The gospel accounts are as reliable for the historical events as other sources we routinely accept.
But there were eyewitnesses present at the reported events. And the original reported events, in oral form, were eyewitness accounts. Not written, but oral, which the later written accounts were based upon.
But we don't have access to the 'original' eyewitness reports, do we?
Without those, we cannot compare the later, written accounts of an event and determine if there were details lost, added or changed.
So, the accounts we have access to are not eyewitness accounts, nor can they be considered eyewitness accounts.
You mean, do we have the eyewitnesses available to question? No, 1985-year-old people are difficult to arrange an interview with.
Thus you are forced to invent odd and rather fatuous "superior standards" to make your favored account seem more likely.
What is my "superior standard"? that an extra source helps confirm or make more credible the first source?
Don't two separate sources for the miracle acts of Jesus make it more credible than if there's only one? or 3 make it more credible than if there's only 2?
Two anonymous accounts do not make each other more credible, no.
And which Papal Bull is your source for this pronouncement?
How about ONLY ONE anonymous account? Is that more credible than 2?
Here's an anonymous account/source --
Royal Frankish Annals which is relied upon for the history of Charlemagne's reign. It apparently has lots of miracle stories in it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Frankish_Annals
Miracles aid Charlemagne and his men, and the grace of God leads him to victory; mostly ill portents surround Louis, such as an omen in the stars supposedly foretelling his army’s defeat at the hands of Count Aizo, and the sudden collapse of a wooden arcade atop him in 817.
Indeed, such references to striking natural phenomena, strange happenings, and miracles become increasingly common in the annal entries for the 9th century. In addition to astronomical oddities, such as eclipses, the supernatural begins to enter the account, . . .
Scholz regards this preoccupation as a reflection of a belief in a divine will and control of history. Many of the worse omens also parallel growing dissatisfaction with Louis the Pious, which immediately after the end of the annals spilled into civil war between him and his sons.
Divine intervention through the relics of saints play an important role as well, with mention of Hilduin’s translation of the relics of St. Sebastian to the Abbey of St. Medard, and Einhard’s transport of the relics of SS. Marcellinus and Peter into Francia. A more detailed account of Einhard’s procurement of the relics exists in his Translation and Miracles of Marcellinus and Peter.
And these anonymous annals contain obvious propaganda elements:
The annalists pay particular attention to the military campaigns of the Carolingian kings, justifying their actions in terms of a grand narrative of Carolingian peacekeeping and conquest in the name of expanding the Christian faith.
and
The Annals are believed to have been composed in successive sections by different authors, and then compiled.
I.e., like the N.T. gospel accounts.
The depth of knowledge regarding court affairs suggests that the annals were written by persons close to the king, and their initial reluctance to comment on Frankish defeats betrays an official design for use as Carolingian propaganda.
So here we have an ANONYMOUS account, containing miracle stories, and published as a propaganda tool to promote a reigning dynasty during the Middle Ages when people believed in miracles as much as any other period of history.
So is this source rejected because it's "anonymous"? No.
Though the information contained within is heavily influenced by authorial intent in favor of the Franks, the annals remain a crucial source on the political and military history of the reign of Charlemagne.
So this source is not rejected just because it's "anonymous" and contains miracle stories and has a bias to it.
If we had 1 or 2 additional anonymous sources like this one, giving some of the same information, wouldn't that additional source add further credibility to the information? If the content of one source is credible, doesn't the addition of another similar source increase that credibility? Why don't additional sources always add extra credibility, even if they are anonymous?
You do not get far in court if your testimony is 'this one guy, he told me.'
Yes you do get far. That testimony is admitted in many situations. And much of known history is based on this kind of testimony/evidence.
All historical facts are known because someone told us in documents. Sometimes we know something about the author, and other times we don't know.
Two people testifying to what 'some guy' told them about an event does not increase the credibility.
Yes it does increase the credibility. If the one source by itself is credible, then another similar source reporting the same information adds credibility to the first source.
If we had an additional source like the
Royal Frankish Annals, and it gave some of the same information, that would increase the credibility of that information. The Gospel accounts are similar to the
Royal Frankish Annals, because they are compilations of several anonymous sources/authors, they are not unbiased but promote a cause, and they contain miracle stories.
And yet the
Royal Frankish Annals are "a crucial source on the political and military history" of the Franks. So, why are the Gospel accounts not also a "crucial source" for the events about Jesus near 30 AD? And why doesn't it add to their credibility that we have
4 accounts rather than only one? Why doesn't it make these accounts more credible than if we had only one, just as it would make the
Royal Frankish Annals more credible if we had additional accounts like them?
Don't you think if a newly-discovered source, like a further
Royal Frankish Annals document, should CONTRADICT something in the already-known anonymous source, then that would be taken to
cast doubt on the credibility of the latter source (concerning the part that is contradicted)? Well if so, then why wouldn't it be taken as INcreasing the credibility of the earlier source if the new source is found to CONFIRM that earlier source?
How can you seriously say that the 2nd source does not increase the credibility over only one such source? Your rejection of anonymous sources is based entirely on
prejudice against the gospel accounts as sources. You can't name any other anonymous document that is rejected as credible for this kind of reason.
You are creating a rule/standard for credibility which applies only to this one group of writings, the N.T. gospel accounts, based only on your ideological bias against these writings and your crusade for them to be excluded from history. Except for this crusade, you would not be demanding this standard for excluding anonymous documents.
So you think having extra sources does NOT add credibility to an account?
I think if they're not credible sources, they can't be used to confirm each other, no.
But what makes them not credible? Do you claim the
Royal Frankish Annals are not credible, even though Wikipedia says they are "a crucial source on the political and military history of the reign of Charlemagne"? They are a "crucial source" despite being propagandistic and containing miracles and being compiled from anonymous authors.
What makes the Gospel accounts any less credible than the
Royal Frankish Annals?
I.e., part of the "superior standards" -- having more than one source about the same event(s) helps to increase the credibility -- You reject that standard as "fatuous"?
Since you only apply it to the gospels, yes.
That's a nutty answer. Who says it applies only to the gospels? Obviously it applies equally to ALL documents of any kind.
Since that doesn't work for vampires, yes.
It DOES work for vampires. It applies equally to ALL topics. If the subject matter is something weird, then more than one source is needed, and more doubts are raised than if it's something normal. So one is more skeptical, and the credibility is less. But the existence of
extra sources which confirm each other makes the claims more serious and credible, and one has to check more closely than if there's only one source.
What's the definition of "vampires"? Sometimes there is a weird event, but the interpretation or explanation of it is not credible, or is incoherent. The extra sources make it more necessary to look into it to determine if something strange might have really happened.
If 50 people report a UFO, isn't that a more credible report of something odd in the sky as opposed to
only one reporting it? Or, do you think there is never anything odd that happens, ever? So if it's odd, it absolutely could not have happened, no matter how many witnesses there are or how many sources report it?
Since that method would not have worked for Washington's Cherry Tree story, despite it being in multiple history books, yes.
That method
does work for Washington's Cherry Tree. Maybe the legend is true. How do we know it's not true?
Suppose an additional source turns up, from early, BEFORE any other source for the story, and this new source is confirmed as genuine, and it confirms the original story.
There is no such source? And therefore we must assume the story is fiction? But this proves the point, i.e., that two sources make it more reliable than only one, because this reasoning is based on the premise that extra sources make it more reliable. Part of the evidence that the story is fiction is the fact that there is no original source for it other than the one which was proved false and upon which all the others were based.
So your cherry tree example proves you wrong and illustrates the point that extra sources make a story more credible (as long as those extra sources are not based on an original source shown to be false).
So, if there's ONLY THIS ONE SOURCE that is proved false, and all the others are based on it, that's the "proof" that the story is fiction. So ONLY ONE SOURCE is evidence that the story is fiction, whereas if there were 2 or 3 other original sources, not derived from the disproved source, then the credibility of the story would be increased. Thus, additional sources increase the credibility. Your cherry tree example helps illustrate this point.
Your claim that the story is fiction is based on the principle that having ONLY ONE source makes it less credible, and especially if this one source itself is discredited. Your theory that the story is fiction would be undermined if it could be shown that some of the books are NOT based on this one discredited source but have a different source.
A widespread story is no better than a widespread story.
That's all any historical event is -- just a widespread story.
Your counting them as 'multiple independent accounts' is fatuous.
They are separate accounts, probably dependent on still earlier accounts. And it's obvious that Mt and Lk are both dependent on an earlier single document and also on Mk. Some dependency on earlier accounts does not undermine their credibility as separate sources. They need not be absolutely separate in an extreme sense in order to be credible.
If the events reported are true, then it's perfectly normal for there to be some connection between them, such as a common reliance on the earlier sources.
There is no basis for insisting dogmatically that the gospel accounts are not separate sources. Are you insinuating that they were once the SAME source, and then some scheming Christian clique of editors surreptitiously divided them up as some kind of trick to con us into believing that they were written separately?
And you haven't yet shown that multiple history books makes the cherry tree story more credible.
Yes they do make it more credible. However, the credibility decreases if it can be shown that all of them are dependent on one earlier source which is proved to be false.
But if that were not so, and all we knew is that we have these separate sources, without knowing where they got the story, then the story would be more credible. The only reason those sources for the story are not credible is that we KNOW they come from a certain earlier source, and we KNOW that this earlier source is false.
All this supports the principle that more sources make a story more credible, and nothing about this discredits that principle. It just reduces the credibility back down if we know additionally that those sources are all based on an earlier false source.
And you reject all those scholars who say that because Sallust concurs with Cicero it increases the credibility of Cicero's judgment?
Ah. But that's a little different, isn't it? We know who Sallust and Cicero were.
But we don't know who the authors of the
Frankish Royal Annals were, and yet they are reliable as sources for history. Not knowing the author's name does not make the source unreliable. And if we have additional reliable sources, those increase the credibility of the reported events. Two sources make it more credible than only one, and 4 make it more credible than only 2 or 3.
You've given no reason why having 4 accounts for the Jesus events does not make it more credible than if we had only one account.
We do know approximately when the gospel accounts were written. Knowing this precisely to the exact year is not necessary to establish the credibility. There's doubt about the exact dating of many of the historical documents that we accept as reliable.
That's completely different than the gospels.
But it's not different than the
Frankish Royal Annals, which are reliable. And there are also many other documents of doubtful authorship and yet which are accepted as reliable. You've given no reason why the gospel accounts cannot be accepted as credible. Though the miracle stories are doubted, this does not make the accounts unreliable for determining the history, anymore than they make the
Frankish Royal Annals unreliable.
You ignore the ACTUAL standards historians use, . . .
What historians say additional sources don't add to the credibility if the sources are reliable but happen to be anonymous?
. . . and just pretend that multiple attestations are enough, even of anonymous accounts.
There is nothing to discredit anonymous accounts per se. If we had additional accounts similar to the
Frankish Royal Annals, reporting the same events, these would add credibility to that source. Even though they'd all be anonymous. Being anonymous does not subtract from the value of having the extra sources.
You can't name historians who say that having additional anonymous sources does not increase the credibility. E.g., that having something in addition to the
Frankish Royal Annals would not add further credibility, even though it's "anonymous."
Then get all upset that your gospels fail actual historical analysis.
What does "fail actual historical analysis" mean?
These are not infallible sources. They are legitimate sources for history, just as the
Royal Frankish Annals are legitimate sources and have credibility. None of the sources is totally accurate, and individual reports in any of the sources can be doubted. ALL the sources "fail historical analysis" if this means they contain no errors or distortions or exaggerations.
You must do better than just throwing around loose language like "fail actual historical analysis" which is gibberish.
And similarly you would reject the idea that the testimony of a witness is supported if a 2nd or 3rd witness agrees with the first one?
"Yeah, this guy... I don't know his name, i seen him around, he said that he SAW the accident, and what happened, is..."
Much of the historical record that we accept is this kind of testimony. You think an historian investigating an event would discount a witness because he says "I seen him around, and this guy, he comes up to me -- BIG motherfucker -- and he says . . ." etc.
There's nothing wrong with this kind of testimony for determining historical facts. You take the testimony that exists, however vulgar it sounds, and try to figure out what probably happened. This is perfectly legitimate as a source for historical events.
You don't have eyewitness testimony to offer.
The vast vast majority of history is NOT from eyewitness testimony (prior to modern times). I.e., the writer of the document was not an eyewitness. We assume the information ultimately traces back to eyewitnesses, but it always comes to us indirectly, from an author who had some source or report tracing back ultimately to those who experienced it directly.
So in other words, the fact that both Cicero and Sallust say there was a conspiracy to kill some of the senators and stage a coup says nothing about whether there was any such conspiracy, because this common element might have been invented?
No. We have two identified authors. So when i dismiss unattributed writings of unknown date, written for unknown purpose, . . .
They cannot be dismissed just because they are anonymous. The
Royal Frankish Annals are not dismissed even though they are anonymous. We don't need to know the authors in order for the accounts to be credible.
And we do know the approximate date for the gospel accounts, and we know as much about the purpose they were written for as we know for most documents that we accept as sources for history.
. . . that's completely apart from Sallust and Cicero.
No, it's the same because in both cases we have acceptable sources for the events, and the addition of the extra source(s) makes the reported events more credible than if there were only one source.
So, no 2nd testimony confirming the earlier testimony adds any credibility to the 1st one because what they agree on could have been "invented"? Isn't the likelihood of the latter REDUCED by the existence of the 2nd testimony confirming the 1st one?
You continue to pretend that the gospels offer eyewitness testimony.
No, nothing requires that. The writers/editors themselves were not eyewitnesses.
But what the writers/editors report might have originated from eyewitnesses. We can't know this, obviously. There are virtually no facts of history that we can prove came from eyewitnesses. It's reasonable to assume, with doubt, that the anecdotes originated from eyewitnesses. And if they did, that doesn't mean there's no error in them. We can reasonably assume there is some error -- the same as with most historical facts we know.
Until you grasp this, every time you compare them to eyewitness testimony, you look foolish.
This is not "comparing" them to eyewitness testimony.
Having extra sources increases the credibility, regardless whether the sources were eyewitnesses or not.
You acknowledged that Cicero and Sallust agreeing on some points increases the credibility. But they were
not eyewitnesses to most of the points they agreed on. Being contemporary to the events is not the same as being an eyewitness to them. The increase of the credibility due to having extra sources does not apply only to eyewitness testimony.
It applies to any case of having extra sources, even if the writers are getting it indirectly from the reports of others.
E.g., Tacitus and Suetonius both report the alleged miracle healing of Vespasian. Even though this might be fictional, still, the extra source reporting this does increase the credibility of the story. Maybe something did happen that was interpreted as a healing. But neither author was an eyewitness. The two sources reporting it does make it more likely that something happened, maybe a coincidence, or whatever -- it was interpreted as a miracle healing act.
The whole thing could still be completely fictional. But having the extra source reduces the likelihood that it's fiction.
(to be continued)
