Historians and New Testament scholars use the so-called "criteria of authenticity" in order to determine (in the case of Jesus' life) if a given saying or deed of Jesus is likely to be historical.
It is important to understand that these criteria of authenticity amount to sufficient, not necessary, conditions of authenticity (i.e., if a given saying or deed of Jesus pass the criteria, then they're more likely to be historical. But the fact that a given saying or deed don't pass the criteria, says nothing about the historicity of them. At most, it says that we don't know if the saying or deed was historical or not).
The reason for this is obvious: What we can recover historically from a given person is always LESS than what such person did or said. As consequence, many (perhaps most) of what person did or said is not available in the evidence, but it doesn't imply that such person didn't say or do these things. At most, we can say that the evidence available doesn't provide any information about these things, therefore we cannot know anything about it. This is why the criteria has to be used as sufficient, but not as necessary, conditions (because if, for example, you demand that a given saying or deed pass the criterion of multiple attestation in order to be historical, and they don't pass it, then you would have to conclude that such deed or saying wasn't historical, which is absurd: How the hell can you know if such saying or deed, which is not multiply attested, wasn't actually said or did by Jesus? It could be historical even if it doesn't pass our criteria of authenticity, and even if not historical evidence for the saying or deed exists at all).
When I began to study the topic of the historical Jesus, one of my concerns was how is it possible that different scholars arrive to wholly different conclusions about the historical Jesus. Simply arguing that each of them has their bias is insufficient, not just because it is trivial and non-explanatory, but because what we wanted to know is exactly how these bias produced the different conclusions (in other words, it is obvious that everybody, including me, has certain bias or pressupositions, because no one begins from a vacuum or from zero. But the question is how these pressupositions operate in order to force a given reading of the evidence in favor of what we want see).
I've discoveried that, regarding the historical Jesus, many Jesus scholars misuse the criteria of authenticity, using them as necessary (not just as sufficient) conditions of authenticity (Here their bias become evident: they use the criteria in that way in order to exclude the sayings of Jesus implying supernaturalism or exclusivism, which are precisely the aspects of Jesus' life that they don't like). In the case of the Jesus Seminar, some of their members add an anti-Christian assumption: Sayings or deeds attributed to Jesus are presumed to be unhistorical (or fabricated by the Church) unless the saying or deed is proved to be historical (so, if a given saying or deed don't pass the criteria, they can feel comfortable and feel free to "reasonably" "conclude" that it was probably invented or had nothing to with Jesus).
This assumption is extremely palatable to secularists, atheists, religious pluralists, anti-Christians readers and other who want Jesus to be a certain way, because they want to believe that the supernaturalistic portrait of Jesus in the Gospels is not historically. As consequence, they tend to accept too uncritically this assumption. (Analogy: Materialistic pseudoskeptics want to believe that the paranormal doesn't exist; hence, they assume that it is non-existent unless you can prove to them that it exists. This is why they feel confortable raising the bar and explaining away the evidence with imaginary scenarios and creative ad hoc speculations about the incompetence of the researchers, the delusional nature of the mind, the wishful thinking of believers, the frauds of magicians and so forth, which defenders of the paranormal are forced to refute constantly on behalf of "convincing" the skeptic. The pseudoskeptical UNDERLYING assumption is that the paranormal is guilty until proved innocent. The pseudoskeptical assumption is obviously based on scientific naturalism and materialism. Likewise, in the case of the Jesus Seminar, the assumption is that a given saying or deed of Jesus in the Gospels, specially the supernaturalistic and exclusivistic ones (which radical liberal scholars cannot accept), is guilty until proved innocent. The assumption is based on the hostility to Christianity and naturalistic presupossitions against supernaturalism, which is common in many liberal scholars).
Objective researchers wouldn't "assume" anything a priori in favor or against the paranormal: they would simply research it and study the evidence (for and against it) and draw the pertinent conclusions. Likewise, objective researchers about the life of Jesus wouldn't assume anything a priori about Jesus' life, including his putative resurrection, or his putative self-perception as the son of God or the Son of Man, or his putative miracles, or his exclusivism, and so forth. They would research the evidence (for and against) it and draw the most likely conclusions.
In summary:
Some scholars misuse the criteria of authenticity, in several ways:
1-They misformulate them
2-They formulate them correctly, but misapply them.
3-They use them as necessary, not just as sufficient, conditions of historicity (so if a given saying doesn't pass the criteria, it is considered NOT historical and hence as an invention, instead of being simply considered as something whose historicity cannot be determined or proved according to the evidence).
4-(Specially) They use them negatively, that it, as criteria of unhistoricity (so that if a saying doesn't pass the criteria, it is considered as positive evidence for NON-historicity).
5-Points 3 and 4 works better if you add the (implicit or explicit) assumption that the sayings and deeds about Jesus in the Gospels are guilty (false) until proved innocent (true) (an assumption that, without sufficient specific evidence, only will be buy by people strongly hostile to Christianity and hence who are predispose to its falsehood). Since anti-Christian readers share (implicitly) this assumption, they simply cannot see that the "scholarship" that they are trusting is just bad, biased, technically incorrect scholarship.
As an example of the misuses of the criteria of authenticity, you can watch the following lecture by William Lane Craig about the work of Bart Ehrman (When I read Ehrman's works, I was already familiar with the criteria of authenticity and detected some instances in which Ehrman misuses them, so I decided to write a post about it. Fortunately, this lecture by Craig saved me the time in writting that post. What Craig says here is exactly what I discoveried about Ehrman, only that Craig uses other examples and arguments than the ones I had thought of):
It is important to understand that these criteria of authenticity amount to sufficient, not necessary, conditions of authenticity (i.e., if a given saying or deed of Jesus pass the criteria, then they're more likely to be historical. But the fact that a given saying or deed don't pass the criteria, says nothing about the historicity of them. At most, it says that we don't know if the saying or deed was historical or not).
The reason for this is obvious: What we can recover historically from a given person is always LESS than what such person did or said. As consequence, many (perhaps most) of what person did or said is not available in the evidence, but it doesn't imply that such person didn't say or do these things. At most, we can say that the evidence available doesn't provide any information about these things, therefore we cannot know anything about it. This is why the criteria has to be used as sufficient, but not as necessary, conditions (because if, for example, you demand that a given saying or deed pass the criterion of multiple attestation in order to be historical, and they don't pass it, then you would have to conclude that such deed or saying wasn't historical, which is absurd: How the hell can you know if such saying or deed, which is not multiply attested, wasn't actually said or did by Jesus? It could be historical even if it doesn't pass our criteria of authenticity, and even if not historical evidence for the saying or deed exists at all).
When I began to study the topic of the historical Jesus, one of my concerns was how is it possible that different scholars arrive to wholly different conclusions about the historical Jesus. Simply arguing that each of them has their bias is insufficient, not just because it is trivial and non-explanatory, but because what we wanted to know is exactly how these bias produced the different conclusions (in other words, it is obvious that everybody, including me, has certain bias or pressupositions, because no one begins from a vacuum or from zero. But the question is how these pressupositions operate in order to force a given reading of the evidence in favor of what we want see).
I've discoveried that, regarding the historical Jesus, many Jesus scholars misuse the criteria of authenticity, using them as necessary (not just as sufficient) conditions of authenticity (Here their bias become evident: they use the criteria in that way in order to exclude the sayings of Jesus implying supernaturalism or exclusivism, which are precisely the aspects of Jesus' life that they don't like). In the case of the Jesus Seminar, some of their members add an anti-Christian assumption: Sayings or deeds attributed to Jesus are presumed to be unhistorical (or fabricated by the Church) unless the saying or deed is proved to be historical (so, if a given saying or deed don't pass the criteria, they can feel comfortable and feel free to "reasonably" "conclude" that it was probably invented or had nothing to with Jesus).
This assumption is extremely palatable to secularists, atheists, religious pluralists, anti-Christians readers and other who want Jesus to be a certain way, because they want to believe that the supernaturalistic portrait of Jesus in the Gospels is not historically. As consequence, they tend to accept too uncritically this assumption. (Analogy: Materialistic pseudoskeptics want to believe that the paranormal doesn't exist; hence, they assume that it is non-existent unless you can prove to them that it exists. This is why they feel confortable raising the bar and explaining away the evidence with imaginary scenarios and creative ad hoc speculations about the incompetence of the researchers, the delusional nature of the mind, the wishful thinking of believers, the frauds of magicians and so forth, which defenders of the paranormal are forced to refute constantly on behalf of "convincing" the skeptic. The pseudoskeptical UNDERLYING assumption is that the paranormal is guilty until proved innocent. The pseudoskeptical assumption is obviously based on scientific naturalism and materialism. Likewise, in the case of the Jesus Seminar, the assumption is that a given saying or deed of Jesus in the Gospels, specially the supernaturalistic and exclusivistic ones (which radical liberal scholars cannot accept), is guilty until proved innocent. The assumption is based on the hostility to Christianity and naturalistic presupossitions against supernaturalism, which is common in many liberal scholars).
Objective researchers wouldn't "assume" anything a priori in favor or against the paranormal: they would simply research it and study the evidence (for and against it) and draw the pertinent conclusions. Likewise, objective researchers about the life of Jesus wouldn't assume anything a priori about Jesus' life, including his putative resurrection, or his putative self-perception as the son of God or the Son of Man, or his putative miracles, or his exclusivism, and so forth. They would research the evidence (for and against) it and draw the most likely conclusions.
In summary:
Some scholars misuse the criteria of authenticity, in several ways:
1-They misformulate them
2-They formulate them correctly, but misapply them.
3-They use them as necessary, not just as sufficient, conditions of historicity (so if a given saying doesn't pass the criteria, it is considered NOT historical and hence as an invention, instead of being simply considered as something whose historicity cannot be determined or proved according to the evidence).
4-(Specially) They use them negatively, that it, as criteria of unhistoricity (so that if a saying doesn't pass the criteria, it is considered as positive evidence for NON-historicity).
5-Points 3 and 4 works better if you add the (implicit or explicit) assumption that the sayings and deeds about Jesus in the Gospels are guilty (false) until proved innocent (true) (an assumption that, without sufficient specific evidence, only will be buy by people strongly hostile to Christianity and hence who are predispose to its falsehood). Since anti-Christian readers share (implicitly) this assumption, they simply cannot see that the "scholarship" that they are trusting is just bad, biased, technically incorrect scholarship.
As an example of the misuses of the criteria of authenticity, you can watch the following lecture by William Lane Craig about the work of Bart Ehrman (When I read Ehrman's works, I was already familiar with the criteria of authenticity and detected some instances in which Ehrman misuses them, so I decided to write a post about it. Fortunately, this lecture by Craig saved me the time in writting that post. What Craig says here is exactly what I discoveried about Ehrman, only that Craig uses other examples and arguments than the ones I had thought of):
In future posts, I'll provide more evidence of misusing the criteria of authenticity by some Jesus scholars, specially by those in the "Jesus Seminar" (they misuse these criteria in order to create a non-supernaturalistic, non-divine, non-eschatological, non-exclusivistic, politically correct view of Jesus palatable to a secular and naturalistic age).
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