To me, it looks like the Apostolic fathers, early churches, and Nicene traditions are conspiring together to cover up murders. That the Bible NT doesn’t tell of how the Apostles all died is a huge slam to the credibility of everyone involved with forming the Cannon during the Council of Rome and all those before who wrote the texts.
Murder conspiracies
How the authority structure begins is by arresting people. Joining the early apostolic churches was not much different than being in prison. If someone no longer sticks with the story, they are excommunicated and no longer have a safe haven within the church.
It’s a raid
If the texts weren’t considered scripture no one examining the Pastoral Epistles would ever think that they were written by the same author who wrote Corinthians or Romans. To hold on to such a position requires a prior faith commitment. I’m not accusing anyone of anything nor am I saying that believers can’t do good scholarship. What I am saying is that a prior faith commitment serves as a distorting mechanism. A mechanism that comes into play at different points depending on the quality of the believer’s prior commitment.
There are two assumptions that seem to me relevant here.
1. The Bible text contains some quality that distinguishes it from other ancient literature. This quality is variously described but let’s call it “divine inspiration”. Now of course all believers don’t mean the same thing by it. But all agree with the central concept to some degree. The controversial aspect of modern critical scholarship lies in the assumption that the modern critical methods of literary analysis can be applied to the Bible just like any other ancient text. Even believers who do critical scholarship must assume a methodological agnosticism as to the nature of the text. This sets up a bifurcation in outlook. I’ve heard believing scholars claim that this faith commitment doesn’t influence their scholarship but I submit that even here there will come a point beyond which the scholar cannot move because of that prior faith commitment.
2. Univocality of concept. All the Biblical writers, no matter the historical or cultural environment out of which they write, are basically telling the same story. For Christians, of course, this is the story of Jesus, anticipated and interpreted. For the fundamentalist this raises all kinds of issues and much of the apologist project is spent reconciling the obvious problems. But even the critical believer must once again submit to a bifurcation in outlook. And even though the critical believer can acknowledge that all the writers are not saying the same thing they are prevented from reaching the inevitable conclusion of this acknowledgement by their prior faith commitment.
Am I saying that only atheists can do proper Bible scholarship? No. But I possess a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount written by a pious Hindu that is most illuminating. Sometimes one standing outside a tradition can see things long occluded to the one within.
30 years of Bible studies down the drain. Woman authorship. The woman has deceived me. Not my fault.
There was no way for anyone to prove sole propriety authorship. It had to be turned into a moral lesson.
Women wrote the texts along with men.
Genesis 3.
The serpent deceived the woman. The woman deceived the man. Everybody dies. The Jews (Cain) killed Jesus (Abel).
Stephen, regarding your post 309, do you really believe a reader’s prior faith commitment can distort his view of a text but that a reader’s unbelieving outlook cannot distort his view of a text? My experience in life (having been both an unbeliever and a believer) teaches me that anyone’s (believer or unbeliever) view of a text can be distorted by a preconceived notion of one kind or another, and, therefore, that everyone needs to be aware of personal biases, whether conscious or unconscious. If you indeed believe that your unbelief exempts you from the potential for such blind spots, you are doubly at risk of them.
I also find it probable that Acts 7 (The Stoning of Stephen) was a deception. Saul was Jesus. Acts 7:56 is Stephen talking to Saul. How that happens is a conspiracy during a Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus wrote a lot of texts and murdered his own cult as the person Saul. The Son of Man was Jesus disguised as Paul.
That concludes that we had three historical serial killers who founded a similar monotheistic religion. Moses, Jesus, Muhammad.
Stephen, regarding your post 309, do you really believe a reader’s prior faith commitment can distort his view of a text but that a reader’s unbelieving outlook cannot distort his view of a text? My experience in life (having been both an unbeliever and a believer) teaches me that anyone’s (believer or unbeliever) view of a text can be distorted by a preconceived notion of one kind or another, and, therefore, that everyone needs to be aware of personal biases, whether conscious or unconscious. If you indeed believe that your unbelief exempts you from the potential for such blind spots, you are doubly at risk of them.
Yes, everyone starts with presuppositions. That is precisely my point. One of the aspects that differentiates ancient interpreters and modern scholars is that they start with different presuppositions.
What are the presuppositions of modern scholars?
1. The same literary/critical apparatus and methods that can be applied to other ancient texts can also be applied to the texts of the Bible. This sets up an inner conflict for modern critical scholars who are also believers. With one part of their brains they must believe that the biblical texts are special in some way. But in order to do critical scholarship they must treat the texts as if they are not special. The point of discontinuity will be different for each person but eventually it will be reached.
2. Each text must be interpreted on its own terms. On a functional level it means that each author must be allowed his own say. Any continuity between authors must be demonstrated not assumed. Once again the modern scholar who is a believer must hold two differing outlooks in mind.
Now let’s consider both the modern scholar with no prior faith commitment and the fundamentalist believer. I choose these positions not because I think that’s all there is but because they are boundary positions that will allow us to properly consider the range of outlooks between.
The modern scholar without a prior faith commitment applies these presuppositions without inner conflict.
The fundamentalist simply rejects these presuppositions altogether.
The fundamentalist rejects the idea of a neutral field within which to consider these issues. One is either directly accepting the faith commitment or directly opposing it. Hence the familiar accusation that modern “liberal” scholars start with the presupposition that the Bible cannot be divinely inspired scripture. Of course this fails to consider the number of modern scholars who accept the critical methodology yet retain their faith. (Inevitably the fundamentalist is forced to question the reality of their faith.)
Note that I am not diagnosing a disease here, nor hawking a cure. Simply noting what seems to me to be an interesting state of affairs.
Jesus wrote Hebrews after being swapped and hidden during the crucifixion. The Sanhedrin went to the tomb afterwards to make sure it was him. It wasn’t him, and they knew that Pontius Pilate just sent them a clear political message about the matter. Jews do not tell the Romans what to do.
Stephen, in response to your posts 309 and 311:
It is ironic that you closed post 309 with this sentence: “Sometimes one standing outside a tradition can see things long occluded to the one within.” I say ironic because it describes exactly how I feel, standing as I do outside your tradition, seeing things that are occluded to you.
The modern critical scholarly method, at least as you describe it, has utility – but that utility is limited. That is, if presented with two or more texts ostensibly from the same author, this method is able to say either that this claim is false or that it is possibly – not necessarily – true. Among the many things that this method cannot do, it cannot identify the author. If that knowledge is ever to be had, it must come by other means. This, however, is only a problem for those who have closed themselves off to any other means of obtaining information about authorship.
Ancient scholars may not have been through the Enlightenment, but they were familiar with the modern critical method (at least the essence of it) for verifying authorship because some of them used it to object to Paul being the author of Hebrews, and others used it to object to the apostle John being the author of Revelation. However, the fact that they didn’t use it to object to Pauline authorship in the cases that modern scholarship has (6 to be specific; 14-1-7=6) must be considered, just as Arthur Conan Doyle’s dog that didn’t bark must be considered. Did ancient Greeks not understand ancient Greek as well as modern non-Greeks?
Because a method that consists of comparing texts is epistemologically limited, it must not be the only tool in the kit. My argument throughout this thread has been that ancient scholars, in addition to employing this tool, also employed others – most notably consideration of personal and congregational testimony about the source of a text. This is the same methodology we regularly use, as, in an example I’ve given above, my claiming to know my neighbor wrote a text because his wife told me he was the author when she handed it to me. This is, in fact, the primary – though certainly not only – method employed by the ancients to know the identity of the NT texts. It was employed – both then and now – because its utility is great.
Recall, if you will, that Uncle Herman transcribed Aunt Millie’s recipe for German chocolate cake for her. Let’s say that two other writings of Uncle Herman’s are extant: a love letter he wrote to Aunt Millie on their 50th wedding anniversary and a legal brief he wrote for a client accused of extortion. (Yes, Uncle Herman had been a criminal defense attorney before he retired.) A scholar who relies solely on an examination of these three texts to determine if they had the same author is going to encounter vast differences in format, style, vocabulary, and syntax. But if he is also open to family testimony about authorship, he will not be misled into putting too much emphasis on the textual comparisons.
I am quite sure that all modern scholars do not shut themselves off from other sources of knowledge about authorship. But those who put too heavy an emphasis on textual comparisons, are prone to taking positions they otherwise might not take. And if they fail to sufficiently consider that ancient scholars might be their equals, if not their superiors, in making textual comparisons, they might be prone to omit references to ancient scholars when at odds with their own views in their writings to popular audiences about NT authorship.
To borrow once again from your writing, “Note that I am not diagnosing a disease here, nor hawking a cure. Simply noting what seems to me to be an interesting state of affairs.”
The historian and the prophet. The historian attempts to describe the past. The prophet attempts to describe the future.
What happens when the dogs are left in the house? The dogs poop on the floor. Which dog was it? The neighbor hears the dogs being yelled at and comes over to suggest that the dogs be left outside in the yard when leaving the house.
Is changing the traditional authorship now expected to be a threat to national security?
The archangel Michael itself could come to Earth, cover half the Earth in darkness, raise up Mount Sinai from the ground, fly it to Jerusalem, place it there, fly back to heaven, tell the Jews to wait and watch, return in one hour with the Lamb of God, sacrifice it right there on top of Mount Sinai, then toss Mt Sinai into the sea,
and the Jews in Jerusalem will still be swinging dead chickens around their neck and banging their foreheads on the wailing wall because they wanted a third temple to sacrifice goats at again.
Admitting to an irreparable lack of certainty is not a weakness. There will always be blank spaces on even our best maps. The mindset given to playing ‘connect the dots’ and ‘fill in the blanks’ finds this situation intolerable. Enough to take recourse in “other” ways of knowing. Including inventing fanciful traditions. Of course there was a great deal of utility in texts that could not be tied down to a specific time and place. What’s the old saying noting the disenchantment associated with finding out how the sausage and the laws are actually made?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)