Bernard Muller wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2017 4:38 pm
to Neil,
So you have not read any modern professional historians' works that don't write according to the "rules" set out by Day. None. And you have not read even a professional historian's definition of secondary sources in this thread that you present as knowing so much about.
Well, Richard Carrier is a historian, with a doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University.
I think he is very knowledgeable on many aspects of ancient history, but does his book "On the Historicity of Jesus" follow Day's rules? heck no. Do you disagree?
Cordially, Bernard
So you haven't read any professional historian's work apart from one, Carrier.
But did you really read Carrier? Carrier not only deploys Day's "rules" but he goes all the way with Day by explicitly going Bayesian --- all in accord with Mark Day's discussion of the use of Bayes in history in the same book.
Have you really read Carrier's
OHJ? Did you read the OP with the five rules? I went through them again and of course Carrier applies them. Which one and where do you see him ignoring any of them?
(1) ..... the historian should prioritize primary sources, though should nonetheless be critical of these sources. Primary sources are those which transport the historian directly back to the past that the documents describe and of which they were a part, permitting the historian knowledge of that past without the accretion of subsequent interpretation and tradition.
Carrier employs a different definition of Day's terms but his argument conforms to Day's rule nonetheless. Have another look at
OHJ chapter 7.
(2) Criticism of sources is two-fold; not only with regard to the claims of those sources concerning their intended topic, but with regard to the implicit claims of those sources concerning themselves. The second sort of criticism is the investigation into the document’s authenticity, established by asking whether the author could have written it, whether they could have been where they claimed to be, whether the paper, authorial style and handwriting permit the truth of the self-proclamation of the author. ...
Ditto, chapter 7 for starters again.
(3) Source criticism is extended beyond the establishment of the identity of the author, to so-called ‘internal’ features of the source: the author’s aim, their ideological background and their intended audience. It is assumed that knowledge of these facts will aid the historian’s use of the source. (Exemplification of this point has already been suggested, in the case where the historian would be wise to find out whether the author had reason to lie, and why they might have done so.)
No-one who has read Carrier's OHJ can fault him for ignoring #3.
(4) Source criticism should also trace the path connecting the source with the historian, asking why it has survived and in the form that it has. ...
Again, Carrier addresses this point explicitly. See 7.7
(5) The historian is warned not to depend too much on a single document, but rather to utilize a wide range of evidence. This warning is to some extent implicit in the demand for source criticism, since it is obvious that no serious source criticism can proceed without employing knowledge gained from other sources.
This is the main strength of C's OHJ: he has probably brought together a wider range of sources and evidence than most historians have in their studies of Christian origins. He has not always discussed each piece of evidence in as much detail as some other historians, but his range of evidence is one of the most comprehensive I have read. Did you read past chapter 3 at all?
Or perhaps you can tell us where C "heck no" does not write according to Day's 5 "rules".
I have had my criticisms of Carrier's OHJ but I cannot fault him for supposedly not writing according to the basic methods taken as standard for historians.