Gospels and Histories

[_Nightlion]

I dare say: Line up ten thousand Doctors of Religion/Theology and what have you and there will not be one of them who can rightly expound the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well of course not! They have not had the Baptism of Fire. Only NightLion has had the Baptism of Fire. Only NightLion knows the truth!

Nobody hates that fact more than I do.

[_Analytics]

Is Matthew a mythicist? Noting that the most important evidence for the historicity of Jesus reads like some sort of allegorical novel rather than history is one of the pieces of the Jesus Puzzle. Matthew cites Richard Carrier twice in his footnotes.

He is not a dogmatic mythicist, but I think he leans strongly in that direction. He likes Richard Carrier and his work. I believe they are friends. At the same time, I don't believe he is uncritical in his view of Carrier's arguments.

I would hope everybody approaches it critically. Looking back on our discussion, Carrier was pretty obnoxious with his Bayesian speak.

[_Analytics]

Still, I think it is worthwhile for people who are digging into the discussion for the first time to be able to familiarize themselves with some of the formalistic differences between historiography and the writing of Gospels. The novice student will walk away from this document knowing some useful things. Granted it is not the definitive treatment of the problem or anywhere close. I don't think Matthew wrote it with such aspirations.

I certainly agree with that. The fact that the gospels aren't historical texts should be better known, and if I were a believer (or a Mormon leader), I think I'd latch onto this and coopt some of these modes of reading. To the extent that the Church leadership is concerned about the problems of Mormon history, disentangling the Mormon foundation stories from people's conception of what "history" means can only be beneficial.

Has anybody made a serious study of the Book of Mormon from this angle? If we granted that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an authentic ancient manuscript, what exactly is it? History? Allegory? A novel?

[_moksha]

Had Hugh Nibley been there at that time, there would be plenty of Gospel footnotes along with a foreshadowing of an American road trip.

[_Philo Sofee]

Had Hugh Nibley been there at that time, there would be plenty of Gospel footnotes along with a foreshadowing of an American road trip.

Not to mention reading in ancient Hebrew of the parallels of world travel in our day with those of the chariots of Ezekiel.....

[_huckelberry]

I certainly agree with that. The fact that the gospels aren't historical texts should be better known, and if I were a believer (or a Mormon leader), I think I'd latch onto this and coopt some of these modes of reading. To the extent that the Church leadership is concerned about the problems of Mormon history, disentangling the Mormon foundation stories from people's conception of what "history" means can only be beneficial.

Has anybody made a serious study of the Book of Mormon from this angle? If we granted that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an authentic ancient manuscript, what exactly is it? History? Allegory? A novel?

I find myself hearing intentional irony in Symmachus comment on Mormon history. I thinkf the foundational stories of Mormonism are needed for the concept of Mormon execptionalism so need to be seen by believers as being actual historical events accurately related. (or at least close to accurate)

But of course Christians in general would like to see the New Testament stories that way. Or perhaps at least some crucial aspects of them.

I enjoyed at least the clarity of presentation in the article Kishkumen linked but observing that the gospels are a different category of writing than technical history is not an unusual observation. But human writing does not come in airtight categories where in it must be either proper history or fiction. In the same way if it is fiction it does not have to fit exactly , novel ,poetry, myth, allegory etc. Actual pieces of writing often mix categories and sometimes leave them. One could ask if Hemingway's "Farwell to Arms" is history or fiction. One might wonder if his "Death in the Afternoon" is news reporting or mythological exploration.

It is hard not to see the Gospels as assemblies from sources about Jesus. Perhaps the sources are mostly saying and stories are arranged to present the sayings. It would seem to me difficult to disentangle Jesus did this stories from some inventions to frame a saying. It might even be more difficult to disentangle accurate reports of Jesus actions, even if unclearly timelined, from what we could call urban legend.

It is not a new observation that the Gospels were designed to present a message not analyze historical problems. That observation alone does little to determine if some related event in the Gospels happened that way or not.

[_Physics Guy]

The gospels are definitely not like any modern histories and I can well believe they're also unlike those ancient writings that are most like modern histories. But was "history" as a genre really a thing back then?

I understand for example that Thucydides claimed in his authorial preface that his history would report things he personally witnessed, with the added liberty of inventing what-he-should-have-said versions of all the speeches. I've only ever read a few snippets of Thucydides, so I may be way off base, but my impression from what I recall is that in the body of the work itself he used much the same omniscient-viewpoint narrative style that the gospels use.

If that's true, then okay, the preface identifying the author as eyewitness source is indeed something. But on the other hand it's a limited something, if the actual content of the work is still pretty novelistic. How do we know that Thucydides didn't actually rely on a lot of hearsay and imagination, despite his claims? How do we know that the gospels aren't actually about as accurate as Thucydides, and just neglected to explain their methodology?

I'm not exactly trying to defend the historical accuracy of the New Testament. My take is that it was assembled rather long after the events portrayed and I expect the account that emerged may well have been garbled. Where I'm trying to push back is on the anachronism of history as a genre.

The mere fact that the gospels were preserved as parallel accounts, in spite of significant discrepancies between them, seems to me to imply a standard of respect for sources. A really novelistic approach would surely have reconciled them into one unified gospel. So there does seem to me to be something history-ish about the gospels. Maybe that's about as much as we should expect for any text from that time?

(I've been away from this board for a few weeks. I teach in Germany, where our summer semester starts mid-April and runs to mid-July. So I've had less free time lately, and won't be posting here much for a while.)

[_SuperDell]

You notice he says this about the Bible - but not the Book of Mormon!

He's careful to be sure he doesn't run up against Elder HollanDoDo!

[_Kishkumen]

Thucydides felt it was appropriate to write a history of one's own time. He did not believe that one had to witness with one's own eyes all the events in the history.