David Madison has written:
Matthew Flannagan objected: So seeing Josephus doesn't have dozens of footnotes or follow the conventions of modern historians we can dismiss his account of the Jewish wars as imaginative history?
Loftus: Modern historical writing as we know it had only barely started with Herodotus. Why didn't the gospel writers learn from him on how to write history, if they intended to write history?
Loftus: Memoirs can be corroborated when what is written coincides with objects, buildings, places, times, and especially when including people who are a live that can corroborate it.
There is first-person credibility. There are ways to verify that a given person wrote a given memouir. Think about it. When it comes to miracles, that's a horse of a different color!
Everything must be verified to some degree. Some claims only need a little evidence, others a great deal, still others like miracles need still more in terms of the highest quality, and/or the highest quantity.
Matthew Flannagan: I am not sure how that addresses my point? when I receive a book from my father and he says “Matt, John (the name of the man who lived next door to us when I was a child) died last week. But before he died his family had managed to get him to publish his memoirs of his experiences in world war II, here is a copy they gave me”.
I read the said Memoirs and it talks about, flying in spitfires being shot down by unnamed Germans, being captured by unnamed germans, describes camps somewhere in europe with names I don’t know, describes escapes and railways, and people who he mentions only by first name. He then goes on to talk of being intered in a concentration camp despite being a POW and not a Jew and so on. Do I have credible evidence that these events occurred? Or should I take it to be a work of imagination and fiction because he isn’t a historian and doesn’t give me sources, footnotes etc. I know only that I remember from my youth my next-door neighbour had been awarded a MBE for heroic escapes from German Pow camps and I remember reading that in a local paper many decades ago.
Loftus: Historians rely on first hand accounts like that of John. He provides part of the data they work with. How do they look at the stories told by the John's of the world? They read a bunch of them then corroborate their stories with a whole host of other factors on any detail.
Everything must be verified to the degree that it matters. I think this about sums it up.
The John in your example has a family who would testify to a few things. If it's written in his handwriting, and he's been known to tell the truth, that would be important.
Surely he also had some medals, and other artifacts to corroborate his stories. Maybe he even ended up in a journalistic photo at a particular place and time.
We could corroborate some of his stories by checking newspapers about the whereabouts of his platoon, and the existence of concentration camps, including the names and ethnicities of prisoners who survived. Surely they would also fact-check what he wrote by actually locating his soldier buddies, and any memouirs they wrote. The question to be answered is how important this fact checking should be? How much in depth should it be?
It depends on how much this fact-checking matters. There are a wide variety of factors that might make his memoir important. Usually in cases like this, they're considered prima facie truthful until shown otherwise. In other cases, like something at odds with common knowledge, they're considered prima facie untruthful.
Miracles however, as I said, are a horse of another color! Historians qua historians must always go with the probabilities. Since miracles are considered improbable, historians don't consider them when writing about an event in history. You should think like a historian. Probabilities. Don't skirt them! You really should heed how historians deal with miracles: See On the Historian and the Resurrection of Jesus.
Let me share a few randomly chosen links showing how the Gospels are historically unreliable.
John Beversluis, "The Gospel According to Whom? There are ten posts of his. Click on his name at the end to read others.
A former Christan who went by the name "Dagoods" summarizes the problems by claiming John the Disciple did not write the Gospel of John. He also asks an interesting question: Why didn’t the Jews just stone Jesus?
Former blogger Harry McCall wrote about The Illusive Search for Truth in the Biblical Foundations of Judaism and Christianity.
I have written about whether Judas Iscariot existed, and whether Joseph of Arimathea existed. If they didn't exist this is damaging to Gospel credibility of the death and the resurrection of Jesus, right?
THEN THERE ARE TWO KICKERS. One is that Luke's Gospel Fact-Checked Matthew's Previous Gospel!!
The second is that the author of the Gospel of John fact-checked earlier Gospels!. How else should we think of the later two Gospels of Luke and John?
If we are expected to take the gospels seriously as authentic accounts, we would need to see the rigorous disciplines that historians follow. Take a look at any modern biography, at any modern description of an historical era: the ends of these books have dozens of pages of notes on the sources used: letters, diaries, newspaper quotes that were researched in libraries and archives. Because real historians don’t rely on their imaginations or inspiration. They base their accounts on verifiable facts. LINK.Couldn't be better said!
Matthew Flannagan objected: So seeing Josephus doesn't have dozens of footnotes or follow the conventions of modern historians we can dismiss his account of the Jewish wars as imaginative history?
Loftus: Modern historical writing as we know it had only barely started with Herodotus. Why didn't the gospel writers learn from him on how to write history, if they intended to write history?
From an AI Overview:Matthew Flannagan: So, that would mean we can't believe *any* source is reliable that is ancient or is not written with modern footnoting. My next door neighbour wrote his memoirs about being a prisoner of war in WWII and spending time in a concentration camp. He didn't use sources or documentation, didn't follow historical methodology, there wasn't even a footnote in his memoirs. Is this unreliable fantasy?
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, c. 484 – c. 425 BC.
The first historian is widely considered to be Herodotus, a Greek writer and geographer from the 5th century BC. He earned the title "Father of History" for writing "The Histories," a systematic and thorough account of the Greco-Persian Wars that established the foundation of historical inquiry by seeking out causes and effects and comparing sources.
Why Herodotus is considered the first historian:
Systematic Inquiry: Unlike previous accounts that were often attributed to divine inspiration, Herodotus conducted a systematic investigation into past events.
Inquiry and Source Comparison: He is considered the first to practice a form of inquiry by asking questions and comparing different accounts and eyewitness testimonies.
Influence on Later Historians: His work set a standard for historical analysis and inspired generations of historians.
Loftus: Memoirs can be corroborated when what is written coincides with objects, buildings, places, times, and especially when including people who are a live that can corroborate it.
There is first-person credibility. There are ways to verify that a given person wrote a given memouir. Think about it. When it comes to miracles, that's a horse of a different color!
Everything must be verified to some degree. Some claims only need a little evidence, others a great deal, still others like miracles need still more in terms of the highest quality, and/or the highest quantity.
Matthew Flannagan: I am not sure how that addresses my point? when I receive a book from my father and he says “Matt, John (the name of the man who lived next door to us when I was a child) died last week. But before he died his family had managed to get him to publish his memoirs of his experiences in world war II, here is a copy they gave me”.
I read the said Memoirs and it talks about, flying in spitfires being shot down by unnamed Germans, being captured by unnamed germans, describes camps somewhere in europe with names I don’t know, describes escapes and railways, and people who he mentions only by first name. He then goes on to talk of being intered in a concentration camp despite being a POW and not a Jew and so on. Do I have credible evidence that these events occurred? Or should I take it to be a work of imagination and fiction because he isn’t a historian and doesn’t give me sources, footnotes etc. I know only that I remember from my youth my next-door neighbour had been awarded a MBE for heroic escapes from German Pow camps and I remember reading that in a local paper many decades ago.
Loftus: Historians rely on first hand accounts like that of John. He provides part of the data they work with. How do they look at the stories told by the John's of the world? They read a bunch of them then corroborate their stories with a whole host of other factors on any detail.
Everything must be verified to the degree that it matters. I think this about sums it up.
The John in your example has a family who would testify to a few things. If it's written in his handwriting, and he's been known to tell the truth, that would be important.
Surely he also had some medals, and other artifacts to corroborate his stories. Maybe he even ended up in a journalistic photo at a particular place and time.
We could corroborate some of his stories by checking newspapers about the whereabouts of his platoon, and the existence of concentration camps, including the names and ethnicities of prisoners who survived. Surely they would also fact-check what he wrote by actually locating his soldier buddies, and any memouirs they wrote. The question to be answered is how important this fact checking should be? How much in depth should it be?
It depends on how much this fact-checking matters. There are a wide variety of factors that might make his memoir important. Usually in cases like this, they're considered prima facie truthful until shown otherwise. In other cases, like something at odds with common knowledge, they're considered prima facie untruthful.
Miracles however, as I said, are a horse of another color! Historians qua historians must always go with the probabilities. Since miracles are considered improbable, historians don't consider them when writing about an event in history. You should think like a historian. Probabilities. Don't skirt them! You really should heed how historians deal with miracles: See On the Historian and the Resurrection of Jesus.
Let me share a few randomly chosen links showing how the Gospels are historically unreliable.
John Beversluis, "The Gospel According to Whom? There are ten posts of his. Click on his name at the end to read others.
A former Christan who went by the name "Dagoods" summarizes the problems by claiming John the Disciple did not write the Gospel of John. He also asks an interesting question: Why didn’t the Jews just stone Jesus?
Former blogger Harry McCall wrote about The Illusive Search for Truth in the Biblical Foundations of Judaism and Christianity.
I have written about whether Judas Iscariot existed, and whether Joseph of Arimathea existed. If they didn't exist this is damaging to Gospel credibility of the death and the resurrection of Jesus, right?
THEN THERE ARE TWO KICKERS. One is that Luke's Gospel Fact-Checked Matthew's Previous Gospel!!
The second is that the author of the Gospel of John fact-checked earlier Gospels!. How else should we think of the later two Gospels of Luke and John?
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