salvaged. What? Jesus as a “historical man”? What man? Why is he called Jesus? How is he differentiated from the thousand of Jesuses in Palestine history?
 And if he is lost in the mist of times, what can we say about this phantomatic figure? Why is that nearly evanescent shadow still Jesus?
Herakles didn’t exist? Fine, suit yourself. But then, why did this Jesus (assuming we’ve satisfied Ken Scaletta’s inquisitive mind) exist? On what basis? What on earth do we know of him?
 Thomas Paine thought it was philanthropy. Or are we constructing and inventing another Jesus? Schweitzer thought so. What was his criterion for spotting the existence of Jesus? His immense “spiritual” influence that descended through the ages to him. Spiritualism was a rage in Europe and the States at the end of the 19th century. Schweitzer’s Jesus joined the crowd of famous spiritual influences.
And why does Bart Ehrman, undisputedly a fine brain, feel that he has to produce a book “proving” the existence of Jesus? He’s declared that he’s the first one to do so. Really? Nobody had done it before? Never mind the spate of books on “Jesus: Myth or History?” produced since the late 19th century, all the way to 1946.
 Once we’ve rejected the Jesus of divine origin, the questions of who is this historical Jesus? How do we get to him? Who is this man Jesus? have no obvious immediate answers.
Ken Scaletta has a great point. It touches on the phenomenological perception of Jesus, and beyond that the mental definition of a “historical” Jesus. You have to analyze your own brain to discover what you mean by a “historical Jesus”. Empty sentences on the generalities of “good” critical research don’t even get to it.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 27, 2012 at 6:21 pm
@Roo: “But the problem is more acute for historicists. They can’t sweep all the biblical stuff under the carpet.” I think you just shot yourself in the foot. I suspect that even Carrier and Doherty might agree, though who can tell?

 
 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 27, 2012 at 7:54 pm
I don’t know about shooting oneself in the foot, or the mouth, or the head. I don’t get the answer.
I still don’t understand how a 20th century brain can “define” a historical Jesus by starting from thin air. What Jesus?
 That brain has got to start from somewhere, and this starting point must be the concept and images presented and transmitted by the Bible documents. Historicists cannot escape starting from the original Biblical documents even to formulate any simple idea of Jesus.
 Then they take out their scissors, like Thomas Jefferson, or they mark out the “mythical parts” like David Strauss, until by a process of elimination and reduction, they obtain a “residue” that they call the “historical” Jesus. So the whole process hinges on the reduction and cutting out process.
Otherwise I don’t understand how any “historical” Jesus can be defined and reached by a modern brain. Historicists are obliged to start with the Biblical material in order to reach a reduction which is the “historical ” component of their initial material.
The definition of the Jesus requested by Ken Scaletta will consist of outlining the process of elimination and reduction, and pointing to the residue, if there is any.
 I don’t understand how else can a 20th century brain conceive any idea of a Jesus, if this brain is not connected by a mysterious radio to some mystical source of knowledge.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 27, 2012 at 8:18 pm
“Still don’t understand how a 20th century brain can “define” a historical Jesus by starting from thin air. What Jesus?” There comes a point where Jesus denial borders on Holocaust denial and germ theory of disease denial: If you know of a reputable historical verdict achieved by major faculties that gets us to that point, I should like to hear about it. Or are you saying that the coven you belong to has all the answers, and the rest of scholarship is, in the words of Richard Carrier, fucked because it can’t bring itself to that conclusion. This is probation. Not a tutorial or a sounding board for your increasingly private views.

 
 
 steph 
 May 27, 2012 at 2:36 pm
The problem is, I think it’s not just ‘over simplified’ but it is an irrelevant question to the nature of responsible historical enquiry. Probability and parsimony can be useful in explanatory logic, like simple hypotheses, but neither reflect historical realities or incorporate literary complexity. For example the simple hypothesis of Q as a single written Greek document, when reconstructed and claimed to be a source for history, is not only flawed, forcing evidence where it does not fit for the sake of simplicity, but it is based on the assumption that it exists. It is therefore unhelpful and destructive to critical historical enquiry. As Joe says, “I’m not at all persuaded that throwing probability dust at unsorted assumptions–many of them real absurdities and worn down by age and criticism–gets us closer to facts.”
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 David Mills 
 May 27, 2012 at 6:35 pm
@ Steph. That may be your view, but it appears statistical analysis is accepted by some professional historians to have a minor role in historiography. How minor is probably up for grabs. But I don’t think it’s justified to say that is is blanket ‘destructive and unhelpful to critical historical enquiry’. My view is in no way to support carrier’s use of BT.

 
 ROO BOOKAROO 
 May 27, 2012 at 7:13 pm
David Mills:
Not only it is a personal view, but it is an answer loaded with empty sentences and phrases. That’s the sad part of this blog.
Watch:
“an irrelevant question to the nature of responsible historical enquiry. ” What does that mean? Do you get it? I don’t.
“Probability and parsimony can be useful in explanatory logic, like simple hypotheses, but neither reflect historical realities or incorporate literary complexity”. Do you get it? I don’t.
“For example the simple hypothesis of [Q as a single written Greek document,] when reconstructed and claimed to be a source for history, is not only flawed, forcing evidence where it does not fit for the sake of simplicity, but it is based on the assumption that it exists. ” You get the part in bracket, but what about the part outside the brackets? Who wants to read that stuff?
“It is therefore unhelpful and destructive to critical historical enquiry. ” What does that really mean? Empty sentence.
““I’m not at all persuaded that throwing probability dust at unsorted assumptions–many of them real absurdities and worn down by age and criticism–gets us closer to facts.” Is there anything really said in here? Anything to learn? Or is it just empty text?
And reams after reams of this profound-sounding but really empty language are being offered as…as what indeed? Advice? Generalities? Platitudes? Or space fillers?
 Which publisher would accept to publish this kind of empty text? Bewildering.
 When it comes to factual pronouncements, they edge and equivocate, because they don’t want to be quoted later.
 They’ll never give you your percentage of conviction.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 27, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Dear Roo:
“Factual Pronouncements.” The only factual pronouncements you want to hear is Jesus did not exist. That is not factual. You have no way to corroborate this. But you speak of facts. You have evidently not read much in this area, but every comment is a bit worse and less knowledgeable than the one before. If you wish to whine about this, go and whine within the mythtic cult and not here. You seem to regard yourself as an arbiter of what counts as evidence. Silence is not evidence. Superficial analogies from indeterminate sources randomly assigned are not evidence. You proclaim your ignorance as though it was a credential, and sound very much like a sophomore when you say you don’t “get” things that, in order to be a meaningful participant in a discussion like this, you need to get. You are careless of fact, indifferent toward detail, dismissive of consensus and frankly just not very knowledgeable but want to be taken seriously. Why? I suggest you post your further comments on another site–because no one who is trying to engage the material has time to conduct the tutorial necessary to bring you up to speed. The only empty sentences I see here are your assertions that there are empty sentences. Other correspondents have been challenging on matters of fact and history. But not you. I think they have been treated rather well because, after all, truth comes from learning, not from digging holes in trenches and defending positions. There is another Harvard song, btw: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/music/mar_24_2006/mar_24_2006_001.mp3

 
 
 
 James 
 May 27, 2012 at 3:47 pm
I’m a little late to this discussion but just to lend my support to Stephanie’s case and the good points she raises. Nothing much to add to her essay or the other cases made but we could really do without the sexist discourse attributed to “Roo Buckaroo” (!!) when the internet warrior says “this lady”.
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 steph 
 May 27, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Thanks James. The cowardly Roo no relation to Kanga (except Disney’s)… he’s a dinosaur from the Victorian era and like NT Wright’s zombies, still haunting the globe. I have honestly never personally encountered this sort of sexism before. It’s not just inappropriate, it’s pathetic. Buckaroo… who would choose that!! Maybe Philip Philips.
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 David Mills 
 May 27, 2012 at 6:49 pm
@ Steph and joseph
I see that neither of you wants to ascribe a figure. That’s perhaps understandable in one way, but also a bit puzzling, since surely you must lie somewhere on the spectrum of conviction?
The way it would be understandable would be if you think I am confusing a personal estimation with a mathematical probability, which would be silly. What I am asking is nothing more that what could be also expressed in language (and often is, in questionnaires and polls for example) as, ‘do you agree/disagree slightly, somewhat or strongly, or are you undecided.’
I won’t press this question. I just wanted to clarify that point. :)
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 27, 2012 at 7:01 pm
“Spectrum of conviction.” Gosh: was there a spectrum of conviction before probability? I suspect there was. Same as here was Plato before Aristotle. John before Jesus (whoops).
 How’s this: I would be dumbfounded if, transported back to Jerusalem round about the time it is supposed  to have happened, not to put too fine a point on it, an accused felon name Yeshua, pejoratively Yeshu ben Stada, but immortalized as Yshu ben h’enosh, was not sentenced to die by a Roman tribunal. Is that Okay? What do I have on my side: a collection of very early documents that only a very odd skepticism can trump. What do the mythicists have on theirs? A very odd skepticism based on silence, analogies that do not fit the picture, and private mythologies “more incredible than anything in a gospel.” Like Hercules. And David: I really have no confidence based on your comments that you have read my article. Sorry to say so. There are many better things to read on the topic–but interestingly, nobody at Carrierville and Vridarland is asking for suggestions–they are just batting away at whatever contradicts them.
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 steph 
 May 27, 2012 at 8:36 pm
You haven’t demonstrated from the direction of your comments, a reasonable comprehension of Joe’s essay. Perhaps you have ‘read’ it but not read it. How can you fail to understand context means everything and expression in context is not expression in another context? How can you fail to understand that as scholarship makes progress, new evidence and argument take shape. Inspired by healthy discussion and debate, self critical independent critical thinking individuals form new ideas. Ideas evolve. Convictions stay the same and belong to fundamentalisms. Change of heart? Belongs to people with convictions without evidence and argument, who end up ‘changing heart’ and batting for the other side. Contrary conviction, no argument or evidence, new heart.

 
 
 steph 
 May 27, 2012 at 8:17 pm
Do you like playing games David?
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 David Mills 
 May 28, 2012 at 3:37 am
When I came here, it was out of honest curiosity as to why someone changed their view from one to which I would subscribe to one to which I would not subscribe. If that was because of new evidence, or new reasoning, then what were the new bits?
I have no idea what you mean about playing games.
Regarding Joseph’s essay, I’m sure there may be elements of his argument which I do not fully appreciate. That’s a given, in the circumstances.
When the mythic and allegorical and supernatural features are stripped away from Jesus, there is no doubt that what is left can be a plausible person, in harmony with context. But surely, establishing plausibility in a context is not the same as establishing historicity, by a long chalk? To say that Jesus should not be compared to antecedent mythologies is one thing, but to say that he can’t be compared to other figures who were also plausible in context is another.
I might add that to an outsider, it seems that there are quite a variety of plausible Jesuses, with several versions being presented by different scholars.

 
 steph 
 May 28, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Probabilily games David.
As to seeming lack of comprehension of Joe’s essay, your direction of questioning dealt with issues discussed in his essay and you showed no signs of engaging with them, disagreeing, agreeing or acknowledging them.
And as to a number of plausible Jesuses eminating from recent critical scholarship, there are more agreements than disagreements and certain major socio-historical things can be agreed upon with evidence and argument. It is not a probability game. With constant evolution of methodology we make progress in ascertaining the reason for and shaping of Christian origins.

 
 steph 
 May 28, 2012 at 1:08 pm
probability… (plobiblee?)

 
 Antonio Jerez 
 May 28, 2012 at 2:57 pm
I think some folks who have shown up in the discussion are playing games with us. Definitely Roo Bookaroo. The fact that they don´t dare show up with their real names on a site like this with academic standards show it. I wish that they could go to some islamology site and play intellectual games trying to prove that Mohammed never existed and that the Quaran was fabricated hundreds of years after the traditional dating.

 
 
 
 David Mills 
 May 28, 2012 at 3:45 am
As an aside, when I discussed this topic with Earl Doherty on a different forum, he also felt that I hadn’t read his stuff, or if I had I hadn’t understood it, and indeed that I must be playing games of some sort. That’s not to compare or equate Joseph Hoffmann with Earl Doherty in terms of knowledge and expertize, but it is puzzling. I sometimes think that, in general terms, those on either side of a debate do really have trouble comprehending why some are not on any side, and so treat such people as if they were part of the other side.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 28, 2012 at 10:26 am
@David: Rest assured, my concern is not that anyone be “on my side” in this discussion. It is that a fair number of questions posed by you, and not just by you, seemed not to reflect the fact that I had dealt at some length with the issues in my article. My article deals with tips of tips of icebergs, so there would be nothing, of a big picture variety, to side with me about…
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 David Mills 
 May 28, 2012 at 11:24 am
@ Joseph.
Thanks.
I have been in many a conversations on this fascinating topic. It seems to me there are two basic types. One is to go up close, close enough to analyse the pixels, to temporarily use a visual analogy, and the other is to step back and look at the overall. picture. IMO, both are important, perhaps equally so. This did not seem to be the place for the former. :)
That is why I restricted my response to your article to the general question, how can fit with context, no matter what level of conformity we find, go any closer to historicity than establishing plausibility?
Perhaps you would agree that it can’t. Perhaps you would say that it is a matter of comparing the relative coherence of various explanations. I can understand this argument, and accept that going with what may appear to be the ‘most plausible scenario’ option is sufficient for many thoughtful, intelligent people.
But I do think one has to opt for this definition of ‘convincing’ before the evidence is even inspected. Which is fine. In many respects that is what historians and scholars do.
For myself, I cannot say that if I were presented with an identical set of evidences and accounts for any other figure, that i would not have doubts.

 
 
 
 steph 
 May 28, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Bayes is only useful in determining conditional probability, which by definition is a probability regarding future events based on historical occurrrence.
The probability that event A occurs, given that event B has occurred, is called a conditional probability.
The conditional probability of A, given B, is denoted by the symbol P(A|B).
In other words, it could not be used for historical occurrences where the event is sui generis.
The mythtics also invent mythtics victories (see Vridar for the latest) to create the illusion of success; maybe they think this is what the apostles did to spread news of the resurrection Hallelujah, except – O wait – there was no resurrection, so what were they on about?
Because there was no Jesus, they also invented their joy at the death of their non existent nondead non raised nonleader, which makes perfect sense; it was hiding under our noses all the time… but the truth and the stench…
When to Apply Bayes’ Theorem
 Part of the challenge in applying Bayes’ theorem involves recognizing the types of problems that warrant its use. You should consider Bayes’ theorem when the following conditions exist.
The sample space is partitioned into a set of mutually exclusive events { A1, A2, . . . , An }.
 Within the sample space, there exists an event B, for which P(B) > 0.
 The analytical goal is to compute a conditional probability of the form: P( Ak | B ).
 You know at least one of the two sets of probabilities described below.
 P( Ak n B ) for each Ak
 P( Ak ) and P( B | Ak ) for each Ak
Unarguable.
I heard it somewhere.
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 steph 
 May 28, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Neil complains that I haven’t drawn attention to his main focus which he claims focuses mainly on the question of Christian origins. I am drawing attention to his misuse of Schweitzer as an atheist blogger in a post that is about flawed methodology among people who reject critical evidence and argument for historicity. The point is that Vridar’s questioning of Christian origins involves contradicting and misrepresenting scholarship and a high degree of manipulating evidence out of context. Besides he is irrelevant ultimately and not the subject of my post. He is merely an example demonstrating mad method.
He claims I say historical arguments can’t be summarised. It is Neil I have criticised for misrepresenting historical arguments. His comment on James Crossley was: “Any one of these arguments, Crossley admits, may not be persuasive for all readers, but together they become an argument of “cumulative weight” and therefore much stronger. The maths proves it: 0+0+0=3.” This is obviously not a summary of anything which James ever wrote, but a deliberate attempt to make him look stupid. This is basically what is wrong with Godfrey’s summaries. The problem with summaries in general is only that they are summaries and can never be proofs. Godfrey does not seem to understand that difference either. None of us has every suggested that no-one should summarise arguments accurately, or that even an accurate argument is a substititute for a learned proof. Neil is incapable of summarising historical arguments with conclusions he disagrees with. He merely mocks and invents silly analogies and misrepresents. And now he misrepresents me on his blog post and claims I never demonstrated his misrepresentations. But then he has denied that all along the way despite evidence to the contrary.
Neil says ‘I have pointed out on numerous occasions that the very reason I quote Schweitzer’s statement on historical methodology is BECAUSE he is a “historicist” and “not a mythicist”. His words would hardly have any force for my own particular point, otherwise. Stephanie is simply flat wrong when she says I am “oblivious to the fact that nobody suggests that mythicists pretend Schweitzer was a mythicist”.’
Yet Neil just confirms what I said. Yes indeed Neil, nobody is accusing you or other mythtics of pretending Schweitzer was a mythicist. We know you know he believed in a historical figure. I can’t believe Neil’s failure to comprehend something so simple, and quote it and still interpret it as the opposite to what it says. So yes we all agree that Schweitzer did believe in a Jesus who was historical, and he followed Weiss, as I pointed out in my essay: Schweitzer was a committed German Lutheran Christian. What mythicists don’t understand is that Schweitzer like Weiss DID think we could use historical methodology to demonstrate it in historical terms because they quote him out of his own historical context and I pointed this out in my essay which Neil fails to comprehend. As such, Schweitzer believed that salvation was by faith, not by works, and historical research was merely a ‘work’.
This is what he considered ‘uncertain’ about all historical research. It has nothing to do with what decent present-day historians or incompetent bloggers mean when they think that something is ‘historically uncertain’, which normally indicates that it may or may not have happened. It is well known that Schweitzer followed Weiss in supposing that Jesus expected the kingdom of God to come in his own time, and was mistaken. He commented,
 His Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, published in 1892, is in its own way as important as Strauss’s first Life of Jesus. He lays down the third great alternative which the study of the life of Jesus had to meet….either eschatological or non-eschatological!….The general conception of the kingdom was first grasped by Johannes Weiss. All modern ideas, he insists…must be eliminated from it; when this is done, we arrive at a kingdom of God which is wholly future….He exercises no ‘messianic functions’, but waits, like others, for God to bring about the coming of the kingdom by supernatural means….But it was not as near as Jesus thought. The impenitence and hardness of heart of a great part of the people, and the implacable enmity of his opponents, at length convinced him that the establishment of the kingdom of God could not yet take place….It becomes clear to him that his own death must be the ransom price….
The setting up of the kingdom was to be preceded by the day of judgement. In describing the messianic glory Jesus makes use of the traditional picture, but he does so with modesty, restraint and sobriety. Therein consists his greatness….
The ministry of Jesus is therefore not in principle different from that of John the Baptist….What distinguishes the work of Jesus from that of the Baptist is only his consciousness of being the Messiah. He awoke to this consciousness at his baptism. But the messiahship which he claims is not a present office; its exercise belongs to the future….
…Reimarus…was the first, and indeed before Johannes Weiss, the only writer to recognise and point out that the teaching of Jesus was purely eschatological….But Weiss places the assertion on an unassailable scholarly basis.[1]
 Now where has all the supposedly historical uncertainty gone? It was never there! In this second passage, Schweitzer was discussing what really happened, and he had no doubts about that at all. His apparent doubts in the much quoted passage above are not historical doubts, as Neil understands them, at all. They are entirely due to his German Lutheran conviction that salvation is by faith, not works, and historical research is a ‘work’ which does not bring salvation. Neil says, ‘I have always in discussions stressed that the methodological principle is NOT an argument for mythicism. It is an argument for an understanding of what constitutes a valid historical methodology.’
Once again, Neil misses the point and has taken Schweitzer out of his historical context, and deliberately persistently fails to acknowledge it, to make him sound like people he had never heard of him. Moreover, the whole idea that the judgement of anyone more than a century ago can be treated as if it were a judgement on the work of Sanders, Vermes and competent scholars who have written since then shows a total lack of historical sense.
For all Neil’s trumpeting of holding a degree which includes modern history, he failed to learn something we all learned in stage one if we weren’t already aware of it. He fails to put people in their own modern historical context. He does this with Fredriksen’s regrettably unhelpful analogy which he took out of historical context and applied to ancient history which is a clear abuse of her demonstration. No he is not implying that didn’t suggest “Fredriksen’s point meant that Jesus was a myth.” I never said that. He is abusing her analogy out of context. Neil does not understand context and the implications of context. Neil also refers to Fredriksen as “a naughty schoolgirl who has no interest in the content of the lesson, believing the teacher to be a real dolt, and who accordingly seeks to impress her giggly “know-it-all” classmates by interjecting the teacher with smart alec rejoinders at any opportunity” and me as “a vampire declaring an outrage if someone shows it the sign of the cross” and biblical scholars as “silly detectives” etc: all completely ludicrous.
As for identification of Neil as an ‘atheist’ blogger, that epithet is significant in view of ‘Christian origins’ and his bias, just as he would refer to a Christian scholar or atheist scholar etc. I never identify people by their race or sexual orientation like Roo Buckaroo. It’s irrelevant here or anywhere. Does Neil regularly identify people like that?
As to his final sentence in his post, I can’t resist repeating it because it is a clear example of his malice and spite ‘But if “The Jesus Process (c)” aspires to make a serious contribution to the “required debunking” of the Christ-Myth it is going to have to refrain from diluting their efforts with the uncomprehending Stephanie Louise Fisher.’ Neil has already pronounced that the copyright symbol is “unnecessary but pretentious, demonstrating his ignorance of the necessity of litigation processes, and now, in addition to his malice and spite, he demonstrates a complete lack of comprehension of the purpose and aims of the Jesus Process.
I suspect Neil has found criticisms of me while gazing at himself in the mirror.
Reply

 Ananda 
 May 29, 2012 at 10:48 pm
“As such, Schweitzer believed that salvation was by faith, not by works, and historical research was merely a ‘work”
Who could perform this labyrinthine tangle of historical/ahistorical inquiry without faith and both be justified to boot?
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Stephanie Fisher Responds to Neil Godfrey | Unsettled Christianity says:
 May 28, 2012 at 9:31 pm
[...] complains that I haven’t drawn attention to his main focus which he claims focuses mainly on the question of Christian origins.  I am [...]
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The Three Brusque-Fakirs — The Jesus Process© Hits the Web « Vridar says:
 May 29, 2012 at 9:36 am
[...] things first. I mustn’t forget my manners. Welcome new bloggers! Welcome Blogger Hoffmann, Blogger Fisher, and Blogger Casey! We extend our warmest wishes to the new blog, The Jesus Process©™®, and its [...]
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Completely incompetent, ludicrously malicious, drivel. Irrelevant.
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 Ralph 
 May 29, 2012 at 1:57 pm
I was disappointed in the vindictiveness of this comment of yours.
“As a member of the Worldwide Church of God he could not cope with the Jewishness of Jesus, and when he converted to atheism this did not change. As N.T. Wrong astutely observed, ‘Once a fundie always a fundie. He’s just batting for the other side, now.”
I suggest you read this post of Neil’s, in which he describes in detail the experience of leaving the cult and how that taught him to continually question his own assumptions. What he describes is very different to your accusation.
’http://vridar.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/i-left-the-cult-and-met-the-enemy/
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Precisely Ralph. I think we’ve all read that account. Perhaps you don’t realise the implications of conversion experiences. And yes that claim is not uncommon and contradicts subsequent behaviour and the concept of the ‘Christ myth’.
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 2:51 pm
The claim that he continually questions his own assumptions, ie is constantly self critical.

 
 
 Michael Wilson 
 May 29, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Ralph, Unfortunately questioning his own assumptions is not what Neil does, at least not rationally. His level of argumentation is so poor that have questioned his commitment to the ideas he champions, but that sort of twisting of evidence is the way things are done in the off brand religious sects, so it seems that their methods of twisted logic still suit Neil.
On Steph’s mention of the World Wide Church of God and Jewishness of Jesus, I think that the WWCG was one of the Christian sects like the 7th day Adventist that maintained that the Levitical laws applied to their adherents; they also thought that the English were descended from the lost tribes of Israel. Neil’s support for holocaust “revisionist” and the anti-Semitic regimes of Iran and Syria seem to stem more from his far left world view than Drew’s disgust of Jewishness in Christianity. Of course on the issue of what to do with the Zionist entity the far right and far left have found themselves in agreement, even if for completely different motivations.
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 Paul Regnier 
 May 29, 2012 at 4:18 pm
From the interaction I’ve had with Godfrey, he seems wholly unable to respond dispassionately to *other people* questioning his assumptions. So I seriously doubt that he has a little inner Socrates testing his every idea, whatever he might say on his blog.
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Vindictive presupposes an inclintation towards revenge. Now that’s a bit silly. I have read that account as have my colleagues. Perhaps you don’t realise the regrettable and inevitable implications of conversion experiences and the continuation of convictions, but different convictions. The claim to self criticism and continual questioning of assumptions is not an uncommon illusion among people who have left a situation like that but it does not reflect the reality of his subsequent behaviour, while the concept of the non Jewish ‘Christ myth’ is one of the consequences. This is not synonymous with anti semitism, but it is a reflection that the Jewish historical figure without the ‘Christ myth’ accretions’ has been denied.
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 David Mills 
 May 29, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Couldn’t we have a little bit less of the ad hom approach? A man’s arguments are all that matter, surely? Not that I subscribe to his, you understand, I don’t, for the most part. But if we were to take the line that those who held or indeed still hold certain beliefs about supernatural this or that may have their thinking coloured, where would it end? It would leave us wide open to people saying, ‘well you’re a committed Christian, maybe that affects your approach and judgement’? Which a lot of critics do say about Bible scholars. Phrases involving the words goose, gander, hoist, petard, pot, black and kettle spring to mind. :)

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 29, 2012 at 9:46 pm
@David: it seems to me, you are the one who emphasizes Bayes. I thought this might be.,..instructive. It is hardly a name-calling exercise. You are welcome to deal with it at some deeper level; I can handle it.

 
 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Excuse me David Mills – to whom do you address your ‘advice’? Your comment is very unclear.

 
 
 
 David Mills 
 May 29, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I see E. P. Sanders has got a mention, and that he is held in high regard.
From where I’m seeing things, it is quite the opposite of reassuring to hear that he has apparently said words to the effect that the evidence for Jesus is on a par with Alexander the Great and in fact may be considered better, since for the former we cannot explore what he thought.
I might even go as far as to say that this comment might neatly articulate some of my, er, misgivings about Bible Scholarship.
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 6:59 pm
David, he wrote that in 1993 in the book he wrote for a popular audience, The Historical Figure of Jesus, on page 4. He wrote that before the surge in interest in Christian origins which inspired an equivalent increase in amateur and especially internet-based speculation and attempts to promote mythicist arguments. Do you really think it reflects badly on his entire contribution to scholarship including his detailed research and published work on early Judaism and its sources, such as Judaism: Practice and Belief (1992) for example?
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 David Mills 
 May 30, 2012 at 3:11 am
@ Steph.
No, I don’t think it reflects badly on his entire contribution.
Setting that aside, I’m not sure why it matters where he wrote it. It either is or isn’t an accurate thing to say.
@ Joseph
I have no idea where you think I emphasized Bayes.
Regarding the tone and unnecessary personalization of some (emphasis some) of the discussion, I can handle it too. I just wasn’t expecting it, here.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 30, 2012 at 11:10 am
As most objections to Bayes are usually (as by Sober: “Likelihood and the Duhem/Quine Problem,” ) over its predictive accuracy, it would be interesting to hear your view on how predictive accuracy applies retrogressively to past events. With respect to Bayes, I would like to see a calculation of the likelihood that Jesus was the messiah based strictly and without interpretation on the messianic and apocalyptic texts of the period 167BCE through 135 CE. It seems to me that the probability is very high indeed–maybe .80?–that using the premises that can be constructed from occurrences, Jesus was indeed the messiah. And of course, this must mean he really existed.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 30, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Hi David, No that was just a rumination–not in response. I take you at your word that you are not pushing Bayes T. Almost no one is.

 
 steph 
 May 30, 2012 at 10:41 am
Of course it matters when he wrote it. Context is essential. And there is no ‘right or wrong’ answer in this case. It is a matter of interpretation within a social and historical context which has altered since he wrote.

 
 David Mills 
 May 30, 2012 at 11:29 am
@ steph. Let me just get this straight. Are you actually suggesting there is a context in which it is or was in 1993 accurate to say that the evidence for Jesus is on a par with Alexander, indeed better, because we can’t explore what the former thought? Is that something you are willing to make a case for?

 
 David Mills 
 May 30, 2012 at 11:29 am
Whoops. Meant to say latter, not former.

 
 David Mills 
 May 30, 2012 at 11:51 am
@ Joseph
Regarding Bayes, it certainly could be a very interesting case, the one you would like to hear, and I might enjoy reading it too, but (for the second time) I’m not sure why you might think I’m the one to put that case, since I’ve not indicated any inclination to apply Bayes? I have tended in quite the opposite direction in regard to Bayes, on more than one occasion here.

 
 David Mills 
 May 31, 2012 at 3:22 am
@ Joseph.
Ah. A rumination. I thought it might be, but wasn’t sure, and was reluctant to take up the offer, lest I be taken to be an advocate. :)

 
 David Mills 
 May 31, 2012 at 5:55 am
@ Joseph
Now that I know we are just ruminating…..
I should first admit that if philosophy and mathematics and logic can in some fundamental way be described as (not unrelated) ‘languages’, my fluency in them could be described as pigeon, at best. ?
Regarding predictive accuracy being applied retrospectively, as I understand it, that is not a fundamental problem. In fact, it seems to me that BT is geared towards it, because it is not an attempt to predict a future event, but to go backwards to see how an hypothesis, or the conjunction part(s) of an hypothesis, fits with outcome evidence.
At this point, it might be briefly worth noting that BT is sometimes applied in a court of law, where again, the assessment analyses retrospectively, back to the crime scene. A court of law is not the same as the study of ancient history, of course, and although there are similarities, one could argue that there is more onus to make a call in the former than the latter. Those in favour of reducing the overcrowding in prisons might be pleased if courts had more leeway or inclination towards arriving at agnostic verdicts, but I suspect that indecision is more of an affordable luxury for both the historian and the general thinker (i.e. me). As an historian, you may disagree. I have heard historians argue that it is obtuse not to at least provisionally run with plausibility, but that is a slightly separate argument, and one which I have my own views on, speaking as a rational sceptic and not an historian. ?
Regarding your second point, about a possible calculation based on apocalyptic texts from 167BC-135CE, what you seem to be saying (quite reasonably, IMO) is that we could, if you like, use the very theorem that Carrier uses against historicity to make a case FOR historicity, and in principle, perhaps we could. In a nutshell, it seems to me that this approach is akin to what you and Steph have been saying about how Jesus can arguably be deemed likely to have been historical because of a very good fit with context, that is to say, he is plausible. Which I agree is not an insignificant matter (though IMO inconclusive, for reasons briefly given previously, not the least of which is that I am tempted to opine that him not having actually existed is not implausible either, IMO).
Interestingly, I think it is often suggested that his historicity is enhanced precisely because he was not the expected messiah, that is to say not the type of messiah that was expected, so I don’t know how that affects the calculation. ?
To finish a rather overlong post, I might end up by saying that the idea of a calculation of the sort you are suggesting seems to do more to confirm the idea that using BT is ropey in the circumstances, because of the subjective and arbitrary (i.e. non-mathematical) nature of many of the input probabilities, than it does to confirm the credibility of its usefulness in history. Perhaps that was your point, and you were being whimsical about suggesting its use? Anyhow, I would remain at my previous position, that while it may be intellectual fun, and possibly of some minor use, maths is not designed to resolve historical matters such as this, not least because the ‘crime scene’ in this case is so remote.

 
 David Mills 
 May 31, 2012 at 6:00 am
Errata:
The smileys I copied and pasted from Microsoft works have morphed. Please read ? as a smiley in the above post.
Also, Joseph, if you could delete my double pasting while moderating I would be grateful. :)
Or not, as you prefer. I must, after all, take responsibility for my own technological shortcomings.

 
 Grog 
 June 1, 2012 at 11:52 pm
“it would be interesting to hear your view on how predictive accuracy applies retrogressively to past events.”
Ahhh….a common creationist argument against Evolution. Almost word for word.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 2:58 am
@Grog: No. It’s not: there is a virtually unbroken string of evidence that supports evolution making the theory plausible, and Bayes wasn’t used to arrive at it. What a silly analogy.

 
 
 steph 
 May 30, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Dear David, I am relieved that you don’t think a claim made in 1993 reflects on his entire contribution to scholarship. That was however the implication I received from your association of Sanders being held in high regard with his statement articulating some of your ‘er’ misgivings about Bible Scholarship. It is essential to understand that what he wrote in 1993 he would not repeat now. In 1993 it was unnecessary to qualify such a claim, because his audience would have understood his qualifications as implicit. However since 1993 there has been a surge in interest in Christian origins which has inspired an uprise in amateur and especially internet-based speculation with attempts to promote mythicist arguments. Sanders would write something far more complicated to counteract precisely those sort of literal interpretations which make his words mean something different now.
Reply

 David Mills 
 May 30, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Steph,
If I were to try to clarify how I could say that someone could write something which might summarize or typify some reservations I may have (whether they are justified or not is a separate issue, because I accept that they are essentially impressions) without it necessarily implying blanket criticism, it would simply be to say that anyone can have, er, if you’ll pardon my phrase, weaknesses and have strengths. In fact, most people I know have some of both. :)
I may, still, consider that observation to be an unjustifiable, particular thing to say, because I don’t yet understand the point you are making about the context at the time not requiring him to qualify it. In what way am I supposed to say, ‘oh well, in that case, it was a perfectly reasonable view to take’? But I would not presume to damn a person who as far as I can tell, ‘knows his onions’ in many other respects.
I Might add, incidentally, that I personally view Bart Ehrman’s recent expression of certainty in a somewhat similar light, that is to say, sounding very like the sort of thing someone might say when their objectivity is arguably wanting.

 
 David Mills 
 May 30, 2012 at 6:59 pm
ps
…..their objectivity (arguably wanting) in one respect, or in one particular sense, not their objectivity generally. I can’t imagine that the latter would be a fair thing to say, given how many good scholars have demonstrated a willingness and a skill in explaining the texts with an admirable degree of rational criticism over the years. Rational sceptics like myself, especially those of us who declare agnosticism on this issue, probably have a great deal more in common with people like yourself and joseph, and sanders, than we have to differ about. :)

 
 
 
 David Mills 
 May 29, 2012 at 3:01 pm
If he didn’t say that, I will eat my humble hat, or whatever the expression is. In all honesty, I can’t believe he did.
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Save your hat. I think it is ‘I’ll eat my hat’ and its the pie that’s humble.
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 peadarmaccionaoith 
 June 10, 2012 at 8:48 am
SLJ: Notably incompetent are his discussions the “Criterion of Embarrassment.”
 ——————————————————————————————
Can you summarise Meier’s coherent and lengthy argument for the criterion which you say follows the comment quoted by Carrier? Having stated what Carrier quotes, Meier does seem to proceed immediately (p168) to examples of things he thinks the early Church was “stuck with”, not to a detailed justification of the criterion. If so, is it so unreasonable to describe Meier’s view on the CofE as an ‘assumption’? It is not clear from your essay that ‘it is not an assumption at all’, nor how/why it is “notably incompetent” to say it is.
The criterion does raise questions: do we know what would ‘embarrass’ all elements of ‘the early church’, and who they would be embarrassed in front of? Was ‘the early church’ homogenous, and would their audience also have been consistently and homogenously embarrassable by the same things? What is the depth of our field knowledge of ancient embarrassment, and particularly in the context of religious movements? What is the dynamic of evangelists/redactors being ‘stuck with’ a particular detail – what would happen if they denied an embarrassing element or were ‘economical with the truth’? Meier thinks that the early church was “stuck with” the baptism of Jesus by John, then states that John didn’t just ‘soften’ but simply “erased” the episode. If the evangelists and redactors were embarrassed that Jesus came from Nazareth, why did they have to own up to it? How would they have been called out on it if they’d elided or changed that detail?
Meier appears to recognise that there were different beliefs, and that even within the proto-orthodox ‘church’ the putative feeling of ‘embarrassment’ changed with time. Are there not inevitable incongruities between different thematic, symbolic, mystical and religious priorities, which complicate even further the difficulties of identifying ancient embarrassments?
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 10, 2012 at 7:02 pm
M. calls it embarrassment; it is more properly called the dissimilarity principle: that is to say, if a belief recorded or traditioned through an aporia in the gospel differs substantially on the basis of reasonable assumptions to what the church would have wanted to propagate, that element may be regarded provisionally as earlier to the tradition. It has nothing to do with embarrassment as you are using the term, and frankly I think the term embarrassment is embarrassing; as a general principle in the evolution of texts, however it is quite sound. Disconfirming and challenging outcomes dictate editorial changes to primary traditions when these can be effected. Vid., Heremeneutics of suspicion.
Reply

 steph 
 June 10, 2012 at 9:28 pm
It is regrettable that Meier calls it ‘embarrassment’ which is a misleading term. It is appropriately called dissimilarity, as Joe has clarified. Meier discusses it, including its limitations, in his chapter 6 titled ‘Criteria’ from pp.167-95 in Volume One of his massive Four Volume “Marginal Jew”.

 
 peadarmaccionaoith 
 June 14, 2012 at 4:46 am
Yes, Meier calls it ‘embarrassment’, but he also lists ‘dissimilarity’ (or ‘discontinuity’) as a separate criterion. While he does critique other criteria quite succinctly, he appears to deem the former limited mainly because there are few clear cases of “embarrassment”. Dissimilarity he sees as words or actions which are ‘discontinuous’ or ‘dissimilar’ in relation to 1st century ‘Judaism’ or ‘the early Church’ (e.g. the rejection of fasting). This seems to be a different notion to that of being ‘stuck with’ something ‘embarrassing’ (because of a well established MS tradition rather than necessarily because the ‘embarrassment’ is ‘true’?)
Meier points out the holes in his five primary criteria, but says if they are used in conjunction they represent reliable criteria of historicity. He does not appear to argue this closely, however – perhaps by some accumulation of indeterminate probabilities (?) – but it is not unambiguously clear that stacking sieves together will necessarily bring water from the historical well.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 14, 2012 at 7:17 am
“Dissimilarity” is constructed from a range of probabilities built up from both external and internal constituents of the traditions. Many of these traditions are ideological and perspectival, notoriously difficult to pin down by region and date (there is reason scholars call this the early Christian “movement” after all) and depend on a pretty high degree of historical knowledge and technical skill to be useful at all. If I had another year of my life I could take you through several examples, but for example, the widespread rumour that Jesus was the illegitimate child of a Jewish girl impregnated by a Roman soldier (the external “ben Panthera” tradition) might lead to the counter-rumour that he was born of a virgin and narrative development as we find it in Matthew and Luke. The historicity of either story, for different reasons, must remain in doubt, but any tradition that seems to lack this polemical focus (e.g., Mt 12.47f) might be arguably older than a story that develops it. Dissimilarity is more familiar when assessing apocalyptic statements by Jesus and their modification over time. “Embarrassment” is a silly and unnecessary gloss of the same essential criterion. One caution however concerning the trend in these conversations to assume falsely that a criterion that employs intuition or subjectivity in its application is somehow “wrong.” It isn’t, and cannot be. The degree of “rightness” will always be an adjunct of the degree of sophistication with which the procedure is carried out. If you think science is the standard here, don’t think rocket science and the laws of physics as your way ahead–much less Bayes T. which doesn’t fear subjectivity at all–think surgery and skill. I think your analogy to sieves is–no pun intended–strained.

 
 David Mills 
 June 14, 2012 at 7:38 am
@ peader
‘….but it is not unambiguously clear that stacking sieves together will necessarily bring water from the historical well.’
I have been scratching my head on many occasions to come up with an analogy to cover this, and that is the one I was looking for. :)
Of course, any response will revolve around the words ‘unambiguously clear’ and those who believe that Jesus existed will quite rightly point out that this is asking too much, and thus remain ‘as they were’.
Those of us who have a fondness for uncertainty will simply stop at ‘ambiguous’ and file under ‘unanswerable’.
Here is a question. What methodology allows us to tell the difference between a story and a cult which grew and was embellished around a non-historical figure from one which was embellished around a non-historical one?
If there is no clear answer to that one, what are we left with, other than a subjective choice about whether to approach the material with an attitude of trust or mistrust, both of which, or a combination of the two, are warranted, IMO.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 14, 2012 at 7:53 am
“What methodology allows us to tell the difference between a story and a cult which grew and was embellished around a non-historical figure from one which was embellished around a non-historical one…” You to seem to think the answer is “none.” The answer, which will be wholly unsatisfying, is that while cults do in fact produce rituals, stories and adherents (just like political systems do), the gospels are sufficiently unlike these narratives to require the approaches that have been developed to understand them. It is simply not the case that the historical critical method is sieve-like: radical biblical criticism developed from the same root system as mainstream critical studies at the end of the 18th century and then got tangled up in self-contradiction and confusion. The idea therefore that we are confronted with the choice between knowing nothing or only believing what the fundamentalists believe strikes me as a medieval choice. In fact, I am wondering why apparently smart people want to paint themselves into that corner. And btw, knowing that Jesus did not exist is not something we know. The evidence (you can spare me a lecture on “evidence,” please) does not begin to prove it, and the mythtic view of it has not changed or improved in a century. I was amused at a responder yesterday who said something to the effect, “Yeah but we don’t have any coins with the face of Jesus on them, do we?” The obvious answer is, if we did, it would prove only the existence of the coin.

 
 David Mills 
 June 14, 2012 at 8:05 am
I can concur on all fronts.
Having said that, I’d prefer if you’d reply to my agnosticism, and stop telling me of the shortcomings of mythicism. Are you (again) addressing mythicism via me, or what? J
I would not dream of giving you a lecture on ‘evidence’. Yes, that choice you gave is a medieval choice. I take your point about the coin. And yes, your answer to the question I posed is indeed unsatisfactory, to me personally, at this time, because I don’t agree that the sieve analogy is strained at all.

 
 David Mills 
 June 14, 2012 at 8:34 am
@ Joseph
Addendum:
In addition to comparing the stories of Jesus to stories from other cults, should we not also compare it to stories of people who were once thought to exist but are now thought either not to have or possibly not to have?
I am not sure whether you will object (and if you do I may want to probe a bit further as to why) if I mention Betty Crocker, who, I believe, was voted the USA’s second most influential woman in a magazine article in 1947, without existing.
I think we can all agree that people can become thought of as if they have existed, when they may not have. Why not Jesus?

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 14, 2012 at 8:52 am
@David: You know that I will say these two cases are not symmetrical, though it is a valiant try if the point were simply to prove Mencken’s point (and Barnum’s) about the credulity of the American public or credulity in general.

 
 David Mills 
 June 14, 2012 at 8:56 am
@ joseph.
Of course they are not symmetrical. I am not sure why they need to be. Nor, in defense of Americans, is Betty the only example I can think of, by a long way.
Hm. A comparison between the credulity of ancient Judeans and modern Americans. Now that might be an interesting pub discussion, if nothing else. :)

 
 
 
 peadarmaccionaoith 
 June 10, 2012 at 8:57 am
SLF: This supposed contradiction depends on a traditional translation of µ? ?? t? ???t?, (Mk 14.2) as, e.g., ‘Not during the festival’ (NRSV). Jeremias long ago pointed out that the Greek heorte also means ‘festival crowd’, as standard secondary literature intermittently repeats
————————————————————————————
What examples of heorte meaning, clearly but implicitly (on its own), ‘festival crowd’ are cited by Jeremias (and what do you mean by the intermittent repetition of ‘secondary literature’)? Matthew/Mark refer first to he heorte and then separately to ho laos (likewise John 2:23, 4:45, 7:11 – as an elaboration, this could be read against as well as for such a meaning? It is difficult to read John 12:20 as referring to Greeks coming to worship in the festival crowd; likewise in the LXX, the phrase seems to clearly mean during the festival, with ‘in the festival crowd’ making little sense (it seems particularly unambiguous in its triple use for specific festivals in 2 Chronicles 8:13). So too with other prepositions/cases – Mark 15:6 seems to mean festival; Antiquities 18:90 seems to mean festival too. Further afield, there are unambiguous usages in Aristotle to mean ‘festival’.
The normal usage therefore seems to be ‘festival’. LJS gives Plotinus’ 6th Ennead as an instance where it means ‘assembled multitude at a festival’, though it seems to me that this is far from clear: Plotinus has the word in a list of words which includes ‘this’ and ‘what’ as well as army and crowd, and he goes on to repeat heorte and explicitly make the point that heorte means nothing apart from the people who are gathered at it. This suggests to me that he was quite deliberately proposing the meaning as part of his philosophical ruminations on monadic thought – how single things are in fact multiple in nature.
Reply

 steph 
 June 12, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Yes it meant festival which is how it came to also mean festival crown. Secondary literature refers to scholarship discussing primary texts.
Reply

 peadarmaccionaoith 
 June 14, 2012 at 4:53 am
But what are the chronologically appropriate instances of it clearly coming to mean that? The only one I could find was in Plotinus, as cited by LSJ. As I pointed out, though, this appears to be a self-conscious usage where Plotinus (in the 3rd century) is saying what is a festival if it’s not the festival crowd. What are your/Jeremias’ primary sources?
I’m not sure it’s a matter of great import, just curious!

 
 steph 
 June 14, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Yes it is fascinating. I’ve been held captive for days and days and weeks, a long time ago now, doing this sort of thing. Reading through texts, cataloguing references, making lists and lists and lists. I looked up sources a long time ago, some of which are in the British Library, and was convinced by them and haven’t kept a record. I suggest you do the same.

 
 
 
 peadarmaccionaoith 
 June 10, 2012 at 9:02 am
SLF: At no point in such a process does a critical scholar throw his or her hands in the air and pronounce a fatwah on all preceding efforts.
——————————————————————————————
I am unsure what you intend by fatwa, but in other arts/humanities fields scholars do occasionally question pretty much all that has gone before (and sometimes create new paradigms and orthodoxies by doing so). It is not forbidden, and while controversy and dispute do arise, I am not sure they generate anything like the heat seen here. The expression of such controversy usually centres on the arguments and evidence rather than the people involved.
A case which may be interesting (or even pertinent) is that of what we might generally call literary studies: in the last century scholars increasingly widened the supposed ‘context’ of a literary work, and, some would say, removed literary criticism from the common (sense, people) and vocationalised it. Barriers of ‘training’ and technique appeared around the new criticism, which ironically appeared to seep into everything the more private and solipsistic it became: if life was short, art was getting longer, and one needed to make one’s living in an academic post to have a voice. Yet voices from within did protest and mounted what were seen as ‘attacks’ on academic scholarship itself – a scholarship which continued to centre around the University English Department teaching abstract theory and ‘methodology’ as the key to unlocking literary works (placing the theoretical cart firmly in front of the literary horse). In some quarters, the more incomprehensible the theory (qua Derrida?!) the greater the ‘technical’ expertise” that was required: the antithesis, it seems to me, of opening up a discipline.
Yet still, given the current economic climate for literary studies, papers from individuals who are not professional academics do appear in refereed journals in the study of literature. Possibly there is some private contempt for these ‘amateurs’ (who in many cases simply did not have the same life opportunities as the professionals), but I have never seen it expressed in disparaging comments about the individual’s credentials, personal background, and even their personal psychological profile. And I have seen the dominant scholarly norm dismissed wholesale as a “disciplinary fiction”.
I am curious therefore about the dynamic of the personal reaction to internet ‘mythicists’. I have been an academic for over 20 years now (not in the subject I might have preferred, but I count my blessings daily for the privilege), and cannot imagine either denigrating others for failing to gain access to our turris eburnea (“top tier” or otherwise) – or attaching the name of my institution (as student or lecturer) to some of the personal ‘heat’ in this essay. Isn’t exchanging libel-proof insults what internet anonymity is for?!
I understand the notion of expertise in subjects that are relevant to the study of the NT (Greek, palaeography, ancient history etc), but my experience/understanding of “technical expertise” is knowledge of mechanical techniques based on demonstrable scientific principles which (usually) produce physical results – and these lend themselves to ‘training’. The techniques might employ a range of tools (chosen in accordance with the method) but the results in any case can be scientifically tested and verified. What techniques/technologies does the phrase “technical expertise” in NT studies refer to? Is the use of the phrase metaphorical (perhaps harking back to an original Greek nuance?), or is it intended to denote scientific technique (which people can be ‘trained’ in) and demonstrable correctness? It seems to me that criteria such as that of ‘embarrassment’ (see previous post) don’t constitute formal methods in this sense: if they represent technique or science, it is a very inexact one. I have not come across these ‘methods’ in other areas of history or mythology: are they transferable to other areas (e.g. Homer, Malory and associated writings)? How does one know from the results whether this criterion has been applied correctly or incorrectly? And why, in this era of the ‘edgeless university’ and the institutional VLE, do these particular techniques not lend themselves to self-study?
Reply

 steph 
 June 12, 2012 at 7:01 pm
I’m sorry my metaphor isn’t clear. Carrier has announced that New Testament studies is “f**ked” and historical method “invalid” which seems a bit to me as if he’s declaring a fatwa on an entire academic discipline. Banning it. All disciplines, including those of New Testament studies, Old Testament studies, and History of Religions, Classics, Modern History, etc, constantly discuss and debate and improve method and application in view of new evidence and argument. Carrier wasn’t making a concession for this or even acknowledging the existence of it in academic discussion. He seems oblivious to the existence of positive, constructive and ‘heated’ conversation in the discipline.
As far as claiming authority and expertise when one has no disciplined formal training, Proverbs 26.4-5 comes to mind. I am not rejecting the interest of amateurs, only those amateurs without training and critical skills who become ‘know-alls’.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 12, 2012 at 7:07 pm
@Steph: “f*cked” yet seems to believe that the messiah is at hand.

 
 steph 
 June 12, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Amen. Maranatha. :)

 
 
 
 WildBloom 
 June 16, 2012 at 4:48 am
Hi Stephanie and Joseph Hoffmann, thank you very much for having creating this interesting discussion. I’m an environmental scientist with a strong background in mathematics, which plaid a very important role in my PhD.
 Why I find probability theory and Bayes’ theorem fascinating in their own right, I don’t believe their application to Jesus studies is going to avoid the subjectivity dominating many historical endeavors.
In order to evaluate the probability of an event E, for example, E = ( Mark wrote his gospel before 50 AC), given our background knowledge, is given by:
P (E|B) = P(B|E) * P(E) / P(B)
P(E|B) is the likelihood of E given our background knowledge B and is the quantity to be calculated.
 P(B|E) is the probability of our background knowledge given the truth of the event.
 P(E) and P(B) are the a priori probabilities of the event E and our background information.
In order to employ BT, one must first evaluate/estimate the quantity P(B|E), P(E) and P(B).
 This is where subjectivity comes into play.
 Let us consider P(E), most people in the field believe the gospels were written after the destruction of the second temple, so the number will be low. But why choose 0.04 instead of say 0.07, 0.01 or 0.03?
 And if one gives some credence to the theory of Robinson „redating the gospel“ or James Crossley „The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity“, the initial probability may very well vary between 0.4 and 0.8.
Evaluating P(B), if B designates all our background knowledge (like facts about second temple’s Judaism, about the Romans, the early church and so on and so forth.), evaluating its a priori probability will prove to be a tedious task. It is not surprising that different values will come from different authors with different biases.
The evaluation of P(B|E) will certainly be controversial. Folks who believe the mini-apocalypse of Mark to refer to the end of the second temple, and also believe that no supernatural prophecy can occur, will find very low values like 0.01, 0.005 or even lower. (despite the agreement towards low probabilities, the precise value is once again arbitrary.
 However, people like James Crossley having developed other arguments will find high value like 0.7 or even 0.8.
As a conclusion, I believe the use of Bayes’ theorem might be useful in some cases for the study of the historical Jesus.
 But one has to keep in mind that subjectivity and difference of interpretations of the evidence are still present in choosing the value of the input-probabilities.
To my mind, Carrier’s ambitious goal to use BT to avoid subjectivity and differences of interpretations altogether has failed.
A reminder: I’m not a biblical scholar, the example I gave may have inaccuracies, its only purpose was to illustrate the subjective nature of the use of BT in history and in biblical studies.
I would love to hear your opinion on that.
Regards, Hubert.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 16, 2012 at 8:50 am
I actually think the Bayes’s Theorem discussion has run its ridiculous course. It was a nice try on Richard Carrier’s part to garner attention and keep his fan base enthralled, but it has to be accounted a stillborn project. It is inapplicable mathematical razzle dazzle applied to ancient texts unwarranted by the questions it is is put forward to resolve–in fact silly questions ranging from was there or was there not an earthhquake on the afternoon of April 2, 33 AD to did Jesus exist. It is a debating strategy, not an assist to organic historical methods unless (as in archaeology) those methods have a real world (modal) evidence base that might benefit from various (not just BT) probability strategies.
The basic criterion or warrant for BT is that a problem presents itself in which an event has already happened such that the probability of another event is to be found. I can use it to argue for miracles. I can use it Humean style to argue against miracles. That’s how it works: It revises (reassigns) the probabilities of the events based on what is known beforehand (prior probabilities) and what can be calculated after information (A) is received as posterior probabilities of events. The real world conditions that wouold permit us to create the sample space for these mutually esclusive criteria are at issue. And thge conditions for the application of Baye’s formula is that prior events i.e. A1, A2, ……., An of the sample space are exhaustive and mutually exclusive i.e.
 A1 U A2 U ……….. U An = S
 and Ai n Aj = F j, i = 1, 2, …….. n and i ? j
But the claim that Bayes “works” is not a warrant for its applicabilty to something as greasy as the historical Jesus question. BT is a theorem; of course it works. You can feed it anything. If I want to make sausage because I don’tike the sausage people are making I can throw my old socks, a stray cat, the noisy kid from next door and some journal articles I haven’t read into the grinder. At the end of the line, I get sausage. That’s what the grinder makes. Bayes can make unarguable conclusions from absurd premises constructed from naive assumptions derived from subjectivity, bias and errors of fact and emit them in a casing of illusion of finality and improbable probabilities.
Reply
 
 
Biblioblog Carnival “according to Mark” « Euangelion Kata Markon says:
 July 3, 2012 at 8:15 pm
[...] about mythicism?  After May’s launch of the Jesus Project (courtesy of Maurice Casey, Steph Fisher and R. Joseph Hoffman), Hoffman continued with posts about the arguments of Shirley Jackson [...]
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Seriös eller oseriös debatt? « Jesus granskad says:
 July 14, 2012 at 3:00 pm
[...] sig Caseys forskarassistent Stephanie Louise Fisher i många av sina kommentarer. I inlägget AN EXHIBITION OF INCOMPETENCE: TRICKERY DICKERY BAYES håller hon sig väl ändå något till saken och Godfreys bemötande av hennes inlägg återfinns [...]
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 Prove the Bible in One Paragraph | The Great Christian Debate says:
 March 5, 2013 at 6:45 pm
[...] to be real and he is his own person. Some great articles I’ve been led to are here, here, and here. There are no sufficient arguments detailing that Jesus was mythical. The greatest argument of them [...]
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A Review of Proving History by Richard Carrier (Part IV) « Diglotting says:
 May 4, 2013 at 5:15 pm
[...] especially if they wanted to risk a deadly skirmish. As Stephanie Louis Fisher points out in her review of Proving History, this sort of thing had occurred in the past during the time of Herod [...]
Reply
 
 Matt Gerrans 
 June 21, 2013 at 5:16 pm
“Critical biblical scholars have known for a long time that this story is not literally true.”
What does that mean? Is it “figuratively true?” If so, what does that mean? Or is it simply not true? Did this miracle not in fact occur?
Does this mean every statement in the Bible is true, but it is only a matter of deciding whether it is “figuratively true” or “literally true?”
Reply

 steph 
 June 21, 2013 at 9:15 pm
No Matt. That it is not literally true does not mean it is figuratively true. No Matt. Miracles contradict the laws of nature and do not happen. No Matt. This does not mean that every statement in the Bible is true, figuratively or literally.
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THE JESUS PROCESS (c)
by rjosephhoffmann

A Consultation on Method, Myth, and Madness in New Testament Studies

Now Published!
Essays by
Maurice Casey, “Mythicism: A Story of Incompetence, Bias and Falsehood”
R. Joseph Hoffmann, “Controversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus”
Stephanie Louise Fisher, “An Exhibition of Incompetence: Trickery, Dickery, Bayes”
(c) 2012: The Jesus Process Consultative Committee
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Published: May 19, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: amateurism in biblical studies : atheism : Bayes theorem : Bible : Christianity : historical jesus : internet scholars : Jesus : Jesus Seminar : method in biblical studies : myth theory : mythicism : mythology : New Testament : Radical Theology : religion : religious studies ..
9 Responses to “THE JESUS PROCESS (c)”

.
 Antonio Jerez 
 May 19, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Excellent news! I´m really looking forward to it.
Reply
 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 22, 2012 at 7:34 am
Reblogged this on The New Oxonian and commented:
The first contributions to The Jesus Process are Now Available
Reply
 
Jesus Mythicists Smackdown « A 'Goula Blogger says:
 May 22, 2012 at 11:08 am
[...] Here. With lots of footnotes! Share this:ShareLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. [...]
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 The Jesus Process on The New Oxonian | Ge??aµµ??a says:
 May 22, 2012 at 12:08 pm
[...] recently), it would be profitable to take a look at The New Oxonion, the weblog that hosts The Jesus Process: A Consultation on Method, Myth, and Madness in New Testament Studies. The Jesus Process contains the following [...]
Reply
 
 James Daniel Tabor 
 May 22, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Many thanks for making these available Joe.
Reply
 
 Matthew 
 May 26, 2012 at 9:53 pm
My thanks to Joe, Stephanie, and Maurice for their fascinating and thought-provoking essays! I learned quite a bit and I look forward to reading more! I look forward to more work by Dr. Casey and his forthcoming book!
Reply
 
When Is Paul’s Silence Golden? « Vridar says:
 June 10, 2012 at 11:16 pm
[...] that sink in for a minute. The senior whiz at The Processed Cheeses Institute mercilessly mocks Doherty for saying essentially the same thing. He sneers and guffaws at [...]
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 11, 2012 at 5:31 pm
@ Godfrey: “…for saying essentially the same thing.” If you truly believe this, then the interpretative skills of the mythtics are even more rudimentary than I had at first imagined.
Reply

 steph 
 June 11, 2012 at 7:42 pm
More mythtic glossolalia.

 
 
 

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THE JESUS PROCESS (c)
by rjosephhoffmann

 Reblogged from The New Oxonian:

Click to visit the original post
A Consultation on Method, Myth, and Madness in New Testament Studies

Now Published!
Essays by
Maurice Casey, "Mythicism: A Story of Incompetence, Bias and Falsehood"
R. Joseph Hoffmann, "Controversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus"
Stephanie Louise Fisher, "An Exhibition of Incompetence: Trickery, Dickery, Bayes"
(c) 2012: The Jesus Process Consultative Committee
Read more… 3 more words

The first contributions to The Jesus Process are Now Available

Published: May 22, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
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19 Responses to “THE JESUS PROCESS (c)”

.
 scotteus 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Well, if the intention was to overwhelm the lay audience, I congratulate you and you colleagues on a resounding success. There is far too much here for an average lay person of middle age to take up seriously without discarding more important aspects of life.
On that note, I bid a fond farwell and will depart the same as I arrived before learning of your work: a soft atheist.
Reply

 steph 
 May 24, 2012 at 10:51 pm
It certainly wasn’t our intention to overwhelm readers. The methods and approaches to history being critiqued here, certainly haven’t been created by soft atheists. So I hope you return to read further essays of Joe’s and remain among the New Oxonian audience.
Reply
 
 ken 
 May 26, 2012 at 12:08 pm
I echo your observations.
 Simply stated….it’s all shop talk.
 Sort of like ducking into the local Best Western to get out of a rainstorm and finding yourself in the middle of a plumber’s convention, where everyone is talking about wall hydrants, trap seals, wax rings, and basin wrenches. Before you know it you find yourself muttering “Watson, the needle.”
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 26, 2012 at 3:45 pm
That’s ok Ken: all I can get from your comment is that when you want to get real information about the Bible, don’t call a plumber. The underlying assumption that biblical studies is EZ PZ (no relation to Myers) is a basic misconception about the field and one that makes Jesus denial and mythicism possible.

 
 
 
 chazpres 
 May 26, 2012 at 6:43 pm
For what it’s worth I greatly appreciate the “shop talk”. I don’t see how it could be avoidable when countering mythicist fallacies.
Reply
 
Neil Godfrey’s response 2: @ Stephanie Fisher « Vridar says:
 May 27, 2012 at 2:00 am
[...] quick and easy response because real life distractions prevent me at this time from addressing Hoffmann’s and Casey’s posts against mythicism. I will address both when work and family situations permit. Right now I am relaxing after sharing [...]
Reply

 steph 
 May 27, 2012 at 10:47 am
I think Neil is a little bit miffed my brief essay wasn’t all about him. Like Carrier he has gone to great lengths to contradict a slight allusion. Perhaps he was just too irrelevant. He thinks his ‘skills’ in analysis ought to have been celebrated and I’m a little astonished he still doesn’t quite grasp his abuse of Schweitzer. Never mind – he has his own soap box.
Reply
 
 
 Atheara Valentin 
 May 28, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Thanks very much. This was great material to work through over the long weekend — my version of beach reading I suppose? There are of course a number of arguments here, and all strike me as being worth engaging seriously and at length. I hope it won’t too badly distort Dr. Hoffmann’s argument if I pull out one line of reasoning that I found particularly interesting. I took one theme in his essay to be that early Christian’s ideological orientation toward making real historical claims about their founder was unusual in the environment of the time and should be seen as significant evidence in favor of a real historical Jesus.
If that seems a reasonable enough summary to be getting on with, I’d remark that I find this idea plausible and interesting. At the very least, it seems a compelling argument against the idea that these very people were knowingly engaged in an effort to historicize a myth. Yet I am deeply uncomfortable about the idea of trying to push a line of argument from worldview and discourse back to the nature of antecedent events. Surely in political contests of identity and ideology causal connections between events and world views are loose? To draw an example from a very different domain, Republicans in the U.S. preside over the generation of record-setting budget deficits — and so the discourse and worldview of base Republicans immediately becomes one in which cutting deficits is the highest priority and a goal that is only stopped by that other group of outsiders. In general, it seems to me that leaders have a great deal of flexibility in how they frame events, and that flexibility can lead to significant surprises in the relationship between events and subsequent world views. But such flexibility means that evidence about early Christians’ historical orientation relative to contemporaries in surrounding communities can show us the dynamics of identity politics at that time, but not necessarily anything earlier.
As a final point, have mythicists never heard of Occam’s razor? Which hypotheses does more to multiply entities, the view that Jesus was one of many broadly apocalyptic preachers in his time and place, but one whose story grew after his death as followers retold it — or the view that some group deliberately invented Jesus, conspired to keep that invention secret, and succeeded completely in their own time to the point that even their worst enemies never found out, only to be foiled by clever maverick researchers a couple of millennia later?
Reply
 
 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 10:38 am
Neil complains that I haven’t drawn attention to his main focus which he claims is the question of Christian origins. I was drawing attention to his misuse of Schweitzer as an atheist blogger in my essay which is about flawed methodology among people who reject critical evidence and argument for historicity. The point is that Vridar’s questioning of Christian origins involves contradicting and misrepresenting scholarship and a high degree of manipulating evidence out of context. While he expresses dismay that I haven’t discussed him in depth in my essay, he is ultimately irrelevant and not its subject. He is merely an example of an atheist blogger demonstrating mad method and incompetence.
Neil claims I say historical arguments can’t be summarized honestly which is of course, misrepresenting what I’ve said. It is Neil I have criticised for misrepresenting historical arguments. His comment on James Crossley was: “Any one of these arguments, Crossley admits, may not be persuasive for all readers, but together they become an argument of “cumulative weight” and therefore much stronger. The maths proves it: 0+0+0=3.” This is obviously not a summary of anything which James ever wrote, but a deliberate attempt to make him look stupid. This is basically what is wrong with Godfrey’s summaries. The problem with summaries in general is only that they are summaries and can never be proofs. Godfrey does not seem to understand that difference either. None of us has every suggested that no-one should summarise arguments accurately, or that even an accurate argument is a substititute for a learned proof. Neil is incapable of summarising historical arguments with conclusions he disagrees with. He merely mocks and invents silly analogies and misrepresents. And now he misrepresents me on his blog post and claims I never demonstrated his misrepresentations. But then he has denied that all along the way despite evidence to the contrary.
Neil says ‘I have pointed out on numerous occasions that the very reason I quote Schweitzer’s statement on historical methodology is BECAUSE he is a “historicist” and “not a mythicist”. His words would hardly have any force for my own particular point, otherwise. Stephanie is simply flat wrong when she says I am “oblivious to the fact that nobody suggests that mythicists pretend Schweitzer was a mythicist”.’
Yet Neil just confirms what I said. Yes indeed Neil, nobody is accusing you or other mythtics of pretending Schweitzer was a mythicist. We know you know he believed in a historical figure. I can’t believe Neil’s failure to comprehend something so simple, and quote it and still interpret it as the opposite to what it says. So yes we all agree that Schweitzer did believe in a Jesus who was historical, and he followed Weiss, as I pointed out in my essay: Schweitzer was a committed German Lutheran Christian. What mythicists don’t understand is that Schweitzer like Weiss DID think we could use historical methodology to demonstrate it in historical terms because they quote him out of his own historical context and I pointed this out in my essay which Neil fails to comprehend. As such, Schweitzer believed that salvation was by faith, not by works, and historical research was merely a ‘work’.
This is what he considered ‘uncertain’ about all historical research. It has nothing to do with what decent present-day historians or incompetent bloggers mean when they think that something is ‘historically uncertain’, which normally indicates that it may or may not have happened. It is well known that Schweitzer followed Weiss in supposing that Jesus expected the kingdom of God to come in his own time, and was mistaken. He commented,
 His Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, published in 1892, is in its own way as important as Strauss’s first Life of Jesus. He lays down the third great alternative which the study of the life of Jesus had to meet….either eschatological or non-eschatological!….The general conception of the kingdom was first grasped by Johannes Weiss. All modern ideas, he insists…must be eliminated from it; when this is done, we arrive at a kingdom of God which is wholly future….He exercises no ‘messianic functions’, but waits, like others, for God to bring about the coming of the kingdom by supernatural means….But it was not as near as Jesus thought. The impenitence and hardness of heart of a great part of the people, and the implacable enmity of his opponents, at length convinced him that the establishment of the kingdom of God could not yet take place….It becomes clear to him that his own death must be the ransom price….
The setting up of the kingdom was to be preceded by the day of judgement. In describing the messianic glory Jesus makes use of the traditional picture, but he does so with modesty, restraint and sobriety. Therein consists his greatness….
The ministry of Jesus is therefore not in principle different from that of John the Baptist….What distinguishes the work of Jesus from that of the Baptist is only his consciousness of being the Messiah. He awoke to this consciousness at his baptism. But the messiahship which he claims is not a present office; its exercise belongs to the future….
…Reimarus…was the first, and indeed before Johannes Weiss, the only writer to recognise and point out that the teaching of Jesus was purely eschatological….But Weiss places the assertion on an unassailable scholarly basis.[1]
 Now where has all the supposedly historical uncertainty gone? It was never there! In this second passage, Schweitzer was discussing what really happened, and he had no doubts about that at all. His apparent doubts in the much quoted passage above are not historical doubts, as Neil understands them, at all. They are entirely due to his German Lutheran conviction that salvation is by faith, not works, and historical research is a ‘work’ which does not bring salvation. Neil says, ‘I have always in discussions stressed that the methodological principle is NOT an argument for mythicism. It is an argument for an understanding of what constitutes a valid historical methodology.’
Once again, Neil misses the point and has taken Schweitzer out of his historical context, and deliberately persistently fails to acknowledge it, to make him sound like people he had never heard of him. Moreover, the whole idea that the judgement of anyone more than a century ago can be treated as if it were a judgement on the work of Sanders, Vermes and competent scholars who have written since then shows a total lack of historical sense.
For all Neil’s trumpeting of holding a degree which includes modern history, he failed to learn something we all learned in stage one if we weren’t already aware of it. He fails to put people in their own modern historical context. He does this with Fredriksen’s regrettably unhelpful analogy which he took out of historical context and applied to ancient history which is a clear abuse of her demonstration. No he is not implying that “Fredriksen’s point meant that Jesus was a myth.” I never said that he implied that. He is abusing her analogy out of context. Neil does not understand context and the implications of context. Neil also refers to Fredriksen as “a naughty schoolgirl who has no interest in the content of the lesson, believing the teacher to be a real dolt, and who accordingly seeks to impress her giggly “know-it-all” classmates by interjecting the teacher with smart alec rejoinders at any opportunity” and me as “a vampire declaring an outrage if someone shows it the sign of the cross” and biblical scholars as “silly detectives” etc: all completely ludicrous.
As for identification of Neil as an ‘atheist’ blogger: Neil wonders why I haven’t called him a “Caucasian licensed automobile driver Neil Godfrey” or “Bushwalker and blues-lover heterosexual Neil Godfrey”. Obviously the ‘atheist’ epithet is significant in view of ‘Christian origins’ and his bias, just as he would refer to a Christian scholar or atheist scholar etc. I never identify people by their race or sexual orientation like Roo Buckaroo. It’s irrelevant here or anywhere. Does Neil regularly identify people like that?
As to his final sentence in his post, I can’t resist repeating it because it is a clear example of his malice and spite ‘But if “The Jesus Process (c)” aspires to make a serious contribution to the “required debunking” of the Christ-Myth it is going to have to refrain from diluting their efforts with the uncomprehending Stephanie Louise Fisher.’ Neil has already pronounced that the copyright symbol is “unnecessary but pretentious”, demonstrating his ignorance of the necessity of litigation processes, and now, in addition to his malice and spite, he demonstrates a complete lack of comprehension of the purpose and aims of the Jesus Process.
I suspect Neil has found criticisms of me while gazing at himself in the mirror.
Reply
 
 Neil Godfrey 
 May 31, 2012 at 4:02 am
Oh my Stephanie. If you wish to verify your claim that I somehow quoted Schweitzer our of context, would it not be appropriate to discuss the actual quotation of Schweitzer that I used? The context of the words I quoted were his 2 chapters on mythicism in the later edition of his book. I have generally — as I am sure you are aware — added to S’s own words supporting quotations from biblical scholars before and after Schweitzer. The words express nothing more than what ought to be an obvious truism of logic and method, a principle that applies (or ought to) to almost every area of life.
As for labelling people, no, I don’t label others as “Christian” or “atheist” or whatever. So your claim that I “would” label people the way you label me is a little misdirected.
Yes I am an atheist, but I have also expressed much sympathy for religion and the religious. Why would I abuse anyone who is now standing where I once stood myself? I have even explained that my years spent in a less than enlightened religion also gave me a number of positive experiences that I do appreciate. No-one has ever seen any post of mine attacking Christianity per se — though I do take strong exception to some aspects of its applications.
As for trumpeting my qualifications? Hoo boy, I can’t win. I have tried to be as open as possible about where my background lies. If I said nothing, I would be condemned for that. If I do answer, I am somehow “trumpeting”.
As for my colourful descriptions of abusive and rude comments, yes, I plead guilty. I think rude and abusive words deserve to be so described.
As for my knowledge of copyright matters in a digital and online environment, I suspect I know far more than most people who would ever read this. Such knowledge is part and parcel of my job.
Malice and spite, Stephanie? You know I have tried several times to mend bridges between us. Why you have never taken up my hand of friendship and embraced hopes of cordial communications and disagreements I have never understood.
Simply shouting your position louder each time is not a rebuttal. And lacing it with personal attacks does no inspire confidence that you are entirely focussed on the issues themselves.
Reply

 steph 
 May 31, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Oh my. Shouting? Yes, as you are aware, you express your opinions with malice and spite. Read what you wrote on your blog. I need not repeat here. Explicit identification, accurate descriptions and labels, are helpful to place ideas in their correct context. You deny running a mythicist blog and claim it focuses on Christian origins. It promotes various mythicist views and you are an atheist as opposed to a Christian. Therefore you are an atheist blogger. I think that’s reasonable, don’t you.
I will repeat for your benefit, what I copied from your blog which includes ‘the actual quotation’ you have used.
On his blog Godrey writes:[46]
“”‘Schweitzer understood the limitations of what generally passes for historical method far better than nearly every contemporary historical Jesus scholar I have read: “In reality, however, these writers [those arguing for the historicity of Jesus against mythicists] are faced with the enormous problem that strictly speaking absolutely nothing can be proved by evidence from the past, but can only be shown to be more or less probable. Moreover, in the case of Jesus, the theoretical reservations are even greater because all the reports about him go back to the one source of tradition, early Christianity itself, and there are no data available in Jewish or Gentile secular history which could be used as controls. Thus the degree of certainty cannot even by raised so high as positive probability.” (From page 402 of The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 2001, by Albert Schweitzer.)
Little wonder that Schweitzer called upon Christians to let go of their faith in an unknowable historical Jesus (whose very existence could not even pass the theoretical norms of positive probability) and ‘turn to a new metaphysic.’”"
This ignores the fact that, like von Ranke, whom Godfrey also loves to quote , Schweitzer was a committed German Christian and was not inveighing against the historicity of Jesus or advocating an end of the search to establish his actual historical coordinates. As such, Schweitzer believed that salvation was by faith, not by works, and historical research was merely a ‘work’. This is what he considered ‘uncertain’ about all historical research. It has nothing to do with what present-day historians or incompetent bloggers mean when they think that something is ‘historically uncertain’, which normally indicates that it may or may not have happened. It is well known that Schweitzer followed Weiss in supposing that Jesus expected the kingdom of God to come in his own time–and was mistaken. Schweitzer deserves to be quoted at length, since his memorable statement of the status quaestiones has dominated serious historical research for a century:… [quote etc]
Happy Australian bushwalking. I love bush running, especially the Waikaremoana track, Aotearoa. My favourite place, after the sea, the South Pacific ocean. Heaven on earth.
Reply

 Neil Godfrey 
 June 1, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Schweitzer was ignoring nothing when he wrote the words translated as ““In reality, however, these writers [those arguing for the historicity of Jesus against mythicists] are faced with the enormous problem that strictly speaking absolutely nothing can be proved by evidence from the past, but can only be shown to be more or less probable. Moreover, in the case of Jesus, the theoretical reservations are even greater because all the reports about him go back to the one source of tradition, early Christianity itself, and there are no data available in Jewish or Gentile secular history which could be used as controls. Thus the degree of certainty cannot even by raised so high as positive probability.”
He was making a point that you are doggedly refusing to address. You also refuse to address the context of his words — in the two chapters on mythicism that were added to a later addition of his book.
His words are not an argument for mythicism. My quote is not an argument for mythicism. It is one of a constellation of references I have garnered addressing a methodologically valid way to approach sources.
It does not logically follow from the point S was making that the Gospels’ Jesus is entirely grounded in mythology. But it does follow that we cannot begin with a presumption that the Jesus in the Gospels originates in either historical reality or mythical constructs.
As for your assertion that you somehow claim to know I am aware that I speak with malice and spite, I find that very sad. Your mind-reading skills are shocking.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 1, 2012 at 9:41 pm
@neil. Schweitzer had largely lost interest in the question before 1920 and contributed nothing to the discussion during the heyday of Bultmann . He is absent from the dead sea scrolls and later discussion and non existent in contributing to the understanding of Nag Hammadi though he was still alive. His view of Paul is antiquated and of the gospels barely transcends the nineteenth centrury. To focus on this is to focus on church history rather than modern scholarship.

 
 steph 
 June 1, 2012 at 10:05 pm
Neil, of course Schweitzer was ignoring nothing. You were. What you wrote ignored the fact that Schweitzer was following Weiss and they both DID think we could use historical methodology to demonstrate historicity in historical terms. You quote him out of his own historical context. You say, ‘I have always in discussions stressed that the methodological principle is NOT an argument for mythicism. It is an argument for an understanding of what constitutes a valid historical methodology.’ Of course, but you don’t understand Schweitzer’s context. Schweitzer believed that salvation was by faith, not by works, and historical research was merely a ‘work’. This is what he considered ‘uncertain’ about all historical research. It has nothing to do with what decent present-day historians or bloggers of Christian origins, mean when they think that something is ‘historically uncertain’, which normally indicates that it may or may not have happened. I know you know he is not a mythicist. I have said so in my essay and here. That is NOT the point. As to your denial of malice and spite – you really are quite extraordinary. Just read what you have written honestly.

 
 
 Neil Godfrey 
 June 6, 2012 at 5:54 am
Catching up with responses to my remarks relating to Schweitzer.
Both Joseph and Stephanie have completely missed the point– or maybe they have got it and must hide it with non sequiturs.
The point being made was the logic — the timeless truism — of the point expressed by Schweitzer and that is supported before and after Schweitzer by other heads just as reasonable.
My point of the attachment of the Schweitzer name was, clearly, to draw attention to the fact that the point expressed, the simple logical point that is as logical today as it has ever been, has been recognized or acknowledged by a name well known to all. That ought to attract a bit of notice and make some people think twice before dismissing it as some flippant sophistry from an atheist myther or whatever.
So what do we find from Steph and Joseph? Arrgghhh — close the curtain on the logic of the point. Quick. Bring out the historical context of S’s thoughts and everything else he said about mythicism and the HJ. Yeh, that should do it. What was the point again? Ha. It’s irrelevant, now, isn’t it!
The point remains even in the posts where I don’t quote Schweitzer and where I quote others expressing the same logic, and where I don’t quote anyone else but simply point out the same logic in practice and theory.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 6, 2012 at 6:05 am
Godfrey: “My point of the attachment of the Schweitzer name was, clearly, to draw attention to the fact that the point expressed, the simple logical point that is as logical today as it has ever been, has been recognized or acknowledged by a name well known to all. That ought to attract a bit of notice and make some people think twice before dismissing it as some flippant sophistry from an atheist myther or whatever.” What clear, simple logical point made by this well known name is that again? That Jesus was not a mythical figure but a stubbornly historical one whose churchly existence shrouded his reality in doctrine? Is that your point? Because that was Schweitzer’s. It has been acknowledged both tacitly and systematically by all critical biblical scholars since his time.

 
 steph 
 June 7, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Muddling and hiding behing non sequiturs is a projection of a typical mythicist characteristic and is not critical scholarship. Godfrey again exposes his failure to acknowledge historical context and the broader context of Schweitzer’s life work. Instead he ignores this with a persistent illusion that context is limited to and represents what he believes… which is pointless.

 
 
 
The Jesus Process Begins says:
 June 1, 2012 at 4:02 pm
[...] Eisenbaum Lecture on Paul The Jesus Process BeginsJune 1, 2012 By James F. McGrath Leave a CommentA while back, Joseph Hoffmann announced a new project with the title “The Jesus Process.&#8221…:Maurice Casey, “Mythicism: A Story of Bias, Incompetence and Falsehood”Stephanie Louise [...]
Reply
 
 The Humphreys Intervention « The New Oxonian says:
 June 27, 2012 at 11:18 am
[...] modest project called the Jesus Process has got his attention and he seems to think it doesn’t answer any of the questions he has already [...]
Reply
 

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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient

Proving What?
by rjosephhoffmann

The Revd Thomas Bayes
The Revd Thomas Bayes, 1701-1761
The current discussion among Jesus-deniers and mythicists over whether probability in the form of Bayes’s Rule can be used in historical research is more than a little amusing.
The current fad is largely the work of atheist blogger and debater Richard Carrier who despite having a PhD in ancient history likes to tout himself as a kind of natural science cum mathematics cum whachagot expert.
Carrier’s ingenuity is on full display in a recent book published by Prometheus (Buffalo, NY) in which he makes the claim that Bayes Theorem–a formula sometimes used by statisticians  when dealing with conditional probabilities– can be used to establish probability for events in the past.  That would make it useful for answering questions about whether x happened or did not happen, and for Carrier’s fans, the biggest x they would like to see answered (he claims ) is Did Jesus exist or not? 
The formula looks something like this:
Let A1, A2, … , An be a set of mutually exclusive events that together form the sample space S. Let B be any event from the same sample space, such that P(B) > 0. Then,

P( Ak | B ) = P( Ak n B )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P( A1 n B ) + P( A2 n B ) + . . . + P( An n B )
 
Invoking the fact that P( Ak n B ) = P( Ak )P( B | Ak ), Baye’s theorem can also be expressed as

P( Ak | B ) = P( Ak ) P( B | Ak )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P( A1 ) P( B | A1 ) + P( A2 ) P( B | A2 ) + . . . + P( An ) P( B | An )
 

Clear?  Of course not. At least not for everybody. But that isn’t the issue because the less clear it is the more claims can be made for its utility.  Its called the Wow! Effect and is designed to cow you into comatose submission before its (actually pretty simple) formulation, using the standard symbols used in formal logic and mathematics.
What is known by people who use Bayes’s theorem to advantage  is that there are only certain conditions when it is appropriate to use it.  Even those conditions can sound a bit onerous: In general, its use is warranted when a problem warrants its use, e.g. when
-
?The sample is partitioned into a set of mutually exclusive events { A1, A2, . . . , An }.
?Within the sample space, there exists an event B, for which P(B) > 0.
?The analytical goal is to compute a conditional probability of the form: P ( Ak | B ).
?You know at least one of the two sets of probabilities described below. ?P( Ak n B ) for each Ak
?P( Ak ) and P( B | Ak ) for each Ak 

The key to the right use of Bayes is that it can be useful in calculating conditional probabilities: that is, the probability that event A occurs given that event B has occurred.  Normally   such probabilities are used to forecast whether an event is likely to  occur, thus:

Marie is getting married tomorrow, at an outdoor ceremony in the desert. In recent years, it has rained only 5 days each year. Unfortunately, the weatherman has predicted rain for tomorrow. When it actually rains, the weatherman correctly forecasts rain 90% of the time. When it doesn’t rain, he incorrectly forecasts rain 10% of the time. What is the probability that it will rain on the day of Marie’s wedding?

StaTTrek’s solution to Marie’s conundrum looks like this:

“The sample space is defined by two mutually-exclusive events – it rains or it does not rain. Additionally, a third event occurs when the weatherman predicts rain. Notation for these events appears below.
?Event A1. It rains on Marie’s wedding.
?Event A2. It does not rain on Marie’s wedding.
?Event B. The weatherman predicts rain.
In terms of probabilities, we know the following:
?P( A1 ) = 5/365 =0.0136985 [It rains 5 days out of the year.]
?P( A2 ) = 360/365 = 0.9863014 [It does not rain 360 days out of the year.]
?P( B | A1 ) = 0.9 [When it rains, the weatherman predicts rain 90% of the time.]
?P( B | A2 ) = 0.1 [When it does not rain, the weatherman predicts rain 10% of the time.]
We want to know P( A1 | B ), the probability it will rain on the day of Marie’s wedding, given a forecast for rain by the weatherman. The answer can be determined from Bayes’ theorem, as shown below.

P( A1 | B ) = P( A1 ) P( B | A1 )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P( A1 ) P( B | A1 ) + P( A2 ) P( B | A2 )

P( A1 | B ) = (0.014)(0.9) / [ (0.014)(0.9) + (0.986)(0.1) ]
P( A1 | B ) = 0.111
Note the somewhat unintuitive result. Even when the weatherman predicts rain, it only rains only about 11% of the time. Despite the weatherman’s gloomy prediction, there is a good chance that Marie will not get rained on at her wedding.
When dealing with conditional probabilities at the loading-end of the formula, we are able to formulate the sample  space easily because the “real world conditions” demanded by the formula can be identified,  and also have data–predictions– regarding Event B, which is a third event, A1 and A2 being (the required) mutually exclusive events.
So far, you are thinking, this is the kind of thing you would use for weather, rocket launches, roulette tables and divorces since we tend to think of conditional probability as an event that has not happened but can be predicted to happen, or not happen, based on existing, verifiable occurrences.  How can it be useful in determining whether events  ”actually” transpired in the past, that is, when the sample field itself consists of what has already occurred (or not occurred) and when B is  the probability of it having happened? Or how it can be useful in dealing with events claimed to be sui generis since the real world conditions would lack both precedence and context?
To compensate for this, Carrier makes adjustments to the machinery: historical events are like any other events, only their exclusivity (A or not A) exists in the past rather than at the present time or in the future, like Marie’s wedding.  Carrier thinks he is justified in this by making historical uncertainty (i.e., whether an event of the past actually happened) the same species of uncertainty as a condition that applies to the future.  To put it crudely: Not knowing whether something will happen can be treated in the same way as not knowing whether something has happened by jiggering the formula. Managed properly, he is confident that Bayes will sort everything out in short order:

If you treat every probability you assign in the Bayesian equation as if it were a syllogism in an argument and defend each premise as sound (as you would for any other syllogism) Bayes’s theorem will solve all the problems that have left [Gerd] Theissen and others confounded when trying to assess questions of historicity.  There is really no other method on the table since all the historicity criteria so far have been shown to be flawed to the point of being in effect (or in fact) entirely useless. (Carrier, “Bayes Theorem for Beginners,” in Sources of the Jesus Tradition, 107).
What? This is a revolution in  thinking? Never mind the obvious problem:  If all the historicity criteria available have been shown to be “in fact” entirely useless and these are exactly the criteria we need to establish (“treat”)  the premises to feed into Bayes, then this condition would make Bayes compeletly useless as well–unless opposite, useful criteria could be shown to exist.  Bayes does not generate criteria and method; it depends on them, just as the solution to Marie’s dilemma depends on real world events, not on prophecy. Obversely, if Bayes is intended to record probability, the soundness of the premises is entirely vulnerable to improbable assumptions that can only poison the outcome–however “unarguable” it is by virtue of having been run through the Carrier version of the Bayes Machine.  Moreover, he either means something else when he talks about historicity criteria or is saying they exist in some other place.  In any event, the criteria must differ from premises they act upon and the conclusion Bayes delivers.
“Fundamentally flawed,” as I noted in a previous post, is the application of Bayes to data where no “real world data and conditions” can be said to apply.  It was this rather steep lapse in logic that led a former student of mine, who is now studying pure mathematics at Cambridge to remark,

Is this insistence [Carrier's] of trying to invoke Bayes’ theorem in such contexts a manifestation of some sort of Math or Physics envy? Or is it due to the fact that forcing mathematics into one’s writings apparently confers on them some form of ‘scientific’ legitimacy?
The fact of the matter, as far as I know, and as I thought anyone would realize is that Bayes’ theorem is a theorem which follows from certain axioms. Its application to any real world situation depends upon how precisely the parameters and values of our theoretical reconstruction of a real world approximate reality. At this stage, however, I find it difficult to see how the heavily feared ‘subjectivity’ can be avoided. Simply put, plug in different values into the theorem and you’ll get a different answer. How does one decide which value to plug in?
Secondly, is it compulsory to try to impose some sort of mathematically based methodological uniformity on all fields of rational inquiry? Do there exist good reasons to suppose the the methods commonly used in different areas that have grown over time are somehow fatally flawed if they are not currently open to some form of mathematization?
If this kind of paradigm does somehow manage to gain ascendency, I assume history books will end up being much more full of equations and mathematical assumptions etc. While that will certainly make it harder to read for most (even for someone like me, who is more trained in Mathematics than the average person) I doubt that it would have any real consequence beyond that.”
In fairness to Carrier, however, the use of Bayes is probably not being dictated by logic, or a respect for the purity of mathematics, nor perhaps even because he thinks it can work.
It is simply being drawn (unacknowledged) from the debater’s handbook used by Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne, who (especially through 2007) was active globally debating the question of God’s existence, under the title “Is there a God?” using Bayes’s Theorem as his mainstay.  Not only this, but Swinburne is the editor of the most distinguished collection of essays on Bayes’s Theorem (Oxford, 2002).  In case you are interested in outcomes, Swinburne formulates the likelihood of God in relation to one argument for his existence (the cosmological) this way:  P (e I h & k) = .50  The “background knowledge” Swinburne needs to move this from speculation to a real world condition is “the existence [e] over time of a complex physical universe.”  In order to form a proposition for debate properly, Swinburne depends on the question “Is There a God,” which gives a clear modality:  A and A1.

Unlike Carrier, I believe, I have had the dubious pleasure of having debated Swinburne face to face at Florida State University in 2006. A relatively complete transcript of my opening remarks was posted online in 2010. In case it is not clear, I took the contra side, arguing against the proposition.
I knew enough of Swinburne’s work (and enough of his legendary style from graduate students he had mentored at Oxford) to be on guard for his use of Bayes.  Unlike Carrier, Swinburne is both a theologian and a specialist in formal logic, whose undergraduate degree was in philosophy, politics and economics.  He travels the two worlds with ease and finesse and his most prominent books—The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason--are heavy reads.
But he is quite uncomfortable with historical argumentation.  Historical argumentation is both non-intuitive and probabilistic (in the sense of following the “law of likelihood”); but tends to favor the view that Bayes’s excessive use of “prior possibilities”  are subjective and lack probative force.   So, when I suggested he could not leap into his Bayesian proofs for God’s existence until he told me what God he was talking about, he seemed confused.  When I scolded him that the God he kept referring to sounded suspiciously biblical and fully attributed, he defended himself with, “I mean what most people mean when they say God.” When I retorted that he must therefore mean what most atheists mean when they say there is not God, he replied that arguing the atheist point of view was my job, not his.   When I said that any God worth arguing about would have to be known through historical documents, the autheticity and epistemological value of which for a debate like this would have to be tested by competent historical research, he became  impatient to get back to his formula, which works slowly and cancerously from givens to premises–to the prize: the unarguable conclusion.  It seems Swinburne thought the fundamentalist yahoos (not my interpretation) would be so dazzled by the idea of an “unarguable argument” for God’s existence that he would win handily.
Except for those  pesky, untended, historical premises.   Not to let a proficient of Bayes get past his premises is the sure way to cause him apoplexy, since Bayes is a premise-eating machine.  Like any syllogistic process, it cannot burp out its unarguable conclusions otherwise.  The result was that in an an overwhelmingly Evangelical-friendly audience of about 500 Floridians, the debate was scored 2 to 1 in my favour: Swinburne lost chiefly because of The Revd. Thomas Bayes.

And this is the trouble Richard Carrier will also need to confront, sooner or later.  He will not solve the primary objections to the use of Bayes’s Law by telling people they don’t get it (many do), or that there are no other methods on the table (where did they go to?), or that all existing historicity criteria, to use a more familiar word in the lexicon he uses on his blog, are “fucked.”
It is rationally (still a higher term than logically)  impossible to use the existence of the world in which thinking about God takes place as the real-world condition that makes it possible to use cosmology as the real-world condition proving his existence.  As Kant complained of Anselm’s ontology, existence is not essence.  It is not argument either. The defeater in this case is history: God has one, in the sense that all ideas about God are historically generated and directly susceptible to historical description and analysis.
And he could learn a thing or two from Swinburne’s sad fate, which is adequately summarized in this blog review of the philosopher’s most extensive use of the Theorem in his 2003 book, The Resurrection of God Incarnate.

Using Bayesian probability and lashings of highfalutin’ mathematical jargon, Swinburne argues that “it [is] very probable indeed that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ who rose from the dead” (p. 214). His mathematical apologetics for the resurrection boils down to the following argument:
1.The probability of God’s existence is one in two (since God either exists or doesn’t exist).
2.The probability that God became incarnate is also one in two (since it either happened or it didn’t).
3.The evidence for God’s existence is an argument for the resurrection.
4.The chance of Christ’s resurrection not being reported by the gospels has a probability of one in 10.
5.Considering all these factors together, there is a one in 1,000 chance that the resurrection is not true.
It’s almost impossible to parody this argument (since in order to parody it, you would have to imagine something sillier – a daunting task!). But let me try:
The probably that the moon is made of cheese is one in two (since it is either made of cheese or it isn’t);
the probability that this cheese is Camembert is also one in two (since it’s either camembert or it isn’t); and so on.
At any rate, while Carrier loads his debating machine with still more improbable premises, I am going on the hunt for those missing historicity criteria.  They must be here someplace.  I do wish children would put things back where they found them.
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Published: May 29, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: agnosticism : atheism : Bayes theorem : humanism : Jesus : Jesus Process : myth theory : R. Joseph Hoffmann : religion : Richard Carrier : Skepticism ..
70 Responses to “Proving What?”

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 Atheara Valentin 
 May 29, 2012 at 3:02 pm
I think this argument is almost exactly what I would want to say about Bayes’ theorem in history, social science, etc. But only almost exactly. It seems just right to me to say that Bayes’ theorem cannot provide methods in the historical sense (although it can in a statistical sense). That is, Bayes’ theorem does not tell you which set of hypotheses should be tested, what the conditional probability of the evidence given the hypotheses should be, or what the observed evidence in fact is (let alone background knowledge games). All of that has to come from things like substantive expertise, social-science and historical reasoning, and plain old interpretation of textual and other evidence. If you want to use Bayes’ theorem it will be a kind of back-end bookkeeping after the traditional work of history has already been done. In my view that kind of bookkeeping can nonetheless be a good idea — but it by definition produces no new knowledge.
The one line of reasoning in this post to which I’d object involves the arguments regarding the set of domains to which Bayesian reasoning can be applied. Bayesians routinely defend a subjective conception of probability as epistemological confidence, an idea that obviously applies much more broadly than just to problems of prediction or objectively chancy processes. A useful overview is here: http://www.princeton.edu/~bayesway/Book*.pdf
While people have a variety of reactions to the idea of subjective probability, that is a complex and at least hopefully separate debate from arguments over mythicism. If we grant that subjective probability is a plausibly coherent worldview, then we have to agree that probability can be relevant to history. But we should return to insist that probability theory adds no knowledge to the argument — it by definition is a truth-preserving mode of analysis, and therefore can only re-express what we already knew in other ways. In history, this means that any probability analysis is only as good as the standard historical analysis that is fed into the front end.
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 Antonio Jerez 
 May 29, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Brilliant!!! And now I am off to Turkey to get some fun in the sun -:)
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 Albert 
 May 29, 2012 at 6:51 pm
One of the problems with using Bayes’ theorem is that in the context of historical arguments is that you would need to have some background in mathematics to know when and when not to apply it. The reason Bayes’ theorem works for roulette wheels and other simply physical phenomena is that the results being predicted are unentangled from considerations other than the condition. That is, one spin of the roulette wheel under condition X is just like every other spin of the roulette wheel under those conditions. This cannot be said for historical circumstances which are notoriously messy. One cannot, for example, use probabilities to determine whether particular Roman emperors might have been poisoned without considering circumstances unique to their particular situation and controversies arising at the time. Such conditions make a calculation impossible since there is no precedent as the circumstances of each emperor was unique. What Carrier is doing is an example of someone with just enough knowledge to not realize he is in way over his head. At least Swinburne was an expert on the subject and perhaps knew just how far to reach. Carrier just makes a fool of himself.
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 Bernard Muller 
 May 29, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Excellent post. I hope for more from you in that direction.
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 steph 
 May 29, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Richard Carrier defines delusion by three criteria: certainty, incorrigibilty and impossibility or falsity of content. He argues that “the Christian religion is so manifestly contrary to the facts, belief in it can only be held with the most delusional gerrymandering imaginable.” Yet Revd Bayes was Christian, therefore according to Carrier, deluded. Has Carrier been seduced by the delusional gerrymandering of a Christian?
I’m pretty sure Gerd Theissen and others are entertained by the naive certainty of Carrier’s self confident claim that “all” the “historicity criteria” so far have been shown to be “flawed to the point of being in effect (or in fact) entirely useless.” How extraordinary. He might be surprised to discover his assumption is not actually ‘unarguable.’
Swinburne, how ironic. On the debate, I’d wish I could have heard all of it. And the essay above, Antonio said it first – brilliant.
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 brettongarcia 
 May 30, 2012 at 2:31 am
Why should good theologians and believers, be afraid of, of hesitant about, Math and Science? There is really no good reason why in fact, the good Reverand Bayes’ and/or other theories of probability, shouldn’t be applied to religious history, as well as to future predictions. The principle is the same: in both cases, whether we are going forwards, or back into the past, we are dealing with unknowns; and trying to calulate the probability of this or that assertion, relative to know facts.
And? It is not so hard to get known facts out of History, after all. Especially consider: particularly, presumably, the Laws of Physics for example, held in ancient times, as well as today. And therefore? We might use the Laws of Physics, and other scientific facts, as a certain constant or baseline. That would be presumed to hold in the (relatively recent) past, as well as in our own time.
It is a shame that IN your Florida State (?) debate with Swinburne, the Oxford professor, he chose an uweildly first example: the attempt to prove God. Which indeed, quickly leads to problems of 1) premises; defining God. And 2) problems of entanglement; finding “facts” that can be firmly said to be “independent” of that premise. (Though many might say that scientific facts, the laws of conventional physics in everyday life, would be independent?).
But Swrinburne, as our author here acknowledges, holds a far, far more prestigeous postion at Oxford, than lowly Florida State. And we should listen to him: no doubt his application might be saved, with a few tweaks, a few refinements. For example? First of all, consider applying Bayes to a more modest application: say, attempting to calculate teh probability of specific miracles by Jesus. Like say,the likelihood of walking on water. Examining that, relative to the (also Historical facts, like), the Laws of Physics, the known capacities of human beings, physical evidence, and so forth.
In fact, furthermore, the number of variables in looking at the past, is not necessarily so much greater than applying probability today, in roulette wheels, or in scientific experiments. Even in Historical studies, the number of variables can in effect, be controlled, by careful selection, narrowing, of the target: what we choose to try to prove as likely, or unlikely. While the scientific and historical base can be established simply by chosing scientific facts, laws, as our historical baseline of even historically likely/certain facts.
No doubt there will still be many variables and unknowns in the application of Math and science to ancient history. Still, the application of Math and probability should begin to bring a much, much higher degree of accuracy, to our study of this era. Now that we have passed through (and answered?) Dr. Hoffmanns’ preliminary objections to the first, admittedly crude attempts to apply the Theory.
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 Michael Wilson 
 May 30, 2012 at 2:10 pm
You should read Joe’s post. We have no way establishing probabilities for events in the distant past. As one commenter asked, what would be the odds that an emperor 2000 years ago died by assassination rather than natural cause? We have no way establishing this. What profit do you really think would be gained by using Bayes to the miracle of walking on water? Does it really require an equation to tell us that this has never been observed to happen and is not possible according to known laws of physics? Joe and Steph are right; Carrier’s idea is nothing more than a garbage in garbage out machine.
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 brettongarcia 
 May 30, 2012 at 3:29 pm
It does not indeed, require an equation to tell us that it is unlikely that Jesus literally walked on water. But 1) the information supporting this is not “garbage”: it is Science.
And then? 2) Having that and other relative certainties, as reference points, we can next begin to triangulate other, less certain asserted realities around them, assessing their relative probability, and likely nature.
So that? 3) We CAN begin to see which items in current histories are likely to have been true … and which are not.
So that? We can begin to find out what most likely, actually happened.
By the way? 4) Nuclear Physics did pretty well with mere probability; and, with due reservations and modifications, Probability will also do wonders, even in (currently) less exact applications, in History.
Certainly, 5) it will be no more inaccurate than many other methods currently accepted in history; especially the various “criteria” used in Historical Jesus Studies.
Though for that matter? 6) Historical Jesus studies in part, already use some of these criteria; when they ignore, write of, the miracles of Jesus, they are using Science, as one of their relatively certain reference points.
7) Can Probability even tell us whether it was likely that a given emperor was assassinated, or died of natural causes? Of course it can; if we know that he died say, in Pompeii when the eruption occured for example, that would indicate a high probability of natural causes. Especially if we find next, even more corroborating evidence.
Do we get absolute certainty out of Probability? Not always. But we get some real insight into the past, at last.

 
 Albert 
 May 31, 2012 at 8:29 am
brentongarcia,
In the example you gave of nuclear physics doing well with probability, you unwittingly revealed exactly why it does not apply when discussing ancient history. Physics is determined by laws where the experiment is repeatable and testable and it would not matter if you performed the experiment in 2012 CE or 2012 BCE – the results of physics should be the same.
This is not the case when determining probabilities for complex social interactions in different eras. One of the most common mistakes is to project our own expected reaction to a given situation on those from entirely different cultures in different eras. There is simply no possible way of setting the probabilities for the sorts of events that would be interesting.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 31, 2012 at 9:23 am
@Albert. Precisely. It is very nice to be able to use that word; I do not think I have had a chance to do so once in this discussion. I will send you the 866-number for your prize as soon as I buy it.

 
 
 
 steph 
 May 30, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Richard Carrier defines delusion by three criteria: certainty, incorrigibilty and impossibility or falsity of content. He argues that “the Christian religion is so manifestly contrary to the facts, belief in it can only be held with the most delusional gerrymandering imaginable.” Yet Revd Bayes was Christian, therefore according to Carrier, deluded. Has Carrier been seduced by the delusional gerrymandering of a Christian?
I’m pretty sure Gerd Theissen and others are entertained by the naive certainty of Carrier’s self confident claim that “all” the “historicity criteria” so far have been shown to be “flawed to the point of being in effect (or in fact) entirely useless.” How extraordinary. He might be surprised to discover his assumption is not actually ‘unarguable.’
Swinburne, how ironic. On the debate, I’d wish I could have heard all of it. And it the essay above, loved it.
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 Mark Johnson 
 May 30, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Dr. Hoffmann, I too hope for more from you on this topic. Though I think you misread Carrier if you think he is motivated in any way about scoring debating points.
I think he makes his motivations clear in his recently published book (i.e. problems with historical methodologies in general and with respect to HJS in particular). And it is to those motivations that I would be most interesting in hearing your opinions. Whether you agree with his analysis or not. And why or why not.
Clearly, you disagree that Bayes Theorem can play a part in solving the problems Carrier is interested in addressing. But if you agree with him that there are methodological problems in HJS then what do you see as the solution?
And if you disagree that there are problems then can you comment on the scholarly references he points to? Is he just cherry picking?
Thanks.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 30, 2012 at 2:01 pm
@Mark. Yes, I’m actually in the middle of a book on non-historicity, and have had to enlarge it to take account of views of non-historicity that use probabilistic rather than analogous argumentation, and Bayes is a form of probabilism. Actually, as I hope I suggested, Bayes can be great fun as a debating tool or device, but it isn’t probative at all. At its guts in the historical arena it can’t be better than the evidence and verdicts on the premises are highly intuitive. In short, it does not seem to satisfy the sort of real world conditions that would justify its use.
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 steph 
 May 30, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Mark: No critical biblical scholars deny that there are problems in methodology and application of criteria, particularly in view of some of the more evangelical approaches for example. This is why critical scholars continually discuss methodology and incorporate interdisciplinary approaches. With debate and new evidence and argument, methodology evolves. We do not pronounce ‘all’ traditional method and criteria redundant because they are not. An analogy to demonstrate – my piano is out of tune but it does not need to be thrown out – it needs to be retuned. Or a better analogy, my computer needs software upgrading. That’s not right either because it’s only another analogy and by definition analogies are always false. But you might get my drift.
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 brettongarcia 
 May 30, 2012 at 2:30 pm
If historical probabilism can’t be better than historical facts (which I don’t accept), then that would at least, put it on par with Historical Jesus criteria, say, and their “facts.”
But for that matter, how reliable are the Historical Jesus “criteria,” and the things they claim to derive? Carrier – a real, not strictly religious historian – criticized them.
And I here submit that HJ criteria, are so inexact for their own part, that if they are applied as they commonly are misapplied to Jesus, but now to a cartoon character like Daffy Duck – historical Jesus “objective criteria” would also “prove” Daffy Duck’s “real historical existence”:
1) The Criterion of MULTIPLE ATTESTATION: hundreds of Daffy Duck cartoons attest to the existence of Daffy Duck: therefore, Daffy is historical. (While competing accounts, that say Daffy is a myth or “cartoon,” can be discounted as heresied, or deviant accounts. As follows).
2) The Criterion of EMBARRASMENT This suggests that accounts of our miraculous, talking duck, MUST represent a real historical tradition; since no one would invent anything so daffy, or silly. The Daffy accounts, could only have been retained, in spite of their embarrasingly funny and improbable nature …. because they represented a solid historical tradition, that could not be simply dropped.
3) Criterion of DIFFERENCE. If there are other, different media accounts, that refute Daffy’s miraculous self? (I.e., accounts by “Loony Tunes” writers and producers, that they “created” Daffy? ). Again – extending the criterion of Embarrasment – this merelysuggests that the Historical Daffy accounts were retained, even in the face of oposition; so that therefore, they must be historical and true.
Therefore? Carrier is right: the various allegedly objective “criteria” used to “prove” the existence of Historical Jesus … are actually simply, literally, laughable.
So that indeed? A better historiographical methodology – one incorporating Bayes for example (in spite of Bayes’ nominal religiosity), would no doubt be an improvement over what we have today, in Historical Jesus Studies for example.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 May 30, 2012 at 3:33 pm
@Garcia: I post this with some reluctance because it is full of mistakes, beginning with the assertion that “If historical probabilism can’t be better than historical facts (which I don’t accept), then that would at least, put it on par with Historical Jesus criteria, say, and their “facts.” What do you not accept? Probability is not a condition of facts; it is the likelihood of an event occurring. You then go through Carrier’s standard debate spiel regarding some methods of criticism often applied to biblical texts. These methods were not designed to address the question of the historicity of Jesus; they were designed to establish what might be primary and what might be later or secondary to the tradition. You have presented, moreover, a satire of them, based on Carrier’s misrepresentations. And you conclude on the basis of this satire that “Carrier is right.” Right about what? That the criteria are imperfect; sure. That Bayes can operate in their place? How? BayesT has no way of creating the organic relationship or “real world conditions” under which the historical record developed, and it cannot operate on thin air. It has to be fed premises that are based on interpretations; if interpretations deriving from the historical method that does have an organic relationship to the life situation described in the record are set aside, where do we go for fuel? Bayes is useful for certain conditions, usually predictive of events that have not yet occurred–a drop in stock values, e.g.–but for which a sample field can be constructed. Its use in historical studies has no track record, and not for no reason: no one is afraid of it; it is just that it cannot do the job that it is claimed by Carrier it can do. Finally: What do you mean by Bayes’ “nominal religiosity”–I suspect it means that you thought he was a computer scientist and not an 18thc century preacher? And best till last: you say, “How reliable are the Historical Jesus “criteria,” and the things they claim to derive? Carrier – a real, not strictly religious historian – criticized them.” There are surely criteria for dates, origins, textual occurrence, and even putative authorship (Paul or imposter Paul) which are used by critical biblical scholars at places like Oxford and Harvard and Claremont to name only a few. Questions of forgery or textual date, for example, might be fun to play with using Bayes, like putting donuts in a sausage machine, but it would be no improvement on the standard ways of assessing evidence from the past. To be blunt, I see no groundswell of enthusiasm for Carrier’s proposals at any of the places I just mentioned, and many people who are employed at these places might dispute the notion that he, not they., are “real scholars.” I think you might well quit while you are only a little behind. You need to understand these ironclad premises you like to form; they are actually a very good example of why feeding BT the wrong food will always give you the wrong answer.
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 brettongarcia 
 May 30, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Thank you for withholding some criticisms; my doctorate is not in the field of Religious Studies, for example, and no doubt I occasionally make some obvious mistakes here. But I do feel that, as a specialist in Interdisciplinary Studies, I can still make an occasionally valid contribution. Even as? The Rev. Bayes, though he was “in religion,” was nevertheless also able to make a contribution, in Mathematics. (Enough to make some wonder at his devotion to religion?).
Today to be sure, in spite of an already-fairly-long early history, probability is in its infancy as applied to history. And yet iit has long been used in Sociology. And in our computer era? No doubt it will be making continuous advances; just as Statistics became immensely important, in Sociology.
To bring Probability up to date, and expand it? here I used the term “Probabilities,” to stand for, at times, not just the likelihood of a thing, but the “probable event” itself. The statiscially-indicated entity.
And? of course, since statistical Probability is already applied in Sociology, to almost the full range of human events? It can easily be extended beyond study of religious texts. And therefore, beyond Carrier himself? It can be applied to the historical question of the likilihood of Jesus’ real existence, and its exact nature.
How can it do this? If all we have are subjective historical accounts, How can it recreate “real world” conditions to help its predictions of the likilihood of this or that historical event?
I’ve just attempted to answer that in another part of this blog: in part, it can rely on Science, and the laws of nature, roughly understood, as being constant, and inhereing in, forming events, in the time of Jesus, as well as in our own time.
Presumably, the laws of Physics existed in the time of Jesus too. and form a sort of constant baseline reference. Earthquakes, eclipses, dietary habits found in ancient bones, and tons of scientific data too, can then be cross-referenced aagainst subjective historical accounts, to triangulate the probable reality of what happened in ancient times.

 
 Michael Wilson 
 May 30, 2012 at 8:27 pm
“Presumably, the laws of Physics existed in the time of Jesus too. and form a sort of constant baseline reference. Earthquakes, eclipses, dietary habits found in ancient bones, and tons of scientific data too, can then be cross-referenced aagainst subjective historical accounts, to triangulate the probable reality of what happened in ancient times”
Great, then using the laws of physics, earth quakes, eclipses and dietary habits ask “Dr” Carrier to find out whether Alexander the Great had a tomb and where we can find it. Hell, I would settle for Jimmy Hoffa.

 
 
 
Proving This! — Hoffmann on Bayes’ Theorem « Vridar says:
 May 31, 2012 at 2:00 am
[...] on New Oxonian, Hoffmann is at it again. In “Proving What?” Joe is amused by the recent Bayes’ Theorem (BT) “fad,” championed by [...]
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 steph 
 May 31, 2012 at 1:32 pm
More irrelevant over confident incompetence. Ridiculous.
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 Brettongarcia 
 June 1, 2012 at 1:14 pm
More simple judgments from Steph, with no rational arguments offered.

 
 malcolm 
 June 2, 2012 at 10:10 am
Excellent summary of Hoffmann’s blog post! Short and to the point.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 11:19 am
Confused? Anyway, I see you have written your part two. Will straighten you out on your assertions after the weekend when I have time. It’s going to have to roast in moderation purgatory until then. But a quick preview: No one is arguing that BT cannot be used in cases where the word “probability” occurs because semantically probability relates to the likelihood of occurrence. I suggest that when you deconstruct the word likelihood however and transpose likelihood to complex historical data from ancient periods you will have identified a good reason why using Bayes is not warranted—-useful.

 
 steph 
 June 2, 2012 at 7:37 pm
BG and Malcolm. Do you really believe that mock ‘review’ on Vridar deserves more than six words? No. You merely ‘bite’ with malicious ad hominen comments and pontificate with verbose pseudo ‘lectures’ or silly caricatures.

 
 
 Albert 
 June 1, 2012 at 2:16 am
I’m afraid Mr. Godfrey did not understand the basic tenor of the conversation in the video he cited. Again, you find the speaker noting Bayes’ success in finding things where the decision process involved purely physical criteria: missing wreckage of an airplane, proving cancer causes smoking, etc. Given some basic though incomplete criteria, Bayes is very successful determining the probabilities for such phenomenon with limiited information because of the constancy of the physical processes involved. The physical/chemical/biological processes are the same regardless of the time and place. He simply does not get the difference between such phenomena and complex socio-political interactions that introduce unique circumstances to the decision process. As someone with a background in mathematics, this is what happens when someone with a limited background in both mathematics and history does when they attempt to use both.
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 Hajk 
 June 1, 2012 at 5:15 pm
I will first make my own situation and position clear on this: I am niether a mathematician, nor an historian. I am aware of the fact that no mythicist case has ever made it through peer review. I also feel that mainstream scholarship has not done an dequate job of refuting mythicism for the popular audience. I wish someone like Ehrman who writes not only for scholars, but also for the popular audience had not chosen to dismiss it in the same way. Because even if schol;ars can understand what the problem with it is, they have not managed to convey it properly to those who are not from their ranks. A much better exercise in debunking is needed and that is sorely missing. Someone like me, who is an amateur finds much of what Doherty says (for example) significant and hard to ignore. But I am willing to see how a proper scholar would undermine his case. This is not something mainstream scholarship has shown much intention of doing.
Similarly, I have been a fan Carrier’s work for some time. His responses to apolgists on the secular web are amongst the best available, and I have benefitted much from what he has written. In fact I will certainly buy this book in order to support him and his work.
That said, I have been ambivalent about this work of Carrier’s for some time. Bayesianism has been heavily debated in philosiophy for decades now. For an outsider like Carrier to come in and think that he could settle the issues on this seems quite strange. I actually thought that all that Christian apologists would have to do to dismiss such a case would be to appeal to standard counter-arguments from the philosophical literature and be done with it. I didn’t actually expect this to become such a bone of contention amongst atheists.
As for Vridar’s comment, however, it seems like he is missing the points made. Moreover, what does he mean by saying:
“his former student who’s studying “pure mathematics” (bright, shiny, and clean, no doubt) at Cambridge”
Does he not know that “Pure Mathemtics”, “Applied Mathematics” etc. are actual subdivisions of the subject of Mathematics as it is normally taught? In fact here are the links to the two departments at the very university Dr. Hoffmn mentions:
http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/
And then he says:
“You don’t have to do very much research to discover that Bayes’ Theorem does not fear subjectivity; it welcomes it. Subjective probability is built into the process. And you say you’re not sure about what value to plug in for prior probability? Then guess! No, really, it’s OK. What’s that? You don’t even have a good guess? Then plug in 50% and proceed.
It’s Bayes’ casual embrace of uncertainty and subjectivity — its treatment of subjective prior probability (degree of belief) — that drives the frequentists crazy. However, the results speak for themselves.”
I wonder if he even understands what the fellow he is ridiculing was actually arguing (or alternatively, I may not be understanding it), but it seems to me that he has conceded the point. Because on the basis of what is he going to make his guess? Will Bayes solve that? If you don’t have a good guess then pluHence BT’s imposed discipline is extraordinarily useful, since we can now haggle over the inputs (that’s why they’re called variables) rather than argue over intuitive conclusions about plausibility g 50%? William Lane Craig thinks that the probability that God would raise Jesus from the dead is “inscrutable”. Should we plug 50 %? I may think the probability that documents survived from the destruction of Jersalem that became the basis of Tacitus’ knowledge of Christianity is 5%. You may think it is 0.0005%. I may think that the probability that something actually stood at the place where the Testimonium Flavianum now stands (after having read all arguments from both sides) is 3.87446%. You may think it is 0.845532%. J.P. Meier may think it is 50%. Crossan may think it is 42%. Josh McDowell may think it is 90%. Is Bayes going to tell us which to use? And if so, then it will only do so by assuming other probailities to begin with. How are we going to get these? That is how ‘Plugging in different values gives us different answers’. But to Vridar, this is natural because it is a “common feature of equations.” So what? The fact that there is such uncertainty nd ambiguity involved here is exactly the point beuing argued. The fact that it is a common feature of equations makes one wonder if equations of this nature actually are the tools that should be used to decide things here. And that is the point in dispute.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Yes @Hajk: I was laughing politely when Vridar/Godfey made the bumble about “pure mathematics” in scare quotes; it reveals that he is a complete loser in anything related to mathematics, and when he goes on to complain that Bayes doesn’t “fear subjectivity it welcomes it” may as well toss in the towel as far as its probative force goes. Odd, someone conceding your points and then claiming victory. Even well-wishers of Carrier’s in various blog reviews have remonstrated that he should not have used the Jesus question as a test case, especially when the whole question of its application in historical studies is as yet unproved. Maybe we should plug in “Bayes is/is not useful in historical study” and see what happens with the probability. Godfrey also doesn’t know the difference between statistical/mathematical and epistemological probability, but it is clear that some people making claims of the later variety are hoping to present tham as “certainties” in the former category. I also give you the trophy for the most rational BT comment of the day: “William Lane Craig thinks that the probability that God would raise Jesus from the dead is “inscrutable”. Should we plug 50 %? I may think the probability that documents survived from the destruction of Jersalem that became the basis of Tacitus’ knowledge of Christianity is 5%. You may think it is 0.0005%. I may think that the probability that something actually stood at the place where the Testimonium Flavianum now stands (after having read all arguments from both sides) is 3.87446%. You may think it is 0.845532%. J.P. Meier may think it is 50%. Crossan may think it is 42%. Josh McDowell may think it is 90%. Is Bayes going to tell us which to use? And if so, then it will only do so by assuming other probailities to begin with. How are we going to get these? That is how ‘Plugging in different values gives us different answers’. But to Vridar, this is natural because it is a “common feature of equations.” So what?” As Morton Smith once said, I would rather put my trust in the myths of the Bible than in anything the mythics come up with: this is another example of hyperhypotheticalism with strong lashings of Macbeth 5.5 ( “it is a tale
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.”)

 
 Hajk 
 June 1, 2012 at 5:52 pm
After this he goes on to say:
“The proper application of BT forces us to estimate the prior probabilities. It encourages us to quantify elements that we might not have even considered in the past. It takes into account our degree of belief about a subject. And it makes us apply mathematical rigor to topics we used to think could be understood only through intuition. Hence BT’s imposed discipline is extraordinarily useful, since we can now haggle over the inputs (that’s why they’re called variables) rather than argue over intuitive conclusions about plausibility — because truthfully, when a scholar writes something like “Nobody would ever make that up,” it’s nothing but an untested assertion.”
And what about the numbers that we choose to make up that Vridar suggests we “haggle over”? Will they be anything beyond untested assertions? How does one go about testing what the probability that Justus of Tiberias would have mentioned Jesus, given that Jesus had existed is? This isn’t some lab situation where such testability normally works.
That said, Vridar may have a point in saying that BT may in some cases force us to think about things that we may have otherwise missed. For example, it is possible that a scholar considers many things plausible, but considers something else implausible. However, someone may use Bayes theorem to argue that if she considers A and B and C plausible (so maybe above 50% probibility), then she ought to consider D plausible as well. In this manner it can perhaps be helpful, i.e. as a means to force people to be consistent in terms of their subjctive evaluations. Of course once people get the hang of it they’ll simply start readjusting their initial probability estimates. As such, its primary purpose would be to force people to admit some of their biases by quantifying them. The question remains as to whether such quantification can even apply to such things (again, I am not a mathematician, but I assume this will assume the existence of a function that yeilds a one-one correspondence between the [0, 1] interval on the real line and the set of biases that a person can hold, a mathematician can correct me on this however). That of course has to be the assumption that must be granted before we start working with this. But if that assumption is granted, then it can be a bookkeeping tool as someone here has also mentioned.
In that way, one can use it in addition to the traditional methods of doing history (which will also help one in trying to reach different subjective probability conclusions on these issues).
Once again, I will state that in general I am admirer of Richard Carrier’s work, and still think that there may be much useful historical argumentation in what he has written, even if divorced from the Bayesian context. In fact as I have not really read his book as yet, I am still willing to wait and see if he actually has dealt with these problems well. But I do believe Vridar’s response here was nowhere near strong enough to legitimize the way he is deriding the ones who don’t agree with him. He should also recognize (just like Ehrman and co. should with the mythicist position) that there are more legitimate questions here than he acknowledges, and flippant mockery or dismissals will not do much to remove them. Nor, as I have indicated, am I currently trying to enter the interminable philosophical debate over Bayesianism (for those interested in this, they may start here:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/)
Apologies for any bad spelling or misunderstandings etc. because English is not my first language.

 
 Neil Godfrey 
 June 5, 2012 at 2:19 am
Albert, I don’t know what video you think I have cited but everything I have myself written on Bayes’ theorem is archived at http://vridar.wordpress.com/category/historiography/bayes-theorem-historiography/ along with two posts by Tim Widowfield. If you find anything amiss in what I have written — with any of my own views and understanding of Bayes and its potential relevance — do feel free to address my words.
Nonetheless, I do find a comment of yours to be based on a lack of understanding of the application of BT in historical questions. You write:

He simply does not get the difference between such phenomena and complex socio-political interactions that introduce unique circumstances to the decision process.
I don’t know why you presume that I do not “get the difference” between the predictable processes governing physical/chemical/biological phenomena and “complex socio-political interactions”. Would you like to demonstrate or clarify your point with a specific example that you fear I might misapply to a Bayesian process?
Do you have difficulty with the way BT is applied in archaeology?
As Tim Widowfield has recently pointed out, some critics of BT here are really failing to understand the basics addressed and regularly confuse conclusions with prior probabilities. http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/hoffmann-serf-reviews-my-bayes-theorem-post-proving-this/

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 5, 2012 at 12:35 pm
@Godfey again: As to Widowfield: Who has used the term prior probabilities? Not me. Don’t confuse an assertion—-e.g., Bayes theorem cannot be made to work in a field driven by hermeneutics and complex historical data from the distant past — with not understanding how Bayes’s theorem operates. It is precisely that we do understand that we are saying it is inapplicable and useless. Disagreement does not betoken misunderstanding-it just points to disagreement. So that I don’t repeat myself–you ask elsewhere about BT in archaeology. Archaeology is that field of study that we used to joke was stuck between a rock and a hard plant. Archaeology makes use of all kinds of statistical bases for dating purposes. The use of Bayes can be defended when hard evidence is available. Even in archaeology there are better methods, however—BT being far too subjective. The gospels are only hard evidence if we are talking about manuscript or papyrus history–what 19th century scholarship called the lower criticism. Try this: If we had a unique MS written in Hebrew (make it Latin to keep Spin happy) dating irrefragably from the year 35 that described the trial and execution of a criminal named Yeshu ben Stada, what would you do with it? I know that a Christian fundamentalst would say it “proves” Jesus. I know a skeptic would say “What’s 35 got to do with it: Yeshu is a common name.” We have scholarship because the divide between these positions, even if you can reduce it to equations, will NOT be settled by an equation. The reason for that is that the hermeneutical task—the high criticism–is not amenable to shortcuts, especially ones that are designed to “solve” problems that the theorem was never intended to solve.

 
 labarum 
 June 20, 2012 at 10:05 am
@Neil Godfrey
First, I apologize for the lateness of this response. Your comment was lost in the shuffle and I did not realize until this time you had responded to me.
I have no problem with the way things were applied in archaeology or in finding the missing airplane, etc., but this illustrates the iterative nature of applying Bayes. That is, it works best when there is an endgame: they find the missing archeological location, they find the airplane, etc. The reason is that even when you make a wrong assumption, the mathematics guides you to a good first place to look, then an iterative process of elimination and reapplication guides you further until you close in on the paydirt. Thus it is a process to guide where to look for something when you have some idea when you have achieved the correct answer. It does not, however, make your prior iterations correct – they are merely the best place to look at each iteration. At some point you will find the thing and Bayes is a great way for conducting a search. In a sense, one might compare it to googling nature itself to find what you are looking for but you need to know when some particular iteration has hit paydirt to move to the next step.
So how exactly does one “find” when Jesus existed? Or, better yet, how does one find a “nonexistent Jesus”? Or how does one find the inner thoughts of someone: For example, how do we know when we have reached Constantine’s real thoughts when he issued the Edict of Milan? We can make judgments based upon his later actions and his earlier beliefs but there is no point where Bayes will lead us to the process of elminating a possibility in such situations.

 
 
 
 Ben Schuldt 
 May 31, 2012 at 2:14 am
Subscribing.
Reply

 steph 
 May 31, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Gosh.
Reply
 
 
 Scott 
 May 31, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Okay, so how is it that one can go back in time and re-produce what happened around 2000 years ago? Does someone have a time machine that i don’t know about?
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 1, 2012 at 9:43 am
@Scott: The simple answer if you can’t. “Re-produce” is not the task anyway.
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 Scott 
 June 1, 2012 at 11:56 am
And I agree, I was asking the mythicists how they might be able to do scientically what belongs to the field of hermeneutics. Apparently I need to think through rather than just type and post (:

 
 
 Grog 
 June 6, 2012 at 1:06 am
Funny. Again, I point out that creationists use this argument to critique the theory of evolution.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 6, 2012 at 6:37 am
Dear Mr Grog: Please remind me again what argument you are referring to as it seems to make sense to you and no one else: the only analogy I can think of in relation to creationism is the one between young-earth theorists’ argument from the silence and gaps of the fossil record and the mythers’ position that Paul’s silence proves there is no historical Jesus. Do you also think the devil made up stories about Jesus to taunt us, the way some creationists think fossils were planted by God in the rocks to test our faith? Or do you hold a more limited conspiratorial view of how it began? But perhaps you meant something else.

 
 
 
 TimHam 
 June 1, 2012 at 3:14 am
My memory is somewhat hazy, but IIRC Swinburne used the numbers in the ressurecfion argument merrly for illustrative purposes (please correct me if I’m wrong if you have a quote that shows it) so it seems like the cheese-parody misses the point.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 1, 2012 at 9:41 am
@ Ham No: He used it argumentatively; quotes? Read his books. A bit of the debate between Mackie and Swinburne is here but you will actually have to crawl off the web to read the article or buy it. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40021213?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47699055556647
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 brettongarcia 
 June 1, 2012 at 3:45 am
Statistics – including Probability – has already contributed a great deal to Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Physics, Biology, and History. While all of these fields have in turn, contributed a great deal to religious studies.
Statistics has already inputted hugely into religious study, especially by way of Anthropology, Archeology. And would contribute far, far more … if specific applications like Bayes were not so adamantly resisted, here.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 1, 2012 at 9:19 am
@Garcia: What is your point? Biblical archaeologists and historians and sociologists of religion use statistics all the time; frequency distribution depends on it is establishing texts dating; so does orthography. You seem to be working under the misapprehension that someone has challenged the use of statistics and scientific method.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Garcia says, uncontroversially, but drawing a very large category: “Statistics – including Probability – has already contributed a great deal to Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Physics, Biology, and History. While all of these fields have in turn, contributed a great deal to religious studies.” We were talking about BT in connection to the question of Jesus. You do see the difference between the use of normal means of measurement and a theorem that is being touted as a cure for the imputed “chaos” of historical research?
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 Representor 
 June 1, 2012 at 4:03 am
“If probability theory only applied “to future events” then there wouldn’t be a name for a misunderstanding of probability theory in court trials, which necessarily deal with past events. I’m not aware of any definition of probability theory that says it only applies to future events. It applies to incomplete information (I suggest everyone read that link. In normal language if we use terms like “x hypothesis is more likely than y hypothesis” this is necessarily mathematical language and can only make sense if expressed numerically).
But Hoffmann’s post seems to be arguing that Bayesianism is only about ontological or objective probability and not epistemic or subjective probability. This is part of the ongoing debate between Frequentism and Bayesianism, which for now is unresolved. Frequentists generally think that probabilities are inherent properties of objects or experiments (ontological). So if we have 95% confidence in some experimental outcome, and if you run that experiment 100 times, 95 of the experiemnts run should give the same result. 95% is an inherent property of the experiment. Or, a fair coin inherently has a 50% chance of landing heads because that is the definition of a fair coin. You can continue to flip a coin in a succession of experiments and it will regress towards the mean of 50%. This might explain the accusation of attempting mathematical precision; mathematical precision only applies to ontological probability.
But we can also talk about epistemic probability, or how much confidence an individual has in some hypothesis or idea. This is one reason why Frequentists accuse Bayesians of being too subjective. So for example, in the study I posted we had this scenario:
Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.
[How probable is it that]:
Linda is a teacher in elementary school.
 Linda works in a bookstore and takes yoga classes.
 Linda is active in the feminist movement.
 Linda is a psychiatric social worker.
 Linda is a member of the League of Women Voters.
 Linda is a bank teller.
 Linda is an insurance salesperson.
 Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
If we were only talking about ontological probability, then telling students to rank these options by how likely they are would make no sense. In reality, Linda ontologically is either a bank teller or she isn’t (this is how Swinburne failed in the example). She isn’t 80% bank teller. But we can still have some sort of epistemic warrant for believing that she is/isn’t; we can give a number for how likely it is — based on our own personal experiences — that she is a bank teller. We should be able to translate “I think it is highly probable that Linda is a bank teller” to “I have 80% confidence that Linda is a bank teller” (based on the first link I posted).
Of course, this experiment is an example of why Occam’s Razor makes sense. OR follows from probability theory; Linda being a bank teller and a feminist is less likely than her just being a feminist. Even though that doesn’t make intuitive sense, it is the “simpler” hypothesis.
Overall, if you take only a Frequentist view of probability, then attempting to use probability theory in historical analysis might not make sense. Yet there seem to be some Frequentist applications to historical questions. But if, for example, one of Hoffmann’s students missed class he would probably conclude that it was more likely that the student was sick or goofing off instead of having been kidnapped by aliens. If he agrees with that reasoning, he has just used Bayes Theorem!”
Comment by J. Quinton — 2012/06/01 @ 6:42 am Vridar
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 1, 2012 at 9:40 am
@Quinton: Interesting if confused: Can you point to a verdict in court case based on Bayes Theorem or one in which a jury was invited to weigh evidence taking it into account? If on the other hand your comment is about probability, which is not convertible to–limited to or coextensive with–with–BayesT, then there is no argument here: historians have been using it for 200 years, many are quite good at it, and most of the concrete results we have to show in Biblical studies use probability in some form, but the form will always be dictated by the nature of the evidence. Swinburne, as I have said, has used BT effectively to show that there is at least a 52% chance that God exists. He has used that datum in turn to show that there is a better than even chance that God made the world and that Jesus rose from the dead. I regard all of these conclusions as “literally” false but, given the procedure he uses, unarguable. The error exists at a factual level, not in probability. How would you go about uncovering the root of the problem–the disjunct between “probability” and “fact” (I am not conceding btw that Swinburne’s premises are any sounder than Carrier’s in the use of Bayes)? As I suggested in my piece: Historically, because the postulate of God cannot exist independently of language about God. Is God a “past event,” a “presnt reality,” an “ens realissimum” or an epistemic necessity? How would what you think God is affect your formulation? You appeal to parsimony in the form of Occam: So does Swinburne. I can arrange evidence to show that God is a more efficient explanation for the cosmos than a physical event using Bayes. Even if you are a non-possibilist on Flew’s terms, you would have to accept the outcome because all that Bayes requires is a sound arrangement of the terms–Just (as Carrier claims) in a syllogism. Bayes can be made to work in a variety of situations for which is is not suited nor intended. Swinburne liked it because it got beyond another calculation, Pascal’s. This however is not about a court trial in which events that have normally happened before and happen all the time have happened again recently and for which, because of these data, a knowledge field,and real world conditions can be established petty easily and the evidence assessed. It is about a verdict on the existence of an individual from 2000 years ago. Surely even you can see the differences involved.
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The Jesus Process Begins says:
 June 1, 2012 at 4:02 pm
[...] Dickery, Bayes”R. Joseph Hoffmann, “Controversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus”See also Hoffmann’s very recent blog post on the use of Bayes’ Theorem by Richard Carrie…, and Steph Fisher’s guest post on Jim West’s blog about the interpretation of Albert [...]
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 malcolm 
 June 2, 2012 at 9:01 am
There’s a lot to critique in this blog post, but I’m going to start with the following quote because I judge it to be the worst:
“So far, you are thinking, this is the kind of thing you would use for weather, rocket launches, roulette tables and divorces since we tend to think of conditional probability as an event that has not happened but can be predicted to happen, or not happen, based on existing, verifiable occurrences.”
You might to think of conditional probability that way, if you knew nothing about probability theory, had never taken a course in probability or read a probability textbook, never used words such as “likely” or “probably,” even intuitively, and didn’t take a moment to really think about it, but you’d be badly mistaken.
Conditional probability is the probability that something is true, given that something else is true. For example, if you know that a woman has 2 kids, what is the probability that she has 2 boys? 25%. So the conditional probability that she has 2 boys given that she has 2 children is 25%. That’s a typical example of conditional probability, which doesn’t concern any future event, and you would probably find it (or something just like it) in Chapter 1 of most introductory probability texts.
Bayes’s Theorem (or Formula or Rule) is just a simple equation that follows from the axioms of mathematical probability theory and the definition of condition probability. It can be applied to any situation that involves probability.
Here’s a textbook example of the application of Bayes’s Theorem:
 A certain virus occurs in 1% of the population. There’s a test for this virus that has a 1% false positive rate, but is 100% accurate when the virus is actually present. Somebody’s test result is positive for the virus; what is the chance that he really is infected? Using Bayes’s formula, one get’s the result, 1/1.99 or about 50%. This is a standard analysis that has employed for decades. And note that again no future events are involved here.
Next, I’ll turn to your description of Bayes’s formula, and the restrictions on its use, in particular. You list several criteria for the applicability of the equation, but they are really much less onerous than you make them out to be. In particular, since we can always restrict attention to our hypothesis and it’s negation, the first restriction can always be satisfied. The second, that P(B)>0, is also satisfied in any real-world situation where we are not dealing with continuous variables (and even then it can be overcome), since the prior probability of any already observed evidence being true is always > 0, unless your evidence consists of something that you would have judged to be completely impossible if you hadn’t seen it. The third “restriction” is actually just a statement of what you’re seeking; this is not a problem since we know that we want the conditional probability of the hypothesis given all the evidence. Only the fourth is any kind of limitation, but this just says that we need to know the prior probabilities and conditional probabilities of the evidence on the hypothesis and its negation. Using Bayes’s rule is all about estimating them – that’s where all the effort and controversy lies – so this is not so much a restriction as just an acknowledgment of what our inputs into the equation are.
I’ll continue my critique in another post.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 10:38 am
@Malcolm: This isn’t a critique; it’s just an unnecessary lecture which, in fact, repeats the more obvious points about conditional probability from my post. The first recourse of defense (I see Vridar using it in his typically facile way, e.g.) is always to say that someone doesn’t “get” the theorem rather than to say precisely how or why the theorem is useful in a particular context. Nevermind that I specifically said that this would be the first line of defense: when you have a case, argue the case; when you don’t have a case, say your opponent is missing the point. The problem is, I am having trouble finding any groundswell of enthusiasm outside the mythicist cult for the use of BT, and I don’t see anyone outside the cult being convinced by its display of rhetoric.
I have no idea whether you are simply another myth disciple. I am pretty sure you don’t make a case either. However your post is slightly interesting. Bayes theorem is subjectivity dressed up like a robot to make intuitions look more impressive. It can be used by apologists in just the same way it can be used by people who have serious reason to use it. It follows from axioms (I already said that in my piece) that require real world possibilities. But it’s also used all the time to deal with “constructed” possibilities–such as Swinburne does by using the “world that exists” equivocally to establish a “real world” from which he can get to ontology, and then to God. Fortunately, this doesn’t nullify Bayes; it simply illustrates that a part of constructing real world possibilities includes the intuition and subjectivity of the user. Indeed, I am not sure why you bother to go through this rudimentary stuff (and evidently you think all that time I spent reading philosophy didn’t introduce me to logic: drat) since it does not address the core issues of when it is and when it isn’t heuristic (if you like that word) to employ BT; nothing demands it, and as you say, any situation involving probability permits its use. I said that too. By its nature then–as everyone knows–it does not protect against subjectivity, misinformation, or deceit. History is loaded with all three. If for example the question to be decided is “What is the likelihood that Jesus was a myth,” there are two inherent questions: (a) Did Jesus exist or not exist? (b) Does his nonexistence entail that his story is a fraud or an entertaining fiction (using a discredited definition of the word myth).
Let me leave that hanging (while you ponder how you will get from that to axioms that trigger a Bayesian approach) and move to your analogy, which instead of appealing to anything approaching complex historical data from the ancient and pre-ancient period gives me this: “A certain virus occurs in 1% of the population. There’s a test for this virus that has a 1% false positive rate, but is 100% accurate when the virus is actually present. Somebody’s test result is positive for the virus; what is the chance that he really is infected? Using Bayes’s formula, one get’s the result, 1/1.99 or about 50%. This is a standard analysis that has been employed for decades. And note that again no future events are involved here.”  Are you equating this to historical questions (“no future events are involved”) because we are using predictive factors in the form of viruses that have already occurred? But that is not what’s happening; the incidence of occurrence which is necessary to make the predictions and establish the sample field is simply a statistical record of existing conditions, not complex historical data from the distant past. Moreover, your case does not involve epistemological probability. And second, what would be the reason for invoking Bayes if there was no implication of a future event: i.e., that “someone will be/get infected.” I don’t think anyone would want to challenge the use of BT in circumstances where its use is warranted as it clearly is here, in disease control. I certainly don’t, and partly because in questions of “pure statistics” and especially in the natural sciences and closely cognate fields, the question of intuition, interpretation and subjectivity do not arise to the same degree.
How do we get from your example/analogy to the question I left hanging, because the question of whether Jesus lived or whether Jesus was a myth is not susceptible of the same kind of analysis. Any probability you assign to an outcome using BT will be loaded with intuition, wrong information, apologetics (at least potentially) and even foregone conclusions. I am not saying that this is the way good historians work; I am saying that not only good historians are looking at the question, and certainly some very clever apologists have become adept at BT.
Maybe you have simply used as you say a textbook example that isn’t your own and thus doesn’t make your point, but it certainly does not constitute an argument for the utility of Bayes is establishing questions based on examples hermeneutical, physical and textual (not to mention chronologically mixed) data from the distant past, and the mixed modes (and results) of critical interpretation — let’s call it subjectivity — that would be applied to this data. Not to be facetious–but the best and as far as I can see the only way to use Bayes in New Testament work would be to use it to estimate the time of the second Coming. I’m sure Swinburne would approve of that. Please understand that no one is arguing that Bayes isn’t fun, and useful in the right instances. It is that for this question it can only be a waste of time and a diversion.
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 malcolm 
 June 2, 2012 at 9:54 am
Part 2.
You object to the “subjectivist” interpretation of probability. Fair enough; it is an area still under debate among philosophers. But it’s hardly as if Carrier is breaking new ground in his application of Bayes’s theorem to historical problems, or is employing it in a way that it was not “intended.” So long as one is dealing with probabilities, under any interpretation of the word that satisfies the mathematical laws of probability theory, one can use Bayes’s theorem. He is not jiggering the equation in any way.
Moreover, you yourself seem to concede that historical claims are probabilistic when you say, ‘Historical argumentation is both non-intuitive and probabilistic (in the sense of following the “law of likelihood”).’ Thus, since they involve probabilities, they are amenable to Bayes’s theorem.
Now a digression: Carrier is of course dead wrong when he pompously declares that “all the historicity criteria so far have been shown to be flawed to the point of being in effect (or in fact) entirely useless,” as he himself demonstrates in his latest book how some of these criteria do in fact conform to (and follow from) Bayes’s theorem. Moreover, the idea that all these criteria must be useless because they yield different results when applied by different scholars would also invalidate Bayes’s theorem as a useful method, since different scholars get vastly different results when they utilize it, too. Just because a method is frequently misapplied doesn’t mean it is invalid.
Back to your assertions. You mention in a couple of places that you don’t think Bayes’s theorem can be applied to never-before-observed events. But this objection is not really that forceful, since the situations in which Carrier is applying it do have generic precedents, so reference classes can be identified, and prior probabilities estimated on the basis of frequencies (which is what you seem to prefer). Moreover, even in situations where we really have no background information on which we could form a prior, even if one then inserts 50% (or any other value), the dependence of the final result on this assumption is explicit in the mathematics, so different scholars can compare their results just by plugging in different values for this priors. Then they can agree on the way in which the final result depends on these assumptions, reducing the debate to only a debate about these prior probabilities. This, of course, would be true for any subjective prior probabilities, not just for those for events claimed to be sui generis, and answers the most serious concern raised by your friend at Cambridge as well.
Finally, the debate with Swinburne shows the advantages of Bayes’s theorem, rather than opposite: Employing the theorem forced him to spell out his assumptions, which could then be attacked individually, as could the way they fit together. By offering your own set of prior probabilities, you could then use the same method to produce what you feel is the correct probability. Ultimately the debate would be reduced to arguments for your priors, unless someone had made a logical or mathematical mistake along the way (as he clearly did), which would quickly be exposed.
Reply
 
 brettongarcia 
 June 2, 2012 at 2:04 pm
This discussion is useful; in that it at least establishes, as a first important point, that 1) there is nothing impossible or wrong, in applying probability to past events, per se. As perhaps some of Joe Hoffmann’s remarks might have seemed to imply. Probability can be applied to the future; it can also be applied to the past.
Having resolved that? The NEXT question, would be: 2) even if it is therefore possible to apply probability to past events, are there many good opportunities to do so? It being asserted – by Joe – that our accounts of the past, are not good clean data, from which useful predictions might be made.
I would suggest that often, in fact, there are. First of all because 3) we CAN have a great deal of good information, even about the past; from scientific explorations of it. This is done every day in for example, Archeology. If we hear of many people dying strangely in a given era … and then find a lot of lead in their bones? We can deduce that perhaps they were not so much “cursed by God,” or afflicted magically; but were probably getting their food or water from a high-lead source; perhaps cooking food in lead utensils.
So in fact, and against even Joe’s second objection to the application of Probability, Bayes, to historical problems? There are many things from the past we CAN be reasonably sure of, even in Historical times, first of all. Enough to serve as the basis for useful calculations about probable realities, even in very ancient times. Not by using just fallible historical accounts from the time; but by adding to them, what a modern science can tell us about that same time period.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 2:10 pm
This is not about whether historians use probability. It is about (1) the use of BT as a statistical tool in assessing complex historical, mainly textual data from ancient times; and (2) whether BT possesses sufficient safeguards in the realm of epistemological probability (not statistical) to warrant its use. My argument is that it is warrantless in such study and thus useless.
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 Brettongarcia 
 June 2, 2012 at 3:19 pm
For the moment, I don’t have full answers. But perhaps we can canvas some expert contributions here, while covering a few minor objections in the meantime:
Apparently 3) Hoffman’s third – and perhaps his main – objection to the application of Bayes’ theory to History, is to question whether Baye’s theory has been applied to ancient history. We agree now that Statistics in general hae been so applied; so there is no longer an objection there.
How about specifically, Bayes? Here for the moment, I need some time; I seem to vaguely recall that it already has been so applied? In Archeology? Anyone else out there have any examples
Joe Hoffmann’s next objection is that 4) seems to be that any such investigation should have “epistemological safeguards.” (Maybe someone else would like to take on this third objection, while I am taking care of some domestic chores?)
This might be a solution to part of these objections. I (mis?)understand the underlying concern to be, in part, that historical accounts seem so subjective; that there is no firm, good data to base any Bayesian calculation on. But? I want to establish first, that there is in fact, often lots of such data around. Though science. The qualification that we use primarily or only or mainly “TEXTUAL” data, would be a crippling and unnecessary restriction. Why use only or “mainly textual data” – which indeed often IS extremely subjective and unreliable? Why use that … When there is very often, much better, scientific data available, or obtainable? As archeology every day proves. This knowledge moreover, is “EPISTEMOLOGICALLY” rather solid. Since in part, it is based on actual solid objects in part: bone and pottery fragments and so forth.
For example? Archeloogists around the current Talpiot B “Jesus Tomb” excavations, are identifying some villiages areas as probably Gentile, and others as Jewish – by a scientific fact; by the massive number of pork bones in some, but not in others. Once this is established? Then we can use this – probably in fairly a simple Bayesian calculation – to confirm a high probability of a textual assertion: that (admittedly) subjective, textual, biblical accounts of a Jewish community in the area, are still however likely, probably, true.
To be sure? To the extent that we are using any “texts” at all, calculations will be less precisely than carefully controlled modern experiments. And yet? Massively important work has already been obtained by SIMILAR methods.
And so we have established the usefulness of Statistics in general here. And we have addressed some superficial problems with “epistemology.” Next? How has Bayes, specifically, been more precisely applied here? Here to be sure, my own limited math begins to run out.
Any professional mathematicians or statisticians out there, who want to pick up the rest of the account, at this point? I’ll be calling a few….
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 3:44 pm
For example? Archeloogists around the current Talpiot B “Jesus Tomb” excavations, are identifying some villiages areas as probably Gentile, and others as Jewish – by a scientific fact; by the massive number of pork bones in some, but not in others. Once this is established? Then we can use this – probably in fairly a simple Bayesian calculation – to confirm a high probability of a textual assertion: that (admittedly) subjective, textual, biblical accounts of a Jewish community in the area, are still however likely, probably, true. To be sure? To the extent that we are using any “texts” at all, calculations will be less precisely than carefully controlled modern experiments. And yet? Massively important work has already been obtained by SIMILAR methods.
Well, though it doesn’t prove the resurrection, no bones of Jesus are likely to be found. The archaeological research you cite uses statistical probability of physical evidence; as I said, textual evidence in NT studies is the norm, sometimes supported but not usually by archaeological remains, e.g, the Pilate stone but nothing dispositive about Jesus. Epistemological certainty, as in philosophical and “abstract” questions (and ancient historical questions are in limbo in that respect) employ statistics with big Caveats written all over them. I find your appeal to statisticians rather sweet: when you round them up, will they be taking courses in paleography? Or are they like my fundamentalist accountant who uses statistics all the time but would put the probability for Jesus on the basis of the gospels alone at 99%. Let me pose you a question: If it is true that 50% of the gospel is “fiction” what criteria would you use to prove, if you wanted to, that the remainder isn’t, in the absence of external evidence. Would you employ a perfectly plausible calculation that if the made-up portion rises to that number there is a strong likelihood that the remainder is made up too? Or would you be satisfied, using not BT but simple diallelus and CSC that our certainty stands at 50%. {BTW, Bayes is not being used to corroborate these finds; it is a simple deduction from the evidence and prior assumptions about dietary rules & plausible assumptions.)
Reply
 
 
 Brettongarcia 
 June 2, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Well, Bayes could be used in this situation.
Basically, in part, Bayes is a method of adding up all the probabilities of various related events, or aspects of a single event. To see what the probability of any given single, related event is.
So for example? Suppose we want to know – a key question for me, in theology – whether Jesus was considered a good Jew. And not a Hellenized Jew, or “Samaritan,” say. How might we try to calculate that, related to the above?
Suppose we assume for the moment (for simplicity; from preliminary observation of observant Jews today; from previously-established historical evidence, or preliminary data), that 1) there is a 90% possibility that many of those who lived in the village in the time of Jesus, ate pork. While 2) there is only one chance in ten – a 10% possiblity – that a good Jew would live in close proximity, in a tiny village, with … folks who ate lots of “pig meat”.
Suppose we also assume for simplicity, that Jesus as a youth, lived largely in Nazareth. So? We go to Nazareth, dig around with a few Archeologists and dig bums. And? We find tons of pork bones, all OVER the tiny town of Nazaret. Including the stratum that corresponds to Jesus’ lifetime: finding petrified pork chops, ribs, sausage casings, etc.. All over town.
So? We factor in the probabilities of TWO events – 1) 90% probability of pork eaters in Nazareth; then 2) the 10% possiblity that a good Jew would live in proximity with such a thing. And? Then, from these two facts (based in part on Archeological science) calculate the cumulative, final probability that Jesus would be considered a good Jew, by his peers. Which probability, in this case, being ..quite low.
Here we are getting much closer to Bayes, I think?
Granted of course, you might well choose to use this very example, as an example of how many assumptions and presumptions in Bayesian analysis, could go wrong. And indeed, to perfect this example, dozens and dozens of tweaks would have to be made. So that finally, only a full page of calculations will be adequate. And to be sure? we would need statisticians that know archeology and religious history. It would be an interdisciplinary effort.
But also note this: the more such things we do, as we accumulate hundreds, then THOUSANDS of likely “fact”s? As we have more and more data points, points of reference? Gradually, the whole elephant begins to emerge … with greater and greater certainty.
Though to be sure, at first our accuracy is rather low – quite low compared to experiments in controlled conditions? Eventually however the strength of Bayes in part, is that it begins to add up, cross-reference, more and more and more probabilities. While the final result, is quite a bit more certain, more accurate, than just a few calculations based on just a very few investigations.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 2, 2012 at 8:36 pm
@Garcia: Yikes: you have just driven the final nail in the Revd Thomas Bayes’s coffin.
Reply
 
 
 scotteus 
 June 3, 2012 at 3:01 am
One thing I keep noticing from the Mythicists, the folks who seem to believe all other methods are”F…..” is: “look folks, Bayes is all we’ve got therefore we ought to be using it in exclusion of other methods that have known limitations”.
The practice of hermeneutics is often difficult and pain-staking; that has been stated on this site and I heard plenty of it some 25 years ago sitting through classes in history and comp lit. If there is such a thing a progress in hermeneutics (and I think there is), it is achieved for the most part by getting one’s hands dirty, i.e you have to work through your sources, have your lexicons, submit you work for peer review, etc.
It’s for the reasons above that I think trying to apply Bayes to the field of biblical hermeneutics is anything more than a form of pseudo intellectual nihilism that will do far more harm than good.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 3, 2012 at 8:16 am
@Scotteus: True, worse, you can’t even get to the hermeneutics until you get your hands dirty with questions of dating, authorship, papyrology, and paleography. –Won’t go into linguistics (but to do the work you have to). There was a time when some of the mythters had critical biblical backgrounds–Drews, for example, D. F Strauss and Bruno Bauer (who hated each other). The last two were different denominations of Hegelian and devoted to the belief in “movement” and progressive ideology in history, so the Jesus story became totally subordinate to them as data while the reality of Christianity became the focus. The establishment of their day regarded them as second rate ideologues who were diluting method with their Big Ideas, and rightly considered Drews a hack and second rater to boot. Unfortunately, modern mythtics are simply unaware of the social context of this generation that had some training. They think of their works as the suppressed enlightenment of an era (?? it was all published, all critically reviewed, all discussed). They get a lot of their talking points from them but have almost entirely missed the rebuttals and lack the training to sort out the details. So they continue to talk about “Paul’s silence” as some sort of mysterious conspiracy cloaking the fact that Jesus was a cipher. The honest thing to do would be to give it up: It doesn’t work. Bayes is just the latest chapter in the general confusion. The most charitable thing one can say about it is that it’s a form of shortcutting unwarranted by the nature of the task and thus literally useless. The least charitable I won’t say.
Reply
 
 
 Brettongarcia 
 June 3, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Not at all. Bayes’ theorem is not to be used to the exclusion of all the other methods; but in fact, it should be used as the synthesis of all of them.
It is only because previous scholarly findings were so careful, and have accumulated at last some degree of probability … that we are now in a position to start adding up and cross-referencing all these probabilities. In a more organized, logical way. To come up with at least a rough outline of the larger picture, at last.
Some mythers might be indeed, trying to simply substitute one new methodology for all those that went before. But that is not how I would apply Bayes here. Far from it. Good mythicism is built on, and depends on, tons of good scholarship that went before it.
Bayes theorem should now be employed to (as a Hegelian might like to say), “Synthesize” the countless different positions and findings; even those formerly thought antithetical. By cross-referencing the various probable findings.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 3, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Garcia: BT “is the synthesis of all of them” — but it isn’t. It follows from certain axioms. It is a theorem–like this, which you will remember from high school–Let ABC be a triangle with side lengths a, b, and c [In the following the '2's should be superscript or squares, which I can't generate in this program, sorry]. This is the equation form of the Pythagorean theorem. If a2 + b2 = c2, then a triangle is right. If a2 + b2 > c2, then a triangle is acute. If a2 + b2 < c2, then a triangle is obtuse. Theorems are based on conditions–like conclusions follow from premises: their use is restricted by warrants. The more broadly you apply something like BT, the less useful it is and by the time you enter the realm of textual interpretation and related subjects I suggest it is useless. Prove me wrong.
Reply
 
 
 Franklin Percival 
 June 3, 2012 at 3:25 pm
I am enjoying this very much, though it puts me in mind of the mind-buggaring logic problems I used to look at in the Sunday press, eg:-
Q. If I have one banana and you have five oranges, what colour is the bed-spread?
A. Purple, because the dog has got fleas..
Reply
 
 smijer 
 June 3, 2012 at 7:24 pm
I think there is a lot of swinging and barely missing going on here. Carrier does *not* fail because Bayes rule is inapplicable to the distant past. Swinburne does *not* fail because he has taken on too ambitious a task.
If Carrier estimates the probability of the existence of a historical Jesus at under 90%, then (I expect strongly) he is making an error in his application of Bayesian reasoning. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know that. If he is criticizing specific historical claims about Jesus, his reasoning may be sound as far as it goes. I understand that Carrier is a mythicist, so it is clear that he has not successfully applied Bayesian reasoning to the question of simple historicity, but I don’t know if he has even attempted it. His curiosity may not have led him that far.
Similarly with Swinburne: if he estimates the existence of a Judaeo-Christian God (or any anthropomorphic God) over a fraction of a percent, then he is making errors in his application of Bayesian reasoning. If he really addressed the God question with a sincere desire to know the answer, and successfully applied Bayesian reasoning and the available evidence to the problem, then he would likely announce that any type of personal God is extremely improbable, and that the alien god of science is extremely probable.
*Bayes really only tells us how our probability estimates should change (optimally, under formal mathematics) when we consider evidence and can accurately estimate how probable it is that we would see that evidence given that our theory is true and how probable it is that we would see it given that our theory is false.* That’s all it does.
Mathematics is timeless. It either works or it does not. If it fails for the first century, then it fails for the 21st century. If it works for the 21st century, then it works for the 1st.
Bayesian probability is the mathematical engine behind any science, historical or otherwise. It may not be appealed to directly, but science can always be re-formulated in Bayesian terms unless it contains some real error in reasoning.
Reply

 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 3, 2012 at 7:44 pm
smijer: Thanks, yes, in general. But you make a significant mistake: “Mathematics is timeless. It either works or it does not. If it fails for the first century, then it fails for the 21st century. If it works for the 21st century, then it works for the 1st.” Timeless and Platonic. It is not a question of whether mathematics qua mathematics being true then is also true now. We are not dealing with that level of certainty and proof; we are dealing with variables hidden within variables, not a single x. Apply Bayes to Socrates/Plato on justice and you have a nearer analogy.
Reply

 smijer 
 June 4, 2012 at 6:40 am
There are difficulties with historical studies – difficulties that make it hard to nail down probabilities. Hidden variables, even. But that goes to the difficulty of the project, not the inapplicability of the rule..

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 4, 2012 at 7:57 am
I disagree.

 
 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 4, 2012 at 6:56 pm
smijer: Plug this into BT and tell me what you get:
If all the world were paper
 and all the seas were ink
 and all the trees were bread and cheese
 what would we have to drinK?
It should be fairly simple. Refer it out if you need to. On the other hand, if you see that there are difficulties getting from this to BT: welcome to the world of critical historical scholarship.
Reply
 
 
 Brettongarcia 
 June 4, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Biblical scholarship is already, even close to its very essence, a vast but disordered and informal accumulation of probabilities.
Most of the central questions of traditional religious studies imply rough, informal calculations of probability. For example? 1) Who wrote the epistles of Paul = what is the probability that a given epistle attributed to Paul, was really written by him. 2) Then : what is the probability that this or that physical miracle occured? 3) Then the authority of the gospels: How certain is the testimony of any single synoptic gospel, relative to the other gospels?
And especially? 4) The search for the root of the Gospels, in Mark or Q, already involves scholars roughly using calculations of Probability: how consistant are certain elements of the gospels.
Therefore, rough assessments of Probability have always been used as a core part of traditional religious study. So? Why not begin to use this dialogue on Bayes, 1) to recognize this aspect of what is already been done in an uncontrolled way, in the field? To raise an already-implicit calculation in textual studies, to consciousness. And 2) begin to systematize, what textual critics already do?
To be sure, as Joe Hoffmann’s remarks here suggest or show, the first effect might be to foreground the already-existing looseness of traditional scholarship and its assessments, it assignments of findings; the first clarification is to acknowledge the huge number of variables. At the same time however, this effort begins to at last acknowledge that there were already, always, rough internal calculations in the field; calculations that have already long been at the core of traditional textual study. While once we see this more clearly? We can begin the hard and useful work of at last listing the vast number of such probabilities, and systematizing them. And then? Improving them somewhat, at least.
At last acknowledging and listing the vast number of calculations of probability already made, in fact, should turn out to be extremely fruitful, due to a particular feature of Bayes. In that as it turns out that in Bayes, in effect, part of the reason it is useful, is that it begins to systematically assemble many points of data, MANY probabilities. This is useful in itself partially; as it begin to give us a better picture of the whole. While indeed one of the main features of Bayes, is that it very good in assembling more and more probabilities, of more and more related events … to compare and add them up. And increase the overall accuracy of each individual elements. By allowing us to systematically cross-references and refine, any single given prediction, calculating its own individual probability better, by seeing it as a part of a larger, corroborating system.
Any such massive system, should be advanced with all due cautions and humility to be sure; warning that after all, the whole field is highly speculative. However? This effort now seems timely and necessary. Given the increasing use of computers. And given that the field by now is already dominated by half-conscious, wild, native, uncontrolled, and unsystematic probability calculations. So that any systematization of this side of the field, would be an improvement over what is already being done in an uncontrolled way.
Reply

 Hajk 
 June 4, 2012 at 7:45 pm
But one thing that one must keep in mind in this whole discussion is that texts are not unbiased snapshots of history. Texts themselves have a history. And in the case of certain texts like those of the NT this is sometimes impossible to discover. This leaves us with all manner of possible or plausible conjectures. For some time now, despite Schwietzers famous observations which every introductory textbook on the issue notes, scholars have been painting self portraits and calling them ‘Jesus’ (as dale Allison notes). Is the ‘reality’ (as opposed to myth) within a text like the gospels like the cake which can be seperated from the icing on it? Or is it like a pudding where myth and fact mix seamlesslty and nothing is easily recoverable? How much Mishnah, Haggadah, typology etc. are we dealing with? What is the genre of the NT literature? Because answers to questions like these can alter our interpretations completely when it comes to making judgements here. Which leads to the question, can probability be applied to these issues meaningfully? Will any ‘numerical probabilities’ suggested in such a context ever be immune to the charge of being the purely speculative reflections of our own dispositions? Or will there now be a Bayesian excuse to continue to create Jesus (or lack thereof) in our own images?
Firstly we have to swallow the notion that numerical values can be applied to our biases, prejudices, values etc. is accepted (and it appears it must be for this form of Bayesian application to be meaningful). This may seem ‘obvious’ to us today in an age where we all grow up in system where teachers and professors regularly attach ‘grades’ and numerical evaluations to our thoughts (in essays etc.). But this is only a very recent invention (going back to William Farish if I’m correct, although I may be wrong). And as far as I know, this system won out not because there was some obvious “truth” to it but because of practicality. The actual issue of whether such a course of action is legitimate remains unresolved.
But allowing this, will this really accomplish anything beyond changing the vocabulary of the current discussions? Today we may have two scholars arguing that “this is clearly a midrashic expansion” vs. “there is a clear echo of a historic remenisence here”, and tomorrow we may have them arguing “there is over a 80% chance that this is purely midrash” vs. “it is over 83% certain that this echoes authentic historical events.” Amongst two scholars who disagree on something, today they would dsiagree with the plausibility of the others assumptions. Tomorrow they will say “but I feel that she has not justified this probability as being 60%, and hold that it is no greater than 45%”
Apologies again for errors in English
Reply

 Brettongarcia 
 June 4, 2012 at 8:31 pm
That’s almost right – but not quite. We are not just assigning numbers, percentages of probability for speculations; we are then plugging all that into … a potentially massive system.
What we should build, is rather exactly like current computerized models of the economy. We will see hundreds of economic models, major factors, with thousands of items of data;… now finally all systematized and internconnected. All systematized and interconnected. To the point that? If we change one item of data … we can look and see what the rest of the whole system looks like, after that change.
It works in our models of the economy. And it allows flexibility; you are allowed to plug a different value into the model here and there.
But especially? We can begin to see and systematize the INTERCONNECTIONS between all the formerly all-too-disconnected speculations. So that finally? We can begin to see how factors once thought to be remote from our particular baliwick or monograph, can seriously affect and inform, our own limited findings.
That should be a revolution, a quantum leap, in this field.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 4, 2012 at 11:08 pm
“What we should build, is rather exactly like current computerized models of the economy. We will see hundreds of economic models, major factors, with thousands of items of data;… now finally all systematized and internconnected. All systematized and interconnected. To the point that?” You are seriously proposing we run historical studies on the model of the economy. Perfect. that way when everything crumbles we can blame it…on the model!!!!

 
 
 
 sexkontaktannonser 
 April 15, 2013 at 4:35 pm
På knull kontakt kan single finne oppegående sexpartnere som kun er ute
 etter erotiske eventyr, og dette med noen som deler
 samme preferanser som dem. Det er de tingene vi vanligvis tenner på og fantaserer om.
 Bedre er å ha en ”anal douche” en ballong du kan fylle
 opp med væske, helst tilsatt litt salt.
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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient

The Case: 13 Key, Unarguable Principles
by rjosephhoffmann

The train crash that is modern mythicism is built on the train crash that was earlier mythicism. The chance of the crash happening twice in just the same way?  About 50%.
In a previous post I reproduced chapter three of Shirley Jackson Case’s 1912 study, The Historicity of Jesus, which is a fair account of the state of the question in his day. At the end of his book, Case writes,

 ”If the possibility of his non-historicity is to be entertained at all it must be brought about by reconstructing, without reference to him, so strong a theory of Christian origins that the traditional view will pale before it as a lesser light in the presence of a greater luminary. Will the radicals’ constructive hypothesis stand this test?”
The new mythtics (some anyway) have claimed that their argument can be won by the application of Bayes’s theorem.  Confronted with arguments about why the theorem is useless in deciding a question like this, their recourse has been to repeat two assertions: (1) It is too useful; and (2) People who say it isn’t useful don’t “get” it.  Whereupon they usually invoke some parallel as distant from what they are trying to prove as Herakles is from Jesus.
The rush of excitement that greeted Richard Carrier’s suggestion that the Jesus question could be settled with relative finality has been offset slightly by the failure to recognize that the first step in using Bayes’s Theorem is to establish plausible assumptions.  A few bloggers at Vridar have suggested that proving Jesus is like proving a case at law: after all, we’re trying to reach a verdict on whether Jesus existed, so, since a trial deals with events that happened in the past, and Jesus existed in the past, you could say that the application of probability to the Jesus question is like determining guilt or innocence.  All you need to do is compile the evidence,  plug it into your probability machine, write the equation, and you’re home free.
Except you’re not.  In a law case–let’s make this one a murder so we can use DNA–the variable to be decided is not the event (E), the crime, but the cause (C) of the crime.  Let’s make it a ghastly murder, a murder most foul (they like to quote Shakespeare over at Vridar– just trying it on).  You postulate a murderer. Good job.  You discover a bloody knife.  A glove–shades of OJ–fingerprints, crime scene, probable time of death. It is a linear progression of data that points to Mr. Jones as the perp: the right man in the right place at the right time with the right motive and the right DNA.  What has not changed in all of this?  (E) has not changed: the murder itself is not in doubt. It raises the speculation and creates uncertainty about (C).
In the case of Jesus, as the mythtics frame the case,  we are doubting an event (E) has taken place at all: the mythtics are not asking whether Jesus rose from the dead (= dealt the fatal wound causing E) but whether there was an E.  They are saying all the reports of E–what he said and did are falsifications of an historical occurrence.
To prove this contention (the groundwork of the assumptions that will then be used to establish probability) they offer not evidence but a succession of increasingly more tortuous challenges to the only available evidence, thus trying to prove through improbability what a linear progression of known, envalued variables (the sort of thing that makes statistics useful in law cases)  cannot readily establish.
In no particular order, individually and conglomeratively mythicists have argued:
1.  The evidence for E is hopelessly tainted and unreliable, proving that E did not occur.
2.  The sayings and deeds attributed to E are the work of a single author or the “church” and were intended to propagate a cult.
2.  The so-called evidence for E was mostly written in the second century by unknown authors, forgers, or copyists.
3.  It is based on a combination of myths and stories familiar to the forger or copyist or his naive imitators. These range from ancient stories like the Gilgamesh to first century tales about the death and apotheosis of Hercules, and everything in between (“A myth is a myth, like a rose is a rose”).
4.  Elements of the record that appear to be “historical” are decoration provided by the fabricator to create a veneer of authenticity–especially the use of place names and Aramaic, the language E is alleged to have spoken.
5.  The original second-century document was probably composed in Rome where myths and mystery religions circulated freely and a copyist could make a living and use the libraries.
6.  Prove postpositive that the gospels are fabrications is provided by the  inexplicable silence of someone [Paul] who “should have”  known him but doesn’t say much about him.
7.  References in Paul’s writings to both Jesus, his brothers, his most important followers, their interference with his mission, the existence of churches that worship him and believers who supervise them, and the correlation of names between the gospels and this writer’s references to Jesus and his circle are not dispositive because they do not fit the pattern of what this writer actually believed.
7.  Some of Paul’s letters are forged.  Those that are “authentic” and seem to speak of an historical individual are tainted, like the gospels, with additons, corrections and interpolations.  All passages that seem to speak of an historical figure are interpolations.  All references to historical-biological relatives of Jesus are figures of speech referring to the church.
8. It is plausible that this writer did not exist at all.
9.  If he did not exist, it is stronger than average proof that Jesus did not exist either. It is not necessary to explain who wrote Paul’s letters or explain what he was talking about if he did not write them.  (In all likelihood, the church wrote them too.)
10.  The fact that the gospels do not differ substantially from many Graeco-Roman historical writings concerning known historical figures, except in length and subject, is of no importance to the case.
11.  The fact that miracles, healings, miraculous births and ascensions to heaven are attibuted to historical figures in the Roman world has no bearing on the case.
12.  The external sources are completely irrelevant to the case, as they are either silent, clearly forged or heavily interpolated.  Sources almost uniformly agreed to be authentic like Tacitus are of no relevance to the case.  Sources that require more judicious treatment–like Josephus–are clearly fabrications.
13.  The fact that no ancient writer questioned the historicity of Jesus and the fact that no church writer felt compelled to defend it is of no relevance to the case.
et cetera…
The anti-evidence continues until the mythtics are satisfied that their demolition has proved the non-occurrence of E.  To challenge this brutually unsatisfying logic is to be a fundamentalist, or to use a word they are trying to make current as a counterpoint to the word “mythtic” and “mythicist,” an “historicist.”  There is a strong implication that not believing in Jesus is the rational complement to not believing in God.  As a rule, most mythicists are atheists.  As a rule, most people who subscribe to mythicism are not biblical scholars, trained in biblical studies but regard such training as a kind of “brainswashing” in the methods that have been used for the last century and a half to investigate the origins of Christanity and the context of Jesus.  To know something about human anatomy is good for a doctor.  But to know something about the technical aspects of biblical studies is a liability to knowing anything about this subject.
It seems to me that this latest and less impressive incarnation of mythicism has tried and failed to satisfy Case’s 1912 challenge to them, which, frankly, in the wake of substantial advances in New Testament scholarship, makes their work much more difficult than it was at the opening of the last century.  Salvation by Bayesth alone will not really help: they are stuck precisely where the formidable Morton Smith left them in 1986:  ”The myth theory is almost entirely based on an argument from silence, especially the ‘silence’ of Paul….In order to explain just what it was that Paul and other early Christians believed, the mythicists are forced to manufacture unknown proto-Christians who build up an unattested myth . . . about an unspecified supernatural entity that at an indefinite time was sent by God into the world as a man to save mankind and was crucified… [presenting us with] a piece of private mythology that I find incredible beyond anything in the Gospels.”
They are not likely to create the plausible reconstruction demanded by their task from the debris they leave behind when they are done with their work.  In fact, there is no indication that they acknowledge or are capable of meeting that challenge.  They are puzzlingly content to locate the answer to how did it happen?in their belief that it did not happen at all, at least not in the way the only available evidence asserts.  And that is a very curious position for people who are looking for “reasonable” solutions to adopt.
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Published: June 8, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: historical jesus : Jesus Process : myth theory : R. Joseph Hoffmann ..
38 Responses to “The Case: 13 Key, Unarguable Principles”

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 SocraticGadfly 
 June 8, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Few counterpoints. Both points numbered 7 are actually relevant, since it’s clear the authentic Paul had no knowledge of a Jesus according to the flesh. Point 13 is relevant, since non-Jews had no reason to worry about Jesus in general vs. general messianic claimants for decades and decades. Let’s not forget that, all those writings aside, if you accept Rodney Stark’s steady 40 percent a decade growth rate from 1,000 people in 40 CE, Christianity was still quite small well into the second century. Point 12 is also at least partially relevant. Tacitus was speaking of general messianic disturbances in Rome, not a particular individual; by using the wrong word for Christ, yes, he is of limited value beyond that. And Josephus? If the whole passage is an interpolation, then yes, he loses relevance, too.
BTW, not all “mythicists” today are “Gnus,” or close to it. If polemics against ahistoricists get fused with polemics against Gnu Atheists, it only muddies the waters.
Do I think Jesus never existed? Not necessarily, but I do think it has enough possibility to be the subject of legitimate discussion.
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 steph 
 June 8, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Funny. Critical scholarship has evidence and argument which refutes you and demonstrates all points completely relevant. But never mind. By the way, “As a rule, most mythicists are atheists.” Gnus haven’t been distinguished from other atheists here for quite a long, long while and are pretty much redundant (or irrelevant) anyway.
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 SocraticGadfly 
 June 12, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Tosh.
Re the two points 7, Paul never claimed to know anything about Jesus other than that he was “born of a woman,” i.e., not a Docetist appearance.
Point 13? Rodney Stark, in case you’re not familiar with him, postulates a starting point of 1,000 Christians in, IIRC, 50 CE, and growth of 40 percent a decade. With an imperial population of 60 million at its peak, Christians wouldn’t have passed 1 percent of imperial population, at 7 million or so, until 180 CE. In short, numbers too small to draw pagan attention through most of the second century, myths about Justin Martyr, etc., aside. Critical scholarship right there from a top-notch sociologist of religion. I suggest familiarizing yourself more with Stark’s thought here.
Point 12, Josephus? Many critical scholars believe the entire comment about Josephus, not just the adulatory gloss, is an add-on/forgery. I’d venture that it might be a majority of critical scholars.
Point 12, Tacitus? It’s pretty clear he was just talking about general messianic disturbances, and that he knew little about Judaism in general, beginning with the use of the word ChrEstus instead of ChristOs. (And, no, I don’t believe there’s “no distinction” here any more.
Pulling Gnu issues into the mix? Quite relevant. Hoffmann is apparently driven, in part, by animosity toward Carrier in particular and Gnus in general.
Otherwise, I’d like to hear his responses, not yours, or not just yours.
That said, I thought I had posted a similar comment Saturday night. Don’t know if it was balky Internet, or something more, like my comment not clearing moderation.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 12, 2012 at 3:35 pm
I m posting this, as it were; despite its being useless, to wit:
1. Paul is not silent about Jesus. That is simply a conceit of mythticism, tirelessly repeated and totally ludicrous. Perhaps what you mean to say is that Paul does not provide biographical detail. That is not the same as saying he provides no detail: he knows Jesus was crucified. He knows that this is an embarrassment to his own messianic or “saviour” theology. He knows a tradition about a ceremonial meal and a tradition about the betrayal of Jesus. He knows the name of Jesus’ brother(s) and his primary followers, whom he excoriates as “super-apostles.” There are good reasons why he does not talk about these biographical details, and if you had read the essay I contributed to the discussion [http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-a-consultation-on-the-historical-jesus/], in the section on Paul’s silence, you would know at least one of them. But you haven’t because you have decided to go the way of evidence-denying along with the risible conclusions about Paul that go back to Drews and Co. and have now been weaponized by their re-discoverers.
2. I have said since I think 1984 in Jesus Outside the Gospels  that I find the whole passage in Josephus to be spurious, so not sure why you choose to focus on that except it’s the easier pickin’s of the sentence. You are making far too much out of Tacitus’s reference, except that it is almost certainly a valid reference and even though it is hearsay and probably imperfect, it is still a reference. You will be relieved to know that I am familiar with the e/i aporia in the 11th century Medicean codex of the annals 15.44. You seem to think we have something much more ancient, perhaps in Tacitus’s own handwriting? Just kidding. If ever there were an insignificant correction, it is that, since the term ??[?]st?a??? is perfectly clear and we could get by on even fewer letters. Tacitus was born pretty close on to the beginnings of the movement. As to the value of the passage, I am somewhere between thinking with Guignebert that it is almost useless (not worthless) in establishing a historicity for Jesus and useful, with Crossan, if Tacitus is quoting as he sometimes does from official records concerning the fire of 64CE. We do know that the Annals is a very important book and chock full of things we wouldn’t know otherwise. It is a useful insight into the Roman mentality towards Judaea and insurrection in general as it was perceived in the early second century, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the early spread of Christianity. It shows the linkage of Judaism and Christianity in the popular imagination as well, since the Jews are elsewhere indicted for their “detesting” mankind.
3. re Starkian Stats: Again, I have to disappoint you: First, I do not regard Stark as first class. His attempt to analogize the spread of early Christianity to the spread of Mormonism strikes me as one of the biggest hoo-haws in modern scholarship. But that is beside the point, since you seem to have misunderstood my point: Are you saying that Christianity was too small to matter, garner attention, evoke the kind of notice that would be reserved for only larger or more obnoxious groups? Are you then trying to link this back to Tacitus? But why? If the passage in T. is authentic, then you have just defeated your own claim, and there is no good reason to think it is not. But the Younger Pliny writes to Trajan about the sect in 110/11, and Celsus–a pagan I know a bit about–wrote his diatribe against the Christians as a well- developed sect before the end of the 2nd century. Perhaps you have just misread the point since I cannot fathom yours.

 
 steph 
 June 17, 2012 at 10:35 pm
steve snyder: I read your original comment, and I read your slightly irrelevant appeal to Stark. I am all too familiar with his little book which I regrettably also own, so your little lecture is unnecessary and Stark is not generally regarded as “a top-notch sociologist of religion” by critical scholarship. I suggest you start familiarising yourself more with self more with critical discussion of Stark’s work. See for example Crossley, “Why Christianity Happened” (WJK, 2006) etc.

 
 steph 
 June 17, 2012 at 10:44 pm
steve snyder: I read your original comment, and I read your slightly irrelevant appeal to Stark. I am all too familiar with his little book which I regrettably also own, so your little lecture is unnecessary and Stark is not generally regarded as “a top-notch sociologist of religion” by critical scholarship. I suggest you start familiarising yourself more with critical discussion of Stark’s work. See for example Crossley, “Why Christianity Happened” (WJK, 2006) etc.

 
 
 
 J. Quinton 
 June 8, 2012 at 3:01 pm

In a law case–let’s make a murder so we can use DNA–the variable to be decided is not the event (E), the crime, but the cause (C) of the crime. Let’s make the crime a murder. Let’s make it a ghastly murder, a murder most foul (they like to quote Shakespeare over at Vridar– just trying it on). You postulate a murderer. Good job. You discover a bloody knife. A glove–shades of OJ–fingerprints, crime scene, probable time of death. It is a linear progression of data that points to Mr. Jones as the perp: the right man in the right place at the right time with the right motive and the right DNA. What has not changed in all of this? (E) has not changed: the murder itself is not in doubt. It raises the speculation and creates uncertainty about (C).
In the case of Jesus, as the mythtics frame the case, we are doubting an event (E) has taken place at all: the mythtics are not asking whether Jesus rose from the dead (= dealt the fatal wound causing E) but whether there was an E. They are saying all the reports of E–what he said and did are falsifications of an historical ocurence.
This isn’t the case. The event “E” is “Christianity happened”. The explanation (hypothesis) for E is that there was a historical Jesus. Just like in the above murder example, the evidence E is the murdered person, and the hypothesis is the explanation for the murder.
This is actually how I point out the hypocrisy of Creationists. The evidence E is the myriads of biological evidence, the hypothesis is the theory of evolution. They reject evolution because it’s “only a theory”, yet the same logic would apply to anything, even the historical Jesus. He is also “only a theory” but so far that hypothesis has been the mainstream consensus about why Christianity happened. If something can be rejected because it’s “only a theory” then Creationists should also reject the historical Jesus.
It’s crucial to understand the difference between fact and hypothesis. Some hypotheses are so well evidenced that they might as well be considered facts, but there’s still a possibility that the hypothesis can be wrong. That is the fundamental difference; facts (evidence) cannot be right or wrong but interpretations of those facts can be. There’s no mistake that Christianity happened (or that there’s a dead body, or that biological organisms reproduce imperfectly), but any explanation for that fact has a non-zero probability of being right or wrong. It’s certainly possible that the theory of evolution is incorrect, but that’s highly unlikely. Many people in these sorts of conversations (both historical/mythical Jesus and evolutionist/creationist) argue from hypothesis instead of arguing from fact, leading to everyone talking past each other.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 8, 2012 at 9:55 pm
@Quinton: This is not altogether bad. Now for the lecture: Your analogy would work if the mythicist position pivoted on “Christianity happened” But we both know that it doesn’t. It pivots on the denial of an event, viz the historicity of Jesus and thereby breaks one of the two possible explanations for the event eo ipso–as casus prius as the old logicians used to say. Bayes himself would have understood that.
You are obviously committed to your forensic/legal model of trying this case, but you need to know that only Kalthoff (and to a much lesser extent Strauss) were concerned with “how” it began as opposed to nullifying the founder hypothesis. The standard mythtic position has been to deny E, , not to equate it with a question about C. Thus as it stands, there is a false analogy shot through the whole discussion, and it is not mine. Current equations using BayesT as far as I can tell are also only interested in excluding E, which, as you are a logician, will agree is self-defeating propositionally. Please tell me if there are any among the 13 propositions typical of mythicism that help us to construct a plausible view of how it actually happened and defeat by their coherence the traditional view? Your whole case depends on this, because the traditional case is stronger now than it was in 1912. Finally, I agree with you that E ought to equate the crime in my analogy and the E=how of Xty. Generally. My whole point is that in the mythtic calculus it does not and so exceeds the bounds of logic.
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 Grog 
 June 9, 2012 at 12:23 pm
The evolution analogy works exactly the opposite way. In the case of the theory of evolution, there is an abundance of evidence to support the theory…evidence from independent intersecting disciplines. In science, when there is evidence that contradicts the theory, the theory is either adjusted or thrown out. The theory makes accurate predictions. For example, Shubin did not go out to a random hill and start digging to find Tiktaalik. He knew where to look and what he was looking for. Darwin predicted that the origins of humankind would be found in Africa. However, the theory of evolution is falsifiable. One can imagine evidence that would cause a serious rethinking of the theory.
The theory (really hypothesis) that Christianity originated with the execution of a mostly obscure Jewish apocalyptic preacher does not explain the earliest evidence. From the outset, it has flaws that cause proponents to postulate an increasingly implausible set of unfalsifiable, ad hoc rationalizations. The hypothesis itself entails a non-existent event horizon to make itself immune to falsification (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, “Jesus was obscure” “Paul had no reason to mention the teachings of Jesus,” etc.) The project of excavating the origins of Christianity starts from a flawed premise. It is like beginning the search for human origins by looking for the remains of Adam
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 steph 
 June 9, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Is this a ‘faith document’?

 
 
 
 Wayne 
 June 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Whew!
Great discussion.
It would be easier for me to read if you used the word event instead of E. I took me a few tries before I got it.
Thanks
Wayne
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 Wayne 
 June 8, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Reblogged this on luvsiesous and commented:
 Friends,
A blogger just wrote a rather deep discussion of the historicity of Jesus argument. It is good. It might help you understand why Myth-makers make the history of Jesus into a story.
Wayne
Reply
 
 steph 
 June 8, 2012 at 7:24 pm
Brilliantly incisive. I love the allusions – several from the title to the train crash. I’m sorry I found the 13 “key” “unarguable” principles so hilarious because they are all so regrettably accurate. And old. Dismiss all inconvenient evidence from the courtroom. Isn’t it funny how as a rule, most people who subscribe to mythicism are not biblical scholars or trained in biblical studies. I wonder why… It’s ironic that in order to deny a historical Jesus existed, the mythtics must turn so many ancient people into forgers, liars and evil manipulators, and the rest into gullible ignorant masses. I wonder what this says about themselves.
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 Neil Godfrey 
 June 8, 2012 at 8:42 pm
You fail to recognize your argument is merely begging the question of historicity — that the faith documents we have today do in fact establish the historicity of Jesus: http://vridar.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/the-historical-jesus-hypothesis-does-not-even-rise-to-the-level-of-requiring-investigation/
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 8, 2012 at 9:35 pm
@Gdfrey: It is not “Begging the question” to challenge you to produce your plausible reconstruction, unless the definiiton of that fallacy has changed considerably–please advise. And pray tell, what in the heck is a “faith document”?
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 Neil Godfrey 
 June 11, 2012 at 7:08 pm
The implications of your assertions about what you cite as evidence for the existence of Jesus are indeed question begging. Ignoring that with some sort of tit for tat retort does not change that fact. (I do not, by the way, conclude that therefore there was no historical Jesus.)
I am sorry if I coin a term for documents that I understood were generally agreed to be expressions and promotions or explanations of a faith movement of some kind. If you don’t like it I’m quite happy to remove it from the table and use some other word for the same thing.

 
 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 11, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Please tell me which beg what questions and don’t throw fallacy accusations like so many snowballs … It isn’t hitting a target.

 
 
 
 jsegor23 
 June 8, 2012 at 11:24 pm
I’m not a biblical scholar and have no position regarding the historical existence of Jesus. I am a lawyer and will comment on Joe’s crime analogy. The first thing a prosecutor must do is prove the existence of a crime. In the case of a homicide the prosecutor must also provide evidence that satisfies the degree of criminality charged. Is it manslaughter or first degree murder? The evidence Joe set out made it fairly easy to establish the elements of first degree. That is not always so easy. Sometimes there is no body and the existence of a crime must be proven by circumstantial evidence. Sometimes the jury buys it, sometimes not. Even if there is a body, it may not be easy to prove a crime. In a recent South Florida case the prosecutor charged the husband with strangling his wife relying on the testimony of the medical examiner. The defense brought in eminent experts who said that the supposed victim had a heart attack due to a congenital heart anomaly and that she hit her neck on a magazine rack. The prosecution evidence did not satisfy the jury and it found the defendant not guilty. Essentially the verdict was a ruling that a crime had not been proved. In the case of Jesus the mythicists may not have proven their case, but have they or others so shredded the historicists evidence that it is fair to say that the case for a historical Jesus is not proven? I don’t know, but it seems to me that Christians who rely on more than pure faith would be as worried by such a conclusion as they would by definitive proof that he did not exist.
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 John W Brandkamp 
 June 9, 2012 at 1:13 am
Oh, this is good. Like Spock from Star Trek I find this conversation fascinating. Conspiracy nutters never fail to fascinate me.
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More Mythicism around the Blogosphere says:
 June 9, 2012 at 11:57 am
[...] to be quite a bit of buzz about mythicism in the blogosphere. Today’s round-up starts with another post by Joseph Hoffmann on the topic, which begins with the following statement:The train crash that is modern mythicism is built on the train crash that was earlier mythicism. [...]
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 C.J. O'Brien 
 June 11, 2012 at 3:07 pm
10. The fact that the gospels do not differ substantially from many Graeco-Roman historical writings concerning known historical figures, except in length and subject, is of no importance to the case.
11. The fact that miracles, healings, miraculous births and ascensions to heaven are attibuted to historical figures in the Roman world has no bearing on the case.
Your 11. actually glosses over one of the substantial differences between the gospels and Greco-Roman historical writings. Nearly invariably (to my knowledge; counter-examples are welcome), Greco-Roman biographers and historians set such claims at a remove from their account by a number of devices: sarcastic or skeptical tone (Tacitus on Vespasian), claim to be reporting another’s account, with or without skeptical commentary (Plutarch on Augustus, Diogenes on Plato, many others), presenting a rationalist version of the story along with the miraculous or proposing a rationalized explanation of the same event (Plutarch on Alexander, where he presents accounts of Olympias both confessing and denying to Alexander that he was divinely conceived). I could adduce a great many more examples here, and again I know of no counterexamples, though I’d love to know of them if they exist. (All of these devices can be found in Herodotus at various points.)
The contrast to the gospels and Acts couldn’t be more pronounced. And that is what I despise about this sort of glibness on the part of defenders of Jesus’s historicity. As if it’s enough to simply wave one’s hand in the direction of the ancients’ belief in the possibility of miracles and thereby declare that the gospels are cut from the same cloth as Plutarch or Arrian. They simply are not, and I maintain that only a superficial treatment that eschews any engagement whatever with the details of the accounts being proposed as parallels in G-R historical texts would lead anyone to believe otherwise.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 11, 2012 at 5:02 pm
O’Brien: I cite two examples (many more could be cited!) in my recent post (http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-a-consultation-on-the-historical-jesus/), one from Livy, another from Suetonius, that suggest the frequency of incorporating the miraculous alongside the ordinary: it is absolutely typical. It is true that occasionally sarcasm and even skepticism are employed rhetorically, but as it stands your comment is simply mistaken. You cannot wade six pages into Livy, the most prolific writer of the Augustan historians, without tripping over miracles; indeed, in the 4th century, the last pagan emperor Julian virtually lived his day by consulting oracles. In any event, “Nearly invariably (to my knowledge; counter-examples are welcome), Greco-Roman biographers and historians set such claims at a remove….: is quite erroneous. The first century was a credulous age, and it would be very odd indeed it the gospels did not share in that credulity. I think your suggestion that biblical scholars wave their hands dismissively is also misdirected: a little extensive reading in ancient sources would cure you of it.
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 C.J. O'Brien 
 June 11, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Just as an exercise (consider it a childish game of the sort the unlettered like to amuse themselves with), imagine the episode related in Acts 19:11 in the hands of, say, Tacitus.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 11, 2012 at 7:32 pm
You have changed your goal: You were trying to say Roman historiography was systematically skeptical. It isn’t, and you ought to know better. The gospels and Acts employ sources called aretalogies which were popular collections of miracle stories, unfettered by historians’editing for the most part. You should know that too. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the gospel writers did exercise some editorial discretion about what to include, and what they finally included were miracles of a fairly standard variety–ascensions, epiphanies, healings–the sort of thing in fact we can get from…Roman history. No need to play your game; I’m an historian.
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 C.J. O'Brien 
 June 11, 2012 at 9:18 pm
If I’m wasting our time, and you’re not going to publish any further comments from me, please do me the courtesy of briefly saying so.
My central issue is this: I find it deeply disconcerting that a professional, an expert in the field, could state “the gospels do not differ substantially from many Graeco-Roman historical writings concerning known historical figures, except in length and subject” as a fact. Just blithely waving aside “subject” is deeply problematic, for if the gospels are to be taken as some species of bios, then surely it is substantial that they treat as their subject a presumably landless tekton from the hinterland, in radical contrast to the usual interests of ancient biographers.
I would honestly like to see you at least qualify that claim.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 12, 2012 at 8:23 am
Start here: Plutarch, Life of Numa Pompilius. And
 Livy, 1.16, trans. A. de Selincourt, The Early History of Rome, 34-35) rel2243-04.fa03.fsu.ed
…weary of kingly government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of Romulus toward them, had plotted against his life and made him away, so that they might assume the authority and government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine honors to Romulus, as to one not dead, but translated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name of Quirinus
Livy repeats more or less the same story, but shifts the initiative for deification to the people of Rome:
Then a few voices began to proclaim Romulus’s divinity; the cry was taken up, and at last every man present hailed him as a god and son of a god, and prayed to him to be forever gracious and to protect his children. However, even on this great occasion there were, I believe, a few dissenters who secretly maintained that the king had been torn to pieces by the senators. At all events the story got about, though in veiled terms; but it was not important, as awe, and admiration for Romulus’s greatness, set the seal upon the other version of his end, which was, moreover, given further credit by the timely action of a certain Julius Proculus, a man, we are told, honored for his wise counsel on weighty matters. The loss of the king had left the people in an uneasy mood and suspicious of the senators, and Proculus, aware of the prevalent temper, conceived the shrewd idea of addressing the Assembly. ‘Romulus’, he declared, ‘the father of our city descended from heaven at dawn this morning and appeared to me. In awe and reverence I stood before him, praying for permission to look upon his face without sin. Go, he said, and tell the Romans that by heaven’s will my Rome shall be capital of the world. Let them learn to be soldiers. Let them know, and teach their children, that no power on earth can stand against Roman arms. Having spoken these words, he was taken up again into the sky”
I also recommend my book on Julian the Apostate esp the introduction and his biographical traditions, keeping in mind they date from the 4th century. I say rather explicitly that the gospels are not intended to be history but that that they provide flashes of historical information; that is something almost all ancient historians and biblical scholars would say. I have no idea where you are getting off on the idea that the differences are either not registered or not accounted for in critical studies, except that you seem to “think” so. When I say in my piece for the Jesus process (you read it?) that the gospels are not intended to be biographical records or chronicles, I meant what I said; in fact a large chunk of the section called “The Later Second Century” deals with speculation about what kind of literature they are. But you seem doggedly determined to immunize yourself from reading or if you have read it understanding it. You are not having every repetitive comment posted because you are continuing to say the same wrong things (*go back and read you own first post, which is simply mistaken*) and avoiding the evidence in front of you. It is one of unfortunate traits of mythtics generally that they reason from poor conclusions to worse premises. The headline here is that Livy and Co, are not von Ranke, not even Gibbon, and did not write for the same purposes. What “really” happened is often at the service of what their patron wanted to happen, and what Rome required. The Christians did not invent hagiography or even the aretalogies; but your superimposition of post-Enlightenment “parameters” on the early writers completely glosses over the tangency and overlaps between the genres. On the other hand, it is undeniable that Luke, who was writing for a patron, filled his gospel and esp Acts with the sorts of pseudo-historical and miraculous tales that a donor might have wanted to read. Whatever the case, the wedge you want to drive is porous at best.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 12, 2012 at 8:49 am
Gibbon on Herodotus:
“The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies of profane and even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers have much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or appearance, or accident, which seems lo deviate from the ordinary course of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the deity, and the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes given shape, colour, language, and motion to the fleeting but uncommon meteors of the air.”
The quicquid Graecia mendax audet in historia, applied by the Roman satirist to the Greek historians, partakes more of insolence than justice; perhaps it is not very extravagant to affirm, that there are more prodigies in Livy, than in all the Greek historians together.

 
 
 
 brettongarcia 
 June 13, 2012 at 3:07 am
You don’t hear the skepticism, the distance, the coolness in these two Roman accounts of those who claimed to have seen gods?
Note that 1) in Plutarch, the deification of Romulus is recounted … but it is presented as having been a ruse or ploy. In Livy likewise, 2) we hear the voice of dissenters, presented at least equally to believers; while we are hearing not an alleged factual account of an alleged divinity like Jesus. In fact, in Livy we are hearing a process of divinization objectified, and spoken of, rather cynically, and at a distance.
You didn’t perceive the Irony in the Roman accounts? Which puts their accounts of “miracles” in a different realm, than simple belief.
By the way? This kind of evidence of awareness/cynicism regarding attributions of godhood – also recently evident in the matter of Julius Caesar – lends support to one mythicist thesis: that the Romans cynically created a passive, “suffering,” slave-like “god” in Jesus; to direct the masses towards slavish obedience.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 13, 2012 at 8:37 am
“also recently evident in the matter of Julius Caesar …” I thought he was dead.
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 C.J. O'Brien 
 June 13, 2012 at 3:20 am
(*go back and read you own first post, which is simply mistaken*)
Okay. When I do, I find that in my muddleheadedness I said that one of the devices a Greco-Roman historian might employ in the course of recounting a prodigy or a miracle was “presenting a rationalist version of the story along with the miraculous.” I do believe my addlement must persist, as I am hard-pressed to comprehend how this, from your proffered counter-example, Livy, doesn’t fit my description:

However, even on this great occasion there were, I believe, a few dissenters who secretly maintained that the king had been torn to pieces by the senators. At all events the story got about, though in veiled terms; but it was not important, as awe, and admiration for Romulus’s greatness, set the seal upon the other version of his end, which was, moreover, given further credit by the timely action of a certain Julius Proculus, a man, we are told, honored for his wise counsel on weighty matters.
The fact that the rationalist version serves as a foil for a tendentious argument in support of the miraculous is beside the point. If you think, as you said before, that my distinction depends on the idea that “Roman historiography was systematically skeptical” or that “Livy and Co. are … von Ranke” then you’re reading beyond what I’m saying. This kind of airing of an alternate version, however disingenuously, however in the service of traditional pieties after all, is as “absolutely typical” of G-R historiography as is “incorporating the miraculous alongside the ordinary,” but it is completely absent from the gospels. A thin, perhaps fragile, wedge it may be, as I am not nearly as ignorant as you assume of the vexed nature of retrospective genre distinctions and the tendency to split ancient continuities into modern compartments, but “porous” I still say not.
Also, let’s recall the terms of your 10. and 11. that prompted my comment. We’re supposed to be talking about “known historical figures” (10.) and “historical figures” (11.). I’ll allow that Jesus of Nazareth is at least as necessary a figure of any plausible reconstruction of the origins of Christianity as The Historical Romulus is for the foundation of Rome, but I don’t think that’s what you meant Livy to demonstrate.
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 13, 2012 at 8:18 am
@Garcia and O’Brien. Nice try. You seem to miss the rather significant point that Livy, whom Gibbon (quoted in this thread) accuses of using more miracles and wonders than all the Greek historians put together, recounts the story of Romulus as though it was pure history–when the events, if they bear any semblance of fact, happened at least 700 years before his time and were simply the wash of legend and Livy’s vivid imagination–and his patron’s preferences. If you prefer Plutarch’s account, he connects the twin brothers to Aeneas’s escape from Troy as impeccably historically recounted by Vergil in the Aeneid. It is true there is skepticism about the parentage of the kids: Mars, Amulius (the virgin Rhea’s uncle), and Hercules. (The relatively simple choice between the Holy spirit and Joseph in the Galilean story is much less taxing.) The apotheosis of Romulus is the least of Livy’s (or Plutarch’s) inventions.
Would you say that if the entire story of Jesus is a fabrication that the walking on water bit deserves special opprobrium for not having been presented skeptically? or would the chief objection be to the sermon on the mount for putting words in his mouth, as Livy does when he recounts the reactions to Romulus’s death? In addition to that wowser (you do tend to accumulate them every time you come back to this)–you keep missing this point: I said pretty clearly in my article for the Jesus Process what everybody already knows: the gospels were not designed to provide a biography of Jesus (Luke partially excepted), any more than the Book of Genesis was intended to teach physics. If they were intended to be “biographies”, even of the sort we find in the Roman historians, we might not be much better off because Hellenistic biography is mainly legend, as you will know from Philostratus. (?) I actually don’t have the time to teach you a parallel course in ancient history-writing alas, but just some advice: (a) Roman history writing is more fond of decoration than Greek, despite the fact that Herodotus is known in the trade as “the father of lies”; (b) your point about skepticism is nullifed by the sheer weight of various writers’ preferences for decoration and legend; (c) while empirical tendencies certainly exist, this tendency toward Loving the extraordinary tends to get worse, until we get to the time of Libanius, at the dawn of late antiquity, who never met an omen, augur or earthquake he didn’t like. It is true, the gospels and apocryphal literature do not bring these native traditions under control very early, but that is hardly the point: they reflect (as I say one last time) the credulity of the era.
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 Steve Byrne 
 June 13, 2012 at 4:39 pm
As a matter of fact can you tell me that Vergil believed Aeneas came from Troy just wondering?
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 13, 2012 at 5:15 pm
@Steve Burned: Octavian was happy with the story; that’s all we know, and that he paid for it. Vergil had no commitment to “real” history–just the glory of Rome and the glorification of an insecure Octavian. As to the quote from Gibbon–spurious? Plutarch bought it. Ennius believed Romulus had become the first god and so justified Augustus’ deification: this isn’t conjecture, it’s on the coins. You do know about the coins, yes? Do you call this a myth? Vergil’s 4th eclogue [read it here: [http://www.archive.org/stream/virgilsprophecy00virggoog/virgilsprophecy00virggoog_djvu.txtis] probably, not certainly, a basis for Luke’s story of angels singing in the sky at the birth of Jesus: the 4th eclogue can be dated:[ http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25010631?uid=3739696&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21100852225281%5D. It is a glorification myth. But Augustus really lived. I am frankly amazed that on the basis of so little information you are willing to challenge what critical scholarship has known for 100 years and the mythtics seem not to know at all: clearly, you need better teachers and not just the rank amateurs whose silly notions you are swallowing. I can guess whose.
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 Steve Byrne 
 June 13, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Just for the record Im not a “mythtic” exactly. The coins prove one thing : whoever coined them wanted people to believe that they were as one with whatever deity they were associated with on that coin. But then again see Gaius inre Drusilla He divinized her for what reason? I would suspect a similar reason to Jews divinizing their “messiah” idea. Does that make me amythtic? Please tell me impremator.
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 brettongarcia 
 June 14, 2012 at 12:51 am
Hoffmann? It seems to be a popular idea on this blog among Historicists, that since the Greeks and Romans believed in gods and miracles, therefore, they were no more rational than early Christians. And that therefore, their asserted existence of Roman emperors, say, is no more reliable, no more likely or not, than assertions of the existence of Jesus?
But do you really wanted to say … THAT? That 1) Greco-Roman culture was just as superstitious as Judeo-Christiantiy? And 2) that the existence of Roman emperors for example therefore, is no more or less certain, than the historical existence of Jesus?
What happens if we compare their relative claims to existence. Suppose we say of Greco-Romans and early Christians, that both believed in miracles equally. Then say, belief in miracles cancels out as a constant. So suppose we go on and look for OTHER EVIDENCE? We might seek proof of historical existence in other things: like say, 1) important, major works, like roads and battles and so forth. And 2) accounts of contemporaries, and 3) other documents. And in the case of Roman emperors? We have LOTS of such accounts. Whereas regarding Jesus? Almost nothing
Then too? It is likely that MANY Romans believed in (many of?) the gods; and believed that emperors specifically were gods, or sons of them. But did ALL Romans believe that? Plato and Socrates at times acknowledged the gods … but other times said things that seemed to cast doubt on them. (Which is the reason that Socrates was ordered to comitt suicide). While (in at least Shakespeare’s account), by the time of Julius Caesar, many Romans, Senators, did not believe that their emperor/leader was a god; it was indeed because Julius claimed to be that, that he was killed.
Many uneducated Romans believed that their currrent, modern leaders were gods; but much of the intelligencia were not so certain. And if we believe the cynics were right there … why not in the case of Jesus as well? Why not just see the divinization of Jesus as being culturally conditioned, by the absurd (popular if not elite) beliefs of the day, both Roman and Jewish; and the beliefs of both as being equally reprehensible?
By the time of Julius, many Romans clearly saw their emperors were not gods. And today, we believe they were right. Why not the case of Jesus as well?
But in any case, furthermore, if the non-divinity of Jesus is conceded by some Historicists – but his non-existence is not? Note that by the time of Jesus, while some Romans believed in miracles, or prodigies (great works?), many – if not all – educated Romans knew real, objective history fairly well. And they had a civilization that was realistic and reliable enough, to rather fully see the real nature and existence of many things – and the nonexistence of others. Whereas, out in the provinces? And especially among rude, uneducated Galilean fishermen? Their vision was far, far, far less reliable.
So that? Though both classical culture and Judeo-Christian cultures believe at times in supernatural miracles, still, Romans were a bit more realistic, and had better records (which itself is proof of greater reliability).
And therefore? Reports of the “real existence” of Jesus, are far, far, far less reliable than Roman reports of the real existence of their own recent emperors, etc…
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 rjosephhoffmann 
 June 18, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Garcia: I am beginning to see the root of your fallacy: “But do you really wanted to say … THAT? That 1) Greco-Roman culture was just as superstitious as Judeo-Christiantiy?” Leaving aside the phrases “Graeco-Roman,” and “Judaeo-Christian” yo seem not to recognize that these are not parallel but that the latter is a subset of the latter, especially Christianity. As to this statement: “Many – if not all – educated Romans knew real, objective history fairly well. And they had a civilization that was realistic and reliable enough, to rather fully see the real nature and existence of many things – and the nonexistence of others. Whereas, out in the provinces? And especially among rude, uneducated Galilean fishermen? Their vision was far, far, far less reliable.” Huh? I suppose you will find a friend in Lucretius, but e is not an historian, as the the general thrust of your comment it is simply false, false, false. In addition to that, not because they loved facts,have acquired the values you retroject into their writings?
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 jsegor23 
 June 18, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Joe: Some of us reading this blog and the comments are not expert in the matters under discussion. When you say that a comment contains falsehoods please educate us by telling us what is false and why. As I stated previously in another way, I don’t have a dog in this fight. Up to now, I haven’t been convinced one way or the other, although I’m impressed with some of the name calling. So far, for me, it’s not proved either way.

 
 
 
Biblioblog Carnival “according to Mark” « Euangelion Kata Markon says:
 July 3, 2012 at 8:15 pm
[...] Fisher and R. Joseph Hoffman), Hoffman continued with posts about the arguments of Shirley Jackson Case and a post providing one explanation for the silence of Paul and an interpretation of Galatians [...]
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