Basic Methodology For Dating Ancient Documents

[mymistake]

Matthew and Luke copied Mark.  We can see this because both expand upon and add spin to parts of Mark while the remainder copies Mark almost word for word.  At times Luke and Matthew spun away from Mark in different directions.  For example they each indicated Joseph had a different father.  They all jump through hoops trying to make their protagonist fulfill Jewish prophecy.  Sometimes we can't even find the prophesy they mention.  Other times when we look up the reference to the prophecy it isn't in the form of a prophecy.  Matthew and Luke are not biographies because they are religious texts that revised theology.  But Mark can't be a biography unless it is about somebody who actually existed.  Mark is a set of claims.  

 

These claims need to be supported before they are believed.  The more fantastic the claim the more evidence it requires before it has merit.  If we are going to take one of the most mundane claims: during Roman occupation there was a delusional guy with a common name who acted like a guru and had some weird followers - we can remind ourselves that this sort of thing happens every day so it is not unlikely.  But when we add magic, dead people coming back to life, angels, Satan, holy ghosts and gods that dramatically increases the required evidence far beyond reality.  Mark isn't a biography.  It is theology. 

[Ravenstar]

Lets begin with the FACT that Genesis is basically stolen from the Babylonians. The Enuma Elish is far older and yet has verses that are almost VERBATIM to Genesis. Primary source? I think not

 

The Story of Noah also comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh… in some places almost verbatim,.. primary source? No

 

The story of Moses (set adrift on the river, found by another, blah, blah) Is from the story of SARGON of AKKAD, again, much older…. the BIBLE is NIT primary source material.. and if you know anything about other ancient scripts you could see this. It's borrowed.

 

SO, right in the first few books (of which we have no original texts before the 2nd century BCE) we can already see that the Bible is a syncretistic almagamation of various sources… we even know those sources are not Hebrew.

 

 

 

The Hyksos are NOT THE HEBREWS (they were shepherd.. and they most certainly didn't invent the compound bow)

 

The Hyksos or Hycsos (/ˈhɪksɒs/ or /ˈhɪksoʊz/;^[3] Egyptian heqa khaseshet, "ruler(s) of the foreign countries"; GreekὙκσώς, Ὑξώς) were a people from West Asia who took over the eastern Nile Delta, ending the Thirteenth dynasty of Egypt and initiating the Second Intermediate Period.^[4]

Important Canaanite populations first appeared in Egypt towards the end of the 12th Dynasty c. 1800 BC, and either around that time or c. 1720 BC, formed an independent realm in the eastern Nile Delta.^[5] The Canaanite rulers of the Delta, regrouped in the 14th Dynasty, coexisted with the Egyptian 13th Dynasty, based in Itjtawy. The power of the 13th and 14th dynasties progressively waned, perhaps due to famine and plague,^[5][6] and c. 1650 BC both were invaded by the Hyksos, who formed their own dynasty, the 15th Dynasty. The collapse of the 13th Dynasty created a power vacuum in the south, which may have led to the rise of the 16th Dynasty, based in Thebes, and possibly of a local dynasty in Abydos.^[5] Both were eventually conquered by the Hyksos, albeit for a short time in the case of Thebes. From then on, the 17th Dynasty took control of the Thebes and reigned for some time in peaceful coexistence with the Hyksos kings, perhaps as their vassals. Eventually, Seqenenre Tao, Kamose and Ahmosewaged war against the Hyksos and expelled Khamudi, their last king, from Egypt c. 1550 BC.^[5]

The Hyksos practiced horse burials, and their chief deity, their native storm god, became associated with the Egyptian storm and desert god, Seth.^[7] Although most Hyksos names seem Semitic, the Hyksos also included Hurrians, who, while speaking an isolated language, were under the rule and influence of Indo-Europeans.^[8]

The Hyksos brought several technical improvements to Egypt, as well as cultural impulses such as new musical instruments and foreign loan words. The changes introduced include new techniques of bronze working and pottery, new breeds of animals, and new crops. In warfare, they introduced the horse and chariot, the composite bow, improved battle axes, and advanced fortification techniques.^[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos

 

So stop with the pedantic pseudo-intellectual bullshit. I, for one, am not buying it.

[centauri]

 

 

"Fear him that has the power to cast you into hell."

 

 

We are the only one's with that power.

 

 

Youtube videos are not the Bible, which teaches that you are to fear the deity that has the power to cast you into hell.

 

Luke 12:5

But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

 

You don't cast yourself into hell.

Either you believe what Jesus allegedly said or you don't, and if you don't you're simply creating a "god" that fits your preferences.

That's exactly what the Youtube Christian preacher is doing.

It uses a perverted reasoning process where the dictator claims that the gulag inmates sent themselves there.

[florduh]

This is a tutorial on how to date when ancient documents were first written.

 

We appreciate your tutoring. We're all rather ignorant around these here parts.

[Ravenstar]

Your dry sarcasm and wit never fails to bring a smile to my day, Florduh.  

 

[florduh]

Your dry sarcasm and wit never fails to bring a smile to my day, Florduh.  

 

And your knowledge and insight makes MY day!

 

I'm trying to use humor and sarcasm because I am so weary of this self righteous, bloviating, self appointed professor.

[skepticalme]

Your source material is about someone who can see the future.  If that is true then doesn't that completely invalided your methodology.  In fact, doesn't this methodology revolve around the principle that artifacts from future dates CAN'T exist.  So, either your source is invalid or your methodology is.  I think your methodology is valid, a document can't detail events before they happen.  How long after they happened is another matter.  A document detailing the outcome of the American Revolution need only be written after the revolution, be it 1 year or 200.  The author is not obligated to include more recent information like the Civil War, WWII, or 9/11 even though they have knowledge of those events and they are relevant to American history.  Even then, it still lends no authenticity to the events being described, only what the author BELIEVED happened.  Someone writing about the moon landing hoax in 1975 doesn't mean the moon landing were hoaxed, only that they believed it in 1975.

[Astreja]

Steve, some "biases" are quite reasonable.  For instance, when a book speaks of a Talking Snake™, a burning shrubbery making conversation, a magic boat carrying
Two of Every Animal There Is, and a dragon that can knock one-third of the stars out of the sky with its tail, the odds of it being mythological are quite high.  One is under no obligation to try to believe silly ideas just because there's an infinitesimal chance they might be true.

[Guest SteveBennett]

 

I think the bulk of the way those who disagree are responding is something like this:

 

"The Bible is myth, therefore one can't apply basic methodology to it."

 

But if one fails to identify the premise of that statement as a bias, then one will not be able to see what is wrong with this line of reasoning. Instead a different question, more removed from the bias, needs to be asked:

 

"On what criteria does one tell the difference between a book that purports to record myths, and a book that purports to record history?"

 

In other words, one has to justify on a basis of established criteria what separates a text which purports to be historical vs. a text which purports to be fictional or mythical.

 

Here are some of the key criteria:

 

1)  Does the text claim to be an eye-witness account?  Or directly refer to eye-witnesses?

2)  Does the text provide specific, testable details that are consistent with an eye-witness account?

3)  Does the text purport to be pursuant of recording even earlier sources?

4)  Does the text speak in vague generalities, or does it provide specific names, places, people, and events that archaeologists can dig up? For example, "Harry potter went to Hogwartz," obviously, would not pass this criteria.

5)  Does the text have the tacit feel of history or myth? I.e. Is the author's purpose to inform or to entertain (as story tellers do)?

6)  Does the text have a target audience well known to exist at the time the text purports to have been written? What would that target audience have been concerned with?

 

For example.  Besides the fact that Superman comics are clearly intended to entertain (not inform) it consistently fails any testable claims that it makes.  "The daily planet" is not actually a newspaper. "Metropolis," is a very generic name for a city.

 

By all of the criteria available, Superman is clearly fictional.  Apply the same criteria to something like the Iliad, and it becomes very clear that the Iliad is actually fiction, based on an earlier, historical, war.  We can see that the author is far removed from the events themselves. And that the author's purpose is to show that heroism during that war is to be regarded as honorific (to an extreme level).

 

Meanwhile the purpose of the gospels is clearly to inform-- and that by that information, one may make an informed decision of following Jesus.

Steve, your post is vitiated at the outset by a FALSE DICHOTOMY. When trying to compare the Bible to other ancient texts, we need to consider a wider range of possible categories than "purports to record myth" vs. "purports to record history." For example, Plato's dialogues purport to do both.

 

Second, as people have tried to point out, trying to think as historians, we have to weigh sources and consider the apparent biases of their authors. So "purports" needs to be taken apart, big time.

 

Which trained historians, teaching in universities and not seminaries, put forth the "key criteria" that you instruct us to apply? You may think that I'm indulging in an ad verecundiam fallacy here. No, I'd like to know that your instructions about methodologies and criteria to use in HISTORY are not of your own devising but are in fact "established", as you say they are.

 

That's because I start off REJECTING UTTERLY your criteria 1-4. They apply, for example, to Apuleius' The Golden Ass, which starts off claiming to be an eyewitness account (the diff. is in degree not in kind). No one denies that there is factual material in various books of the Bible.

Criteria 1-4 reveal an IGNORATIO ELENCHI fallacy. The question that matters is not what a given book of the Bible "purports to be". Xenophon's Memorabilia purport to be eyewitness accounts of conversations held by Socrates, but analysis shows that this work is not so.

 

Your criterion 5 again poses a FALSE DICHOTOMY. There are more purposes than entertain vs. inform. For example, to persuade. Propaganda poses as fact. The Gospel of John declares itself to be propaganda: "these have been written that you may believe..." It's not just info, it's a persuasive spiel. For starters, the proportion of speech to "factual" narrative, and the nature of the speeches, shows that the genre we are dealing with in John is not the same as, for example, what we have in Thucydides or Polybius. And even in ancient historical writing, let alone in the gospels etc., a major structuring element was RHETORIC. How the author seeks to guide the audience's response, and to what end, is a critical question (I applaud your bringing it up).

 

Your tacit feel criterion makes my head reel. Details like dead people coming to life and walking around, people running on water and then looking down and being scared of sinking and then being grabbed, people who are struck dead immediately for lying about finances, rods thrown down on the floor turning into snakes and having a fight... these are details that give the tacit feel of "just the facts, ma'am"?

Modern systems/intelligence analysts or others who lack training in ancient texts do not have the training to pronounce on the tacit feel of an ancient text. For starters, one needs to know the original language...

 

Your criterion 6 about a target audience "well known to exist at the time" plunges straight into BEGGING THE QUESTION. Since you date Luke/Acts, for example, betw 58-64, and there is no extrabiblical evidence about the Jesus cult from that early a period, your conclusions about the target audience will inevitably come from the very texts, for the explanation of which you invoke criteria about a target audience. So you will be stuck in a circle.

 

 

If it purports to be history, then we test it as history (no one gets a pass).  If it fails testing, we no longer regard it as history.  But we don't dismiss it even before applying criterion.

 

And yes, there are other possibilities (like to persuade).  But that is redundant of what was said.  "Purpose is to inform, and so by doing-- make an informed decision."

 

The point is, at the end of the day,

 

It is absolutely ludicrous to think Acts was written after 64 A.D.

 

Its like saying someone would write a book titled "A Record of Events in East and West Germany," AFTER the fall of the Berlin wall and then not include the Berlin wall's falling in the text.

 

We are talking about a book whose topic is to record Paul's missionary journey's and the persecution of Christians. Even if one presupposes Acts is propaganda, then that should compel one to think Acts was written before 64 A.D.-- because if the author of Acts were really, primarily concerned with propaganda, then he would have jumped at the opportunity to record more and more Christian martyrs.

 

It is enormously irresponsible to deviate from established methodology. And if one does, then it fundamentally begs the question  of the philosophical presuppositions which govern one's investigation.

[MerryG]

It is enormously irresponsible to deviate from established methodology. And if one does, then it fundamentally begs the question  of the philosophical presuppositions which govern one's investigation.

 

 

You know, you gotta give this SteveBennett guy some credit.

 

He may be utterly unconvincing, both when talking about established (by him) methodology and when talking about mere matters of faith and speculation (over in the "you send yourself to hell and that's just fine with me" thread).

 

But he can go on and on and on with all the mindless persistence of the Energizer Bunny.

[mymistake]

Steve you don't even know who wrote the Book of Acts.  How did you get inside the man's head?  We have no surviving copy older than the fourth century.  How do you know what is from the original author and what was edited out or added later by other men?  The story in the Book of Acts ends before events in 64 AD but all stories about the past end somewhere.  They all have to end somewhere.  There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

[Guest SteveBennett]

  There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

 

Of course there is.  What kind of an author puts such a huge emphasis on a main character and then doesn't even record how they died?

 

What kind of an author makes a point to record the goings on of the earliest Christians, and then doesn't record the wave of persecution that occurred after 64 A.D.?

 

The notion is absolutely ludicrous.  It's a special pleading of the most obvious kind.  If one is going to break from established historical dating methodology, they have to justify it.  No one-- not me, or you, or anyone else-- gets a pass.

 

The only way we can credibly assert anything, is to show that we stuck to basic methods.

[JadedAtheist]

You don't know the author's agenda, Steve so you cannot say whether something is ludicrous or not. It's like why the gospels basically focus on Jesus' life once he begins his ministry but completely ignore everything preceding it. It would seem to most an idiotic choice, but you have to know their agenda to know why they made such a choice. Luke not recording Paul's death is way less of an issue than ignoring most of Jesus' life.

[Guest SteveBennett]

 

It is enormously irresponsible to deviate from established methodology. And if one does, then it fundamentally begs the question  of the philosophical presuppositions which govern one's investigation.

 

 

You know, you gotta give this SteveBennett guy some credit.

 

He may be utterly unconvincing, both when talking about established (by him) methodology and when talking about mere matters of faith and speculation (over in the "you send yourself to hell and that's just fine with me" thread).

 

But he can go on and on and on with all the mindless persistence of the Energizer Bunny.

 

 

I didn't establish the methodology.  Like I said it is still used when dating a crime scene, or an archaeological site, or someone's whereabouts, or an enemies military movements, as a simple matter of record.

 

You can test the method for yourself right now by looking at all of the artifacts in your room and noting what would and would not be there if your room had been abandoned 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.  In some cases (depending on the artifact) even 5 minutes ago or 10 minutes ago.

 

The same thing goes for any literary work whatsoever-- both modern day or ancient.

[mymistake]

 

  There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

 

Of course there is.  What kind of an author puts such a huge emphasis on a main character and then doesn't even record how they died?

 

What kind of an author makes a point to record the goings on of the earliest Christians, and then doesn't record the wave of persecution that occurred after 64 A.D.?

 

The notion is absolutely ludicrous.  It's a special pleading of the most obvious kind.

 

 

Do you not understand what special pleading means?  I realize how your religion desperately needs the Book of Luke to be written in 63 AD.  But right now I could write a story about Paul of Tarsus and ending the story while Paul was alive doesn't make my story written in 63 AD.  If I could do it in 2014 then somebody else could do the same thing in 101 AD or even later.

 

Many stories are written so that they end before the protagonist dies.  It's a very common way to end a story.

[Guest SteveBennett]

 

 

  There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

 

Of course there is.  What kind of an author puts such a huge emphasis on a main character and then doesn't even record how they died?

 

What kind of an author makes a point to record the goings on of the earliest Christians, and then doesn't record the wave of persecution that occurred after 64 A.D.?

 

The notion is absolutely ludicrous.  It's a special pleading of the most obvious kind.

 

 

Do you not understand what special pleading means?  

 

Many stories are written so that they end before the protagonist dies.  It's a very common way to end a story.

 

 

Special pleading means deviating from established criteria.

 

Name one document from antiquity where:

 

1)  The author's explicitly stated purpose is to make a record of contemporary events

2)  With regard to such a narrow subject matter as the book of Acts focuses on (Paul and the persecution of the earliest followers of Christ) and then

3)  Leaves out such watershed events (after 64 A.D.) which are consistent as the book of Acts leaves out.

 

If one were consistent with your ad hoc analogy, one could (unilaterally) turn the established dates for when Tacitus or Philo wrote their various works and histories upside down by publishing one's own copies 2000 years later.

 

That is an absurd basis for a special pleading.

 

Whats more, is, Luke's style of writing is an incredibly formal greek (consistent with legal research in a Roman Court of law). It is no small feat to simply copy such a clearly well educated, and sophisticated author's writing style-- in fact, the fingerprints of interpolations are all over some certain documents.  But totally absent in Luke's writings.

 

There is absolutely no evidence, whatsoever, consistent with your idea.

[falemon]

Steve: you know not the intentions of the writing.

 

If we are to accept the NT as truthful, then so should we the Qu'ran and every other religious book. We must assume that EVERY single account in history was true, no matter how absurd.

 

Now that is clearly absurd, yet you expect us to waive YOUR belief. Why?

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

 

Of course there is.  What kind of an author puts such a huge emphasis on a main character and then doesn't even record how they died?

 

What kind of an author makes a point to record the goings on of the earliest Christians, and then doesn't record the wave of persecution that occurred after 64 A.D.?

 

The notion is absolutely ludicrous.  It's a special pleading of the most obvious kind.  If one is going to break from established historical dating methodology, they have to justify it.  No one-- not me, or you, or anyone else-- gets a pass.

 

The only way we can credibly assert anything, is to show that we stuck to basic methods.

 

Your argument boils down to the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam. You are confused.

[MerryG]

 

  There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

 

Of course there is.  What kind of an author puts such a huge emphasis on a main character and then doesn't even record how they died?

 

J.R.R. Tolkein with Frodo. (Merely sending him off to the Grey Havens doesn't count.)

 

Jane Austen with Mr. Darcy and Lizzy Bennett.

 

Suzanne Collins with Katniss Everdeen.

 

Shakespeare with the protagonists of his comedies (though I admit the protagonists of most of his tragedies ended up safely dead).

 

Homer (or whoever wrote The Odessey) with Ulysses.

 

Etc.

 

And while all those characters are fictional, sometimes writers of fiction ("inspirational" or "devotional" fiction included) base characters on people who actually lived -- and there is no literary rule at all that says you have to follow any given character through to his or her death. So that's "what kind of an author" might end a story before a character's death. Any kind of author.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Whats more, is, Luke's style of writing is an incredibly formal greek (consistent with legal research in a Roman Court of law). It is no small feat to simply copy such a clearly well educated, and sophisticated author's writing style-- in fact, the fingerprints of interpolations are all over some certain documents.  But totally absent in Luke's writings.

Χαίρομαι - ελληνίζεις! Ωραία. (Τους τόνους γράφειν ου δύναμαι πάντας.) Γνώσει ουν ότι το "επισήμω τρόπω" γράφειν ουδεν σαφες εκφράζει, και ότι ουκ έπεται τα σοι περι παρεμβολής λεχθέντα.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

  There is nothing ludicrous about a man in the second century creating a story that ends while Paul was still alive.

 

Of course there is.  What kind of an author puts such a huge emphasis on a main character and then doesn't even record how they died?

Just thinking off the top of my head right now; I don't recall any of Charles Dickens' characters ever dying.

[florduh]

Happy Groundhog Day!

 

If Jesus rises from the grave and sees his shadow, we'll have six more weeks of this shit.

[Guest SteveBennett]

1)  How does one determine the difference between a text purporting to be historical?  And one purporting to be mythical?

 

2)  If the text passes a criteria of purporting to be historical, then one proceeds to test it according to historical criteria.

 

3)  If it doesn't then pass historical testing, then we don't have to take it seriously.

 

There is a criteria for every judgment.  It is simply irresponsible to pass judgment at any phase of investigation without first being self-conscious of the standards by which we are rendering judgment.

 

By whatever standard one judges-- one implicitly concedes to being judged.

 

 

Getting late again.  Busy day tomorrow.  Will be back on in about 18 hours.

 

Best wishes,

 

Steve

[thereisnoperfect]

Read Bart Ehrman, or any of the people he's reporting about, and get back to us. Explain to us why a bunch of scholars who have devoted their careers and lives to studying this stuff have come to different conclusions than you about the validity and dates and authors of these documents. See if you can explain that without accusing them of bias.

 

Then again, don't. Just read Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible, which lays out clearly why even if you grant that the Bible is inspired by God, it still fails to convey a clear and consistent message that's of any use to anybody.

 

Now I'm all for you continuing to ignore me and about 2/3 of the other comments, 'cause I can use a good laugh as much as anybody. But if you think you're doing good for anybody other than yourself by the way you're posting here, that's another delusion you're suffering under.

[MerryG]