Nazareth: The Piano Teacher vs the Archaeology

[ignorantianescia]

I'll check Salm's reference to Kühnen there. I've checked his other reference, but it refers specifically to mountain regions and all examples Kühnen gives for Galilee are in Upper Galilee, not Lower Galilee, which cannot be regarded a mountain region.

[sankari]

Salm sounds like a manic obsessive. If you took away his crusade against the existence of Nazareth, I doubt he'd have a reason for living.

[fortigurn]

Neil objects to historian Michael Grant's comparison of Livy and Polybius with the gospels.

Of course no-one disputes events if Livy and Polybius describe them differently. Firstly, look at the different ways Livy and Polybius describe Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. The facts are not in dispute. One does not say Hannibal crossed the Alps after he invaded Italy and another before; one does not say he crossed with his army while another says the army crossed without him. These would be the sorts of differences we would expect if Livy’s and Polybius’s accounts are comparable to what we find in the Gospels. Rather, most of the differences are perceptions of the character of Hannibal: the patriotic Livy hates him while Polybius, a Greek historian, is more neutral. Yes, the Gospels also contain different attitudes towards the disciples, towards Jews and Romans. But they also contain much more significant contradictions that really do undermine their credibility as accounts ultimately derived from singular noteworthy events.

I have made some comments on Neil's criticism of Grant.

[ignorantianescia]

Mar 11, 2013 11:45:41 GMT fortigurn said:

Neil objects to historian Michael Grant's comparison of Livy and Polybius with the gospels.

Of course no-one disputes events if Livy and Polybius describe them differently. Firstly, look at the different ways Livy and Polybius describe Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. The facts are not in dispute. One does not say Hannibal crossed the Alps after he invaded Italy and another before; one does not say he crossed with his army while another says the army crossed without him. These would be the sorts of differences we would expect if Livy’s and Polybius’s accounts are comparable to what we find in the Gospels. Rather, most of the differences are perceptions of the character of Hannibal: the patriotic Livy hates him while Polybius, a Greek historian, is more neutral. Yes, the Gospels also contain different attitudes towards the disciples, towards Jews and Romans. But they also contain much more significant contradictions that really do undermine their credibility as accounts ultimately derived from singular noteworthy events.

I have made some comments on Neil's criticism of Grant.

These parts, a part from his first post and the final part of his second post, seem quite telling (having omitted Godfrey's boldings):

First, let’s see who Michael Grant’s Jesus is. Does Grant think of Jesus like any other person in history or does he consider him unique?

The most potent figure, not only in the history of religion, but in world history as a whole, is Jesus Christ . . . Millions of men and women for century after century have found his life and teaching overwhelmingly significant and moving. And there is ample reason, as this book will endeavour to show, in this later twentieth century why this should still be so. (p. 1)

How great the gain indeed: to obtain any information at all about the most important person who has ever lived would be a benefit of immeasurable dimensions. (p. 2)

the principle themes of his mission . . . shook huge parts of the world for all subsequent ages, and transformed the beliefs, thoughts and actions of their inhabitants out of all recognition. (p. 10)

Jesus himself, who clearly possessed extraordinary determination, did not refrain from contentiousness at all. On the contrary he was a stormy personage with a ‘mighty vein of granite in his character’. (p. 76)

He felt an immovable certainty that he was the figure through whom God’s purposes were to be fulfilled. This absolute conviction of an entirely peculiar relationship with God was not unknown among Jewish religious leaders, but in Jesus it became a great deal more vigorous and violent than theirs. (p. 77)

Jesus’ extreme obsessional conviction of a unique relationship with God makes any attempt to fit him into the social, institutional pattern of his time, or into its habitual concepts of thought, a dubious and daunting proposition. (p. 78)

His teaching was crisp, pungent, epigrammatic, ironical. No one has ever known better than Jesus how to express profound thoughts in simple language. (p. 87)

In the eyes of officials, and of many others as well, this [i.e., 'emphasizing his own, personal authority as the inaugurator of the Lord's Kingdom'] was megalomania — or madness. (p. 89)

This enormous reversal [the conversion of his death "into immeasurable victory"] was due also to altogether exceptional features of his own character. . . . [These exceptional features of his character] were so potent that they have exercised an overwhelming, incalculable influence on all subsequent ages. (p. 192)

One aspect which emerges very strongly from the record is his total unwillingness to compromise. . . . Jesus is not the only personage in history who has claimed that no one can be wholly right except himself because he is uniquely privileged with God’s confidence. Such personages are notoriously uncomfortable to live with and work with. Yet their supreme self-confidence gives them an uncanny strength, and no one has ever felt and shown such impregnable determination as Jesus. (pp. 192-193)

Jesus was expressing his deepest convictions, of permanent value . . . (p. 194)

Certainly, Jesus, a human being on this earth, was like other human beings a product of his age, conditioned by its requirements and limitations. Yet he broke out and away from these limitations with such force, he fulfilled so enormous a role in so uniquely individual a fashion, that it would be absurd to apply the dictum of Montesquieu and Engels [that the spirit of the times produces the great persons of history]. (p. 194)

The immeasurably vast influence exercised by Jesus upon past history is a fact that is incontrovertible and therefore needs no argumentation or demonstration. . . .

Jesus, while on earth, was human, and . . . he gave us a revelation of the maximum effect that one human being has ever been able to exercise upon others. . . . [He] demonstrated, in his own person, the highest level of attainment of which human beings, at any time during the history of the world, have ever proved themselves capable. (p. 195)

Michael Grant is saying that Jesus was the greatest human being who ever lived. No-one has ever been a better teacher or had the same level of determination or been able to break out from the limitations of his age as Jesus did. No human has ever equaled Jesus in any respect. Is this a realistic view of any human being? Or is Grant worshiping Jesus with remarks like these? What does it mean, exactly, to be the “highest level of attainment of which human beings . . . have ever proved themselves capable”? He had more determination than any other human who ever lived? How does Grant measure this?

So Grant is writing not about a historical person but about a supra historical person. One who “broke out and away from” the limitations of his age in order to fulfill “so enormous a role . . . so uniquely”.

Christianity shook the world because of the uniqueness of the character of Jesus. That’s Michael Grant’s message.

One surely must ask how it is possible that such an overwhelming personality and life did not appear in the historical record until at the earliest a full generation after his departure. One can also begin to understand how anyone who views Jesus in the way Grant does must inevitably reject outright any possibility that such a character really is as mythical as he sounds.

But Grant says we can certainly know such a person existed. Here’s how.

To cap this all off, let’s return to Grant’s opening chapter where he calls upon C. S. Lewis’s precursor who uttered one of the earliest forms of Jesus having been either “lunatic, liar or lord”.

As J. Duncan wrote in 1870, ‘Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud; or he was himself deluded; or he was divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma.’ Perhaps not, but the admission that he was ‘deluded’, that his forecast proved wrong, is merely another way of saying what many others would accept: that in assuming human shape Jesus also took on human limitations. (Jesus, p. 20)

Of course not. Michael Grant is writing as an historian. We know he does not believe he was a fraud. Grant cannot say Jesus was divine. But he does say ‘in assuming human shape’ this historical person [Alexander, Romulus, Caesar, Paul, . . . . ] ‘took on human limitations’. Surely it is clear. Michael Grant at no point writes of Jesus as if he were even genuinely human, let alone historical.

And he relies entirely upon the esotoric, the arcane, methods of theologians to craft his portrait of this man he concedes was unlike any other in the history of the world.

Is it me or is he really denying that Michael Grant was a non-theist and claiming Grant viewed Jesus as divine?

[fortigurn]

Mar 17, 2013 14:35:23 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Is it me or is he really denying that Michael Grant was a non-theist and claiming Grant viewed Jesus as divine?

It's not you. That's the message I receive from what Godfrey wrote. He is of course attributing to Grant a view which Grant does not hold;. In that section it's clear that Grant views Jesus as simply a deluded man whose prediction was wrong; it is 'others' (people who are not Grant), Grant cites as holding 'that in assuming human shape Jesus also took on human limitations'.

You will note that Godfrey has a habit of quoting Grant saying X, and then claiming Grant said Y. He does the same with most scholarly sources; you get a few soundbites from here and there in their books (most of the time it looks like he does does a word search and lifts out phrases he wants, instead of actually reading the book), and his frequent use of ellipses to remove statements from their context makes it difficult to read his quotations as accurate representations of what the author wrote. You have to check with the book itself to find out what it is that he doesn't want you to see.

As an example, Godfrey quotes 'Jesus, while on earth, was human, and . . . he gave us a revelation of the maximum effect that one human being has ever been able to exercise upon others' to give the impression that Grant believes Jesus was more than human.

But what's missing? What's missing is the context, in which it is clear Grant is commenting on theological disputes over the identity of Jesus. And here's the complete sentence; parts in bold are the parts Godfrey removed to conceal them from the reader.

'The point is that Jesus, while on earth, was human, and that he gave us a revelation of the maximum effect that one human being has ever been able to exercise upon others.'

[ignorantianescia]

Thanks a lot for the explanation and also the example. It was already clear he was not above severe misrepresentations from his treatment of Tim's words, but the above is taking quote-mining beyond Ken Ham-like levels.

[fortigurn]

Mar 17, 2013 22:06:11 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Thanks a lot for the explanation and also the example. It was already clear he was not above severe misrepresentations from his treatment of Tim's words, but the above is taking quote-mining beyond Ken Ham-like levels.

It is his standard practice.

[timoneill]

In a couple of new comments on an Amazon review of the piano teacher's book a certain J. F. Joyner says:

"Salm claims Nazareth was settled in the latter half of the 1st century CE. It would have existed before the list of priestly assignments including Nazareth. He suggests Nazareth was settled by priests fleeing Jerusalem in the period of the first revolt.

Yardenna Alexandre, the archaeologist who excavated (the traditional) Mary's well and the 1st century residence in Nazareth has now published her excavation report on Mary's well, and has begun responding to Salm's mistaken claims. His web site claims she planted coins presumably to falsify the dating of the site, which leads one to understand there is nothing Salm (and any myther) will not do to maintain his biased assessment. (Salm was raised in or around Catholicism and holds resentment for it, according to his published articles, and the resentment is clear in his bashing of archaeologists and his railings against Catholic excavators). All competent archaeologists, whether secular or faithful to a religious group, affirm Nazareth was settled by Jews from the 1st century BCE. Several competent archaeologists have seen his book and none subscribe to his claims of a late 1st century CE settlement of Nazareth. "

I responded by asking for a citation of Alexandre's new publication. J.F. Joyner replied:

"Released in January 2013 by the Israel Exploration Society in Israel. I picked up copies while I was there. I don't know if you can order from a US distributor but you can search online and order it from Israel. "

Unfortunately some Google searches on appropriate key words didn't turn up any publication that seemed to fit the description. A request for more information yesterday has gone unanswered.

Does anyone else have any details of this? Publication of the coin finds that Salm claimed were simply a lie would skewer the piano man even more nicely than what we already have.

[ignorantianescia]

Then I suppose the journal is the Israel Exploration Journal, Volume 62, Issue 1? It looks like Jstor will make it available within three and half years, if you'd like to have it earlier I guess you have to contact their helpdesk about foreign distributors or otherwise pay $60.- for an annual membership because I don't think they sell issues stand-alone.

[timoneill]

Apr 27, 2013 16:00:17 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Then I suppose the journal is the Israel Exploration Journal, Volume 62, Issue 1? It looks like Jstor will make it available within three and half years, if you'd like to have it earlier I guess you have to contact their helpdesk about foreign distributors or otherwise pay $60.- for an annual membership because I don't think they sell issues stand-alone.

No, that doesn't seem to be it, judging from the table of contents for that volume available here.

It seems to be IAA Reports 49: Mary's Well, Nazareth. The Late Hellenistic to the Ottoman Periods, Y. Alexandre (2012) ISBN 978-965-406-283-1. The reason I couldn't find it yesterday is my Amazon guy said it was published in 2013, but it seems to have been published last year. Having now tracked down the publication, I can find zero information about the the contents or whether it really deals with the coins, let alone addresses Salm's claims. So I guess I'll have to hope the Amazon guy was correct, order it from the IAA (here) and see what I've got when it turns up.

[ignorantianescia]

You're probably right, it fits the subject well. I had seen that book get mentioned somewhere, but the date threw me off. There does seem to be a copy of the book in a nearby library, so I can check it out for you upcoming week.

That said, the latest table of contents I can find on that site is from late 2012 (volume 61, issue 2), so if that book Mary's Well misses the mark, it might still be volume 62 - or one of their many other publications.

[timoneill]

Apr 27, 2013 21:18:38 GMT ignorantianescia said:

There does seem to be a copy of the book in a nearby library, so I can check it out for you upcoming week.

I'd appreciate it if you could. The IAA site's rather primitive payment engine broke down when I tried to order it. I've sent them an e-mail asking if there is some other way of ordering a copy, but I'm not holding out great hopes.

[ignorantianescia]

There is a chapter about the numismatic finds, it provides the usual details about the coins (physical properties, obverse and reverse details and date). There are two Hellenistic coins, one Seleucid and one from Tyre, while there are ten from the rule of Alexander Jannaeus. Then, more relevant for the first century, there are two by Herod the Great, one by Archelaus and one from Claudius' rule (54 CE). Less relevant against Salm's case, a few discoveries from the second century are also included. (Beside many later coins, of course, especially Mamluk ones.)

Salm's claims aren't addressed in that chapter, though he gets a short mention and included brief rebuttal in chapter one.

[ignorantianescia]

It's worth adding that it is overall a very worthwhile book, but I didn't see any elaborate refutations of Salm and the majority of finds date from later eras, so if you buy it mostly against Nazareth-mythers it might be a bit expensive to buy it just for the official reports about the coins.

[timoneill]

Apr 30, 2013 11:28:26 GMT ignorantianescia said:

It's worth adding that it is overall a very worthwhile book, but I didn't see any elaborate refutations of Salm and the majority of finds date from later eras, so if you buy it mostly against Nazareth-mythers it might be a bit expensive to buy it just for the official reports about the coins.

Sorry to be a pain, but any chance you could e-mail me scans of the relevant pages on the Second Temple Era coins and on Salm? The IAA haven't responded to my e-mail and it does sound like a lot of money to spend given what you've said.