vergari said
“But some are so determined to make it more historical when it is very clearly less so (at least in most regards), they bend over backwards to look for something. An eyewitness account of Jesus’ life shouldn’t make him seem lesshuman.”I agree with you here. I’m not arguing that we just simply accept every historical claim in John. I certainly don’t believe that Jesus spoke about himself with high Christology. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to reject the claim of eyewitness testimony outright. Claims should be evaluated on a case by case basis.
On the cleansing of the Temple, I’m unsure if that would have warranted a death sentence by crucifixion.
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Never mind if that’s what he was crucified for–I’m sure there was a list of charges–point is, you say he kept coming back to the Temple, and yet the first time he was there he attacked people with a whip! They had quite a lot of soldiers and constabulary around at Passover, you know. Enough to quell large riots. I think they could have handled one rabbi with a handful of rope.
It didn’t happen. And if we say it didn’t happen, that means we have no reason to believe John about multiple visits to Jerusalem, when all the other sources disagree. And if we say that, why believe John’s chronology of Jesus’ wanderings, when he’s shown such a callous disregard for the facts in so many instances? Obviously John the Baptist was Jesus’ teacher and baptized him, and Jesus said no one born of woman was greater than John, but you’ll never hear any of that from John the Evangelist, because he’s not out to preserve history but to rewrite it. Therefore, the Gospel of John is not to be taken seriously as a historical source, except to the extent that it shows us the development of Christian belief in the years following Jesus’ death.
“I can’t think of any evidence at all that Plato wrote Plato, other than that posterity said he did, and there’s no reason to think otherwise (except some of the surviving dialogues are forgeries).”
Plato was alive 24 Centuries ago, from a period where we have virtually no extant writings of anyone left. Shakespeare came from an era with the printing press. We still have originals of the quartos. We have copious original manuscripts in the hands of their authors. We actually have more than 70 pieces of extant written records connected to the Stratford man, including the original of his Will, lawsuit papers, his own deposition, purchase agreements, mortgages and six originals of his signature.
“Oh, but he came from a well-off family, had the best education available (we believe–there’s basically nothing about him in the historical record, other than what he himself provided). That seems to be the basis for the animus towards Shakespeare–who does this schmo think he is? He’s what most great writers are–an anomaly. Genius is not a predictable thing.”
Very little of the argument has anything to do with “genius.” The importance of wealth involves access to a library. Many of the sources used by Shakespeare came from works that were quite rare for the period, such as Plutarh’s Parallel Lives. Beyond that, Shakespeare exhibits highly advantaged knowledge of law, medicine, military strategy, and even things like falconry. One does not become an expert through “genius”; knowledge is required. And knowledge comes from books or from direct experience.
Writers from the period who wished to use rare book sources relied on patrons. But Shakespeare had no patron. Then there’s the added difficulty that Parallel Lives wasn’t even translated into English until 1579; some of Shakespeare’s sources were not translated into English until after the death of the Stratford man … meaning that the author would have needed to speak French and probably German.
“That’s how we’re talking about some guy from a backwater Palestinian province, who clearly had little or no formal education, who put together some makeshift religious mission over a period not exceeding three years and was then executed as a criminal, leaving a few terrified confused followers behind, becoming the most influential human who ever lived. If you can believe that, why not Shakespeare?”
These arguments are completely incongruous. If someone claimed to have found an ancient, authentic Gospel where Jesus has intimate knowledge of seafaring, Roman battle tactics, stoic philosophy and metallurgy, we would all immediately know that it was forgery, because Jesus didn’t have access to that type of information.
“There’s zero evidence connecting the plays to any of the men put forth as alternates.”
This is extremely false and you tend to you terms like “zero evidence” and “no basis” far, far too liberally. There is plenty of evidence connection Shakespeare’s plays to other writers. The case for de Vere is highly compelling and built on a mountain of evidence. But I’m leaving my options open, and not concluding on any other specific candidate. The Stratford man, however, makes for an extraordinarily weak candidate.
“There’s lots connecting the plays to the Stratford dude . . . “,
I just asked you for one piece of evidence before 1623, other than the similar (but not exact) spelling of their names and the Stratford man owning stock in the Globe Theatre, and your response was to say you can’t think of any evidence at all that Plato wrote Plato. What is this evidence for the Stratford man? Please tell me.
” . . . but obviously there wouldn’t be much chance of a slew of historical records from his lifetime.”
Whaaaaaaaat??? There is a ton of historical records form his lifetime. This isn’t First Century Judea. We have tons of records from 17th and 16 Century England. Just a mountain of stuff. Researchers have been digging into Shakespeare for centuries. Wow, just really, really, really wrong.
“This is basically the same kind of argumentation Richard Carrier uses–can’t you see that?”
No, it’s not. The only similarities is that both arguments are heterodox and involve deception. Carrier’s argument involves the creation of an entire non-existent figure through the use of conceits that were popular during the centuries sounding this figure.
“Is it surprising we don’t have more information about him from his own lifetime? Not if you know one damn thing about how history works, and how unimportant playwrights were in the scheme of things back then.”
You’re just plain wrong here. If you take the 25 most popular playwrights of Shakepeare’s era, we have copious documentary evidence on all of them … except one. All of them, every single one, EXCEPT SHAKESPEARE, left us what Diana Price has called “a literary paper trail.” For 17 of the other 24, we have evidence of education (not for Shakespeare). For 15 of the 24, we have records of correspondence (all almost all including on literary matters), but not for Shakespeare. For 15 of the 24, we have evidence that they had been paid to write (but not for Shakespeare). For 15 of the 24, we have handwritten inscriptions, letters, receipts and the like concerning literary matters (but not for Shakespeare). For 21 of the 24, we have commedatory verses, epistles, or epigrams to which they contributed or received (but not for Shakespeare).
For the lead writers of the day (Ben Jonson, Thomas Nashe, Phillip Massinger, Samuel Daniel), we have all of the above. Even the for the enigmatic Christopher Marlowe, we have evidence of his formal education, evidence of his relationship with a patron, an obituary and other contemporary writings referring to him as a writer. Indeed, for ALL 24 — every single one, other than Shakespeare — we have some type of contemporary record of the person being referred to as a writer during his lifetime. For Shakespeare …. NOTHING.
But that is not to say we don’t have records about the Stratford mad. Indeed, in the centuries of study of Shakespeare, more than 70 records from the period concerning the Stratford man have been unearthed. We have them. How many reference or allude to any type of literary career? NOT A ONE.
“The surprising thing is that the plays even survived, and why did they?”
This is just flat wrong. Many of the works of Shakespeare were printed on quartos, well before 1623. No fewer than 19 of 36 plays from the First Folio first appeared in quarto. Not to mention that we have surviving works from virtually all of the top writers of this period.
“Because he had friends who pooled their savings to put out a printed collection of them. And why did they do that? Because they couldn’t stand to think of him being forgotten.”
False. The First Folio was bank-rolled by the Earl of Montgomer, Philip Herbert, son-in-law of Edward de Vere. There was no “pooling of money” by the chaps. This was a major project, put together by aristocrats. Jonson’s patron, Philip Sidney, was Herbert’s uncle.
“You clearly like attacking scholarly consensus.”
The scholarly consensus on Shakespeare is confined to English departments in the Academy. When historians and jurists begin to look at the evidence, they take it apart.
Listen, if there’s some reasonably neutral Elizabethan forum you know of that I can post in without paying a fee, I’d be more than happy to oblige, but the fact remains, there’s lots of evidence for Will and none for anyone else. There are no credible historians with relevant expertise saying he isn’t the author. There is some waffling about whether he had collaborators on some plays, mainly based on computer analysis, which has btw completely dismantled the Oxfordian theory.
And I’m still waiting for you to explain how Jesus committed mass assault in a public place under the direct authority of both the Temple authorities and Rome without getting arrested–and came back several more times. Stop ducking and face the music. 🙂
I’ll get back to Jesus in a bit.
This will be my last post on Shakespeare. I’ll DM you with some material to read. That you seemed to think we have almost no extant records from that period tells me you haven’t read up on that period or these arguments. You keep making these rather wild statements about “no evidence” and “no historian.” You’re just flat wrong. The most esteemed Professor of History at Oxford, Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, who specialized in 16th and 17th Century English history, didn’t believe that the Stratford man wrote the works. Elizabethan England isn’t First Century Judea. We actually have very strong access to that period. It’s not the historians who are all-in on the Stratford man; it’s the English departments. They aren’t historians.
Tracts. Always with the tracts. So many tracts. 🙄
I never said ‘no extant records’, vergari. Again, you have a tendency to build strawmen. I studied early modern European history at the graduate level, which certainly includes Elizabethan times. I was never much impressed with what I read of Trevor-Roper, frankly. I do remember reading he had this opinion, but you know, Linus Pauling thought you could cure cancer with Vitamin C. A great reputation often means you did good work in a few areas, and were taken as a sage in all of them, largely through force of personality. He’s not an expert on Shakespeare’s plays or the subculture that produced them, and the real experts are largely united in rejecting the Anti-Stratfordian crankery. I will make no further response on this subject, which I have read a fair bit about, but am perhaps less obsessed than you, since after all, the play is the thing. Perhaps you Steefen and OtherSteefen could form a support group?
Frankly, I’m inclined to call this radical change of tack a strategic withdrawal on your part, though if you like, we can call it a flanking maneuver. 😉
godspell said
Tracts. Always with the tracts. So many tracts. 🙄I never said ‘no extant records’, vergari. Again, you have a tendency to build strawmen. I studied early modern European history at the graduate level, which certainly includes Elizabethan times. I was never much impressed with what I read of Trevor-Roper, frankly. I do remember reading he had this opinion, but you know, Linus Pauling thought you could cure cancer with Vitamin C. A great reputation often means you did good work in a few areas, and were taken as a sage in all of them, largely through force of personality. He’s not an expert on Shakespeare’s plays or the subculture that produced them, and the real experts are largely united in rejecting the Anti-Stratfordian crankery. I will make no further response on this subject, which I have read a fair bit about, but am perhaps less obsessed than you, since after all, the play is the thing. Perhaps you Steefen and OtherSteefen could form a support group?
Frankly, I’m inclined to call this radical change of tack a strategic withdrawal on your part, though if you like, we can call it a flanking maneuver. 😉
I’m starting to sense some hostility. That was not my intention.
Very briefly … on the expertise issue . . .
You: “There are no credible historians with relevant expertise saying he isn’t the author.”
Me: The professor who held the most prestige chair in the history department at the most prestigious university in England, whose expertise was that period of English history, says he isn’t the author.
You: “I was never much impressed with what I read of [the historian you named], frankly. * * * He’s not an expert on [those] plays or the subculture that produced them, and the real experts are largely united in rejecting the [your opinion’s] crankery.”
From this exchange, it’s pretty clear that you’re not interested in the opinion of professional historians, but, rather, cede to the opinions of academics in the field of English Literature (i.e., non-historians), who you are calling “the real experts.”
I’m just going to flat out say this at the risk of offending divergent opinion: I do NOT consider academics whose discipline is literature to be “experts” in the field of history. Period. Full stop.
Does that mean their opinions should be ignored (IMO)?? Absolutely not. But, when you are addressing someone advancing an opinion outside of his/her/their discipline, I think it’s important to apply the proper level of scrutiny. I do not take their opinions as gospel (pardon my pun), and instead evaluate claims on the basis of their own merits. In the case of literary academics who weigh in favor of Stratford, I find their arguments lacking. And, so will you once you actually digest them.
Trevor Roper isn’t credible on this issue. He wrote zero books about it, nor was that general era his particular area of focus as one can see by his bibliography (he was a sort of roving commentator on British history in general, occasionally heading over to the continent). In fact, it was never clear he disbelieved Shakespeare’s authorship until after his death, and even in that brief posthumous declaration, he admitted there was no evidence to back it up–he just believed it would someday be unearthed. Yes, and someday we’ll find evidence Jesus was a myth. The last refuge of bad history. “History will vindicate us.”
And that’s one historian. You made it sound like strong consensus across the entire field. There is a strong consensus, among scholars of literature AND history that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.
What you’re sensing is mild irritation, mingled with bemusement–same thing I show Steefen. If that comes across as hostile, sorry. You’re a nice enough fellow. Monomaniacs often are.
Frankly, in reviewing Trevor Roper’s work just now, I was reminded that his brief post-mortem flirtation with Anti-Stratfordianism was nowhere near his worst offense as an historian.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
To refresh–there was a fake Hitler Diary. Trevor Roper thought it was authentic. Now leaving epic humiliation aside, his overall analysis of Hitler was seriously flawed and myopic (maybe just a tad racist), and there are vastly better books written by others, the best perhaps being Hitler:Ascent by a German journalist, Volker Ullrich, who barely even talks about Trevor Roper’s discarded thesis.
(Think about this a moment–Trevor Roper was willing to go way out on a limb and say an unearthed Hitler diary was genuine. He was willing to jeopardize his reputation–which has never fully recovered–by essentially minimizing the threat Hitler posed, and suggesting WWII might have been unnecessary, just let it all blow over–oddly, Bertrand Russell said much the same thing–a trend in certain English academic circles, let’s call it. But he was afraid to come out and say Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare! The Bard is mighty!)
Obviously he was talented, but the talent was mingled with too much hubris, brought on by fame. Dawkins has the same tendency to overestimate his importance, and get out of his area of expertise (in a field where his ideas are increasingly out of vogue, which is probably one reason he abandoned evolutionary theory to become a cheerleader for atheism). An occupational hazard, let’s call it. When a lot of people start paying a lot of attention to an academic–somebody who normally has trouble getting even his students to pay attention–it can turn the head a bit. And then the problem becomes how to keep the attention one has grown accustomed to.
Which brings us back to the real topic–Jesus. Everybody wants to write about him, and everybody has a pet theory. He’s bigger than Shakespeare and Hitler combined, but at the end of the day, there’s only a handful of people really qualified to give more than a general impression. Most of them labor away in obscurity. Bart is one of the few to achieve a small measure of fame. (Should we be concerned?)
You have your ideas, I don’t disagree with all of them, but I have now asked you several times to justify your claim that John’s gospel is more historically accurate, and you keep going back to Shakespeare.
Do it just once more, and you’ve conceded the argument.
(And the funny thing is, Bart’s wife knows more about Shakespeare than everybody who posts at this website combined, including Bart).
(And the funny thing is, Bart’s wife knows more about Shakespeare than everybody who posts at this website combined, including Bart).
AND Dr. Ehrman admits he isn’t even in his wife’s league as she is far beyond him intellectually. Also, he says she keeps him humble! I found her charming, delightful and fun when having dinner with them a few years ago (a birthday gift my son provided).
godspell said
An impressive couple, to be sure. I wonder if sometimes they have friendly debates over whose primary area of study outranks the other’s? 😉
Don’t know but read in an article that she said everything he says is true but that does not mean God does not exist. (She is a Christian.) Also, Dr. Ehrman once said they enjoy long walks during which they have intellectual conversations. That is impressive to me because I’m a walker and have walked with groups and friends and family with not one intellectual conversation ever! 🙁
As I’ve said before, whether or not you believe in God doesn’t really seem to have much to do with how good or smart you are. Not a very good indicator of character or intellect–in either direction. Theists and Atheists alike can be deeply judgmental, hypocritical, and inclined to put on airs. And Jesus knew very well in his own time that the most outwardly religious people are often not all they make themselves out to be–and he likely wasn’t much impressed with self-styled philosophers either.
Don’t pay attention to the fronts people put up to look big. Look at the person beneath. (Hard to see that person on the internet, naturally.)
As Jimmy Lunceford used to sing–
On the cleansing of the Temple, I’m unsure if that would have warranted a death sentence by crucifixion.
During Passover? With Pilate in town supported by a heavy Roman military presence? With the Temple Police primed to respond to just this kind of disruption? From strictly a historical perspective I think the “incident in the Temple” was precisely what got Jesus arrested and condemned. It would hardly have been have been interpreted by the Jewish authorities as anything but a direct attack on the Temple cult. And interestingly it would also explain why Jesus alone was arrested.
It is also interesting how the gospel writers separate the incident from Jesus’ actual arrest. But the synoptics don’t just record this incident. They make it seem like Jesus and his disciples virtually took over the Temple grounds. Historically this seems most unlikely for the reasons I already listed. Whether or not John knew Mark (not I think) he had another version of the story. Did he have a free floating pericope that he placed where he thought best in his narrative? Or did he deliberately move it as far from Jesus’ arrest as possible? John has well known textual problems. Maybe this placement is simply part of that attempt by some later editor to make sense of his materials?
Theists and Atheists alike can be deeply judgmental, hypocritical, and inclined to put on airs.
True, though even this presents a theological problem for Christians. No one expects unbelievers to act any other way but human, all too human. But Christian believers claim to be part of an organization that has been selected and shaped by the Almighty. They claim access to a higher wisdom. So when they act just like unbelievers one might be tempted to suspect their religious claims.
Jesus wasn’t a Christian, though. Jesus was a Jew who thought unbelievers (ie, anybody not a Jew) might sometimes behave better than some of his co-religionists. And the gospels do tell us that (Well, not John’s). And at the end of the day, all a Christian really amounts to is somebody who thinks Jesus told the truth about the things that mattered. The dogma mainly just gets in the way.
There’s no theological problem there, as long as you can read. Plenty of Christians have seen that across the centuries–the ones who merited the name.
And while atheists may not have ‘theological’ problems, that doesn’t mean they don’t have problems. Lots and lots of problems. (Like what’s the point of identifying yourself on the basis of disbelieving something? I don’t believe in Bigfoot, so should that be the guiding principle of my life?)
So if believing doesn’t automatically make you behave better, and disbelieving doesn’t make you any saner, any smarter–any more able to deal with reality–what’s the point of worrying who believes or not?
By their fruits shall ye know them. And I think you do understand that. The rest is arguing over terms. Do we really have the time for that?
Now, regarding what happened at the temple–Mark’s account just makes it sound like Jesus turned over a table or two. There’s no indication of a general insurrection, no indication that any of his followers helped him (and they sure didn’t do anything when he was taken away). If there had been a general insurrection of any kind, we’d probably have some record of it, in Josephus for example.
Some writers have thought that just making a scene on the Temple grounds would be enough to trigger his arrest (not necessariliy crucifixion), but obviously we can’t know. He had to have done something to get noticed in the throng. There would have been other streetcorner preachers in town. There were active zealots, aspiring revolutionaries, waiting their chance to rebel, many of whom seem to have have issues with Jesus, perhaps because he didn’t advocate physical force as a remedy, or sanction things like stoning Jewish women who slept with pagans. He didn’t really fit well into any of the existing factions, and probably thought they were all irrelevant and pointless, unable to achieve their aims (was he wrong about that?) So while he may have been able to draw a crowd with his unorthodox communication skills, he presumably didn’t have any kind of popular support.
Here’s one idea–maybe it was just standard procedure to make an example out of someone when the political temperature was rising–but better if it was somebody who people knew about, whose death would make get the point across–but preferably someone who didn’t have enough serious followers for there to be any serious unrest in reaction to his execution. Jesus wasn’t about politics, but politics was the name of the game in Jerusalem at Passover.
He really wasn’t any kind of threat–to the Temple authorities, to Roman authority. He was waiting for a divine intervention that was never coming. Maybe he intended to trigger it by provoking the authorities to kill him. Maybe not. A topic for another time. But from their POV, he was enough of an irritant to want to get rid of him, and not enough of a player that his death would risk serious unrest at a time when a riot could turn into a war very easily.
However, if John’s account was accurate, he came to Jerusalem three or four times in a few years, and started attacking people with a whip the very first time he got there–emptied out the entire courtyard, the size of several football field, all by his lonesome, which makes no sense on any level. We can’t know what happened, but there’s no way in hell that happened. Meaning the author of John can’t possibly have been someone traveling with Jesus. The Gospel of John is the least historical, the most mythicized. Mark isn’t the unvarnished truth, but John is mostly lies.
Finally circling back here. Apologies. Was away for the Labor Day Weekend; been catching up since.
“And I’m still waiting for you to explain how Jesus committed mass assault in a public place under the direct authority of both the Temple authorities and Rome without getting arrested–and came back several more times.”
I honestly don’t know. It very well could be that Jesus was crucified for what he did in the Temple. I should note, though, that this act would NOT have caused Jesus to be condemned for sedition or as an enemy of the State, as Bart has suggested.
As you indicated, Mark’s account does not have all the literary flourishes of whips and such. These acts certainly could have gotten Jesus condemned to death … but not for sedition.
“During Passover? With Pilate in town supported by a heavy Roman military presence? With the Temple Police primed to respond to just this kind of disruption? From strictly a historical perspective I think the ‘incident in the Temple’ was precisely what got Jesus arrested and condemned. It would hardly have been have been interpreted by the Jewish authorities as anything but a direct attack on the Temple cult. And interestingly it would also explain why Jesus alone was arrested.”
You’re definitely winning me over on the “attack on Temple cult” argument. Will have to think about more.
It is also interesting how the gospel writers separate the incident from Jesus’ actual arrest. But the synoptics don’t just record this incident. They make it seem like Jesus and his disciples virtually took over the Temple grounds. Historically this seems most unlikely for the reasons I already listed. Whether or not John knew Mark (not I think) he had another version of the story. Did he have a free floating pericope that he placed where he thought best in his narrative? Or did he deliberately move it as far from Jesus’ arrest as possible? John has well known textual problems. Maybe this placement is simply part of that attempt by some later editor to make sense of his materials?
Not sure that best explains the placement by John, but you could be right. Perhaps John was looking to de-emphasize the role of this single incident as the catalyst to the Passion, but instead wanted to focus on something cohering to his theme of the Signs.
I don’t know if you got crucified for just committing assault with a non-deadly weapon back then–that’s more like disturbing the peace, but you certainly would be under legal sanction of some kind, and John makes it sound like Jesus habitually came to the Temple to make trouble. I doubt very much he’d have been able to do that. Frankly, I doubt what happened in reality was all that violent, or that most people there in the huge crowded noisy courtyard even knew it was happening. If they heard angry shouts and protests, well that wouldn’t necessarily be such an unusual thing. But word would presumably get to the Temple leadership through the irritated money changers.
It would be the political aspect that would be dangerous–just by overturning the tables, he’s questioning the authority of the Temple leaders, who were approved by Rome–therefore, indirectly questioning Rome’s authority. Caiaphas was only in charge for as long as Rome said he’d be, and he was later replaced by Rome, as Pilate was. In both cases, the criteria applied by the Emperor was how well you kept the province quiet, so money and lives would not be expended putting down rebellions, and Rome could continue to reap a very large share of what Palestine produced.
Why did John write it this way? I think because his Jesus is stronger, more wrathful, without doubt, without fear, without equal, and without compassion for anyone who questions him. He’s not a human being in any sense. He’s a divine being in the form of a man, and the whip of cords is a material manifestation of God’s wrath. And as such a being, he can do as he pleases. He was crucified only because he allowed that to happen. Basically, he’s the Iron Man, from that Black Sabbath song.
I think it’s also written this way because because John didn’t feel the Jesus in the earlier gospels showed sufficient antipathy to the Jewish authorities (and to all who supported them). John wanted to heavily emphasize the enmity between Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership in all its forms.
He might also have felt it was necessary to show Jesus coming again and again to Jerusalem for several years to show that he gave everyone there fair chance to repent. The theme (which does have a certain twisted resonance with the story told in the OT from a very different perspective) is that the Jews who had refused to convert were obstinate like their forebears, who had again and again refused to heed God’s will as expressed through the prophets, and were duly punished for their insolence.
Where John differs from the synoptics, I think it’s a fair assumption he is going his own way, and ignoring the collective memories of who Jesus was, in favor of his own vision. Maybe he has other sources, but he’s probably changing those too.
My favorite gospel story is the Woman Taken in Adultery, which is set in Jerusalem just before the crucifixion, and only appears in John’s gospel. And which scholars pretty much all agree wasn’t originally in there, was added long afterwards. You can see very easily how it clashes with John’s vision of Jesus, if you read that chapter through.
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