Fine detail in the gospels: made up or not?

[Spud]

Embellishishing the story with detail is actually more a sign of fiction than truth telling. Story tellers do it because they think it adds authenticity and makes it more believable.

See my previous post. When someone is trying to recall an event, little details jog the memory and so are often included in the account. Hence in Mark's account of the calming of the storm, he adds that when they set off from the shore, "there were other boats with them".

[ProfessorDavey]

See my previous post. When someone is trying to recall an event, little details jog the memory and so are often included in the account. Hence in Mark's account of the calming of the storm, he adds that when they set off from the shore, "there were other boats with them".

Little details may become embedded over time and then retained - that is no guarantee that they are in any way an accurate reflection of what actually happened.

Mark was writing decades later - and of course critically those who might have been witnesses to the early event in Jesus' ministry would have had little recognition that what they were witnessing might in decades time be seen as important. Hence they would have had no special reason to carefully record the event, including any special details.

What we are seeing is classic 'after the event' embellishment.

[ProfessorDavey]

For example, about 25 years ago I was with my two friends and we were travelling from church to someone's house for coffee. Paul, who was driving a separate car, didn't stop in time and hit the back of the car I was in which Ben was driving. We had just arrived.

Now if you ask Paul to recount the incident he may not tell you that Ben and I had pulled over a little before the house we were going to, as we weren't sure which house it was. That may have been why he went into us.

Paul and Ben will probably recall details that I don't remember.

The bit about Rhoda in Acts 12 would be typical of the way people recall an event. That she forgot to let Peter in makes it more memorable. It's like being reminded of information you are trying to recall during an exam by the mannerisms of the lecturer who taught it.

Problem with your example is that it involves 2 people who were actually there, recalling their actual experience. In the bible the person writing down the experiences (decades later) wasn't like Ben or Paul in your story. He was like someone who might have met someone, who decades later knew someone who claims to have been told details of the event by Paul.

Surely you can see the difference.

And if Ben and Paul cannot agree on details how on earth can you expect those details to be correct after countless re-tellings and decades later.

[ProfessorDavey]

For example, about 25 years ago I was with my two friends and we were travelling from church to someone's house for coffee. Paul, who was driving a separate car, didn't stop in time and hit the back of the car I was in which Ben was driving. We had just arrived.

What make, model and colour of car was Paul driving?

Likewise for Ben's car?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Prof,

Little details may become embedded over time and then retained - that is no guarantee that they are in any way an accurate reflection of what actually happened.

Just to note too that "little details" have a surprisingly huge effect on the re-telling of a story. Because the listener doesn't know which little detail the teller got wrong it becomes embedded in his re-telling, and so on. Small mistakes create a compounding error effect in other words so it takes very few re-tellings for the narrative to become wholly distorted even though each mistake seems individually small - hence the famous, "send reinforcements, we're going to advance" becomes "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance" after a very small number of radio officers have sent it on. It's the same phenomenon incidentally when someone is asked to trace a drawing, the next person is asked to trace her drawing etc (ie each person in the chain has only the previous tracing to copy) and in no time the original picture of a tiger turns into a daffodil, moreover with each person along the line convinced she did a near-accurate job.

Spud's confidence in the veracity of re-told stories is sweet, but it fundamentally misses the effect of compounded mistakes. That Mark, Luke etc may well have been as honest as the day is long has no relevance at all to the very high risk of distortions in the re-tellings. So were the radio operators.   
     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Prof,

Just to note too that "little details" have a surprisingly huge effect on the re-telling of a story. Because the listener doesn't know which little detail the teller got wrong it becomes embedded in his re-telling, and so on. Small mistakes create a compounding error effect in other words so it takes very few re-tellings for the narrative to become wholly distorted even though each mistake seems individually small - hence the famous, "send reinforcements, we're going to advance" becomes "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance" after a very small number of radio officers have sent it on. It's the same phenomenon incidentally when someone is asked to trace a drawing, the next person is asked to trace her drawing etc (ie each person in the chain has only the previous tracing to copy) and in no time the original picture of a tiger turns into a daffodil, moreover with each person along the line convinced she did a near-accurate job.

Spud's confidence in the veracity of re-told stories is sweet, but it fundamentally misses the effect of compounded mistakes. That Mark, Luke etc may well have been as honest as the day is long has no relevance at all to the very high risk of distortions in the re-tellings. So were the radio operators.   
   

I think the implications of what you are saying would need application on more than the foundation of Christianity otherwise  it looks a bit biased.
Apart from three or fourpence for a dance are there any actual comparable examples?

The point of the NT is or wicked genius of the NT depending on your point of view is a believing community as implicitly and explicitly mentioned in the epistles and a referential community in Jerusalem and between them the integrity of the account is maintained.

[Spud]

Little details may become embedded over time and then retained - that is no guarantee that they are in any way an accurate reflection of what actually happened.

Do you mean that a person's recollection of them years later is not guaranteed to be accurate? Well either there were other boats with them or there weren't. Either Rhoda did let Peter in straight away or she didn't. You can't really say, "Oh that must be inaccurate" - it's made as simple as possible so as to be plain.

Mark was writing decades later

What is your evidence for this?

- and of course critically those who might have been witnesses to the early event in Jesus' ministry would have had little recognition that what they were witnessing might in decades time be seen as important. Hence they would have had no special reason to carefully record the event, including any special details.

You are joking aren't you? Someone calms a storm and it's not important?

What we are seeing is classic 'after the event' embellishment.

I agree that fiction writers can embellish their stories to add veracity, but that does not mean they did in this case.

[bluehillside Retd.]

In which Vladdo,

I think the implications of what you are saying would need application on more than the foundation of Christianity otherwise  it looks a bit biased.
Apart from three or fourpence for a dance are there any actual comparable examples?

Fails to grasp that I was describing a generalised and well-known phenomenon (ie, compounded error), from which Christian narratives are no more exempt than anything else is, and…

The point of the NT is or wicked genius of the NT depending on your point of view is a believing community as implicitly and explicitly mentioned in the epistles and a referential community in Jerusalem and between them the integrity of the account is maintained.

...attempts (yet another and near incomprehensible) false binary by excluding arbitrarily the actual rationale for compounded error, ie honest mistake. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

Do you really mean this? If details are retained then they are accurate.

Did you mean to say that?

[Spud]

Spud,

Did you mean to say that?

No- see edit!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In which Vladdo,

Fails to grasp that I was describing a generalised and well-known phenomenon .

If it's well known you will have no trouble giving an example where it has happened within and between communities.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

No- see edit!

I thought not, though the revised version doesn’t help you much either. The point rather is that only an apparently insignificant error in a re-telling is necessary sometimes for the compounded effect on the final listener to be dramatic as each small error contributes to and amplifies the next one. If you’re interested, it’s actually worse than that with language because we tend to block in what we think the message was supposed to say when the initial error makes no sense.

Take the earlier (probably apocryphal) story of, “send reinforcements, we're going to advance" becoming "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance”. If, say someone misheard at the first re-telling, "send three and fourpence, we're going to advance" they might think, “that makes no sense – what they must have meant was, “we’re going to a dance” so I’ll put that instead”. Compounded error is well-known in maths, but it can be even worse in language because of this blocking in effect when we guess at what was intended.

Anyway, the point of all this is that even when you have entirely honest people involved, messages between them will almost invariably become distorted when each one has access only to the prior version rather than to the original. This is a generalised phenomenon regardless of the content of the narratives, whether it involves individuals or groups, and how well-intentioned or otherwise those involved happen to be. Once you adjust for it you’ll see it everywhere – myths, cargo cults, religions, whacko science beliefs (flat earthers for example), you name it. None of this of itself means that the stories you think to be true are necessarily not true by the way, but it does mean that relying on the integrity of the people involved in the re-tellings of them is flawed thinking.       

[jjohnjil]

Apart from the already explained problems of the retelling of stories, the real problems as I see it are these.

1)    All the people involved were of the peasant class of an ancient Middle-Eastern country … fishermen, carpenters, etc.  and the chances of any one of them being able to read or write is negligible.  If this story was about the same kind of peasants living 1800 years later … in 1790 -1920 for instance … still virtually none of them would be educated enough to have reported such happenings accurately.

2)     Imagine an old magazine had been discovered, with a story telling us that Charlie Smith a plumber living in Basildon in 1960 had been run over and killed … and there were 500 witnesses (unfortunately, unnamed) who saw him alive and well a week later - though nothing of this amazing event got into any of the newspapers at the time. Who would take it seriously?  Certainly not Spud or Vlad!   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Apart from the already explained problems of the retelling of stories, the real problems as I see it are these.

1)    All the people involved were of the peasant class of an ancient Middle-Eastern country … fishermen, carpenters, etc.  and the chances of any one of them being able to read or write is negligible.  If this story was about the same kind of peasants living 1800 years later … in 1790 -1920 for instance … still virtually none of them would be educated enough to have reported such happenings accurately.

2)     Imagine an old magazine had been discovered, with a story telling us that Charlie Smith a plumber living in Basildon in 1960 had been run over and killed … and there were 500 witnesses (unfortunately, unnamed) who saw him alive and well a week later - though nothing of this amazing event got into any of the newspapers at the time. Who would take it seriously?  Certainly not Spud or Vlad!   

Again there is the misunderstanding that a strange ending of Jesus time on earth was the only thing remarkable about him.
So you are dead right a raising from the dead might leave you with some vague acknowledgement that strange things happen or that there was a higher power.

The christianity that emerges very shortly after IN THE EPISTLES was not based onsome vagues acknowledgement that strange things happen in this world.

[ippy]

Again there is the misunderstanding that a strange ending of Jesus time on earth was the only thing remarkable about him.
So you are dead right a raising from the dead might leave you with some vague acknowledgement that strange things happen or that there was a higher power.

The christianity that emerges very shortly after IN THE EPISTLES was not based onsome vagues acknowledgement that strange things happen in this world.

I have to hand it to you Vlad, your posts are consistent, consistently incompressible?

Regards ippy

[Spud]

I have to hand it to you Vlad, your posts are consistent, consistently incompressible?

Regards ippy

But he's right about the epistles. They disprove the idea that the gospels were myth.

[floo]

But he's right about the epistles. They disprove the idea that the gospels were myth.

No they don't.

[jjohnjil]

But he's right about the epistles. They disprove the idea that the gospels were myth.

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter.

So which of these peasants were capable of wring such letters?  Isn't it more likely that, many years later, the scribes of that illustrious Roman Emperor, who had a dream and then decided to change his people's religion, were responsible for them? 

[jjohnjil]

But he's right about the epistles. They disprove the idea that the gospels were myth.

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter.

So which of these peasants were capable of writing such letters?  Isn't it more likely that, many years later, the scribes of that illustrious Roman Emperor, who had a dream and then decided to change his people's religion, were responsible for them? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter.

So which of these peasants were capable of writing such letters?  Isn't it more likely that, many years later, the scribes of that illustrious Roman Emperor, who had a dream and then decided to change his people's religion, were responsible for them?

You mean the Emperor Watsisnamian the sixth.

The news that some roman scribes had literally invented Christianity would have come as a surprise to the multitude of Christian communities which had been in existence for centuries. Since the epistles were dated long before Constantine as was the Gospel. The alternative history you present is completely fringe..............

[Nearly Sane]

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter.

So which of these peasants were capable of writing such letters?  Isn't it more likely that, many years later, the scribes of that illustrious Roman Emperor, who had a dream and then decided to change his people's religion, were responsible for them?

When do you think this happened? Why do you think all Christians were peasants? Why do you think that peasants are both illiterate and stupid?  How do you evaluate the likelihood of this?

[jeremyp]

Each person will recall different details. Hence the different accounts of the nativity. However, Mat and Luke both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and lived afterwards in Nazareth. It's what we expect!

Ok let’s say you are right here. All you have left of the story is that Jesus’ parents were Joseph and Mary (the virgin birth is also a common point), he was born in Bethlehem and ended up in Nazareth at some point.

Apart from the virgin birth that is all quite believable but also ordinary. Unfortunately, we can’t be sure that they had independent sources especially as both were clearly aware of alleged prophecies saying the the messiah would be born in Bethlehem

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

When do you think this happened? Why do you think all Christians were peasants? Why do you think that peasants are both illiterate and stupid?  How do you evaluate the likelihood of this?

Not my area, but to be fair it's a fairly orthodox claim I think that the narratives were passed along orally for years or decades before being finally written down. Where those who propound this oral tradition fall apart is in also claiming that the people involved were somehow exempt from error, elaboration etc in each of their re-telings. 

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Not my area, but to be fair it's a fairly orthodox claim I think that the narratives were passed along orally for years or decades before being finally written down. Where those who propound this oral tradition fall apart is in also claiming that the people involved were somehow exempt from error, elaboration etc in each of their re-telings.

What's that got to do with johnjil's implication that it was more likely at some time it was made up from a dream by a scribe of an unnamed Roman Emperor?

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

What's that got to do with johnjil's implication that it was more likely at some time it was made up from a dream by a scribe of an unnamed Roman Emperor?

I was responding to your reply to him ("When do you think this happened? Why do you think all Christians were peasants? Why do you think that peasants are both illiterate and stupid?  How do you evaluate the likelihood of this?") in which you seemed to see all sorts of things that I didn't. Where does the "stupid" for example come from?