It’s December, which means Valerie Tarico is back on Raw Story, reporting from the cutting edge of 19th century Biblical archaeology studies. Only her sources are not writers from 2 centuries ago, or even contemporary historians and scholars known to the public like Dom Crossan. Her primary source is a “history buff.”
I am not making this up.
Author David Fitzgerald is a history buff whose primary fascination is the early history of religion. When he researched the origins of Christianity, he was astounded to discover how little evidence we have about Jesus as a historical person. The least fantastical stories about the life of Jesus are found in the four New Testament gospels, but the four gospels that made it into the New Testament—and others that did not—were written generations after any historical Jesus rabbi would have lived. They contradict each other and contain miraculous events that in any other context we would simply call magic, mythology, or fairy tales. These events echo “tropes” that were common in the folklore of the region, like the idea of a woman impregnated by a god, or talking animals, or transmutation (one substance turning into another), or magical healings, or a person returning from the dead, or being/becoming a deity.
Again: all of this has been known since the 19th century. David Fitzgerald still hasn’t caught up with the 20th century, much less the 21st. But, also again, it’s December: so here we are.
The closest thing she has to a legitimate source is Bart Ehrman, who several years back (decades back now, actually) tried to latch on to the notoriety of the Jesus Seminar and write a popular book or two himself. If you want to go down that path, pick Dom Crossan. You don’t have to agree with Crossan in all things to recognize his research is meticulous and well grounded. Ehrman? Eh; he was mostly trying to sell a book.
And David Fitzgerald? Never heard of him.
The fundamental problem here has not changed: Tarico grew up a fundamentalist, and she still sees the world through that lens. The gospels must be true and correct records of historical events in every respect, or they are failures. This is, ironically, a very modern and flawed idea, not least because our idea of history and how it is documented is a recent invention, not a universal truth of humanity since we started telling stories. More to the point, scripture is a faith document, not “objective” records of “facts.” I put that word in quotes because any historian will tell you history is a narrative, not objective truth. History is always a matter of who’s telling the story.
What we know about the life of Socrates, for example, comes almost entirely from Plato. So what?, you ask. Whitehead was right; all of Western thought is just a footnote to Plato, and yet Plato established his authority in his teacher who we know existed mostly because Aristophanes included Socrates in a play. I mean, really our knowledge of the historical Socrates is pretty thin (Plato’s information is largely hagiography). Is this a problem? No, not really.
That Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t show up in the historical record is hardly surprising. Consider Gray’s “Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard.” Literally the first time in Western literature that the lives of ordinary, unknown people were considered not only noteworthy, but praiseworthy. And that was in 1751. That may seem like a long time ago, but in the history of humanity, that’s yesterday. History is still dominated by the “Great Man” (yes, man) theory (well, popular history is). Who would notice a child of peasants from a backwater region on the edge of the Roman Empire who lived in a time when nothing otherwise notable happened? That we do strongly implies someone did live then and there and made such an impact that others made records about him. That or some group got together and decided to make up all those teachings. (Those other gospels Tarico mentions are either sayings gospels or shorter collections of even more fantastic narratives than in the canon. They are all available on the internet. This stuff isn’t hidden.) I mean, the teachings at least originated somewhere, with some person. If not Jesus of Nazareth, then who?
And where’s the historical record on that?
Tarico’s article is just ignorance chasing ignorance while thinking it’s clever because it’s not burdened by the hard work of acquiring knowledge. And I’m not saying that knowledge will make you a believer. That’s the schtick Tarico is still trying to escape. I’m saying if you want to know that truth, the one Tarico is writing about, do the hard work. That might well set you free.
Taking the word of a “history buff” sure won’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment