Abuse of Ancient History by New Testament Scholars

[_Symmachus]

Kish, I didn't give you my thanks before so I do it now. I was going to listen to this podcast before I saw this thread. But you have given me a great gift in dissecting just this one part of the podcast: the gift of time (about 2:25:00).

Please keep speaking up whenever the bad arguments arise. It is surely a distraction for you, but if there is any use in having historians and not mere hobbyists of the past, then surely it is to provide an antidote to charlatanism.

[_Kishkumen]

Kish, I didn't give you my thanks before so I do it now. I was going to listen to this podcast before I saw this thread. But you have given me a great gift in dissecting just this one part of the podcast: the gift of time (about 2:25:00).

Please keep speaking up whenever the bad arguments arise. It is surely a distraction for you, but if there is any use in having historians and not mere hobbyists of the past, then surely it is to provide an antidote to charlatanism.

You are too kind, Symmachus. I didn't make it much further into the podcast, as I, like you, pretty quickly figured it was not worth the investment.

[_Philo Sofee]

And you have both saved me some valuable time, hence, if and when we get together for a discussion for real, beers on me gents! Or your preferred drink, of course...

[_Kishkumen]

And you have both saved me some valuable time, hence, if and when we get together for a discussion for real, beers on me gents! Or your preferred drink, of course...

That would be a real treat, Philo! I hope we can make that happen someday.

[_Physics Guy]

This topic has brought me back from the grave, so to speak, because it happens to be one about which I've been wondering for years. Just what kind of evidence do we actually have for ancient history?

In what form, for instance, do we "have" these letters from Brutus and Cassius to Cicero? Not the signed original parchments, I'm guessing—and even if we somehow did, how could we be sure they weren't forgeries?

It's not that I'm particularly skeptical of ancient history or anything. I'm just curious what kind of evidence we have about times so long ago. The popular histories that I read rarely explain what their ultimate sources are. As far as I can usually tell, it could be Max the two-thousand-year-old mouse.

[_SuperDell]

Count me as one of the woefully ignorant on actual ancient history as written about here.

Contemporaneous accounts of Jesus compared to contemporaneous accounts of Mohammed? Any real difference here? Enough so one would be more believable than the other?

I understand The Holy Bible accounts of Jesus are not written while he was supposedly alive. How about accounts of Mohammed?

Only using Mohammed because of a major religion based on his life and teachings is as big as Christianity.

Again, I'm at the mercy of those who do study these things. I know from my own field that many, if not most in a discipline simply repeat what they have been taught or have heard. Little independent research and thinking involved and most don't delve deeply into the historical aspects while relying on them as "universal truths" for foundation. I see much religion as pretty much the same.

[_Meadowchik]

There's a reason these are a called religious "traditions."

[_Kishkumen]

This topic has brought me back from the grave, so to speak, because it happens to be one about which I've been wondering for years. Just what kind of evidence do we actually have for ancient history?

In what form, for instance, do we "have" these letters from Brutus and Cassius to Cicero? Not the signed original parchments, I'm guessing—and even if we somehow did, how could we be sure they weren't forgeries?

It's not that I'm particularly skeptical of ancient history or anything. I'm just curious what kind of evidence we have about times so long ago. The popular histories that I read rarely explain what their ultimate sources are. As far as I can usually tell, it could be Max the two-thousand-year-old mouse.

It is the business of trained philologists such as Symmachus to determine the reliability and authenticity of a text. Honestly, it is not a certain science. It involves studying the manuscript tradition, comparing one text against another for similarity and difference in word choice, style, and thought. Philologists have been working on these problems for centuries and to my knowledge the authenticity of these letters is not in doubt.

We have first century references to Cicero’s letters in other authors. For example, Cornelius Nepos, a first century Roman biographer, reports that his friend Atticus saved Cicero’s letters to him. If I recall correctly, the correspondence of Cicero was edited by his freedman Tiro and published in the reign of Nero. Extant manuscripts with large chunks of the letters (they circulated in four collections) are relatively late, but my guess is that they are quoted and alluded to in earlier Medieval authors.

Unfortunately, the manuscript history of Cicero’s letters is not my forté. I will leave it to Symmachus to demonstrate his philological expertise in answering the question better than I can. This, however, may help:

His great discovery, which was made in 1345, consisted of Cicero's Letters to Atticus, a very rare work in the Middle Ages. The manuscript belonged to the library of the cathedral at Verona. Although Petrarch was the first person to pro- claim the discovery to the world, and to make a copy of the manuscript, it was previously known to the author of a work known as Flores Morales, written at Verona in 1329; and to Pastrengo, the writer of an encyclopaedia, who was a friend of Petrarch and lived in Verona. We may, therefore, suspect that Pastrengo brought the manuscript to Petrarch's notice. It is from this memorable year that modern knowledge of Cicero dates.

http://www.tertullian.org/articles/clark_reappearance.htm

[_Gadianton]

Why did Dehlin have a Christian apologist defend Jesus as history on his show? What does that have to do with Mormonism?

Please don't tell me he's going down the path Murphy did of siding with EV's on the historical reality of the Bible, and contrasting that with the Book of Mormon.

[_Kishkumen]

Why did Dehlin have a Christian apologist defend Jesus as history on his show? What does that have to do with Mormonism?

Please don't tell me he's going down the path Murphy did of siding with EV's on the historical reality of the Bible, and contrasting that with the Book of Mormon.

Because he had a fan who converted to mainstream Christianity ask him to do so and offer to land some good guests for him. The results were, in my opinion, less than stellar. Of course, I ditched it after the New Testament scholar fumbled on the evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar, so maybe it got a lot better.

But, at the end of the day, it’s just the same old tired attempt to make the first-century belief in a literal God-man who rose from the dead sound historically verified by sleight of hand. Yeah, history does attest to first-century people believing in Jesus’ resurrection. First-century people, like people today, believe all kinds of things. Living in the first century does not equal a scientific validation of miracles.