On Plodding
In a discussion on another blog I noted that many claims against the historical validity had been made prior to the one being asserted by the poster in question and that these had been refuted. Among those I listed was the claim, made prior to the discovery of the inscription in Caesarea, that there was no Pilate who was a Prefect of Judea during the time cited in the gospels. He correctly states that we knew of Pilate from Josephus prior to this discovery. So that for him seems to clinch the fact that Pilate was never questioned prior to 1961. This however is false, as the passage in Josephus was claimed to be a forgery added by early Christians at a later date. This is still asserted by some scholars. This is done on the basis of textual criticism. One of the skeptic’s objections is that Josephus refers to Pilate as a Procurator and not a Prefect. This is of course silly, if the Christians had modified or added the text they would have most likely have named him governor to fall in line with the new Testament description of him. Besides, all of this is pure conjecture, they have no proof of any of it.
Prior to the discovery of the inscription it was claimed that the forgery was done to cover the fact that there was no Pilate who was governor of Judea at that time, not that there was never anybody named Pilate who ever existed. The discovery of the inscription of course put to bed the argument that there was no Pilate who was governor to Judea during the period, if not the facile forgery claims. This is a fairly well known event, but our intrepid atheist ran to his atheist apologetics site no doubt, where he was informed that this claim was never made, Christian apologetics ministries made it up. Armed with this information he came back and informed me that history didn’t exist. Now of course he didn’t bother to ask himself if those who provided him his information would actually know about scholars views pre-1961, or whether such disproved claims were likely to be put on the internet for him to google, which seems to be the limits of modern scholarship. If you can’t google it then it didn’t happen. There were a couple of other defunct historical claims I listed which are commonly known, but I have no desire to reinvent the wheel repeatedly so I shall only deal with this one.
The historian Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) expressed his belief that Pilate was a prefect, and not a procurator as identified by Josephus and Tacitus. Claudius changed the term for the governor of Judea from prefect to procurator. Based on this discrepancy, the fact that Josephus and Tacitus referred to Pilate as a procurator, scholars asserted the accounts were additions made later by Christians. This was done ostensibly to shore up the evidence for the New Testament references to Pilate, and that Pilate was not governor of Judea during the period that Jesus lived and was executed. Leaving aside the fact that there is no evidence as to what records were used for Tacitus’ account this is pure conjecture, and based not on scholarship but bias. The same goes for Josephus’ account, the fact that the term procurator as opposed to the earlier term proves exactly nothing. This is bad scholarship, it is an attempt to discredit a text by modern historians based on nothing but a bias against the narratives, particularly one that establishes the historicity of those involved in the Gospels.
Among those leading the charge were various German scholars such as KL Schmidt, Willi Marxsen, and Rudolf Bultmann who questioned most of the historical claims as to time and place made in the gospels. These attacks on the historicity of the scriptural account have abated somewhat as archeology has discovered more corroborating evidence, but one has to question why this penchant for making arguments from silence. While I do not claim innerancy for extra biblical sources the fact that the critics seem to view the ancients as superstitious liars who prevaricate and manufacture stories at every turn leaves one in the untenable position of having no history at all. It will take more than facile claims made hundreds and thousands of years after the fact solely to support the critic’s bias. Indeed, now that we have entered the post modern era I expect the situation to get worse, as now things are false simply because “there is no truth”.
But as we see there is a larger problem, namely the intellectual laziness, assumptions, and predisposition’s of our opponents, who despite their claims to the contrary are not interested in what the real story is but in seeking an escape route from history in an attempt to reinforce their denial of God. In this case has taken the form of pedantry and demanding proof of common knowledge. Given that these critics are repeatedly proven wrong it rather amazes me that he demands quotations from non-Christians to accept history, particularly given the fact that the ones he seeks citations from have repeatedly proven themselves unreliable. When one gets into a discussion with these folks there comes a time to get out, and though it may sting our pride to leave them feeling justified in their arguments better to move on to those who are truly seeking the truth.
Prior to the discovery of the inscription it was claimed that the forgery was done to cover the fact that there was no Pilate who was governor of Judea at that time, not that there was never anybody named Pilate who ever existed. The discovery of the inscription of course put to bed the argument that there was no Pilate who was governor to Judea during the period, if not the facile forgery claims. This is a fairly well known event, but our intrepid atheist ran to his atheist apologetics site no doubt, where he was informed that this claim was never made, Christian apologetics ministries made it up. Armed with this information he came back and informed me that history didn’t exist. Now of course he didn’t bother to ask himself if those who provided him his information would actually know about scholars views pre-1961, or whether such disproved claims were likely to be put on the internet for him to google, which seems to be the limits of modern scholarship. If you can’t google it then it didn’t happen. There were a couple of other defunct historical claims I listed which are commonly known, but I have no desire to reinvent the wheel repeatedly so I shall only deal with this one.
The historian Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) expressed his belief that Pilate was a prefect, and not a procurator as identified by Josephus and Tacitus. Claudius changed the term for the governor of Judea from prefect to procurator. Based on this discrepancy, the fact that Josephus and Tacitus referred to Pilate as a procurator, scholars asserted the accounts were additions made later by Christians. This was done ostensibly to shore up the evidence for the New Testament references to Pilate, and that Pilate was not governor of Judea during the period that Jesus lived and was executed. Leaving aside the fact that there is no evidence as to what records were used for Tacitus’ account this is pure conjecture, and based not on scholarship but bias. The same goes for Josephus’ account, the fact that the term procurator as opposed to the earlier term proves exactly nothing. This is bad scholarship, it is an attempt to discredit a text by modern historians based on nothing but a bias against the narratives, particularly one that establishes the historicity of those involved in the Gospels.
Among those leading the charge were various German scholars such as KL Schmidt, Willi Marxsen, and Rudolf Bultmann who questioned most of the historical claims as to time and place made in the gospels. These attacks on the historicity of the scriptural account have abated somewhat as archeology has discovered more corroborating evidence, but one has to question why this penchant for making arguments from silence. While I do not claim innerancy for extra biblical sources the fact that the critics seem to view the ancients as superstitious liars who prevaricate and manufacture stories at every turn leaves one in the untenable position of having no history at all. It will take more than facile claims made hundreds and thousands of years after the fact solely to support the critic’s bias. Indeed, now that we have entered the post modern era I expect the situation to get worse, as now things are false simply because “there is no truth”.
But as we see there is a larger problem, namely the intellectual laziness, assumptions, and predisposition’s of our opponents, who despite their claims to the contrary are not interested in what the real story is but in seeking an escape route from history in an attempt to reinforce their denial of God. In this case has taken the form of pedantry and demanding proof of common knowledge. Given that these critics are repeatedly proven wrong it rather amazes me that he demands quotations from non-Christians to accept history, particularly given the fact that the ones he seeks citations from have repeatedly proven themselves unreliable. When one gets into a discussion with these folks there comes a time to get out, and though it may sting our pride to leave them feeling justified in their arguments better to move on to those who are truly seeking the truth.
posted by eklektos | 2:37 PM
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