Do the Gospels and Jesus miracles belong in a "GENRE" of literature which makes them necessarily FICTION?
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Here are some links on what the Gospels have in common with various works from antiquity nowadays considered fictional.
I.e., the categorizing flaw: anything in the "fictional" category has to be fiction because it is in that category or "genre" of literature. I.e., circular logic: It is fiction because we assign it to a fiction "genre" and then preach that it must be fiction because of its assignment to that "genre" vs. some other category.
There's no evidence in these links that the Jesus miracle stories are fictional. Rather, the methodology is to assign the Gospel accounts to a "genre" labeled as "fiction" (or "novelistic") and then declare "See, the Gospels must be fiction because they're in this fiction genre."
What "GENRE" of ancient literature do the Gospels really belong to?
• Any document of this "genre" relates
historical events, reported as factual, which are placed into a historical time frame and into the events of that time, despite whether intermixed with fictional or religious or propaganda elements.
• The document was
written near to the time of the events, not several centuries later.
• The document is
short, by comparison to mainline historical writings, and focused on one special event or limited range of events rather than treating history broadly.
The above literature type, which the Gospel writings belong to, is ignored by Matthew Ferguson, throughout these links, while he instead places the Gospels artificially into some kind of "fiction" category, based on supposed similarities between them and the literature in that category; and then, because of this categorization we're supposed to designate them as fiction, on the rationale that they must be because they're in that category, as decreed by established scholars with Authority to Bind and to Loose all literature types neatly into Ferguson's all-encompassing universal categorizing scheme.
The ways in which the Gospels diverge from and fall short of the historical writing of their time are perhaps too numerous to exhaustively treat here, but I will discuss ten relevant areas of distinction that are helpful for understanding how historical writing is different. . . .
4. Education Level of the Audience
While a high school-level education in history is universally taught to inhabitants of modern Western nations (still not as well as I would like), historical writing was very exclusive in antiquity.
That's the point -- the Gospels were not written by elitists for an elitist group and about the events of only the top elite rich and powerful and famous, which the established historians served. They were written for commoners (readers or audiences to be read to), and were written about persons below the top 1% of society, and especially focused on one historical figure who must have been distinguished and yet was not a worldwide famous or powerful celebrity during his time.
So the Gospels differ from the historical writings, but not in a sense which makes them less credible. No one is showing any feature of these accounts which makes them less credible than other sources.
In order to fully evaluate and appreciate historical prose, one had to be educated, literate, trained in oratory, and skilled at critical thinking. Authors writing to such an audience had to demonstrate their research ability, credentials, and methodology. As scholar Pheme Perkins (Oxford Annotated Bible, pg. 1743) explains, “Greco-Roman biographies were addressed to a social and literary elite, which may explain why the Gospels, addressed to a much broader audience, do not match them very closely.”
But this does not make the Gospel writings less credible. Not being in the "historical" or "biographical" category does not automatically undermine the credibility of a source. The whole document cannot be simplistically branded as less credible. Rather, individual parts may be judged on their credibility, as with any source.
The Gospels, in contrast, are written for a far less educated and critical audience. Far from the refined prose of Greek historical writing, the Gospels are written in a low language register in the Koine dialect. For anyone who reads ancient Greek, the difference in quality between a historian like Thucydides versus the authors of the Gospels is on par with comparing an elevated English work like Shakespeare’s Hamlet to a far simpler text like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Instead of addressing the credibility of the Gospels, this is only a snobbish insult to the commoners and those writing to them, disparaging them as incapable of making critical judgments. A mere put-down of the readers and writers of the documents is not an argument to show a lower level of credibility or higher degree of fiction in the documents. You have to deal with the content of the documents rather than just demeaning the readers and writers of them as being inferior or lower-class.
Historical writing was simply far more complex and rhetorically polished . . .
But this can be a negative element, causing more confusion, emphasizing symbol over substance. Something simple and straight to the point often communicates better than polished rhetoric, and might also state the facts more clearly.
. . . (as well as much more critical and analytical), . . .
By "critical and analytical" Ferguson means the diversions into the author's background and the surveying of different sources and their reliability -- which some readers do not need and which might clutter up the document, making it unnecessarily longer. For shorter and less extravagant writings, the author's background and "critical analysis" and discussion of sources would only detract from the specific information the document is presenting and which is the only purpose of the document.
. . . whereas the Gospels read as basic stories, . . .
The phrase "read as" is Ferguson's classifying rhetoric, by which he puts the Gospels into a category ("stories") and then insists that because this is their classification they are to be dismissed as "fiction" and as having no credibility. He repeatedly falls back on this categorizing logic, dismissing the Gospels as being in this inferior genre for the inferior masses who only understand fiction tales, which is what the Gospels must be because they are in this category.
. . . which were taught to encourage the faith of people who probably already believed and trusted in Christianity.
This specifically faults the motivation for writing and teaching the content: a document is condemned as not credible because of flawed motives of those teaching it or writing it. But how is the content less credible because of the psychological motives of those who taught it or wrote it? Does this say anything about whether the written matter is credible? What if the written matter is true, or mostly true, and then it is taught "to encourage the faith" etc. -- how does this teaching "to encourage the faith" etc. suddenly turn it into fiction?
You mean if Darwin's
Origin of Species is taught in order to encourage science or some other purpose, that turns the book into fiction instead of science? Whether it's true or not depends on whether it's taught for some purpose?
Suppose some Nazis cite Darwin's "Natural Selection" writings in order to promote their belief that one race is superior to another -- does that then make Darwin fiction instead of fact?
The motivation of those teaching it or writing it can be relevant in some ways, e.g., trying to explain how the stories got circulated or became popular, but this in no way addresses the credibility of the accounts or of the subject matter being taught. You have to address the content per se of the accounts, the claims being made, and how many sources or witnesses there were, etc., without impugning their motivation as some kind of evidence to disprove the claims or undermine their credibility.
The motivation of the one believing it or teaching it or learning it does not address the fact-vs.-fiction questions about the content. Different readers or teachers of the literature might have differing motives or differing psychological impulses driving them, or different schools of thought might use the same writings in order to go in opposite directions. Where they intend to go with it or what they are crusading for does not address the question of what the documents say and their credibility.
If you're having trouble deciding whether to believe the written content, you don't resolve this by trying to psycho-analyze those who believe it or teach it. You have to address the written matter directly, and if this is difficult, you might have to leave it unresolved. You don't resolve it by pretending to psycho-analyze those teaching it or reading it or promoting the literature.
5. Hagiography versus Biography
Rather than read as the unmitigated praise of a saint who can do no wrong, ancient historical works and historical biographies were far more critical of their subjects, whom they analyzed less one-dimensionally and more as complete persons.
By contrast to this, the Gospel writers almost certainly did not have "complete" information about Jesus which they could offer. Ferguson's only legitimate point here might be that the Gospel writers should have MADE UP SOMETHING FICTIONAL to supplement their Jesus figure into a more "complete" person. That they did not, but left him incomplete, is an attestation to their honesty and thus higher credibility. So here Ferguson is giving us just one more reason to believe the Gospel accounts, even though here he is faulting them for not adding fictional elements to Jesus to make him a more "complete" person.
How can you condemn them as "fiction" on the one hand, but on the other hand demand that they invent fictional traits for Jesus to make him a more "complete" person, as Ferguson is demanding here?
Even for a popular and well-liked emperor like Augustus, his biographer Suetonius in his Life of Augustus still did not hold back from describing Augustus’ acts of adultery and lavish behavior. Good historians are concerned with telling the past as it really is rather than just heaping praise upon individuals as propaganda.
This probably eliminates 90% of our mainline historians as not in the "good historian" category. How much historical record would be left standing after all but the "good" historians (who did not propagandize) have been eliminated?
The Gospels, in contrast, are not historical biographies but can be . . .
Of course they're not biographies, as well as not in the "historical writing" category. But that doesn't make them non-historical fiction or lacking credibility. They contain legitimate "historical" content, but are not in the rigid "historical" category. Find a proper "genre" or category to put them into --- stop trying to judge them by standards for a category they don't belong to.
. . . but can be more aptly described as “hagiographies,” written in unquestioning praise of their messianic subject.
How do we know they were unquestioning? What didn't they question which they should have questioned? To accuse them of "unquestioning praise" presumes there was some dirt on Jesus which they covered up, or refused to inquire about. How do we know this? What facts require us to put these writings into such a category?
What we can say for sure is that the later writers/editors (e.g., 60 or 70 or 80 AD) had very limited information on him. So, how do we know that's not the reason why they give us only a positive picture of him, and no negative part? i.e., that all their sources were only positive? It's not because they were "unquestioning" but because they reported what they had from their sources, which happened to all be positive. They could QUESTION all they wanted -- but where there are no answers, what are they supposed to do? invent something fictional? contrive something scandalous to make the story more sexy?
A genuine scholar simply admits that we don't know.
Our scholar, as it were, is supposed to be telling us how we know the Gospels are fiction, based on his expertise. But instead he just begins with his dogmatic premise that they are fiction, and from this he pretends to psycho-analyze the writers, as though his scholarly background is that of explaining what must be wrong with writers who say things contrary to his dogmatic premise -- like a geocentric astronomer explaining what the laws of the sun & planets must be if we assume the earth to be the center rather than the sun. They did come up with such laws -- it's always possible somehow to plug in your dogmatic premise first, and then take the facts that show differently and twist them around somehow to make them fit the dogma you're trying to superimpose onto reality.
Having so few facts to go on, due to the overall lack of sources on the details of what happened in 30 AD, wouldn't it be more scholarly to just say we don't know? rather than sneer at those who wrote the only evidence we have, with this put-down language driven by the dogmatic premise that those reported events have to be fiction?
What is scholarly about impugning someone's motives and suggesting something fraudulent and dishonest without any evidence? i.e., any evidence other than their writings which say something disallowed by the scholar's dogmatic premise? Obviously there is a dogmatic premise at work here: There cannot ever be any miracle events, period, regardless of any evidence -- so if there is evidence, as in this case, it has to be tainted somehow, the writers must be "unquestioning" fanatics who can't think critically -- we have to invent some scenario to explain away this evidence of something which goes contrary to the accepted ideological premise being superimposed.
An honest scholar would only say we don't know why the accounts don't give any negative side of Jesus. I.e., he would simply recognize a case of high uncertainty and limited sources. He wouldn't "make up" his own shit in order to promote his ideology. He wouldn't denigrate those early writers as "unquestioning" crusader fanatics when there's no evidence of it -- or, even worse, insinuate that they should have invented some shit of their own in order to make their account more politically-correct (more "complete" or less "hagiographical").
Although the genre of Christian Lives of Saints developed after the Gospels, they can still be regarded as hagiographical in that they function as laudatory biographies, praising the subject, rather than as critical biographies.
No, they are not "biographies" -- they are limited to the events of a 3-year period or less, which excludes them from the "biography" category. And whether they "praise" the subject is irrelevant unless you deal with the question WHY they "praise" him. If you refuse to address that, you cannot pretend to analyze them as being in the "praising" category, nor can you put them into some "fiction" category just because they are not in the mainline historical "critical" category.
You have to get serious and put them in their proper category: They are
writings which report specific events to be added to the standard known historical events, whether they contain some fiction or not, or propaganda, and they were
written near to the time of the reported events. So if you want to compare them to something else, find something else in that same category to compare them to -- stop insisting there's something wrong with them because they don't fit the pattern of some different category you pretend they must follow as a model.
As a good representation of the scholarly consensus about the rhetorical aims of the Gospels, the Oxford Annotated Bible (pg. 1744) explains, “Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis.
But who
did engage in historical analysis, by comparison? Hardly anyone other than the scholars and elitists. What's wrong with having written accounts not from the elitist class who did "historical analysis"? Were the ordinary people -- the 99%, non-elitists/non-scholars -- incapable of knowing anything or having an intelligent thought because they were not engaged in "historical analysis"?
Is this saying we cannot believe anything these simpletons said, because they were inferior? intellectually defective? Obviously they did not study Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus etc., so does this mean their testimony to anything happening has to be of an inferior nature, not fit to be considered seriously but only scoffed at due to the low-class status of these rabble who didn't engage "in historical analysis"?
How do we know based only on fact, not on prejudice, that these commoners -- both the readers and writers -- did not have some
legitimate information on the Jesus events which included the miracle stories? We have nothing -- except snobbery and prejudice and the dogmatic premise that no miracle events can ever happen, and disregard of the actual evidence we have from the existing documents, attesting that these events did happen. What reason is given to dismiss this evidence? Only that it's low-class and intended for the 99% who don't do the "historical analysis" of the scholars and .1% educated elite.
The whole argument here is based only on a put-down of the writers and readers of these documents, and nothing else -- only on the premise that what they wrote has to be fiction, regardless of the facts -- i.e., circular reasoning. Essential to Ferguson's point is the dogmatic premise that the stories must be fiction, from which he then explains away the evidence by denigrating the readers and writers of this written evidence, which is dismissed as not credible because of the low-class inferior status of these readers and writers as proved by their acceptance of this evidence. And around in circles goes the reasoning -- we can't believe it because it comes from these low-class rabble, and we know they're low-class rabble because they believe such low-class shit as this.
Their aim was to confirm Christian faith.”
So the "aim" of the evangelists and the readers is evidence that their beliefs and the accounts are not credible? You presume to know their motives -- which we don't, as there were divergent factors driving these writers and readers and believers -- and then conclude from this presumption that everything they wrote must be fiction. You could condemn a scientist who wants to promote his theory, saying his claims must be false because his "aim" is to confirm his theory. And so that "aim" makes it all false, all fiction, because his state of mind somehow rules out the facts he is claiming? So any scientist who wants to confirm his theory must be promoting fiction?
Again, it's not that we can never consider the "aims" and the attitude of the believers in order to answer some questions -- this has a place, but not as a weapon to bash the beliefs. Their mindset does not automatically falsify or disprove the beliefs. You cannot psycho-analyze away the claims being made. Your theories about what's going on in their mind do not cancel out the evidence.
If you have real evidence that their belief is false, you can follow that up by theorizing why they believe it even though it's false. But you must have that evidence first. Once you can really dispel the beliefs, then it's appropriate to deal with the phenomenon of people having the false beliefs, which needs explaining. But you cannot begin with the premise that their belief has to be fiction, and then use this to prove what idiots they are, and from this disprove their belief because only idiots could believe such a thing.
Such works, written for an audience of converts, . . .
Oh, so because it's written for a certain audience you disapprove of, that disproves the claims made in the writings? This particular audience is a lower-class category of persons, or inferior, and thus anything addressed to them has to be fiction? That's how we decide what the truth is? by the higher- or lower-class status of the audience the claims are addressed to?
. . . are not chiefly concerned with being critical or investigative, but . . .
"chiefly"? But who
was "chiefly" critical and investigative? only those you agree with? only those who read Tacitus and Suetonius? only the educated 1% elite? only those who had a doctorate?
Who says the Gospel writers/editors didn't try to be critical or investigative? That's a PREMISE, not a conclusion based on any evidence. Their being critical and investigative could very well be what originally drove them, and brought them to the conclusion that the Jesus miracle acts really did happen, and so they became believers and began promoting this "good news" they came upon as a result of their critical investigation. There's no evidence otherwise -- no evidence that this isn't what happened. We have every reason to believe they were just as critical and investigative as anyone else, and that they became believers, and thus partisan, AFTER their critical investigation.
Just because one doesn't like some of the content they wrote does not prove they had no concern to be critical or investigative. We're entitled to seek some flaw or error in their content, but we can't condemn them as charlatans based on a premise that their content must be fraudulent because we don't like it. We have to first find a real flaw in the content based on something other than our premise that it has to be fraudulent because we don't like it.
Lacking that, we can only say we don't know.
There is nothing to indicate that their belief in Christ's power was not a result of their being critical and investigative and arriving at that conclusion -- except the premise that miracle events cannot possibly happen, despite any evidence. Except for that premise there is nothing to rule out the possibility that they were concerned with being critical and investigative, and that this made believers of them and led them to publish their writings about the unusual events. It's a logical sequence, or reasonable explanation of what happened -- unusual events led to the publishing of unusual writings containing unusual content.
. . . but rather serve the religious agendas and ideologies of the communities that produced them.
So the goal served by spreading the beliefs makes the beliefs false?
This is all circular retro-active backlashing against the Gospel writers for their belief AFTER they formed their interpretation and began promoting the "good news" they discovered -- refusing to consider what first happened to bring them to their belief.
This circular logic does not look at the evidence for the claims and then question whether they are true or false, but only psycho-analyzes the believers -- the writers and their readers -- who are presumed as defective for holding such beliefs, which must be fiction because of the low-class defective status of the believers, who must be low-class and defective because only inferior simpletons believe such fiction stories.
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