Five Things I Want to See in Earl Doherty's New Book. (pt II)

We continue our series with the second on the list of five things I'd like to see (but probably won't, since I'm increasingly disinclined to read the book. . .it might be more apt to call this 5 caveats around Doherty's argument and argumentation)

Less reliance on Authority

The best known example of this tendency is probably Doherty's suggested translation of kata sarka and en sarki. Distressingly little is offered in the way of genuine argument in favour of the translation, simply that it could be "useful" and that C K Barrett "suggested" it. In Doherty's defense, he's expanded on this a bit since then, both in discussions online and on his website, but in his book the absence of elaboration is disappointing.

Most of the discussion online has centered around whether or not Earl has quote mined here (he has), but even if we allow that Earl is using Barrett fairly, if I say "Then Barrett's wrong too," then what? Barrett doesn't argue for Doherty, that much everyone agrees on, and Doherty doesn't offer much in the way of argument for himself, other than the distinct possibility that it's a distinct possibility. How do we know that? Barrett says so!

I can't help but think a coherent argument could be pieced together (Clement in particular offers a nice passage that could be used), and while I'm not sure if it could be convincing or not, it's a sight better than what's offered now, which is marginally more than nothing.

If we suggest that kai be rendered "and," we're on pretty firm ground, and could casually point to any one of a hundred sources and call it good. But when we suggest "according to the flesh" represents an Aristotlean sphere, we should probably back that up. Extensively.

Another example can be found in Doherty's response to my argument on 2 Peter mentioned below. Rather than address the argument that the transfiguration represents Markan invention, Doherty casually points to Koester, and suggests that since "even Koester" thinks it is independent, this is sufficient. It isn't. Koester doesn't address the arguments I raised (or if he does, he doesn't in the cite Earl provided), and consequently, from my position, that just means he's wrong too.

He seems to approach some subjects with the misguided notion that it's enough to cite sources with conclusions he needs, without engaging the arguments for or against his position. The end result is a piece that is applauded by those already sympathetic, but does nothing to convince those opposed.

Five Things I Want to See in Earl Doherty's New Book. (pt I)

So Earl Doherty has finally put out his "second revision" of The Jesus Puzzle, though given both the new title and the fact that it has ballooned to 800 some pages, "second revision" is probably a poor choice of words. It's a new book.

So what would I most like to see?

Less rhetoric.

Readers might recall a pair of posts here awhile ago dealing with the question of 2 Peter's knowledge of Mark's gospel. It addressed Doherty's assertions regarding the term "delow" as being a "revelatory verb." Doherty withdrew the certainty of his wording in discussion (though it still stands on his site), but downplayed as nothing more than "colorful language."

In similar fashion, in The Jesus Puzzle he makes the bold assertion that the lack of artefact veneration is "perhaps the single strongest" piece of evidence in his favour (p 75). Except that history tells us a different story: Artefact veneration was the exception, not the rule, and his expectation is anachronistic. In correspondence he withdrew that assertion as well, demoting it to "another piece." The demotion is still undue--it's not a "piece" of anything--but at least it's more reasonable. The phrasing was apparently just more color.

The problem with this "colorful language" is that it always speaks to a degree of certainty, or a strength of evidence that overstates his case. The popular reader (Doherty's self-described target audience) doesn't know if he's presenting delow properly. They don't know how common artefact veneration was. They don't know that Doherty's misrepresenting the evidence, even if unintentionally.

I'll grant that it's probably accidental, and that 'colorful language' results in inaccurate presentation. But it's certainly easy to see how someone less generous might prefer the term "disingenuous" or even "dishonest" in place of "colorful."

Quote of the Day: Sanders on Righteousness

Just read a snazzy quote by E P Sanders on the question of justification, it's a long one, but worth the read. Sanders eloquently captures what I've (even on this blog) spent thousands of words to explain half as well:

The sectarians emphasized (1) that humans were worthless bits of nothing and depended absolutely on God’s grace, and (2) that they were capable of becoming and remaining perfect. These statements are more radical than Josephus’, but they are not fundamentally different.

The world is still full of people who will focus on one of these themes, usually human effort in attaining perfection, and conclude that the sectarians in particular and Jews in general believed in the sort of meritorious achievement that is called legalistic self-righteousness. And they will maintain that holding this position excludes reliance on God’s goodness and mercy. Scholars who work in the area of Bible and related topics are often fixated on the kind of dogmatic consistency that seldom appears in real life: they think that people who believed in human effort and moral achievement must have renounced grace. Ancient Jewish groups, just like modern Jewish and Christian groups, had diverse religious thoughts and practices. To this day, when Jews or Christians pray to God, they thank him for calling them to follow him and for giving them the strength and ability to live as they should, and they recognize that in comparison to God humans are weak creatures who must rely on the strength and goodness of God. Yet when these same people falter, they do not blame God, they blame themselves. They seek to return to the path of righteousness, and they know that they must exert effort to do so. Humans are dependent on grace and they are accountable for their deeds. This is a common and in fact a virtually universal view in both Judaism and Christianity, and it is puzzling that many Christian scholars who accept both aspects of religion in their own lives believe that in the ancient world these were mutually exclusive alternatives. They are simply different perspectives that arise in slightly different circumstances. One set of thoughts arises in prayer or meditation, the other in considering the practicalities and difficulties of daily life. The two can combine in one sentence, as in this passage from the Hymns: ‘No man can be righteous in your judgment or [innocent] in your trial, though one man may be more righteous than another’ (1QH 9:14f.).

E P Sanders, The Dead Sea Sect and Other Jews: Commonalities, Overlaps and Differences in Lim, T. H., Hurtado, L. W., Auld, A. G., & Jack, A. M. (2004). The Dead Sea scrolls in their historical context. (31). London; New York: T&T Clark.

RIP Bobby Fischer

Chess legend Bobby Fischer passed away today at 64 in Iceland. Cause of death is, at this point, undisclosed.

RIP

Biblical Studies Carnival XXV

Biblical Studies Carnival 25 is up over on Chris Brady's 'blog Targuman

Why Did Caesar Cross?

A break from the biblical. . .

It's frequently noted, in the spirit of Schweitzer, that the Quest of the Historical Jesus is not unlike looking into a deep well and seeing your own, somewhat distorted, face staring back at you. The same can be said of the "Quest of the Historical Julius Caesar" (if you use that phrase, I expect royalties).

There is a general tendency in biographies of Caesar to attribute to him great or noble causes in his civil war (or, as Caesar would have it, "civil disputes."). Caesar fought for the betterment of Rome, for justice, for liberty, to collapse the antiquated Senate. Which is why it's so refreshing to find the contrary spelled out in the opening pages of Christian Meier's Caesar: A Biography.

Meier forgoes such romanticism in favour of the obvious: Caesar fought for Caesar, and for Caesar alone. That is what our sources uniformly attest to. On the banks of the Rubicon Caesar weighed his own misfortune against the potential misfortune of all men, and decided it was best to avoid the former at the cost of the latter. It was swiftness of thought, not purity of heart, that made Caesar great.

To be sure, Caesar's war was not with "Rome," per se--it was, at least to him, always a matter between him and his enemies (hence his mandate that those not against him were his allies, which led to a pattern of clemency that helped him tremendously in his victory). He was not out to actively harm civilians, so long as they kept out of it. But he was not terribly concerned about the obvious fact that his actions would be to their detriment.

Caesar's cause was always to avert his own misfortune--there was no other crusade behind it. It is, I suppose, difficult to accept the conscious decision to harm the many for your own gain, which no doubt influences the tendency to exonerate Caesar of such a choice. But it is not without reason that Cicero opined that the civil war lacked nothing save a cause.

Quote of the Day - Jesus Was Not a Covenantal Nomist

For it is historically improbable that, after Easter, Jesus’ disciples carried on a mission to ’the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Mt. 10.6; 15.24) if Jesus himself never thought Israel was lost.

Dale C. Allison Jr., Jesus and the Covenant: A Response to E P Sanders, JSNT 9.57 (1987), p.74.

Allison here eloquently puts to rest Sanders' suggestion that Jesus was a covenantal nomist (eg Jesus and Judaism, p.336). The entire Christian movement is difficult to reconcile with a Jesus who accepted covenantal nomism (John the Baptist seems to have been considered as a forerunner in this regard--Matt.3.9 is a flat rejection of covenantal nomism, as Allison points out).

What the. . .

Huh. According to Wikio, this is the 97th most influential blog related to. . .business? I'd recommend readers get their information from somebody other than Wikio, apparently.

Busy, busy December. More posting in January.

Merry Christmas!