tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12543231.post2352115757942219390..comments2023-06-15T09:41:19.355-05:00Comments on NT/History Blog: Suspending Historicity while Reading Narratives HistoricallyBill Heromanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05283809456471966882noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12543231.post-11084853202805300642016-08-20T01:35:28.483-05:002016-08-20T01:35:28.483-05:00Thanks for this encouragement, Brant, and I'm ...Thanks for this encouragement, Brant, and I'm sorry for my delay in responding. My work schedule changed and I've been playing catch up. Thanks for your patience.<br /><br />I'm thrilled to recommend Mason and I trust you'll enjoy his work greatly. (Btw, "in situ" was his term, not mine.) I still haven't yet cracked Theissen & Winter but I may have to soon. I'm curious as to whether their notion of "plausibility" (and yours, and Sanders') aligns well with Pelling's notion of plausibility. Pelling (and by extension, Mason) talks about the author needing to craft a world their audience would find plausible. I think this is different from your position. You seem to follow Sanders (and Theissen & Winter?) in taking "plausible" as a stepping stone towards judgment about historicity. I think "plausible" is more akin to "hypothetical". For example: we trust Herodotus' basic tale about the Spartans at Thermopylae, but we're in no position to judge whether that battle did or did not actually happen. It's plausible, and nothing disallows its historicity, so we tend to accept it as historical fact. However, because we have no way of confirming it, our acceptance technically amounts to a permanent hypothesis. Historicity isn't really a point of business in this instance at all. The story provides a representation of a historical past, the basic contours of which we've excepted from skepticism, indefinitely. We don't confirm or defend it. Our acceptance of it is largely by default.<br /><br />At any rate, something like this ^ awareness is what I hope to see Gospel scholars embrace in the future, at least for most "basic" material in the Gospels. Sanders' three points (your pp.32-46) can indeed offer arguments in support or against, but I would argue they cannot be conclusive. You seem to disagree... but I am still working through the book slowly.<br /><br />In summary, there's a lot that I'm enjoying about Last Supper and a few points that confuse me, but I definitely plan to celebrate the important advance of while continuing the conversation. Thanks so much for letting me join in so heartily.Bill Heromanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05283809456471966882noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12543231.post-10039493963071769712016-08-16T18:07:14.880-05:002016-08-16T18:07:14.880-05:00Hey Bill, thank you for this very insightful piece...Hey Bill, thank you for this very insightful piece! Thanks also for calling Mason's work on this important issue to my attention. I just put it in my Amazon cart. <br /><br />Although I have not read Mason, this is indeed remarkably similar to what I was attempting to get at in my section on "Interpretation and Historical Plausibility" in Jesus and the Last Supper (pp. 50-52), which I consider one of the most important contributions of the book. There I suggest that a historical Jesus scholar should first attempt to situate/interpret the evidence in Jesus' historical context (in situ, as you put it) before moving into an evaluation of the arguments for and against its historical plausibility (Here I was following Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter's extremely important book, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus [2002, pp.193-207]). I didn't use the language of "suspending historicity," however. Maybe that would have helped readers like Skinner see more clearly what my aims were.<br /><br />As you'll see if you keep reading--and I really hope you do! I'd really appreciate your feedback--I try to actually implement this consistently by always trying to (1) interpret the text in the context of the leben Jesu before (2) turning to arguments both for and against historical plausibility. This keeps the two movements distinct, and in the proper order, as opposed to (1) declaring on historical plausibility before (or without!) (2) even attempting to situate the text in its purported context.<br /><br />Looking forward to future posts on this important subject.Brant Pitrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12537247176808981484noreply@blogger.com