Contemporary evidence?
Posted on: June 7, 2008 - 8:30pm
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Contemporary evidence?
Many people/Christians argue that no historian requires contemporary evidence for something historical. What's the historical method say about this?
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
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I just asked the historical method, and she called me a moron. Also something about "speculation". She's drunk. I'll have to ask her later.
Will: no gyration without funkstification.
Right.
I'm going to have to put you in time out. Either that, or we're going to have to put a breathalyser on your keyboard.
(As an aside, do you have any idea how many different spellings I tried for breathalyser before the little red line under the word went away? I'm still not convinced it's correct.)
If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilization, is: 'Have they discovered evolution yet?' -- Richard Dawkins
Most persons and events in antiquity do not come from written contemporary attestation, however they are often validated by archaeology and supporting cumulative evidence deriving from anthropology and socio-cultural studies, and often after years of analyzing the evidence.
In many cases, especially when suggested events and persons contain large traces of mythical or legendary instances, the miraculous events are immediately discounted and the process of examining the data begins. Often the Argument from Silence will be reviewed to see if the criteria would meet to make a successful stance of silence. The criteria are:
According to Gilbert Garraghan (A Guide to Historical Method, 1946, p. 149)
"To be valid, the argument from silence must fulfill two conditions: the writer[s] whose silence is invoked would certainly have known about it; [and] knowing it, he would under the circumstances certainly have made mention of it. When these two conditions are fulfilled, the argument from silence proves its point with moral certainty."
In addition, the historian Richard Carrier suggests two additional criteria to strengthen an argument from silence:
1) Whether or not it is common for men to create similar myths.
It is prima facie true that this is the case. History is replete not only with 'god' claims, but with claims for messiah status.
2) The claim is of an extraordinary nature, it violates what we already know of nature.
(Important note: this is not to rule out extraordinary claims, a priori.)
The miracle claims in the Gospel of Mark, for example, violate what we know of nature.
In this instance, because Silence is such a powerful case, especially when reviewed with all the additional cumulative evidence, historicity looks extremely weak.
Regards,
Rook
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Please help me get my resources so I can finish my book more quickly.
My wish list.
Et suppositio nil ponit in esse.
"You act ridiculously," said Ion, "to doubt everything. For my part, I should like to ask you what you say to those who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I need not discuss this: everyone knows about the Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it, how many he takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam; nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends them away normal in mind, delivering them from their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside them as they lie there and asks : 'Whence came you into his body?' the patient himself is silent, but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one coming out, black and smoky in color." "It is nothing much," I remarked," for you, Ion, to see that kind of sight, when even the 'forms' that the father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose eyes are weak." - Lucian, Lover of Lies
Extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence.
The "fact" that Jesus performed all these miracles, rose from the dead, and caused such a blasphemy in Jeruselum, all of which contradict know evidence by contemporary Roman and Jewish historians, not only contradicts the laws of physics AND gravity?
Aside the superstition of the supernatural, the very idea that a man named Jesus lived, performed all those "miricles", caused such an uproar withy Jewish leaders AND had such a public life NOONE wrote anything down????
To add salt to the wound the ONLY two sources from 1st and 2nd century were Christian forgery's. Only lies require lies - John Armstrong.
The Gospels contradict each other, Mathew is full of lies and the NT fails hardcore on basic historical attrcites that not even Josephus wrote down (despite detailing Herod's reign in detail)
I want irrefutable proof Jesus existed, because all I'm given is weight to suppot the Mythical Christ hypothesis. All experiments tested.
-Davo
Another major historical figure of which there is a lot of debate is Socrates.
There is sufficient evidence to suggest that he was in fact a real person convicted of the crimes that Plato claims. But Plato is the best source of information we have on the man. A quick analysis of Plato reveals a Socrates character that evolved with Plato's writing (changing massively around Symposium - Republic into what is believed to be a character named Socrates that represents Plato as a youth). The writings considered to be the most accurate are his early accounts. His first three stories (generally believed) are the Crito, Euthyphro, and The Apology. His death occurs in Crito, a death by drinking hemlock. According to Plato, Socrates drank the hemlock and drifted into an eternal slumber. In reality, a person who drinks hemlocks last few minutes on this earth is a far noisier and violent affair.
The only other contemporary source didn't care for Socrates and painted an image of the man as an idiotic baffoon. Several centuries later, Diogenese Laertes (if memory serves), said that Socrates was only really interested in indoctrinating the youths of Athens.
Uh. maybe that was a lot of off-topic information.. but I think it's interesting..
If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. - JP Sartre