Loading...One other section that I attended at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Baltimore was devoted to the field of social memory and the historical Jesus. This was a very interesting panel, of four papers, devoted to what we can say about the recollections of Jesus found in the Gospels, based on what psychologists now tell us about memory, and what historians familiar with this psychological work are saying about how the past can be remembered. I found one paper in particular to be especially interesting, because the author, a very smart scholar named Zeba Crook, used developments in the psychology of memory to argue that we can NOT know anything about the historical Jesus.
Crook’s paper (I’m reconstructing this from my mind, based on what I heard two days ago; I may get some of this wrong. But if Crook’s point is correct, then I can’t reconstruct the event at all, as you’ll see!) was based on the phenomenon of memory distortion. Psychologists have determined several things about memory and how it gets distorted. For one thing, distortion happens all the time, either because our memories are faulty or because in conversation with other people (or, say, with the media, as we read “accounts” what happened) our views about what took place change – away from what really happened.
Memory distortion happens all the time; it cannot be prevented; and here’s the tricky part – we are unable to differentiate, in our heads, between an accurate memory of what happened in the past and a distorted memory of it. When we mis-remember something, it is absolutely as vivid in our minds as a real memory as the thing that we remember correctly. Psychologists have shown all this. And what it means is that we don’t know ourselves whether our memories are distorted or not.
And so there have been studies of how people “remember” such things as the first war in Iraq, the Cuban missile crisis, the Allied victory in Europe, and have shown conclusively that these things in fact are misremembered.
The problem is that if “history” is based on how people remember the past – or how they portray the past in writing, even if they do so soon after the past events have transpired – and people consistently distort the past in their memories, then there is no way to have any real access to the past.
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Interesting. Is it rare for biblical scholars to apply psychological research or other scientific findings to their work? I would think this would be a hot area. I’m excited that you plan to devote some time to researching – maybe you could do another popular book co-authored with a psychologist? Misremembering Jesus?
Ha! Good idea. But yes, biblical scholars are remarkably interedisciplinary.
I think scholars sometimes put way too much faith in the gospels as containing accurate history about Jesus’ words and deeds (I do think he existed!)–even liberal, non-christian, non-religious scholars do. I think one should be mostly an “agnostic” about what Jesus really said and did because they are based on sources are based on decades of uncontrolled oral stories told and retold in different countries and in different “thought/worldview” contexts. Yes, one can do redaction, form, source, etc. criticism but one is doing this on incomplete and old stories. It’s like painting a picture of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris without ever seeing it, but only on the basis of looking through the key whole of the door. I can paint what I see, only to find out I’m painting the front entrance rather than the main section. I know I’m making alot of assumptions, but so are you 🙂
It baffles me that even liberal scholars put so much faith in the gospels regarding what Jesus said. I know the criteria they use, but based on diversity of early Christianity during even Paul’s time, would probably even make me an agnostic regarding what Jesus said and did if I lived then. I don’t have a PhD, I have not published, I only have a Master’s in the subject and one can maybe write me off because of that, but as you tell your students “think for yourself!” I may be wrong, but scholars have alot of work to do if they want to continue to hold their views, views that often different between very qualified and education scholars.
By the way, Zeba commented on your blog post on Facebook. I suggested that you invite him to post something on your blog in response, to get more of a taste of his position. He later replied he would be “delighted to contribute after seeing it.”
I couldn’t find Zeba’s comments. Can you give me a link?
I’m not sure which liberal scholars you have in mind. But if you’ll look at my Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet you’ll see that most go about this business very cautiously and armed with rigorous criteria.
He didn’t say much, but his comment is at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBartEhrman/posts/584715321600266
Why does it need to be either/or?
This seems really bizarre. Were attendees at the session allowed to ask questions, or did you just have to sit there and, ultimately, respond with polite applause?
It sounds as if, to make *any* sense, a person accepting this theory would have to limit it to historical events with relatively weak attestation. Assert that no one remembers anything perfectly, but nevertheless grant that we can come *reasonably close* to the truth of some events (the life of Abraham Lincoln), while claiming that isn’t the case for others (the life of Jesus).
There were questions, but I had to run off to another meeting! At least, that’s how I remember it. 🙂
What you are saying relates to a question I asked facetiously a short time ago regarding “Who was there to take notes of what Jesus said or did? No one was there to do that !”
I am coming to think of this in this way.
1. There is no totally accurate recounting of who Jesus was, what he said or what he did…only the possibility of bits and pieces of what was remembered….only a scant outline that could be applied to any apocalyptic preacher of his time.
2. The Gospel documents are a product of the early church, after Paul, and are compiled stories based on oral legends of Jesus.
3. One possible exception is the Q source of teachings, but the original Q is not extant so we can only go by what is in Matthew and Luke and in Thomas.
4. I am coming more and more to think that the authentic letters of Paul (since they are letters directly from him) are possibly more accurate as to Jesus’ mission and message than are the Gospels.
All in all, I have sadly come to the conclusion, after reading your books and essays, and those of other scholars, that there is very little we will ever know that it authentic regarding Jesus and his mission…at least not from the documents. The Gospels are unreliable documents.
Good points. Just two comments. First is that one of the problems is that Paul says very little indeed about what Jesus actually said and did. Second is that my view is that we can know a good deal about Jesus — it just isn’t what people expect ot hear (as I lay out in my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet).
Yes, Paul says almost nothing about the historical Jesus, but he says much about the Risen Christ. If Paul’s visions are not a hallucination, and are genuine contacts made by Christ to him, that extends the mission and message of Jesus, then we do know much more about Jesus status as a divine person. I look to the historical Jesus more for his teachings and to Paul for an understanding of the spiritual teachings. I hope that makes sense.
Second, I do accept that Jesus is an apocalyptic preacher as told in the Gospels. After reading your books on that issue it is very obvious. Paul also was an apocalyptic theologian but he presents much more of the cosmic spiritual dimension of the message than do these Gospels (other than John) IMO.
We agree, I think.
From today’s essay, what is the name of the book you have coming out that deals what is Paul’s understanding of the mission of Jesus / Christ, post resurrection? I would be very interested in that.
Please understand…my purpose in studying all of this is for personal spirituality, not just academics.
Thank you for your comments.
Maybe there is some middle ground here? Some history is accurate and some gets distorted even if it seems right. It reminds me of how often my wife and I remember the past in very different ways and we both are sure that our own memory is the correct one.
Does this paper really add that much to what we already know? Stories change in the re-telling and in the remembering. Individuals turn to the group to make sense out of events. It is helpful to bring the scientific method to bear and to quantify/qualify the effect but it seems that historians were out in front of the scientists on this one.
I think what it adds is real psychological research to back up what scholars have otherwise thought more intuitively.
Couldn’t resist – I agree with you. These words are perfect:”counter-intuitive” “myopic” “REALLY? ” To give up history is reckless and senseless, (in MY view too). Thanks for your great blog- in my second year with you. And Happy Thanksgiving.
I was worried you were going to agree with him for a moment (reading the first paragraph) and then I would have no idea what I had for breakfast! No. Correction. I COULD have no idea of what I had for breakfast. Heck, the gulf war didn’t happen. Bring back Baudrillard. All is forgiven.
Based on what you’ve reported about Crook’s SBL paper, several of your examples may not necessarily be apt. Take, for example, one of those basketball games. Whether you saw it in person or watched it on T.V., your personal memory could have been reinforced by watching replays on ESPN or reading the sports section of your local newspaper. There were reporters there taking notes, and there is video footage of the entire game. If someone questions your account of that happened in the closing minute of the first half, there is excellent evidence to settle that dispute. None of that, of course, is true with regard to events in the life of Jesus.
Much the same is true with a number of your other examples—the civil war, the Holocaust, Hitler, Mao, Clinton, etc. We have photos of the civil war, as well as numerous eye-witness accounts of various battles, etc. We have newsreel footage of Hitler, film of Mao, and videotape of Clinton, so we’re not simply relying on people’s memories. Those memories are supported by a great deal of additional evidence. Again, none of that is true with regard to the events in the life of Jesus. We have a great deal of evidence that suggests certain accounts about Jesus may well be plausible, so that contextualization helps us understand his milieu, but that contextualization does not present any direct historical evidence for the words and deeds of Jesus himself.
As you’ve often noted, most of the N.T. material about Jesus is based on oral tradition. If what Crook seems to be saying about memory distortion has any validity, that research would only further undermine much of what the gospels report. Even without the idea of memory distortion, other scholars have already argued that much of the oral tradition may have been embellished (if not totally invented) from Christian reflection on earlier biblical traditions—what Crossan calls prophecy historicized and Price calls O.T. midrash or rewriting scripture. So, even without the notion of memory distortion, the oral tradition may not be as reliable as N.T. scholars have always presumed.
You make too great a leap at the end of your post. There is a great deal more evidence for most of the examples you cite than there is for the historical Jesus. In every case, all one can do is try to reconstruct what probably happened, but there’s more to work with in the cases of Schweitzer, Mother Theresa, and Clinton than there is for Jesus of Nazareth, Apollonius of Tyana, or most others from the ancient world. It seems to me that this research may force scholars to reevaluate the oral traditions on which later written accounts are based. If oral traditions are as dubious as Crook’s research suggests, then it will be less credible for scholars to conclude that certain things about Jesus (or others) are probable.
Your buddy Dale Allison seems to have already drawn that conclusion. In his book The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, he writes: “After years of being in the quest business, I have reluctantly concluded that most of the Gospel materials are not subject to proof or disproof, or even to accurate estimates of their probability…. There is a gaping chasm between what happened and what we can discover or deem likely to have happened…. Our desire to know something does not mean that we can know it” (55-56).
You’re right, my examples are meant to show that history is possible. And probabilities recede as we go further in the past. My point is that the probabilities don’t recede to the vanishing point. We can know all sorts of things about the past prior to the invention of printing. (Ultimately we know that Caesar crossed the Rubicon because of ancient sources based on memory; but I don’t think that we have to throw up our hands in despair at knowing whether it happened or not. Just as I don’t have to really wonder if Jesus existed and was crucified, for example. We may want to *explore* whether these things happened, given our sources. But at the end of the day, there are some things that are simply highly probably, despite memory distortion.)
Yes, history remains possible, but confidence in historical material based entirely on oral tradition that has likely been compromised by memory distortion (not to mention theological beliefs, etc.) leaves little room to say that much of that tradition is “highly probable.”
Despite the shortcomings in Reza Aslan’s book, what he says near the beginning seems to me right on target here: “In the end, there are only two hard historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth upon which we can confidently rely: the first is that Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine at the beginning of the first century C.E.; the second is that Rome crucified him for doing so” (xxviii).
By the way, Chris Keith over at the Jesus Blog has a couple of posts about this same SBL session. Here’s the link: http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com/
That said, Allison still thinks Jesus existed historically, as a Jewish cult leader crucified in Jerusalem under Pilate, from whom the religion sprouted. Allison hasn’t gone as far as Bob Price … yet LOL. Allison seems genuinely upset that we’ll probably never know with any clarity beyond bland archetypes about who Jesus was and what he said. But the same can be said for many other Jewish ‘Messiah’ figures. But that doesn’t mean we can’t say something about some of them on good historical grounds.
The answer lies in two things:
1. How much time and space is their between your source and the subject. Crook is correct because it can be shown in several ways. Two people can disagree over an event that both experienced at the same time and same place. They can also happen is the events are supposed to be the same but separated by time and space. If you and I both saw Pink Floyd perform the same concert set in two different stadiums they difference in acoustics would give us a different experience even though we are experiencing the same set on the same tour.
2. Two people who see the same event are different people, they have different life experiences, different sensory perceptions, different agendas. The problem in your case is that you must made educated guesses about those differences you can infer from the material provided. If you dislike Roger Waters and think David Gilmore is the center of the band and I feel the opposite then we are going to tell different stories. Or what if you love Dark Side of The Moon and I love The Wall. Our perceptions will be different.
So what does this mean for a historian or someone doing you type of scholarship? I do not think it presents any more barriers then before because we have always known that people lie, they change events, the winners always write the history. An example is that we have far more proto-orthodox writings then non proto-orthodox writings, because the church destroyed much of the writings. This means that to discover what the others said we must compare what the orthodox wrote about the non and work from that based on their biases, and what source materials are available.. Multiple attestations are still of value because more documentation means more chances to get things right.
Here’s an interesting conversation with Robert M. Price, discussing (mostly) the historical Jesus and the problems of “knowing” the ancient past.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_syXSSLRzs
As always with mythicists, your name comes up several times LOL. I really think you should go on this show. The host is a great guy. Very respectful. The show has a massive following in the Atheist community. In recent weeks he’s had Richard Carrier on, and now Bob Price. I reckon you should go on there to even out the score a bit.
I agree with your final conclusions entirely! Much , of course, is a matter of faith – such as belief in ‘inspiration’. If we believe in God, it is quite easy to accept that the Holy Spirit would bring to memory all that was needed for communicating and recording the essential ‘gospel’ of Christ.
Jesus was set forth to be a ‘hilasterion’ by his blood (Rom.3:25).Personally, I would much prefer to debate for a greater understanding of spiritual truth such as this. How about it, Bart??
Maybe we just need to accept Crook’s point and fold it into our understanding of what we mean when we talk about things like “knowledge,” “history” and even “reality.” Other sciences experience this kind of subjective readjustment of the objective all the time-if the collective memory of scientific history is accurate anyway (ether?) Without the acceptance of the fact that knowledge isn’t and cannot be perfect, we’re left with nothing but Descartes’ fear that our perception of the world is generated by a trickster with a virtual reality machine.
Sometimes this blog drives me nuts! I don’t understand, in the first place, why you occasionally log us out (I assume this is happening to others besides me) and make us go *find* the assigned password and log in again. (Can’t even use passwords of our own choice, that we could remember.)
But logging in sometimes doesn’t work. I wanted to dip in here today, and found I had to log in something like five times before I could get to the Members-Only section, or even a place where I could submit a comment.
Hmmm… Not sure what the deal is! We’ll look into it. Feel free just to zap me an email when things go awry.
I have to log in about every week or ten days, a minor nuisance at worse. This is typical for many blogs.
I’d love to read this guy’s stuff sometime. I think as technology and literacy advanced, it allowed us more certainty about events of history. Perhaps his ideas are more applicable to far removed events of the past when objective records of history were less common.
Fascinating as always Bart! Do Crook’s views change if there is non-memory evidence – film, notes taken at the time etc? Or do the errors here also affect things? If so, we could do history, but without memory evidence. Also, it seems to me that the proposition must be testable: how much of what sorts of memories, recalled by who, when, and in what conditions are accurate. There is an experimental answer.
Good question. I don’t know! but I assume having hard evidence would change things.
It sounds like the argument is that if you can’t know everything with accuracy then you can’t really know anything, which is the same flawed argument people use against science in areas like origins and evolution. We need to recognize the limitations of study and knowledge in every field, but that should not stop us from making reasonable inferences from the available data.
Memory distortion is undoubtedly real, and generally, the longer the time period since the remembered event, the greater the distortion. This doesn’t mean memory is valueless, or that the past can’t be reconstructed with some certainty, but it should make us cautious. Memory is fallible, but where there is multiple attestation and other supporting evidence, and ideally a short time gap between the remembered event and the recording of the memory, confidence increases.
I think that psychological studies of contemporary religious phenomena and the role of memory offer suggestive insights into how accounts of supernatural phenomena in New Testament times might have gained a following.
I think we have another example here of Descartes’ mistake: confusing knowing with knowing with certainty. Yes, memory is fallible. So is everything else!
Interesting post, fascinating topic. Surely space limits what was said in the presentation and even more so in what you can report, but I would like to add these ideas.
1) Society cannot function without memory. Our court system is more important (and possibly more effective) than most people recognize and it is based on remembered events and, yes, they are partially re-constructed memories which is why we have cross-examination and rebuttal witnesses. If we cannot believe in the approximate correctness of the outcomes of this process, society crumbles into chaos.
2) It seems to me that a presenter making the claim that memory is unreliable must consider exactly, and seriously, what you said in jest. Can any hearer remember what he (she?) said? What about the author … can any author remember an event or even a thought from yesterday? If not, why write anything? How can language function if no one can remember? I don’t know about your presenter, but some take the fallible memory issue too far.
3) Did the presenter address the difference in cultures as discussed by Walter Ong and his colleagues? The cultural differences between an aural society and a “visual” (his technical term escapes me) would seem to be a hugely relevant factor when using modern memory research, especially if our brains evolve and if our memory faculties can be trained.
It seems to me that those who rely upon modern research on memory in the quest to understand the quality of information recorded in the Gospels must allow for individuals whose memory performs better than others. Even modern researchers allow for the plasticity of memory, and develop programs for others to improve one’s memory (I do not know of any studies to demonstrate how effective such programs are, but those who do memory research and use memory research obviously have interpreted the results to allow improvement).
In my job, I have the unique opportunity of coming face to face with my own memory distortion. For example, I’ll interview somebody from behind a video camera but experience the conversation in real time. I’ll record memories of what happened and process them on the way back to the office. Once I’ve uploaded the footage to review, I often experience the same moments through the lens of the camera but with distinct differences. Even in the short course of an hour, my mind can change a few words around or takes a statement out of context. They’re never huge differences but there’s always something I’ve misremembered.