Attention: first geeky “Star Wars” post on this blog.
When the original Star Wars came out I was 13 years old and was duly blown away. I thought the "Force” was a pretty cool aspect of the movie, but that was as far as it went. Later on (college?), I heard some fans talk about the Force as if it were a seriously interesting philosophical idea. I disagreed and thought it was actually pretty lame on closer inspection.
Obi-Wan explained the Force thus: “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.” Why is the Force only associated with living things (although it somehow binds the galaxy)? It seems like a kind of old-fashioned vitalism. There seems to be a kind of interactive dualism of Force and material world – this is basically is a traditional Cartesian template. This was reinforced when Obi-Wan’s spirit appeared after death. As an aside, I also thought the idea of the dark and light sides of the Force to be naïve and simplistic.
My kids are into Star Wars now, and as a result I’ve watched the prequel trilogy several times on DVD. And in contrast to my thoughts above I actually kind of liked the “Midi-chlorian” idea (once I made out the dialogue). Here’s Qui-Gon: “Midi-chlorians are microscopic life-forms that reside within the cells of all living things and communicate with the Force.” He goes on to describe the relationship of humans and Midi-chlorians as symbiotic. Now, I think the status of Midi-chlorians as natural entities is an improvement on the mysterious spirit world of the force. I still don’t like that they are limited to living organisms – I think a system in which livings things are more clearly co-extensive in nature with the non-living world would be better. (Also, let me steer right past Anakin’s immaculate conception via Midi-chlorians). Still, I liked the fact that Midi-chlorians at least partly put the force back into the natural world. This is closer to a more interesting panexperientialist or pantheist worldview than the original dualistic worldview of the force.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Sober on Design
I’d say this critique by Elliott Sober is recommended reading on the design argument. It’s a comprehensive and detailed paper, but in good blog fashion I’ll try to briefly summarize the key idea here.
The design argument says the probability of our observing an object in the world (an eye, a bacterial flagellum) is greater given the hypothesis of it being designed as compared to the hypothesis that it was produced via a mindless chance process. The problem is that the argument itself lacks any support for this. What independent evidence do we have as to the designer’s motives and abilities? The answer is none, unless we bring in assumptions about the designer from outside the argument itself.
The argument appeals to an intuition or belief some people have about what the designer is like and what kind of things the designer would be capable of and motivated to create.
Interestingly to me, Sober turns around and shows how the same analysis can critique the argument against theism from the problem of evil (and/or the suffering of the innocent). For one to assume the existence of evil is an argument against the existence of God, one is assuming God has a certain set of abilities and motivations. What is the independent basis for these attributes?
The design argument says the probability of our observing an object in the world (an eye, a bacterial flagellum) is greater given the hypothesis of it being designed as compared to the hypothesis that it was produced via a mindless chance process. The problem is that the argument itself lacks any support for this. What independent evidence do we have as to the designer’s motives and abilities? The answer is none, unless we bring in assumptions about the designer from outside the argument itself.
The argument appeals to an intuition or belief some people have about what the designer is like and what kind of things the designer would be capable of and motivated to create.
Interestingly to me, Sober turns around and shows how the same analysis can critique the argument against theism from the problem of evil (and/or the suffering of the innocent). For one to assume the existence of evil is an argument against the existence of God, one is assuming God has a certain set of abilities and motivations. What is the independent basis for these attributes?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Meier's Quest, Part 3
Here are sketches of a few results reached by John P. Meier in his quest for the historical Jesus as well as a look ahead to the likely themes from the awaited fourth volume of A Marginal Jew. The first two posts in this series are here and here.
Early Years
Matthew and Luke’s infancy narratives “score” poorly on the criteria for historical value. They lack multiple attestation (the two stories diverge greatly), embarrassment (they fit the evangelists’ promotional agenda), and discontinuity (they seek to establish connections with OT prophecy). While it is frustrating, we must accept that what little we learn about the historical Jesus will not include his life prior to undertaking his ministry. Jesus was most likely born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem; the first thing we may reasonably be confident of knowing in his chronology is that he became attracted by John the Baptist’s movement in the Jordan Valley, prior to striking out on his own. Meier sketches some plausible scenarios for what Jesus’ family and community life was like, but these are just educated guesses based on what scholars have learned about the place and time.
Jesus and the Baptist
Jesus’ submission to baptism by John is very likely to be historical (criterion of embarrassment); recall also that John’s existence is buttressed by Josephus. Jesus’ respectful words toward John (see Matthew 11:11) likely indicate that the relationship between the two was too well known to be suppressed. It is not clear if Jesus was actually a disciple of John; there are good indications that baptism continued to be practiced as part of Jesus’ own ministry (John 3:22).
The Kingdom of God
Meier examines the message of the kingdom of God in great depth. He comes to the conclusion that there is historical value in several passages where the kingdom reflects a future eschatology and also in some of those which profess the kingdom’s presence in the temporal works of Jesus. While this seems contradictory to our modern ear, the message seems purposefully complex. Meier describes it as a “multi-faceted, multi-layered symbol” which challenged the way the people thought and lived in the present day as they prepared for their final salvation.
Miracles
Meier embarks on a lengthy and serious study of each miracle story. This is an area where he sees himself reaching distinctive conclusions. Against the usual divide between a priori rejection and uncritical faithful acceptance, Meier wants to keep a critical but open mind. While understanding the limits to what we can know (lacking videotape recordings or laboratory controls!), he contends that several of the exorcisms and healing stories are very likely historical in the sense that they were believed to be miraculous by eyewitnesses at the time of their occurrence. Jesus’ popular following and his attraction of enemies can be largely traced to this miracle-working. Meier also concludes that Jesus was at least thought to have raised the dead during the time of his ministry. The passages describing so-called nature miracles, on the other hand, have little historical value.
Where’s Volume Four?
The introduction to the first volume of A Marginal Jew, published in 1991, envisioned a two-volume work. The first volume covered an introduction to methods and criteria, an examination of chronology, a look at Jesus’ family and community environment, and a review of the infancy narratives. The massive second volume from 1994 covered the relationship with the Baptist, the examination of Jesus’ central message of the kingdom of God, and the review of the miracle stories. Then, after a long wait, 2001’s third volume was a bit of a digression from the main story. In that volume, Meier expanded the circle to examine Jesus' relationships with other groups of people: his apostles and followers as well as the Pharisees and other religious and political groups.
At the end of Volume 3, Meier still had four key topics to address: Jesus’ teachings on the Law, the parables, how Jesus referred to himself, and finally, the passion -- a lot of territory to cover!
One area he evidently will avoid completely is an explicit review of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. Here is the relevant comment from the introduction to volume one: “… a treatment of the resurrection is omitted not because it is denied but simply because the restrictive definition of the historical Jesus I will be using does not allow us to proceed into matters that can be affirmed only by faith.” While the reticence is understandable, this is a bit of a dodge. In his treatment of miracles, Meier carefully distinguishes between those likely to trace back to contemporaneous reports (for instance, the healing of Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52), and those which he thinks are much more likely a complete creation of the early church (e.g. walking on water).
Anyway, here’s hoping that Meier, who mentioned some health problems in the introduction to volume 3, comes through with the conclusion to his work. It’s an outstanding achievement already.
[UPDATE 16 March 2009: Meier will publish his volume 4 in May 2009 (amazon link); it is mainly about the relationship between Jesus and the mosaic law, and so apparantly it is not intended as a concluding volume.]
Early Years
Matthew and Luke’s infancy narratives “score” poorly on the criteria for historical value. They lack multiple attestation (the two stories diverge greatly), embarrassment (they fit the evangelists’ promotional agenda), and discontinuity (they seek to establish connections with OT prophecy). While it is frustrating, we must accept that what little we learn about the historical Jesus will not include his life prior to undertaking his ministry. Jesus was most likely born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem; the first thing we may reasonably be confident of knowing in his chronology is that he became attracted by John the Baptist’s movement in the Jordan Valley, prior to striking out on his own. Meier sketches some plausible scenarios for what Jesus’ family and community life was like, but these are just educated guesses based on what scholars have learned about the place and time.
Jesus and the Baptist
Jesus’ submission to baptism by John is very likely to be historical (criterion of embarrassment); recall also that John’s existence is buttressed by Josephus. Jesus’ respectful words toward John (see Matthew 11:11) likely indicate that the relationship between the two was too well known to be suppressed. It is not clear if Jesus was actually a disciple of John; there are good indications that baptism continued to be practiced as part of Jesus’ own ministry (John 3:22).
The Kingdom of God
Meier examines the message of the kingdom of God in great depth. He comes to the conclusion that there is historical value in several passages where the kingdom reflects a future eschatology and also in some of those which profess the kingdom’s presence in the temporal works of Jesus. While this seems contradictory to our modern ear, the message seems purposefully complex. Meier describes it as a “multi-faceted, multi-layered symbol” which challenged the way the people thought and lived in the present day as they prepared for their final salvation.
Miracles
Meier embarks on a lengthy and serious study of each miracle story. This is an area where he sees himself reaching distinctive conclusions. Against the usual divide between a priori rejection and uncritical faithful acceptance, Meier wants to keep a critical but open mind. While understanding the limits to what we can know (lacking videotape recordings or laboratory controls!), he contends that several of the exorcisms and healing stories are very likely historical in the sense that they were believed to be miraculous by eyewitnesses at the time of their occurrence. Jesus’ popular following and his attraction of enemies can be largely traced to this miracle-working. Meier also concludes that Jesus was at least thought to have raised the dead during the time of his ministry. The passages describing so-called nature miracles, on the other hand, have little historical value.
Where’s Volume Four?
The introduction to the first volume of A Marginal Jew, published in 1991, envisioned a two-volume work. The first volume covered an introduction to methods and criteria, an examination of chronology, a look at Jesus’ family and community environment, and a review of the infancy narratives. The massive second volume from 1994 covered the relationship with the Baptist, the examination of Jesus’ central message of the kingdom of God, and the review of the miracle stories. Then, after a long wait, 2001’s third volume was a bit of a digression from the main story. In that volume, Meier expanded the circle to examine Jesus' relationships with other groups of people: his apostles and followers as well as the Pharisees and other religious and political groups.
At the end of Volume 3, Meier still had four key topics to address: Jesus’ teachings on the Law, the parables, how Jesus referred to himself, and finally, the passion -- a lot of territory to cover!
One area he evidently will avoid completely is an explicit review of the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances. Here is the relevant comment from the introduction to volume one: “… a treatment of the resurrection is omitted not because it is denied but simply because the restrictive definition of the historical Jesus I will be using does not allow us to proceed into matters that can be affirmed only by faith.” While the reticence is understandable, this is a bit of a dodge. In his treatment of miracles, Meier carefully distinguishes between those likely to trace back to contemporaneous reports (for instance, the healing of Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52), and those which he thinks are much more likely a complete creation of the early church (e.g. walking on water).
Anyway, here’s hoping that Meier, who mentioned some health problems in the introduction to volume 3, comes through with the conclusion to his work. It’s an outstanding achievement already.
[UPDATE 16 March 2009: Meier will publish his volume 4 in May 2009 (amazon link); it is mainly about the relationship between Jesus and the mosaic law, and so apparantly it is not intended as a concluding volume.]
Friday, January 27, 2006
Origin of Life Articles
This post by PZ Myers links to two articles on research into the origin of life. I didn't see any mention of an explicit role for Quantum Mechanics.
By the way, if case any of you haven't seen it yet, scienceblogs has usefully gathered together a number of good bloggers in one site.
By the way, if case any of you haven't seen it yet, scienceblogs has usefully gathered together a number of good bloggers in one site.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Revisiting Design and Reason Arguments
What follows is based on a response I made to a recent anonymous comment on this old post (in which I had offered out a ridiculously abbreviated disquisition on the plausibility of God’s existence).
Since I wrote that, I have thought more about ID and the design argument, and it may be I’ve been a little too harsh. The problem is that most people associate ID with supernatural macro-level interventions into the world. For instance, they try to point to specific structures (it used to often be the eye; more recently much talk about a bacterial flagellum) and say: “look, this is too complex to have evolved, it appears to be designed -- therefore, God or some other agent must have stepped in and created it.” This type of ad hoc intervention (theologically, a variety of “special creation”) I continue to believe is highly implausible.
But I could take another view of the design argument, as follows. One might suspect that some of the phenomena exhibited by living things won’t be completely explained by classical mechanism “all the way down”. Methodological naturalism, and the compelling evidence for natural selection and common descent, can be accepted as per the consensus scientific paradigm, yet one might plausibly think there is something in the micro-fabric of the world which exhibits a spark of agency, a datum of experience, sufficient to allow life, intentionality and consciousness to later emerge. This indirect design argument is plausible, in my view, and is arguably supported by some interpretations of quantum mechanics.
Now, “Intelligent Design” is not a good label for this kind of view. But it is perhaps a more modest cousin of ID.
Of course, I would never hold up the view I sketched as an alternative to or a critique of evolutionary biology. This is the dimension of the ID movement that I oppose completely. The discussion here is at the level of metaphysics, not science.
Speaking of arguments I’ve rejected too quickly: in this post I cavalierly dismissed the “argument from reason”. In the past, I have thought the best arguments against materialism which can be derived from the phenomena of human consciousness were those based on the irreducibility of “bare” experience or intentionality. I assumed our advanced human ability to reason was a kind of cognitive logical engine grafted on through natural selection which could be explained fairly conventionally in terms of a functional or computational model. Thinking about our ability for modal reasoning, however, has led me to begin to rethink this. Since there is no place in materialism for “real” possibility, yet it is intrinsic to our reasoning, there may here be the basis for an “AfR”. This is something I want to give more thought to.
Since I wrote that, I have thought more about ID and the design argument, and it may be I’ve been a little too harsh. The problem is that most people associate ID with supernatural macro-level interventions into the world. For instance, they try to point to specific structures (it used to often be the eye; more recently much talk about a bacterial flagellum) and say: “look, this is too complex to have evolved, it appears to be designed -- therefore, God or some other agent must have stepped in and created it.” This type of ad hoc intervention (theologically, a variety of “special creation”) I continue to believe is highly implausible.
But I could take another view of the design argument, as follows. One might suspect that some of the phenomena exhibited by living things won’t be completely explained by classical mechanism “all the way down”. Methodological naturalism, and the compelling evidence for natural selection and common descent, can be accepted as per the consensus scientific paradigm, yet one might plausibly think there is something in the micro-fabric of the world which exhibits a spark of agency, a datum of experience, sufficient to allow life, intentionality and consciousness to later emerge. This indirect design argument is plausible, in my view, and is arguably supported by some interpretations of quantum mechanics.
Now, “Intelligent Design” is not a good label for this kind of view. But it is perhaps a more modest cousin of ID.
Of course, I would never hold up the view I sketched as an alternative to or a critique of evolutionary biology. This is the dimension of the ID movement that I oppose completely. The discussion here is at the level of metaphysics, not science.
Speaking of arguments I’ve rejected too quickly: in this post I cavalierly dismissed the “argument from reason”. In the past, I have thought the best arguments against materialism which can be derived from the phenomena of human consciousness were those based on the irreducibility of “bare” experience or intentionality. I assumed our advanced human ability to reason was a kind of cognitive logical engine grafted on through natural selection which could be explained fairly conventionally in terms of a functional or computational model. Thinking about our ability for modal reasoning, however, has led me to begin to rethink this. Since there is no place in materialism for “real” possibility, yet it is intrinsic to our reasoning, there may here be the basis for an “AfR”. This is something I want to give more thought to.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Davies on Quantum Biology
I mentioned in this recent post that I thought efforts to investigate the possible role of quantum mechanics in human consciousness might be putting the “cart before the horse”. That is, I wondered if we can learn whether QM effects were utilized in simpler biological systems. So, I’ve been casting about for information on this topic.
Paul Davies wrote an article entitled “Does quantum mechanics play a non-trivial role in life?” (2004)which seemed to be a good brief review of the topic.
While Davies has written a large number of popular books and articles on scientific and philosophical subjects which appear pretty speculative (I’ve not read him before), this article seems like a clear-eyed survey of scholarly research on this subject.
And it does have a sobering conclusion. The subject, as summarized in the article, is very long on circumstantial evidence and hints, but he characterizes the case for quantum biology as one of “not proven”. A crucial challenge is related to decoherence. Quantum information processing effects which make use of coherent entangled quantum states need to be sheltered from and co-exist with other biochemical processes which appear to operate in decohered states which can be classically analyzed.
The good news is that there seem to be many leads to be followed up by researchers (Davies lists 7 areas of possibility in addition to the general area of “origin of life”); the bad news is there wouldn’t seem to be any results yet that would force greater attention to the area among those inclined to presume the classical paradigm is good enough.
Paul Davies wrote an article entitled “Does quantum mechanics play a non-trivial role in life?” (2004)which seemed to be a good brief review of the topic.
While Davies has written a large number of popular books and articles on scientific and philosophical subjects which appear pretty speculative (I’ve not read him before), this article seems like a clear-eyed survey of scholarly research on this subject.
And it does have a sobering conclusion. The subject, as summarized in the article, is very long on circumstantial evidence and hints, but he characterizes the case for quantum biology as one of “not proven”. A crucial challenge is related to decoherence. Quantum information processing effects which make use of coherent entangled quantum states need to be sheltered from and co-exist with other biochemical processes which appear to operate in decohered states which can be classically analyzed.
The good news is that there seem to be many leads to be followed up by researchers (Davies lists 7 areas of possibility in addition to the general area of “origin of life”); the bad news is there wouldn’t seem to be any results yet that would force greater attention to the area among those inclined to presume the classical paradigm is good enough.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Meier's Quest, Part 2
Here are some brief notes on John Meier’s goals, sources and criteria in his work on the historical Jesus.
The goal of objectivity
Meier offers the best take when he quotes Karl Rahner’s phrase “asymptotic goal” when speaking of his effort to be objective. Meier tries hard and shows us he’s trying hard through the transparancy of his work. He lays out his methodology clearly, so we can follow along and decide if he’s consistent in applying it throughout. Also, he provides truly voluminous endnotes so we can compare his conclusions with those of other scholars.
“Prescinding” from faith
Meier is a catholic priest. So what is all this talk of objectivity about?! How could he possibly be objective? He admits his biases will reflect his working out of the catholic context. But Meier draws a strict distinction between what he knows about Jesus through research and what he knows through his faith. He will prescind from or bracket his faith for the purposes of the project. It seems to me that he achieves this goal. I speculate that this is something evangelical Protestants and even some conservative Catholics would not or could not do.
The “unpapal” conclave
Meier invokes an imaginative metaphor for his effort at objectivity: he pictures an “unpapal” conclave consisting of a Catholic, a Protestant, and Jew and an Agnostic, “locked up in the bowels of the Harvard Divinity School library” forced to hammer out a consensus document on the historical Jesus.
Why a “Marginal Jew”?
Marginality is a theme which touches the subject from several angles. While the resurrected Jesus is absolutely central to Christian faith, the historical Jesus seems to have existed on the margins of his family, his society, his religion; he is a figure on the bare margins of political history, certainly.
Sources
The canonical gospels are the primary sources of evidence on the historical Jesus. There are a very small number of verses elsewhere in the NT that are useful. The non-canonical gospels and apocrypha add essentially nothing of real value, according to Meier. Some other scholars do see more value in texts like the Gospel of Thomas or, in John Dominic Crossan’s case, the Gospel of Peter, but these are minority opinions. Of the canonical gospels, some scholars place very little emphasis on John, given its thorough-going theological agenda, but Meier sees some good nuggets in John.
Outside of the NT, Meier gives a detailed treatment of the text with the best claim to attest to the existence of Jesus: this is the work of the Jewish-Roman writer of histories named Josephus. Josephus’ work includes references to Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, and John the Baptist. The texts also include a brief passage about Jesus as well one on his brother James. The problem is that the text show clear signs of later Christian tampering. So was the reference to Jesus inserted, or was a legitimate reference bulked up and embellished? Meier provides a detailed analysis (as well as his own translation) and concludes it is possible to reconstruct a core which existed prior to Christian tampering. The analysis certainly seems plausible and may be becoming the majority view among scholars, although it must be said that we will probably never have consensus.
The difficulty of the project
Before listing Meier’s criteria for judging NT material, I should stress again that we are looking at creating the best historical construct possible from limited evidence. There is no hope that we can capture what the “real” Jesus was like beyond an outline or sketch. One needs to be skeptical of anyone voicing too-detailed opinions about Jesus’ psychology and motivations in particular, as opposed to measured assessments about the relative historical value of various sayings and actions and some limited inferences about how he related to his time and place and thought of his mission and message.
Criteria
1. Embarrassment
In considering this criterion as well as others, remember again the central problem of analyzing the gospels is that the writers and editors were not striving to create an historical record. Writing from a vantage point several decades removed, they edited, embellished and created material to support and advocate the early church community of which they were a part. The point of the criterion of embarrassment is that anything remaining in the gospel texts which would have been embarrassing to these church communities has a relatively strong claim to historicity. An example might be Peter's denial of Jesus in the passion narratives. With Peter a leader of the early Church, this event in his life wouldn't have helped his reputation.
2. Discontinuity
What did Jesus say or do which finds no ready parallel in OT tradition, what we know of 1st century Judaism, or in early Christianity? The unique character of sayings or actions may give them a greater claim to be historical. An example might be Jesus' rejection of voluntary fasting (Mark 2:18-22), which was a feature of religious practice before and after him.
3. Multiple Attestation
If a saying or action is found in more than one source, this lends credence to its historical nature. The sources must be independent, of course. Within the synoptics, Matthew and Luke’s repetition of Marcan material does not count.
4. Coherence
If an item has merit on some combination of the first three criteria, then the question of whether it coheres with other material judged historical can be considered a point in its favor. One specific variation of this: does the material cohere with or point toward Jesus’ eventual trial and crucifixion, which is the most historically well supported event in Jesus life based on the other criteria?
Other, lesser criteria include inclusion of traces of Aramaic in the Greek texts, and the authenticity of the Palestinian environment depicted (especially since the evangelists at times seem ignorant of the region).
The goal of objectivity
Meier offers the best take when he quotes Karl Rahner’s phrase “asymptotic goal” when speaking of his effort to be objective. Meier tries hard and shows us he’s trying hard through the transparancy of his work. He lays out his methodology clearly, so we can follow along and decide if he’s consistent in applying it throughout. Also, he provides truly voluminous endnotes so we can compare his conclusions with those of other scholars.
“Prescinding” from faith
Meier is a catholic priest. So what is all this talk of objectivity about?! How could he possibly be objective? He admits his biases will reflect his working out of the catholic context. But Meier draws a strict distinction between what he knows about Jesus through research and what he knows through his faith. He will prescind from or bracket his faith for the purposes of the project. It seems to me that he achieves this goal. I speculate that this is something evangelical Protestants and even some conservative Catholics would not or could not do.
The “unpapal” conclave
Meier invokes an imaginative metaphor for his effort at objectivity: he pictures an “unpapal” conclave consisting of a Catholic, a Protestant, and Jew and an Agnostic, “locked up in the bowels of the Harvard Divinity School library” forced to hammer out a consensus document on the historical Jesus.
Why a “Marginal Jew”?
Marginality is a theme which touches the subject from several angles. While the resurrected Jesus is absolutely central to Christian faith, the historical Jesus seems to have existed on the margins of his family, his society, his religion; he is a figure on the bare margins of political history, certainly.
Sources
The canonical gospels are the primary sources of evidence on the historical Jesus. There are a very small number of verses elsewhere in the NT that are useful. The non-canonical gospels and apocrypha add essentially nothing of real value, according to Meier. Some other scholars do see more value in texts like the Gospel of Thomas or, in John Dominic Crossan’s case, the Gospel of Peter, but these are minority opinions. Of the canonical gospels, some scholars place very little emphasis on John, given its thorough-going theological agenda, but Meier sees some good nuggets in John.
Outside of the NT, Meier gives a detailed treatment of the text with the best claim to attest to the existence of Jesus: this is the work of the Jewish-Roman writer of histories named Josephus. Josephus’ work includes references to Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, and John the Baptist. The texts also include a brief passage about Jesus as well one on his brother James. The problem is that the text show clear signs of later Christian tampering. So was the reference to Jesus inserted, or was a legitimate reference bulked up and embellished? Meier provides a detailed analysis (as well as his own translation) and concludes it is possible to reconstruct a core which existed prior to Christian tampering. The analysis certainly seems plausible and may be becoming the majority view among scholars, although it must be said that we will probably never have consensus.
The difficulty of the project
Before listing Meier’s criteria for judging NT material, I should stress again that we are looking at creating the best historical construct possible from limited evidence. There is no hope that we can capture what the “real” Jesus was like beyond an outline or sketch. One needs to be skeptical of anyone voicing too-detailed opinions about Jesus’ psychology and motivations in particular, as opposed to measured assessments about the relative historical value of various sayings and actions and some limited inferences about how he related to his time and place and thought of his mission and message.
Criteria
1. Embarrassment
In considering this criterion as well as others, remember again the central problem of analyzing the gospels is that the writers and editors were not striving to create an historical record. Writing from a vantage point several decades removed, they edited, embellished and created material to support and advocate the early church community of which they were a part. The point of the criterion of embarrassment is that anything remaining in the gospel texts which would have been embarrassing to these church communities has a relatively strong claim to historicity. An example might be Peter's denial of Jesus in the passion narratives. With Peter a leader of the early Church, this event in his life wouldn't have helped his reputation.
2. Discontinuity
What did Jesus say or do which finds no ready parallel in OT tradition, what we know of 1st century Judaism, or in early Christianity? The unique character of sayings or actions may give them a greater claim to be historical. An example might be Jesus' rejection of voluntary fasting (Mark 2:18-22), which was a feature of religious practice before and after him.
3. Multiple Attestation
If a saying or action is found in more than one source, this lends credence to its historical nature. The sources must be independent, of course. Within the synoptics, Matthew and Luke’s repetition of Marcan material does not count.
4. Coherence
If an item has merit on some combination of the first three criteria, then the question of whether it coheres with other material judged historical can be considered a point in its favor. One specific variation of this: does the material cohere with or point toward Jesus’ eventual trial and crucifixion, which is the most historically well supported event in Jesus life based on the other criteria?
Other, lesser criteria include inclusion of traces of Aramaic in the Greek texts, and the authenticity of the Palestinian environment depicted (especially since the evangelists at times seem ignorant of the region).
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Some Post-Holiday Blog Discussions
The Consciousness and Culture blog has a series of posts on a subject near and dear to me: the problem of first-person conscious experience. Ellis tries to deflate the issue a bit in his examination. I resist this in the comments.
Parableman had a good discussion (in two parts) of the cosmological argument. It is difficult to use this argument to conclude there is a necessary first cause, without also concluding everything which exists is necessary. Jeremy tries out a strategy which goes about the argument in a different way to try to avoid this. I don't think it succeeds without additional controversial premises, but it's interesting.
In the comment thread to this post on Philosophy, et cetera, a good point emerges: when arguing about the plausibility of theism, we can't avoid being specific about the details of God's attributes and features. So much discussion seems wasted to me by assuming a false dichotomy between classical Christian theism and materialist atheism.
Parableman had a good discussion (in two parts) of the cosmological argument. It is difficult to use this argument to conclude there is a necessary first cause, without also concluding everything which exists is necessary. Jeremy tries out a strategy which goes about the argument in a different way to try to avoid this. I don't think it succeeds without additional controversial premises, but it's interesting.
In the comment thread to this post on Philosophy, et cetera, a good point emerges: when arguing about the plausibility of theism, we can't avoid being specific about the details of God's attributes and features. So much discussion seems wasted to me by assuming a false dichotomy between classical Christian theism and materialist atheism.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
John P. Meier's Quest for Jesus
This is a new topic for this blog, prompted by my recent re-reading of the three volumes of John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus.
[UPDATE 16 March 2009: Please note that volume 4 will be published in May 2009 (amazon link). It focuses primarily on the relationship between Jesus and Mosaic Law.]
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Sometime in the late 80’s I was browsing in my local library and a book caught my eye: The Quest of the Historical Jesus, by Albert Schweitzer. Both the subject and the author sparked interest. I knew of Schweitzer through his reputation as a great humanitarian doctor in Africa, it turns out he was also a philosopher, theologian and New Testament scholar. And what more fascinating subject could one imagine than the study of what we might discover about the “historical Jesus” (as opposed to the Jesus of religious faith)?
A quick digression: I remembered once as a teenager reading the gospels on my own (possibly for the first time) and being absolutely blown away by noticing the passages in Matthew and Mark referring to Jesus’ brothers. Four are named in Mark 6:3: James, Joses, Judas and Simon; I happen to have four brothers, so did Jesus! How was it that in all those years of (catholic) church and CCD classes, I never heard anything about this?! The status of James as a leader of the early church in Jerusalem (Galatians 1:19) makes it yet more surprising that it took so long for me to learn about this. (I later learned that there is a long history in the catholic church of construing the Greek word translated as brother as meaning cousin, but there is little basis for this. Also, I should mention that the passages also refer to Jesus’ sisters – but they are not enumerated or named).
Anyway, while the historical Jesus was a topic I had thought about, I had never before read anything about it. In his book, Schweitzer summarized and critiqued what is now called the “First Quest” (or the “Old Quest’) for the historical Jesus which took place among mainly German scholars in the 18th and 19th centuries. The book, published in 1906, serves as a reference point for the state of scholarship on the subject at the beginning of the 20th century.
Some key themes in modern scholarship already appear in Schweitzer. Foremost is the challenge posed by the paucity of evidence. There are very few useful references outside the canonical gospels. The gospels themselves were written several decades after Jesus’ time. They are formed from composite sources with extensive creative redaction by the final authors – authors who were driven not by a desire to record history but by the priorities of their struggling early church communities. As Schweitzer showed when presenting the work of a great diversity of scholars in his review, the greatest danger is that of merely finding the Jesus of one’s desires or imagination within the skeleton of clues embedded in the gospels. A theme of the book was the conflict between the “rationalists”, who tended to discover a Jesus congenial to the standards of the enlightenment, and theologians who fought a rearguard action to find a Jesus consistent with their faith. Still, there was progress made in some of this early work. For example, a conclusion still regarded as well-founded by most (never all!) scholars is the two-source theory of the Synoptics. This refers to the priority of Mark as the earliest gospel, which was used in turn as a source for Matthew and Luke, and also to Matthew and Luke’s shared use of a written collection of sayings, called the ‘Q’ document. (A brief history of historical Jesus scholarship is here).
The late 80’s and 90’s turned out to be a very active period in the field (the “Third Quest”). The work has benefited from much greater sophistication in source and form criticism and from concurrent advances in the study of the social, political and religious environment of the time and place. But the spectrum of conclusions drawn by scholars is (unfortunately) still very wide.
A great amount of media attention was generated by the Jesus Seminar in this period. The Seminar, founded by Robert Funk in 1985, was composed of a group of 30 or more scholars who met to consider the historicity of the gospels. This effort stirred up much controversy, for 3 reasons that I could see. First, the group approached the task with revisionism in mind. One of the seven pillars guiding the effort mentioned in the introduction to their first work, The Five Gospels, was that the texts were deemed ahistorical until enough evidence showed otherwise; another stated that supernatural material was inherently not historical. Second, they adopted a voting method (using colored beads) which when implemented tended to give greater weight to skepticism (only 18% of the words of Jesus received the highest “red” treatment for historicity). Finally, Funk made public relations a fundamental part of the seminar’s agenda, and this naturally stirred up critics much more than if the debate remained contained in academia. I sometimes thought when reading The Five Gospels that the actual description of the proceedings on the various passages implied a more nuanced and reasonable study than the headlines (and final color coding) implied. The premium placed on generating headlines extended to the title of the book itself: the Seminar elevated the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (found at Nag Hammadi) to a place alongside the canonical gospels. Yet when you looked at the Seminar’s conclusions with regard to Thomas, there was very little in it that they deemed historical which didn’t already have a canonical parallel. Still, the seminar’s overall approach gave critics ammunition for the charge that their methods led to biased outcomes.
This highly publicized conclusion that only a small part of the gospels was historical and the resulting consignment of so many of Jesus’ memorable words and acts to theological and mythological invention by the early church met with vehement opposition. The unfortunate consequence is that it seemed an extreme dichotomy was set before the public: a rational historical look at Jesus leads to radical rejection of most of what was distinctive about the Jesus of the Christian faith; therefore the response of Christians should be to reject the legitimacy of the concept of such a historical project. One prominent critic whose book I read was this one by Luke Timothy Johnson. The book offers some criticism of the research and methodologies of the Seminar and other writers, but it ultimately came down to an argument that the historical project is misguided and the only “real” Jesus is the Christ of faith. Other conservative Christian scholars have engaged in more rigorous defense of the historicity of the gospels with the goal of providing apologetic material to their Christian readers (One example would be William Lane Craig).
But apologetics are of little use to an open-minded reader who wants the best and most objective study of the subject possible. While the Jesus Seminar’s approach may have been biased, apologetics by definition prejudge the matter.
Of the books I’ve read so far, I believe John Meier’s work comes closest to this admittedly impossible goal of objectivity. I will follow up with a another post where I’ll discuss some of the reasons for my opinion and give brief examples of his method and results. For now, here is a link to an article he wrote in 1999 about the third quest which gives a flavor for his approach.
[UPDATE 16 March 2009: Please note that volume 4 will be published in May 2009 (amazon link). It focuses primarily on the relationship between Jesus and Mosaic Law.]
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Sometime in the late 80’s I was browsing in my local library and a book caught my eye: The Quest of the Historical Jesus, by Albert Schweitzer. Both the subject and the author sparked interest. I knew of Schweitzer through his reputation as a great humanitarian doctor in Africa, it turns out he was also a philosopher, theologian and New Testament scholar. And what more fascinating subject could one imagine than the study of what we might discover about the “historical Jesus” (as opposed to the Jesus of religious faith)?
A quick digression: I remembered once as a teenager reading the gospels on my own (possibly for the first time) and being absolutely blown away by noticing the passages in Matthew and Mark referring to Jesus’ brothers. Four are named in Mark 6:3: James, Joses, Judas and Simon; I happen to have four brothers, so did Jesus! How was it that in all those years of (catholic) church and CCD classes, I never heard anything about this?! The status of James as a leader of the early church in Jerusalem (Galatians 1:19) makes it yet more surprising that it took so long for me to learn about this. (I later learned that there is a long history in the catholic church of construing the Greek word translated as brother as meaning cousin, but there is little basis for this. Also, I should mention that the passages also refer to Jesus’ sisters – but they are not enumerated or named).
Anyway, while the historical Jesus was a topic I had thought about, I had never before read anything about it. In his book, Schweitzer summarized and critiqued what is now called the “First Quest” (or the “Old Quest’) for the historical Jesus which took place among mainly German scholars in the 18th and 19th centuries. The book, published in 1906, serves as a reference point for the state of scholarship on the subject at the beginning of the 20th century.
Some key themes in modern scholarship already appear in Schweitzer. Foremost is the challenge posed by the paucity of evidence. There are very few useful references outside the canonical gospels. The gospels themselves were written several decades after Jesus’ time. They are formed from composite sources with extensive creative redaction by the final authors – authors who were driven not by a desire to record history but by the priorities of their struggling early church communities. As Schweitzer showed when presenting the work of a great diversity of scholars in his review, the greatest danger is that of merely finding the Jesus of one’s desires or imagination within the skeleton of clues embedded in the gospels. A theme of the book was the conflict between the “rationalists”, who tended to discover a Jesus congenial to the standards of the enlightenment, and theologians who fought a rearguard action to find a Jesus consistent with their faith. Still, there was progress made in some of this early work. For example, a conclusion still regarded as well-founded by most (never all!) scholars is the two-source theory of the Synoptics. This refers to the priority of Mark as the earliest gospel, which was used in turn as a source for Matthew and Luke, and also to Matthew and Luke’s shared use of a written collection of sayings, called the ‘Q’ document. (A brief history of historical Jesus scholarship is here).
The late 80’s and 90’s turned out to be a very active period in the field (the “Third Quest”). The work has benefited from much greater sophistication in source and form criticism and from concurrent advances in the study of the social, political and religious environment of the time and place. But the spectrum of conclusions drawn by scholars is (unfortunately) still very wide.
A great amount of media attention was generated by the Jesus Seminar in this period. The Seminar, founded by Robert Funk in 1985, was composed of a group of 30 or more scholars who met to consider the historicity of the gospels. This effort stirred up much controversy, for 3 reasons that I could see. First, the group approached the task with revisionism in mind. One of the seven pillars guiding the effort mentioned in the introduction to their first work, The Five Gospels, was that the texts were deemed ahistorical until enough evidence showed otherwise; another stated that supernatural material was inherently not historical. Second, they adopted a voting method (using colored beads) which when implemented tended to give greater weight to skepticism (only 18% of the words of Jesus received the highest “red” treatment for historicity). Finally, Funk made public relations a fundamental part of the seminar’s agenda, and this naturally stirred up critics much more than if the debate remained contained in academia. I sometimes thought when reading The Five Gospels that the actual description of the proceedings on the various passages implied a more nuanced and reasonable study than the headlines (and final color coding) implied. The premium placed on generating headlines extended to the title of the book itself: the Seminar elevated the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (found at Nag Hammadi) to a place alongside the canonical gospels. Yet when you looked at the Seminar’s conclusions with regard to Thomas, there was very little in it that they deemed historical which didn’t already have a canonical parallel. Still, the seminar’s overall approach gave critics ammunition for the charge that their methods led to biased outcomes.
This highly publicized conclusion that only a small part of the gospels was historical and the resulting consignment of so many of Jesus’ memorable words and acts to theological and mythological invention by the early church met with vehement opposition. The unfortunate consequence is that it seemed an extreme dichotomy was set before the public: a rational historical look at Jesus leads to radical rejection of most of what was distinctive about the Jesus of the Christian faith; therefore the response of Christians should be to reject the legitimacy of the concept of such a historical project. One prominent critic whose book I read was this one by Luke Timothy Johnson. The book offers some criticism of the research and methodologies of the Seminar and other writers, but it ultimately came down to an argument that the historical project is misguided and the only “real” Jesus is the Christ of faith. Other conservative Christian scholars have engaged in more rigorous defense of the historicity of the gospels with the goal of providing apologetic material to their Christian readers (One example would be William Lane Craig).
But apologetics are of little use to an open-minded reader who wants the best and most objective study of the subject possible. While the Jesus Seminar’s approach may have been biased, apologetics by definition prejudge the matter.
Of the books I’ve read so far, I believe John Meier’s work comes closest to this admittedly impossible goal of objectivity. I will follow up with a another post where I’ll discuss some of the reasons for my opinion and give brief examples of his method and results. For now, here is a link to an article he wrote in 1999 about the third quest which gives a flavor for his approach.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
The ID Decision in Dover
I'm pleased with the outcome of the Dover case on Intelligent Design (the decision is here, and a blog post with links about the case is here). I want to emphasize one part of this. What I strongly object to is the effort to place ID in public school science classrooms ("full stop"). I have no objection to full and open debate about the merits of ID in terms of philosophy of science, metaphysics, or, of course, theology. While the judge was extremely harsh regarding the religious motives of the board and the claims that ID was a scientific alternative to evolutionary theory, I think it is important to emphasize this part of the decision's conclusion:
"With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
"With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
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