Follow up to: Fine detail in the gospels: made up or not?

[Samuel]

I think it’s worth remembering that attitudes towards communication, evidence, story telling, belief and their relative values would all have been radically different in first century Palestine than they are today. We see everything through a post-enlightenment lens.

All I'm saying is that interrogating the gospels as if they were created within a modern context is asking a bit much of them. The authors and, if you like, eyewitnesses that contributed the accounts of Jesus' life that the gospels contain would have had a totally different understanding to us of how to transmit information, what content mattered and how it would be understood by others who heard or read it.

An eyewitness to a crime reporting something to the police in the modern age comes at it within the context of our culture. The bias they use to communicate information in a certain way will be influenced by all sorts of things - what it means to be talking to the police, the expectations of how that information will be used, their awareness of the social contract to which they live in their society, how articulate they are etc. etc. It’s almost immeasurable.

A first century Palestinian with a passion for a new and exciting religious movement who sets out to share the stories that have inspired their belief with others will be more concerned with including details and events that contrast it with the current cultural context and will choose to do it in terms that will convince people of that age. I don't have a fucking clue what it was like to be making my way as a citizen of first century Palestine, the politics, the boredom, the societal currents and pressures that influenced any kind of cultural change.

It’s not fair to probe the accounts these people made of something they clearly felt was important, because they didn't write them for us and could not possible conceive of how to write something that would work as a convincing thesis in the 21st century. Why should they? they were just trying to do the best they could for their own time... probably. I don't know, I never met them.

Trying to scrutinise the gospels for 'hard' evidence or fact from a perspective 2000 years after they were written will only highlight their limitations, ultimately undermining them. Which is a shame, because even as an unbeliever I can read and enjoy them and the powerful stories and ideas they contain.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

I think we all trust some form answer to the question of life after death. It depends on whether we believe in the supernatural or not.

You are of course free to trust anything you like. The problem with that though is that your trust has no more epistemological value for others than anyone else’s trust in anything else. Worse yet, even if you do believe in “the supernatural” there’s a bewildering variety of supernatural options for you to guess at in any case.   

A point of order. I agree that an Amazonian tribesman may be more likely to believe the woman being sawn in half trick to be magic than someone from a developed country. Presumably though, all people have a built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion. I went to a kids magic show as a boy where the magician pulled a bunch of flowers out of a rubber ring, which my Dad guessed was the kind you find in the roller of a hoover. So we went out to buy one, me hoping I could magic up some flowers for Mum. Very disappointed when it didn't work, but that was my initiation to the idea that 'magic' is illusion.

Wouldn't the tribesman know that there ought to be blood gushing out, and guess it was actually an illusion?

The gospels report that Jesus was really dead, so countering the idea that they are primitive fishermen mistaking fake death for actual death.

So it's just the resurrection that is in question. John provides evidence that the Jesus they saw wasn't an illusion, saying that they touched and ate with him.

That’s a Vlad-scale missing of the point. The point here is that there are various explanations for, for example, what appeared to be a resurrection that don’t involve a resurrection at all. The explanation “resurrection” may have been genuinely believed, but it wasn’t what was “witnessed”. You can’t witness an explanation. You can witness an event, but the explanation for it is an abstract – it’s a narrative that makes sense for the witness to process what he saw, but it cannot be a “thing” that’s witnessed in its own right. Do you remember an advert for the Guardian a while back that showed a thuggish-looking skinhead type rushing toward a woman with a pushchair and shoving her? What you witnessed was the event – the explanation that he was attacking her was a narrative that made sense of it but it didn’t exist on the screen.

Of course in the next shot you saw some collapsing scaffolding, so the explanation then became that he was saving her from being crushed. See? Someone could honestly have “witnessed” an attack and after many re-tellings and several translations it could have been written down that way. That though would tell you nothing at all about the actual explanation. 

And that’s the problem with your detective story. No matter how sincere he found the authors to be, you’d still be entirely in the dark about the accuracy or otherwise of their explanations.

In the end, with respect to their non-miraculous aspects, the gospels prove to be reliable eyewitness documents, in my opinion.

They’re not eyewitness accounts at all. An eyewitness account would be an account by the person who did the witnessing. What they actually are is accounts by people other than the eyewitnesses who were some considerable distance away from the eyewitnesses in geography, time and language.

A separate analysis is needed to get to accepting the miracles, which is based on my perception of the universe and whether I can accept the existence of God or not.

         
 
How on earth would you propose going about verifying a miracle? Of course if you believe in a god then you can believe in any related miracle story from any tradition that takes your fancy, be it resurrections, ascending on winged horses or anything else but that provides no reason at all for others to think you to be right about that.   

[Spud]

Spud,

You are of course free to trust anything you like. The problem with that though is that your trust has no more epistemological value for others than anyone else’s trust in anything else. Worse yet, even if you do believe in “the supernatural” there’s a bewildering variety of supernatural options for you to guess at in any case.

I'm not going to trust an answer that isn't backed up with evidence.

That’s a Vlad-scale missing of the point. The point here is that there are various explanations for, for example, what appeared to be a resurrection that don’t involve a resurrection at all. The explanation “resurrection” may have been genuinely believed, but it wasn’t what was “witnessed”. You can’t witness an explanation. You can witness an event, but the explanation for it is an abstract – it’s a narrative that makes sense for the witness to process what he saw, but it cannot be a “thing” that’s witnessed in its own right. Do you remember an advert for the Guardian a while back that showed a thuggish-looking skinhead type rushing toward a woman with a pushchair and shoving her? What you witnessed was the event – the explanation that he was attacking her was a narrative that made sense of it but it didn’t exist on the screen.

Of course in the next shot you saw some collapsing scaffolding, so the explanation then became that he was saving her from being crushed. See? Someone could honestly have “witnessed” an attack and after many re-tellings and several translations it could have been written down that way. That though would tell you nothing at all about the actual explanation. 

And that’s the problem with your detective story. No matter how sincere he found the authors to be, you’d still be entirely in the dark about the accuracy or otherwise of their explanations.

So the story is that someone pushed a woman with a pushchair. The explanation is to save her life. Jesus died and rose again (the story) but it turns out he did it to make people think he is a god to be worshipped.
Well, that could be a possible explanation (aside from, "to save us from our sin"). Whatever the explanation, the author has told us what he saw: that is, the same person who died by crucifixion was seen alive three days later.

They’re not eyewitness accounts at all. An eyewitness account would be an account by the person who did the witnessing. What they actually are is accounts by people other than the eyewitnesses who were some considerable distance away from the eyewitnesses in geography, time and language.

If an eyewitness can't write, or at least doesn't have A-Level theology, then he would recount his story to someone who can, and that is apparently what happened with the gospels. Also, the accounts by one of the church fathers, who knew John, do not conflict with John's own gospel account. Meaning that little or no change occurred across a generation.
         
 

How on earth would you propose going about verifying a miracle? Of course if you believe in a god then you can believe in any related miracle story from any tradition that takes your fancy, be it resurrections, ascending on winged horses or anything else but that provides no reason at all for others to think you to be right about that.   

Multiple witnesses?

[Roses]

Multiple witnesses claim to have seen the, Angel of Mons, which was only a story created by a journalist.

[jeremyp]

I'm not going to trust an answer that isn't backed up with evidence.

Like the answer the gospels give tor the question "did Jesus rise from the dead?"

If an eyewitness can't write, or at least doesn't have A-Level theology, then he would recount his story to someone who can, and that is apparently what happened with the gospels.

How long was the chain of people from the eye witness to the3 person who wrote the gospel? What steps did the gospel writer take to ensure that the eye witness account was true and not distorted in any way?

Also, the accounts by one of the church fathers, who knew John, do not conflict with John's own gospel account. Meaning that little or no change occurred across a generation.

Which church father? How do you know that this alleged church father knew the John that wrote the gospel as opposed to some other John?

[Spud]

Like the answer the gospels give tor the question "did Jesus rise from the dead?"
How long was the chain of people from the eye witness to the3 person who wrote the gospel? What steps did the gospel writer take to ensure that the eye witness account was true and not distorted in any way?
Which church father? How do you know that this alleged church father knew the John that wrote the gospel as opposed to some other John?

Apparently Ignatius, AD 35-107, knew the apostle John. In his letter to the Ephesians he mentions the virgin birth, and "God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life." Obviously this is doctrine put forward by the gospels. The supernatural bits were there from the start, not added later as you'd expect with legends.

[Spud]

There's nothing in any of the gospels that make them look like eye witness documents. There are, for example, no first hand accounts. Whereas there is evidence of large scale copying from Mark to the others.

Your best argument for them being eye witness documents is that they are like real eye witness accounts in the sense that they are unreliable like real eye witness accounts. Your argument is self defeating, if true.
That is a circular argument.

I think there were earlier written accounts which the gospels drew from. Eg John 21:24 "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down."
Or Luke 1:1 "Many have undertaken to draw up an account ofthe things that have been fulfilled among us".
The argument in this thread is that they compliment each other.

[Spud]

Multiple witnesses claim to have seen the, Angel of Mons, which was only a story created by a journalist.

No mention of these sightings was found in any official accounts of the event.

[Roses]

No mention of these sightings was found in any official accounts of the event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons


What about those who claimed to have seen Mary the woman who gave birth to Jesus?

No way can the gospels be termed as official accounts of the time Jesus was strutting his stuff on Earth.

[Spud]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons

Thanks. So it was completely fictitious, then? I wasn't sure. The big difference is that Arthur Machen, the author of the story, immediately admitted that it was imaginary and that he hadn't intended to create a hoax. According to tradition, all the apostles except John were martyred and none admitted to have made up the gospel stories.

What about those who claimed to have seen Mary the woman who gave birth to Jesus?

These are supposed sightings of ghosts, none of which involve the ghost sitting and eating fish and chips with them.

No way can the gospels be termed as official accounts of the time Jesus was strutting his stuff on Earth.

Luke is as much an official account as Arthur Machen's would have been if it was true. See his introduction. Mark too announces "the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" which is up with Roman announcements of victory in battle - also referred to as good news (citation needed)

[Roses]

Thanks. So it was completely fictitious, then? I wasn't sure. The big difference is that Arthur Machen, the author of the story, immediately admitted that it was imaginary and that he hadn't intended to create a hoax. According to tradition, all the apostles except John were martyred and none admitted to have made up the gospel stories.
These are supposed sightings of ghosts, none of which involve the ghost sitting and eating fish and chips with them.
Luke is as much an official account as Arthur Machen's would have been if it was true. See his introduction. Mark too announces "the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" which is up with Roman announcements of victory in battle - also referred to as good news (citation needed)

The gospels where written well after the very human Jesus was dead and gone, so none of the less than credible things attributed to the guy should be taken seriously, unless there is evidence to support them, which there isn't.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

I'm not going to trust an answer that isn't backed up with evidence.

Except we know that the evidence – accounts written long after the events by people who weren’t there in the context of societies where rational explanations were rare and miracle stories were commonplace – is weak at best, especially as it concerns a supposedly supernatural explanation when the quaity of evidence would have to be extraordinary. Besides, what need have you then of “faith” if you think that you have evidence? 
 

So the story is that someone pushed a woman with a pushchair. The explanation is to save her life. Jesus died and rose again (the story) but it turns out he did it to make people think he is a god to be worshipped.
Well, that could be a possible explanation (aside from, "to save us from our sin").

There are lots of possible explanations that don’t involve a miracle. Which if any of them is correct isn’t though the point – rather the point is to find a method to eliminate them all if you want to be certain about a miracle being the only possible explanation. 

Whatever the explanation, the author has told us what he saw: that is, the same person who died by crucifixion was seen alive three days later.

You’ve missed the point again. Even allowing for a witness having his words faithfully reported long after the event, what he saw and his explanation for it are not the same thing. He may well have seen what he interpreted to be one person alive, dead for a bit, then alive again but an interpretation is an explanatory narrative, and you can’t “witness” an explanation. Person A would have the interpretation “thug attacking woman”; person B would have the explanation “hero saving woman from scaffolding”. Both A and B though would have witnessed the same event.   

If an eyewitness can't write, or at least doesn't have A-Level theology, then he would recount his story to someone who can, and that is apparently what happened with the gospels. Also, the accounts by one of the church fathers, who knew John, do not conflict with John's own gospel account. Meaning that little or no change occurred across a generation.

The theology bit is irrelevant, and besides he’d have told it to someone who told it to someone who told it to someone etc multiple time before it was eventually written down maybe 20 – 30 years later, probably in a different language. That’d be a remarkable feat of accurate repeated memory given how corrupted messages become even in a game of Chinese whispers, and besides STILL all you’d have is an account of what the witness thought he saw – ie, his explanation for it. 
 

Multiple witnesses?

First, you’d only have the one witness account of there even being multiple witnesses. Second you’d have no way of knowing whether the other witnesses had the same interpretation of the event or different interpretations entirely (for all you know witness A said “miracle” and witness B said, “there’s old Jesus doing his party trick again”. Guess which one would have been written down?). Third, there were supposedly multiple witnesses to lots of other miracles too (Mohammed ascending on a winged horse for example) that you think to be as daft as I think your miracle story to be daft. You can’t just cite multiple witnesses as relevant when it suits and discount it when it doesn’t.       

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hillside

I think you may be making the rookie error of telescoping Juaism and in fact all religious relports of miracles into Jesus ministry.

Also as someone has said philosophy is footnotes to Plato so unless you equate atheism with reason then your chronological snobbery is ill founded....hang on though.....you do.

[Spud]

The gospels where written well after the very human Jesus was dead and gone, so none of the less than credible things attributed to the guy should be taken seriously, unless there is evidence to support them, which there isn't.

So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about the gospels being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy in them could not be predictive.

[Gordon]

So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy of the temple's destruction must could not have been written much before the event. Strangely though the latter isn't mentioned in Acts, which contains much historical detail relevant to the church yet omits the Jewish war. So it appears to have been written well before the Jewish wars, yet the book before it (Luke) predicts these events.

Spud

Unless you have a basis to exclude the risks of mistake, exaggeration, bias and lies (propaganda in the cause of Jesus) then all you have are anecdotes of doubtful veracity and uncertain provenance to the extent that the stories concerning Jesus in the NT are indistinguishable from fiction.

So unless you have a basis to exclude theses risks all you have is your personal conviction that these stories are true - so; have you a basis to exclude these risks that is independent of your own preferences and biases?

[Spud]

Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.

[Gordon]

Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.

How: by what method?

[jeremyp]

Apparently Ignatius, AD 35-107, knew the apostle John.

How do you know he knew John the Apostle? How do you know the John he knew (assuming he did know a John) was the one who wrote the gosdel

In his letter to the Ephesians he mentions the virgin birth, and "God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life." Obviously this is doctrine put forward by the gospels. The supernatural bits were there from the start, not added later as you'd expect with legends.

The letter to the Ephesians was written very near the end of his life. This makes it contemporary with or after the gospels. If Ignatius had read Matthew or Luke, he would have known of the Virgin Birth claim from them which makes him not an independent source.

[BeRational]

So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about the gospels being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy in them could not be predictive.

NO NO NO

I do not believe he was seen walking on water, so the simplest explanation is that it did not happen.

How have you ruled out this false claim?

[BeRational]

Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.

WOW just WOW.

Please explain how you have managed this.

[jeremyp]

I think there were earlier written accounts which the gospels drew from. Eg John 21:24 "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down."
Or Luke 1:1 "Many have undertaken to draw up an account ofthe things that have been fulfilled among us".
The argument in this thread is that they compliment each other.

Luke's gospel is most likely based on Mark and either Matthew or a document - now lost - that Matthew also relied on. There's also an argument. John also may have known the Synoptics and shows signs of having been edited from the original version. If there were any earlier documents, they have failed to survive and speculation as to their content is just that.

Even if there were earlier written texts, it doesn't prove anything. The Angels of Mons story went from a published work of fiction to being something many people really believed to be true in a matter of months.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Since Gordon is proposing that mistakes were made he needs to outline what mistakes were made.
Suggesting it then ordering others to state the mistake is mindgaming imho.
So G. Where do you think mistakes were likely to have been made?

[BeRational]

Since Gordon is proposing that mistakes were made he needs to outline what mistakes were made.
Suggesting it then ordering others to state the mistake is mindgaming imho.
So G. Where do you think mistakes were likely to have been made?

This is not the case.

Because mistakes are possible and Spud claims they did not take place, he needs to explain how he could possibly know this.
Spud has the burden of proof as he says mistakes were not made.

[Gordon]

Since Gordon is proposing that mistakes were made he needs to outline what mistakes were made.
Suggesting it then ordering others to state the mistake is mindgaming imho.
So G. Where do you think mistakes were likely to have been made?

No idea, since all I've done is point out that there are risks associated with accounts and that those taking such accounts seriously have the burden of explaining how they addressed these risks and by what methods they did so.

If they can't then taking these accounts seriously doesn't seem like a sensible position to adopt: but Spud says he has addressed these risks so I've asked him to explain how he did this.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No idea,

So what do you think put the inotion into your head?