Kata Markon

["David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>]

Hudson Barton [hhbv AT highwinds.com] said:

>>There are inconsistencies between different editions of Josephus
(who never lived in Palestine at all) but that doesn't mean we can't
take Josephus as a primary historical source.   The fact of the matter
is that NT documents claim to be historical and they deserve to be
treated as such.  The presence of niggling inconsistencies in a few
places can not lead us to change the premise under which they are
studied.<<

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. You are responding to the
Antonio Jerez's statement "... you can find just as much 'historical'
detail in the NT that is totally uncorroborated and makes nonsense
from a historical viewpoint," but then answer by pointing to
inconsistencies between editions of Josephus. Are you rather thinking
of differences in details between War vs Life vs Antiquities when the
subject matter overlaps? Antonio is speaking about uncorroborated
details, not discrepancies between one author's description of the
same incident in several different accounts.

In the case of Josephus (who did indeed live in Palestine, and for
some while), here is someone who claimed to be giving true accounts.
The historian, as sure as shooting, will approach any one of these
narratives with methodological doubt. The reason is that we just do
not know what agenda the author had. In Josephus' case, the niggling
inconsistencies between accounts is exactly what tells us that he was
covering his posterior and making excuses for his actions during the
war against Rome (war profiteering, cruel militia commander, crappy
leadership, and being a traitor).

Do a web search on Historical Method and see what comes up. The
following URL pretty much outlines the kinds of questions any
real-life historian would ask of any document before him/her:

http://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/writing_guides/primary.htm specifically
the

Motives and goals of the author
Argument and strategy she or he uses to achieve those goals
Presuppositions and values (in the text, and our own)
Epistemology (evaluating truth content)
Relate to other texts (compare and contrast)
The credible vs. the reliable text
The objective vs. the neutral text

It is not quite as simple as "The text says it, I believe it, that
settles it." <g>

Regards,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA