@Boris_Badenoff I fear the atheists are concerned you are making atheism look bad.
Let’s all remember we deal with a lot of nonsense from Christians all the time, and that (hopefully) doesn’t make you think any less of the more reasonable of us. Thank you.
This a moment where the Christians can return the favor.
I’m pretty sure I read this book about twenty years ago, or one that covers the same material. It discusses the Documentary Hypothesis, the notion that Moses didn’t write the Torah and that the several different people with different agendas and different Gods wrote first five books of the Bible. Scholars have known this for centuries and that Moses never existed. Nothing new to see here. The author shows how different traditions and stories were put together to form just one version of a story. He draws on his and others’ studies of the different writing styles and the repetitions and contradictions in the stories. Is that your idea of employing history? It’s not mine. I bet you haven’t even read this book and know nothing about the subject matter.
Oh wow. You are really behind.
Cough. Sailhammer. Cough. @jongarvey
Which is an inherently historical hypothesis. Therefore it appears that you knew your claim was false when you made it.
Just the falsification of your claim. What part of:
are you having difficulty grasping?
Then you don’t remember what you’ve read very well, as the whole point is that there REMAIN two versions of many stories, not “just one version.” The historical context of those stories is most of the book, which could not possibly exist if your claim that biblical studies and history have “nothing to do with each other.”
No, the book is much richer than that. He goes into great depth about the historical contexts, something you appear to have too much pride to admit.
Well, seeing as how you just arrogantly denied the existence of more than half of the book, that’s funny.
How much are you betting, Boris? We can send our bets to an arbiter. I bet that there are some here who are willing to serve.
I’ve stayed out of the fray to this point. After reading all the posts, I do wonder if there is some talking past each other with terms like “history” and “myth” (though I don’t think this settles all the differences displayed here). In layman’s language, and even in some scholarly settings, “history” is a way of referring to the past. But modern historians often use it in a narrow sense to describe a methodology that comes with assumptions (e.g., naturalism, must have positive and verifiable evidence). Thus, a certain event or person may have existed and still not be “historical.” Myth also does not necessarily mean untrue.
I’m probably being overly optimistic that this difference in use of terminology is taking place here. @Boris_Badenoff perhaps you can define how you are using “history” and “myth”?
As an atheist, I rate that topic as a “meh”. For the purposes of discussion I see nothing wrong with assuming Jesus existed since it really doesn’t impact the arguments that much. It’s not as if we need to make Joseph Smith disappear in order to debate the veracity of Mormonism. Arguing over whether Jesus existed almost feels like a distraction from the main act.
An explanation would be nice for those of us who actually read this exchange.
Trying to understand Jesus as historical distorts the reading of the texts, defines them in terms not shared by the writers and forces a meaning on the stories they cannot bear.
It’s important to know how the ancients saw history, not as a record of past events, but a group of stories and mythology that gave them a common past that united them. That is totally different than the modern view that you described. So what we have is Bible scholars trying to force our modern view of history on ancient texts. That may produce the illusion that they are employing history but they aren’t. These ancient people were smart enough to know they had no way to record the past. If only Bible scholars were that smart we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
So when do humans start “employing history” in your understanding? Herodotus (5th c BCE) is usually considered a turning point, but this is much earlier than you seem to entertain (unless you simply regard religious texts like the NT as different than their contemporaries).
I think what you are asking is when did people start writing history? The question here is whether Bible scholars employ history when they study the Bible. But your question brings up an interesting point. Many ancient writers blurred history and fiction in the same books or texts. Plutarch and Caesar probably did this, especially when discussing conversations that supposedly took place. Many people believe the Bible does the same thing. But the Bible doesn’t belong in that category. The Bible is part of the ancient Near East’s story world of the gods which theology, not history.
Biblical scholars do more than study the Bible, but also delve into background material. I think this is what @Mercer was getting at.
The OT is steeped in ANE, but the NT in the Greco-Roman context. I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but it’s why I asked about the NT in particular, wondering if by the first century there was some influence from the GR way of doing history (or history-ish things) to some degree. Luke’s Gospel, e.g., purports to be doing history-like things (whether one thinks the author is full of crap or not is besides the point).
We were discussing your claim that biblical studies and history have “nothing to do with each other.” Last time I checked, Jesus does not equal biblical studies.
Trying to understand the Bible in a historical context enriches one’s reading of the texts, regardless of supernatural belief. But that makes the falsehood of your claim pretty obvious, no?
The stories in the Bible are repurposed (a nice word for plagiarized) from pagan literature that existed in other older cultures, times and places and featured different gods, heroes and prophets. The biblical authors moved the location of these stories to a fictional Israel which as it is described in the Bible is a land that never existed. The biblical Israel is not, was not a real place. The name “Israel” goes back to at least the thirteenth century BCE. It was once the name of the people of Canaan (western Palestine) who are said to have been destroyed by the Egyptian army under Pharaoh Merenptah. The reference to an “Israel” as the spouse of Canaan in an early Egyptian inscription is hardly evidence for the existence of the Israel of the Bible. Neither does it correspond to the real highlands Israel. So you see trying to understand the Bible in an historical context is foolish and as I said before makes reading the texts boring and tedious, which is why people don’t read it.
The author of Luke’s Gospel is anonymous which is unusual for an historian. He doesn’t name his sources but we know what they are - Mark’s Gospel and Josephus. But he makes a bunch of small changes in what he copied from Mark. There’s a great video called “The Gospel of Luke [The Alternative facts Gospel]” It’s only about ten minutes and it’s hilarious.
You’re sidestepping the larger point and misrepresenting Lukan scholarship. Luke’s use of Mark is well known, but to limit his sources to Mark and Josephus(!)–and then claim “we know”–is, well, unfounded. But it’s besides the point really. The author of Luke is claiming to engage in history-like things. Even if he were fraudulent, he does not line up with your earlier claim:
If we were discussing Genesis or even other chunks of the OT, one could at least logically posit this. It just doesn’t work for the NT.
There is a large amount of Luke’s gospel (as well as most of Acts) that is not found in either Mark (any version) or in Josephus. Luke had other sources besides those two, and we don’t know what they are.
NonStampCollector’s video is good, and well-referenced. But it’s really for entertainment, not a serious source, and I doubt there’s anything it it that KT is unaware of.
Press X to doubt this list.
I’m fairly sure both Finkelstein and Silbermann are both not Jesus mythicists but Jesus historicists.
For example,
Hard archaeology is quite marginal to the continuing power of the biblical tradition . . . Archaeology’s most important role in the exploration of the emergence of Christianity is not as a fact-checker but as a context-giver—helping us understand what was happening all over ancient Judea during the lifetimes of Jesus and his followers.
Neil Asher Silberman, Archaeology , 2005
This confirms it. You are truly the athiest version of Edgar.
The sources are the writer’s own imagination or traditions launched in someone else’s. Theology is just making stuff up. Not complicated.