Search found 5971 matches

by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 1:26 pm
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

Neil I'm still waiting for your definition of historian. In the meantime, if we can agree that the definition I offered, So like Bernard you, too, cannot name a single professional historian who does not write according to the rules set out by Day. Yet you claim to know what Day writes is not how h...
by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:52 pm
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

to Neil, Not all historians followed methods as strict as you described them. Which ones don't? Name them. Many historians just rehash tertiary evidence in order to present history in a modern format for a contemporary targeted audience. They are prone to quote other earlier (or even contemporary) ...
by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 2:28 am
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

(Possibly because nobody at all strictly adheres to those "rules," as you have already discussed with another poster). Nobody follows all those rules strictly???? You may have missed Mark Day's justification for them: Before describing the rules of historical reasoning in more detail, a b...
by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 2:21 am
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

Neil No, his use of photographs as means of "proving someone existed" was logically fallacious. Bart's an American, and he may have in good faith meant the verb to prove in the sense that American trial lawyers typically use the term: to offer evidence favoring some conclusion. Lawyers ar...
by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 1:33 am
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

Neil ...photographs... So maybe Bart Ehrman had a point? No, his use of photographs as means of "proving someone existed" was logically fallacious. I referred to photographs as sources of historical data; not as "proofs X existed". Historical museums are full of photographs. Pho...
by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 1:30 am
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

A plan, or Plan A . . .

A plan, or Plan A. . . as a suggestion for one approach to start an inquiry into the origins of the earliest Christian sources. Among the earliest sources are the canonical gospels. Let's take the Gospel of Mark as the earliest of these. (This relative dating of Mark is a hypothesis that may be over...
by neilgodfrey
Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:34 am
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

The problem with Mark Day's rules if they cannot be used for determining the very beginning of Christianity, because of the nature of the relevant evidence. Period. Here is the rub, Bernard. The rules actually would have historians treat the evidence for early Christianity no differently from the w...
by neilgodfrey
Mon Sep 18, 2017 8:42 pm
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

1 commentary written down many years after the event is likely to have less veracity (depending on the event; what other sources say about it; etc). As a general rule, yes. 2 I contend that, if a secondary source is not based on a primary source, it ought to be [has to be] based on at least two or ...
by neilgodfrey
Mon Sep 18, 2017 8:35 pm
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

to Neil, You seem to think I have suggested that certain events in the gospel narratives should be rejected as unhistorical because they appear in documents that maybe were based on primary evidence. You must have meant "should not" instead of "should". No-one has stated that th...
by neilgodfrey
Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:28 pm
Forum: Christian Texts and History
Topic: Rules of Historical Reasoning
Replies: 257
Views: 169262

Re: Rules of Historical Reasoning

to Neil, It follows that we have no primary sources for persons or events in Galilee in the 20s/early 30s. But are you rejecting ancient historians' writings because written well after the narrated events? I forgot to point out above another truism: sometimes a secondary source can give us far more...