"Q": What's the deal?

[vern_humphrey]

Those who support the "Q "document are cordially invited to tell the rest of us where we can find a translation oft that document on the web. If they cannot find that, tell us which ancient writer mentions “Q.”

Someone mentioned what historians do. Historians go by written records – and they don’t invent documents to bolster their theories.

 

[Joel_Tunnah]

You notice, for instance, that Matthew’s versions of the stories are usually shorter and less vivid, even though Matthew is a much longer book.

This is easily explained by the fact that Mark was Peter’s disciple.

Also, if Matthew came first then it follows that Luke and Mark borrowed from Matthew. But if that were the case you would expect Matthew and Luke sometimes to agree against Mark in the way they arrange their material. You wouldn’t expect Mark and Luke to agree against Matthew.

Why? This is not evidence of anything other than the fact that Luke had access to Mark and Matthew. No one disputes that.

Joel

 

[Teflon93]

Those who support the "Q "document are cordially invited to tell the rest of us where we can find a translation oft that document on the web. If they cannot find that, tell us which ancient writer mentions “Q.”

Someone mentioned what historians do. Historians go by written records – and they don’t invent documents to bolster their theories.

True. People who invent documents to bolster their theories are hoaxers, not historians. While it is possible that some Q proponents are hoaxers, it is also possible some are historians. I think it’s also highly probable that all Q proponents fervently hope that an actual copy of Q shows up—surely it would make there case much easier to argue!

This is also a problem with attempts to find the “historical” Jesus. “Historical” is not a synonym for “real” or “genuine”, but for “the Jesus written about in the historical record.”

If someone wanted to know the historical you, and they Googled your name, how close do you think they’d get to the real you, even in the Information Age where so much is written down and so much of what has been written down is available?

History, like every other discipline, has strict limits as to the knowledge it uncovers.

 

[Teflon93]

Also, if Matthew came first then it follows that Luke and Mark borrowed from Matthew.

Careful—that sounds a lot like the logical fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc:

A occurs before B.
Therefore A is the cause of B.

 

[vern_humphrey]

True. People who invent documents to bolster their theories are hoaxers, not historians. While it is possible that some Q proponents are hoaxers, it is also possible some are historians. I think it’s also highly probable that all Q proponents fervently hope that an actual copy of Q shows up—surely it would make there case much easier to argue!

If they do, they’re like Ghost Dancers, believing a wave of earth will sweep over the land, burying the white people and bringing back the buffalo.

This is also a problem with attempts to find the “historical” Jesus. “Historical” is not a synonym for “real” or “genuine”, but for “the Jesus written about in the historical record.”

That is correct. The Jesus they seek cannot be found any other way.

If someone wanted to know the historical you, and they Googled your name, how close do you think they’d get to the real you, even in the Information Age where so much is written down and so much of what has been written down is available?

History, like every other discipline, has strict limits as to the knowledge it uncovers.

Ah, but some people recognize no limits.

 

[mschrank]

A historian can only show what probably happened, but a miracle by its very nature is the the most highly improbable explanation possible. How can a historian ever show the most highly improbable explanation is what probably happened? This is not to say that miracles do not happen just that the methods of history cannot be used to say whether a miracle did not did not probably happen.

This is Hume’s arguement against miracles, no?

Great thread! I am really soaking this one up. Thanks to both Ammonius and Teflon.

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

This is Hume’s arguement against miracles, no?

Great thread! I am really soaking this one up. Thanks to both Ammonius and Teflon.

No. This is only concerned with whether a historian can demonstrate whether a miracle occurred as the most probable event. Hume’s argument dealt with justified belief in miracles.

 

[mschrank]

No. This is only concerned with whether a historian can demonstrate whether a miracle occurred as the most probable event. Hume’s argument dealt with justified belief in miracles.

I can understand the distinction, but I think its important then, that the historians that write according to that method make it clear that their history is not “what happened” in the common sense meaning of the word, but an abstracted, idealized model of what might of happened, assuming that miracles do not happen.

I see no problem with trying to explain things like this as long as historians admit that ‘what happened’ in reality may very well be lost in history according to what can be known by the historical method, and thier history can only offer an approximation based on various assumptions.

The real problem comes when these types begin to believe their own hype, that their models explain reality itself or that reality itself is limited to what can be explained. One is an epistemological limitation (the method can only know so much), the other one is a metaphysical assertion (reality strongly corresponds to the method).

 

[vern_humphrey]

The real problem comes when these types begin to believe their own hype, that their models explain reality itself or that reality itself is limited to what can be explained. One is an epistemological limitation (the method can only know so much), the other one is a metaphysical assertion (reality strongly corresponds to the method).

The real problem begins when historians invent documents to bolster their theories.

History, like many other disciplines, is strengthened by peer review. How can you have valid peer review of someone’s interpretation of an imaginary document?

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

Well, only in the sense that we were not present, I suppose. History is always subjective to a degree.

Yet you’re refusing to see what should be obvious: if multiple attestation wasn’t a necessary element to prove validity, it would not be found in Ehrman’s criteria at all by definition. That’s not the same thing as saying it’s the SOLE criterion (which I’ve never said), just that it is a necessary one.

Once again, they are part of Ehrman’s criteria because they can increase the probability, not because they are necessary. Do you understand the difference?

Here, I was simply trying to differentiate clearly the probability we’re talking about. It is not in fact the probability the event occurred at all. It either did or did not, 0% or 100%. This is because it is a past event. The probability in question is actually one of “how accurately does our historical evidence reflect actual events?”

No, the question is, using all the available evidence, what is the most likely happened.

This is important to distinguish because when one sets criteria upon which to include or exclude evidence, and to weight evidence, it is very easy to skew your probability.

Ehrman does not exclude of the evidence of miracle. He just says it can never be enough to make it the most likely thing that happened because by definition a miracle is the least likely thing to happen.

If a man showed up tomorrow and raised the dead, a miracle, clearly we could marshal historical evidence to demonstrate whether he did or did not do so. We will in all likelihood not be able to prove it with 100% certainty, but that is not a requirement.

To treat this as a matter of history let’s say he did it yesterday. And again I would point you to what Ehrman wrote about history and miracles on pages 192-197.

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

The real problem begins when historians invent documents to bolster their theories.

It is not a matter of invention, but reconstruction.

History, like many other disciplines, is strengthened by peer review. How can you have valid peer review of someone’s interpretation of an imaginary document?

You don’t think there is peer review of work on text reconstruction?

 

[Contarini]

I can understand the distinction, but I think its important then, that the historians that write according to that method make it clear that their history is not “what happened” in the common sense meaning of the word, but an abstracted, idealized model of what might of happened, assuming that miracles do not happen.

I see no problem with trying to explain things like this as long as historians admit that ‘what happened’ in reality may very well be lost in history according to what can be known by the historical method, and thier history can only offer an approximation based on various assumptions.

Most historians I know would willingly admit this. Typically Ranke’s dictum about history describing the past “as it really happened” is mentioned as an example of 19th-century naivete. But then, I got my Ph.D. at a hotbed of post-modernism (Duke).

One important caveat–I disagree that historians only speak about probability and have nothing to say about miracles. It is possible and legitimate for historians to allow for the possibility of the miraculous. It’s true that for a historian to build the miraculous into an explanatory structure will do serious damage to historical method. However, most serious historians get around this by speaking of people’s belief in the miraculous (without passing judgment, as a historian, as to whether that belief was justified) and use that as an explanatory mechanism.

Let me explain what I mean. A historian writing about the Resurrection can say (and most that I’ve read do say) something like “the earliest followers of Jesus became convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead.” Generally, the only people who try to deny this and argue that Jesus’ first followers didn’t believe in a literal resurrection are liberal Christians with a theological agenda (not that having an agenda automatically makes you a bad historian) such as Dominic Crossan or John Shelby Spong. One can use the early Christians’ belief in the resurrection to explain other things about early Christianity.

Another example–the historian Ramsay MacMullen (who appears to have somewhat of a bias against Christianity, though I don’t know his religious affiliation or lack thereof for sure) argues that belief in miracles played a huge role in fostering conversion to Christianity. Even though his picture of early Christianity is by and large not very appealing, I read his analysis and can’t help thinking “wow! it sounds as if maybe these miracles actually happened.” But he doesn’t say that–he just talks about the effect of people’s belief.

So how could belief in divine intervention interfere with historical analysis? Actually this is less likely to occur in the case of direct miracles such as the Resurrection (since they work as agents of historical change by means of people’s belief in them) and more in the case of an overly simplistic appeal to direct actions of divine providence or the work of the Spirit. For instance, someone might argue that discussing people’s reasons for becoming Christians is irrelevant because conversion is a work of the Holy Spirit and historical/psychological/social factors don’t matter. A die-hard Protestant might say that Luther’s theology came straight from Scripture as revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, so that study of his relationship to the medieval theological tradition (and to Renaissance scholarship) is irrelevant; or that people became Protestants because the Spirit revealed to them that Protestantism was true, so that a study of social and political motivations is pointless.

That is the kind of appeal to the supernatural that we really can’t have in historical scholarship!

In Christ.

Edwin

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

One important caveat–I disagree that historians only speak about probability and have nothing to say about miracles. It is possible and legitimate for historians to allow for the possibility of the miraculous. It’s true that for a historian to build the miraculous into an explanatory structure will do serious damage to historical method. However, most serious historians get around this by speaking of people’s belief in the miraculous (without passing judgment, as a historian, as to whether that belief was justified) and use that as an explanatory mechanism.

Just a note. I agree that historians can write about what people believed about, said about, etc “miracles.” It is just that they cannot say a miracle is what probably happened. Ehrman also makes this point, but I didn’t quote that part because it was not as directly relevant as what I did quote.

 

[vern_humphrey]

It is not a matter of invention, but reconstruction.
Before you can re-construct something, it must have existed in the first place.
Ammonius Saccus;2660568:

You don’t think there is peer review of work on text reconstruction?

“Text reconstruction” refers to analyzing fragmentary texts or variants of texts to determine what was originally written (as closely as possible.) Since there are no fragments or variants of “Q,” there can be no “text reconstruction” of “Q.”

 

[Ferdinand_Mary]

NOTICE: Any more allegations of lying on this thread are to go through me via private message. You may disagree with another’s interpretation of a topic, but saying, “You are a liar!” or, “That’s a lie!” will be met with a conduct infraction and possibly a brief vacation from the Catholic Answers Forums.

Mane Nobiscum Domine,
Ferdinand Mary

 

[Verisimilitude]

Good question.

A hypothetical for your consideration:

We are standing outside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.

In recollecting the events of that day later, you and I write accounts which largely agree factually. We each claim two planes crashed into the Towers. We describe the fires, and people leaping to their deaths. We describe the collapse. We excerpt Mayor Giuliani’s speech with significant agreement.

Now, did you and I use the same unseen source for our memoirs, or did we simply recall events which actually happened, events seared into our respective memories?

If you answered the former—congratulations! You too could be a Jesus Seminar member!

This so well answered the OP I don’t know why there would be more debate. Seeing that there has been more debate it bears repeating.

What is more unreasonable; an expectation that the first writtings about Jesus were crafted without editing and perfectly preserved, or a conclusion that whatever preceeded the Gospels as we know them today is not relavent to their Authority about the event itself?

 

[annem]

Regarding the many comments about Thomas–here is what I found in “Fabricating Jesus” by Evans (good book, by the way) that the latest textual scholarship on Thomas shows that it was written about 175 or 180 AD. This is mostly based on the fact that Thomas reflects later editing in the gospels and that it shows Christian “traditions that did not emerge before the middle of the second century” p 68. This is also the line taken by a recent book by Nicholas Perrin. So it looks like Crossan and the Jesus Seminar’s speculation about Thomas being early sayings gospel is wrong.

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Does anyone out there have any good recommendations for books on biblical scholarship? I can’t seem to find any written by Catholic scholars. The three most famous scholars who toe the traditional line seem to be Martin Hengel, Nicholas Bauckham, and N T Wright.

But aren’t there any Catholic scholars out there?

 

[anthony022071]

anthony022071;2658524:

You are misrepresenting Bultmann’s work if you are saying that he said the supernatural and miraculous elements as the result of redaction and accretion (I see you added accretion). One of the key things Bultmann did was propose the Signs Gospel. This source is seen as a pre-70 source that is full of supernatural and miraculous elements. In Bultmann’s view the supernatural elements of the Gospel of John do not come from redaction or accretion, but from an early source.

As to your characterization of Bultmann’s view of Jesus and what can be said about him, I think you misrepresenting that as well. Specifically Bultmann did not see the resurrection as something that could be disposed (but he did not see it as a historical fact), in fact he believed the resurrection was essential.

See: people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_760_bultmann.htm

OK, but you claimed that they say the supernatural elements are all a matter of redaction. Can you specifically cite some instances of scholars claiming that the supernatural elements are all redaction?

Since Bultmann did not see the resurrection,or any of the other supernatural elements as historical fact,he in effect is saying that it is all a matter of unhistorical myth;and therefore the implication is that those things were made up,or redaction,or accretion. And that seems to be the general view of modern biblical scholars. I don’t possess books written by those kinds of scholars,but you can see what I mean if you go to a public library or a secular bookstore and skim through the scholarly books in the Christianity section. Taking the supernatural or miraculous things in the Bible at face value is not acceptable to the “modern world-view”.

It is not a problem if they are using the methods of history. Do you think historians should start from the position that all the miracles in Bible are true?

But the “methods of history” don’t allow for the possibility of God intervening in history,for supernatural realities,for miracles. If a historian believes in the existence of supernatural realities,then he might allow for the possibility of the miracles in the Bible being true. But if he were to make public his belief in Biblical miracles,then he would lose credibility among his colleagues and would be considered unfit to be a historian,because miracles are incredible to many historians and it is unfitting for a modern historian to acknowledge the reality of miracles.

How would you have historians look at the miracle claims of other faiths such as Islam or Buddhism?

Any believer in the miracles of the Bible can also allow for the possibility of miracles in other religions. There are the powers of nature – spirits and demons – who are prayed to as gods and who are capable of making things happen.