Novels, nostalgia and need

I grew up in Gallup, New Mexico, self-proclaimed "Indian Capital of the World."

Years and years ago, I read many, though not all, of murder mystery author Tony Hillerman's Chee and Leaphorn novels, about two Navajo Tribal Police officers, (I also read two non-Big Rez murder mysteries of his.)

Hillerman has long come off as sympathetic to Navajos in particular, and American Indians of the Southwest in general, as people. Going beyond oater dime novelist Louis L'Amour, who said more than once if he wrote about a place, "it was there," with Hillerman, not only was the place there, but so were the sociology and culture.

Well, recently, for various reasons, I started reading some of Hillerman again. But, after "Sacred Clowns," I may have hit a wall. An edited version of my Goodreads review will explain why.

Sacred Clowns by Tony Hillerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On my "formula" for mid-level fiction reviews?
Characters 4.25-4.5
Plot 4.5
Dialogue 4-4.25

I'll take that to 4.5 or so overall but, round down due to an error.

Nope, it's "dropped" to 3 stars due to other issues listed at bottom. Some are specific to this book; others, the majority, apply to the Hillerman "canon" in general. I'm going to get to that after a condensed version of the first part.

On characters, Jim Chee as acting sergeant shows a first round of character development within the Chee-Leaphorn books, accepting enough of Lt. Joe Leaphorn's experience-developed wisdom to actually follow some rules. He also finds out that he may not be enough of a traditionalist to satisfy old-time hataałii (usually rendered by Hillerman as "shaman" or similar) to become one himself, complexifying his look at Janet Pete as too much of a "city Indian." One book later than Coyote Waits and two earlier than First Eagle, when you look at the series, you can see this "character plot line" developing. In addition to their hot-and-cold at times, the ethical playoff late in this story is good. As with widower Leaphorn's quasi?-romantic relationship with Prof. Bourebonette, this is Hillerman writing a generally internally consistent set of stories.
...

St. Bonaventure in Thoreau? It was there when I was growing up in Gallup eons ago. Not sure if it's the same church building today or not. Back then, it had a wood-plank floor that doubled as a roller skating rink, including being rented out; my church's youth group went out there more than once. I don't know if Gallup didn't have a roller rink then, or it was too big to rent to small groups, or what. (Or so I thought it was there. Teh Google lists skating in Gallup itself and not in Thoreau today, but Google Maps with "roller skating Thoreau NM" pointed to the Thoreau Community Center. Maybe skating moved there, or maybe that was the original church building.)

This all is why Hillerman is not dime-novelist Louis L'Amour, who used to brag that if a place was listed in one of his novels, it's there. With Hillerman, the people and culture are there, too.

But now, the problems start, beginning with smaller ones and working to bigger. 

First, he mentions an Iyanbito and Iyanbito Chapter House south of Gallup [pg 121, hardcover], and the only one I am familiar with is the one to the east. Besides, the Red Rock Chapter House is to Gallup's south. See for yourself. I have driven past Iyanbito many, many times. It has an exit on I-40. This is why I double-taked.

Sorry, Tony, but you don't explain why you "moved" Iyanbito if deliberate. And, a basic error otherwise? On the border on ratings, that gets you bumped down on the Navajo authenticity issue. That said, in this Smithsonian piece he admits to "shuffling around" places to meet his needs, but? There was no need for this. Nor for calling the Zuni Drive-In the Gallup Drive-In. Was it going to sue? It closed in 1982, anyway, so it couldn't. (I saw "Star Wars" there as a kid.)

There's an issue or two in other Hillerman novels that generally hold him at four stars, not five. For instance, he talks about "the Tuba City type of Navajo," a description both sociological, in terms of demeanor, and physiologically, in terms of build, as if genes work that deterministically and there's no outbreeding into that small area. And, of course, none of that is true.

Now, to a bigger issue, expressed in this novel, and I think one or two others.

That is his take on the American Indian Movement . Yes, many people within Navajo leadership didn't like it. That's because it challenged their authority, just as on the Sioux reservations. Calling its leadership, like Dennis Banks and Russell Means, "city Indians," comes off as a bit, or more, condescending. And, it's a lie. Banks was born on a reservation in Minnesota. Means was born on a reservation in South Dakota. Both Bellencourts were born on reservations. Banks was forcefully removed to a BIA boarding school at age 5. Means' parents moved to San Francisco at age 3 to escape poverty; the Bellencourt family moved to Minneapolis when older brother Vernon was 16.

This comes off sounding like my dad. (I remember when AIM came to Gallup.) I've outgrown that, Tony. This review goes down to three stars, and I read you more skeptically on "flavor of the Southwest" in the future.

For a truly nuanced and insightful book on AIM, especially in the Siouxan heartland of its operations, read "The Unquiet Grave."

And, I realized I have now been "triggered," or if I accept that something like free will exists (I do, if you emphasize the "something like" and that it is not necessarily totally conscious), I have self-triggered.

First, the quasi-sneer about "city Indian" (also Blizzard, the "city Indian" Cheyenne from Chicago BIA agent in this novel) surely affects Hillerman's authorial stance toward Janet Pete throughout the entire series of his novels. He doesn't totally throw her under the bus when he has the final break-up between her and Chee, but he does entirely write her out of future books. Did his attitude toward "city Indians" in general harden as he grew older?

Related? As I think more skeptically, while Hillerman may not totally paint a romantic Rousselian noble savage view of reservation Navajo life, the toes of one of his two feet, at minimum, are in that swamp. And I use that word deliberately. In reality, not only is the poverty worse than he portrays, but bits of it are to some degree self-inflicted. Navajos overgrazed the land badly enough a century ago that, for this reason as well as price controls, Navajo sheep, like Iowa hogs, were "culled" as part of the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the 1930s. There's some degree of overgrazing again. Beyond that, as disagreements between chapters over Bears Ears have shown, there's not a "unified Navajo stance" on many things. In either case, on the land, as he has Chee drive by the pivot irrigation lands of what is today Navajo Agricultural Products Inc, and contrast them with a bit of ruefulness to the buttes and mesas, he overlooks the sheepherding.

In other words, to mash up Colbert and a cliche? "Truth is truthier than fiction."

Another issue? I think Hillerman has a generally bilagaana take on frybread, which is a flash point among many modern American Indians of many tribes. That's also not specific to this book, but, I never recall Chee, as an "authentic" Navajo, in any of my past Hillerman reading, saying it's not authentic Navajo food.

One other issue. One of Hillerman's novels is entirely on the Zuni reservation. Others have Hopi connections. But? Even though the Ute Mountain Ute reservation is directly north of the New Mexico portion of the Big Rez, I'm unaware of any Ute characters in any of his novels. Also not mentioned, IIRC? The Paiutes who actually live on the Utah strip portion of the Big Rez. (Indeed, some of these Paiutes have Navajo surnames like Begay or Yazzie.)

One OTHER other issue. Why, given Leaphorn's strident antipathy to alcohol, after his wife's death, does Hillerman name his new female interest Bourebonette? Yes, the initial "e" hides it, but really? Something like "bourbon"? Am I the first to notice this?

Anyway, beyond being self-triggered, I realized my nostalgia leading me to re-read Hillerman wasn't as much nostalgia as escapism — not the escapism of reading fiction, but real escapism, the desire to move out of Tex-ass, with the New Mexico of my childhood years a reasonable option financially — should I get a pre-retirement job there — among today's US Southwest and Western states. 

Expanding beyond my main blog, this probably isn't that likely. The sewer of U.S. job hunting sites gets worse and worse all the time. And, I'm not well-enough off to say that post-retirement moving will be easy.

View all my reviews

Still looking for ways to improve the blogroll

Looking at a couple of recent additions, as I delve in:

== 

I can't remember where I saw "The Amateur Exegete," but I thought he looked promising at first.

He looks less and less so now.

He has a critical approach to scholarship, but it's on the conservative side of that. To use a "name" on the New Testament side? He's James McGrath level, probably.

His Aug. 24 roundup? (He hosts some sort of critical religious thinking blog roundup, or hosts it for himself) Believing in the historicity of Moses? At least he presents the modern critical conventional POV.

His Aug. 17 roundup? Worse, with the last entry, who he admitted in comment exchange is a personal friend:

Blogger καταπέτασμα writes about the Matthean narrative’s guarded tomb and argues that the story seems to suggest Pilate was aiming to kill a resurrected Jesus if push came to shove.

I clicked through, and while it's bad, it's arguably NOT the worse that guy has written.

That said, the roundups do give me a few connections. That's where I saw the idiotic new Testimonium Flavianum book, including a free PDF. 

A Sept. 11 post? He linked to the odious Tim O'Neill with No. 16 in his series of "Great Myths." I told this dude that O'Neill's greatest myth was his self promoted myth denying papal antisemitism. So far, he hasn't responded.

His Sept. 21 roundup? Links to reviews of multiple evangelical bible commentaries etc. This is NOT a blog carnival; it's a personal roundup, like the ones above.

His Oct. 12 roundup? He's not convinced of the non-existence, the non-historicity, of Abraham. 

I had thought he was an atheist, but reading his "about" more carefully, he's a None. He says his goal is to promote better biblical understanding. And he's not doing it, not IMO.

So that I don't forget about free books, I may move him to my links list but delete him from the blogroll feed. 

==

Through a Bible Darkly is good, from what I can see — but posts so rarely.

==

Markus Vincent is here to see how much he discusses other issues besides his "heterodox" take on Marcion vs Luke. 

==

Thoughts on Papyrus is a lot more into fiction than I am and may move to the links list. 

==

Atheology has been removed, period. As I read through it more, the author has much more of his own confusion than he claims "philosophers" have. 

==

I have added ResoluteReader, who seems a lot more of what I'm looking for. Reads more nonfiction than Papyrus, and the same broad vein as I do. Well, sort of. He is some sort of Marxist, which this leftist definitely is not. For example, I would never try to situate environmentalism within even a semi-Marxist framework.

Funerals and obits: The quick and the dead

Per the header, and per the old saying about funerals being for the living, not the dead, the same is true, maybe even true in spades, for obituaries.

(Note: Throughout this, I intend to use the word “dead” as much as possible. “Departed” or similar will be used as necessary for linguistic variance. The words “passed” or “passed on,” except for this reference quote, will be avoided like the plague. I “love” how much they’re used in obits, especially by theoretically rock-solid conservative Christians. Last I checked, Paul said: “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.” No “passed on” nor a Hellenestic world equivalent euphemism.)

As a newspaper editor, I first learned that professionally several years ago when, at the site I was at then, two different family members submitted different obits for the same recently dead loved one.

I can’t remember if both were created by a funeral home, one by a funeral home and the other personally written, or if both were family written. The newspaper wound up accepting both, then our publisher checked in with the home office of our small chain about long-term policy.

I have since then experienced that both professionally and personally with the same obit.

A couple of years after I got to my current site, I got my owner to agree to charge for the extra length on “overlength” obits. In other words, a basic length obir would still be free, but, if you wanted to go more than 850 or so words, which is one-quarter of a newspaper page, you’d pay for anything over that length, with the extra, in terms of newspaper column inches, being billed at the same rate as a display ad.

Well, a 97-year-old, who had worked at this newspaper for 70-plus years, including four part-time years overlapping with me, primarily in the small print shop we still run, died recently. And, his one granddaughter, who had written about 1,500 words two years ago for his wife, which we let pass, turned in 3,300 or so.

A lot of people liked and loved Alvin. Was it universal? At least about a certain baseline level of affection? No.

Frankly, an obit that long comes off as ostentatious, at least to me. And, they knew we’d run it.

There’s a corporate chain in the county seat, and an enhanced shopper there. Both charge from the get-go on all obits, and I’m sure the family didn’t pay for a full-length one at either place.

It’s an adjunct to other observations I have made about small town life.

One is that “The smaller the bone, the more two dogs fight over it."

The other is that income inequality, and a parallel, which I shall call social inequality, can be more pronounced in small towns than in big cities. The rich guy who owns an oil drilling company may live only a few blocks away from a trailer park.

And by small town, I’m talking not under 15,000, but under 5,000. I realize this is alien territory to the great majority of Americans.

And, in towns this size, when someone appears that beloved, those who don’t think so aren’t so comfortable with saying so. 

This ties in with the theme of this site in that psychology is in some ways an offshoot of philosophy, and that would include social psychology. (Contra Walter Kaufman and whatever the man himself might have said, David Hume, not Friedrich Nietzsche, was the world’s first psychologist, at least in some ways.)

Even more, per my “per the living,” it ties directly to a main theme here in being about secularism and metaphysical naturalism. When a person is dead, they no longer exist, so funerals and obituaries have to be “for” the living. They are “about” the dead, but that’s it. Ditto for celebrations of life, whatever the metaphysical beliefs the deceased held, and their family and friends still hold.

And, with that and critical revision, my reference to the Apostles' Creed and the old King James Version-style English of "the quick and the dead." 

Did Josephus really, REALLY write the Testimonium Flavianum?

Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ by T. C. Schmidt
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

If Schmidt's purpose was to convince people like me of his thesis, it actually backfired.

Could Josephus have written the Testimonium Flavianum himself, including the very Christian-looking ending?

Absolutely, technically and logically. That said, a unicorn could produce baby unicorns by farting fairy dust, too, but I'm not holding my breath over that likelihood either.

So, Josephus himself wrote the Testimonium Flavianum in the Antiquities? That’s the contention of T.C. Schmidt in his new book.

I’m not buying it, and wasn’t buying it by 40 pages into the book, due to tendentious translation, dubious text-critical claims and a variety of special pleadings.

First, as a reminder, from book 20 of the Antiquities, here is that Testimonium Flavianum, per the translation by Schmidt. That part, the end of that sentence, itself needed emphasis:

“And in this time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was a doer of incredible deeds, a teacher of men who receive truisms with pleasure. [My note: Why “truisms”? EVERY other translation I’ve seen, it’s “truths.” Is this designed to buttress Schmidt’s claims of the “slightly negative” aspect?] And he brought over many from among the Jews and many from among the Greeks. He was [thought to be {My note: Schmidt will claim these are “missing words.”}] the Christ. And, when Pilate had condemned him to the cross at the accusation of the first men among us, those who at first were devoted to him did not cease to be so, for on the third day it seemed to them that he was alive again given that the divine prophets had spoken such things and thousands of other wonderful things about him. And up till now the tribe of the Christians, who were named from him, has not disappeared.”

Schmidt claims that’s backed up by stylistic analysis, and he also claims that the testimony is not nearly as favorable as claimed. I'll challenge that as part of this review.

He also cites Josephus’ own claim to have known people in the trials of the apostles and even that of Jesus, by 51-52 CE. Really?

First of all, Caiaphas died in 46. So the high priest who reportedly condemned Jesus would not have been directly known to him.

Secondly, even at 51/52, Josephus is just 14 or so.

Second main point contra that is that Josephus was a braggart and self-turd polisher. Skipping way ahead in the book, we have:

“What follows is a sketch of six leading families with whom Josephus was familiar and whose members were also likely party to the execution of Jesus. These include the royal family of the Herodians, the rabbinic family of Hillel, and the high priestly families of Camith, Boethus, Phiabi, and especially Ananus I.”

From here, Schmidt goes on to make other statements, that, on the New Testament side, where connected with Herod Agrippa II, treat the last one-quarter of Acts with a hugely unwarranted degree of historicity. Also vis-a-vis Agrippa, Schmidt makes all sorts of reading between the lines and special pleadings on pages 163ff. He also assumes Jesus was “big enough” historically to have members of the House of Herod who would NOT have included Antipas or Agrippa I (both dying when Josephus was a tot) to remember him to Josephus.

Third, Acts is ahistorical enough even in its first half that we should probably largely ignore the “trials of the apostles.” See this piece of mine for a look at Acts' ahistoricity in general, focused on the last one-quarter of the book. Indeed, a 3-star reviewer here notes a relative lack of critical approach to the historicity of both Acts and the Mishnah. It’s been eons since I read the Mishnah myself, but, per the block quote above, it seems like special pleadings in this portion of the book as well. In addition, to move in the NT from Acts back to the gospels, taking every portrayal of Jesus “versus” the Pharisees at face value is also problematic.

Also related? He assumes that Jesus’ revolt, or whatever we should call it, occurred at Passover, and assumes within that that he Synoptics are right against John on what day the Passover was. (In one of his appendixes, Schmidt offers the “solution” [scare quotes!] that John was talking about the whole feast of Passover week with Unleavened Bread. Sure he was. Why haven't more biblical scholars said this, and written in depth about it?)

After this? Schmidt delves into that font of historicity, the Toledoth Yeshu, thoroughly and critically reviewed here, to claim that Ananus II, the guy who reportedly had some James, who may have been either a literal or non-literal brother of Jesus, put to death, was at Jesus’ trial. (Snark aside, the earliest elements of the Toledoth date from the second century CE. It's unlikely, though, that any first-century material is behind it. See Antiquities Book 20, Chapter 9.

Fourth? Schmidt’s claim that the Testimonium is neutral to negative? Only if you accept his one interpolation, that “He was [thought to be] the Christ.” Per Wiki, Schmidt claims these are “missing words” not an interpolation. Really? So, they magically fell out of copies of the Antiquities before its current citation? More on that, re Jerome apparently being the first to have “appeared to be,” here .

He also ignores the possibility that translators inserted these words because they thought “Josephus” looked too blatantly Christian otherwise.

That in turn means we have intellectual dishonesty, as I see it.

He goes on to claim that both Jacob of Edessa and Jerome in translation reflect what he postulates as the original indeed being so:

“Chapter 2 canvasses various western and eastern versions of the TF—in Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian—while consulting several manuscripts and correcting past transcriptions. Most significantly, a certain Syriac text shows that the most suspicious statement in the extant version of the TF, ‘he was the Christ’, instead likely read ‘he was thought to be the Christ’. This reading is found in an important Syriac translation of the TF which new evidence suggests should be traced back to Jacob of Edessa (c.708 ce), a noted translator of Greek works and one of the most educated men of his day. Jacob’s translation is crucially matched by another famous translator, St. Jerome (c.420 ce), who rendered the phrase almost synonymously into Latin as ‘he was believed to be the Christ’. This correspondence indicates that both translators had before themselves a much more ancient Greek text, a text which I argue contained the original wording of Josephus. Such a reading also explains, once again, why Origen and others asserted that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. And, furthermore, it agrees with Josephan style, thereby giving the reading a ring of verisimilitude. Be that as it may, many Christian readers still do not seem to have read the altered phrase ‘he was the Christ’ (ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν) as a confession of faith. Instead, they simply assumed that Josephus was identifying Jesus with the alternative name of ‘Christ’, much like how many ancient non-Christian writers were quite willing to call Jesus the name of ‘Christ’, without thinking that such signaled faith in him.”

Sounds like half a dozen types of special pleading.

It also, by this point, sounds like systematic theology apologetics rather than exegesis. And, there's more to bolster that idea below, in my update.

Let us also remember that even Jerome is translating 300-plus years later than Josephus, and that he is on the far side of Eusebius, whom I see as a veil of sorts on all things Josephus related to Christian history.

Fifth, how does he deal with Origen? He claims that Origin found it “risky to use.” See my note above on Schmidt’s translation. With Origin, and later, he also says that the “incredible deeds” could be seen as negative, open to the claim that Jesus was performing magic. But, that’s only if you accept Schmidt’s interpolation, which as noted above negates his whole claim. And, contra Schmidt, this will be referred to as “interpolation” and not “missing words” throughout this review. I don’t believe in magic ponies. Beyond that, Josephus uses the same words for Elisha’s miracles.

And, even if true, would this be THAT risky?

With that, let’s dig into the book further. Yes, it's getting crushed further.

When we get into how Origin understood what Josephus thought of Jesus, we face issues similar, in a reverse way, to Tacitus (and the likely interpolation of the Fire of Rome) and Suetonius. Even on the Jesus “who was called Christ” as brother of James, this is simply “Ha-Moshiach” and not a Christian title. Nor does Josephus say that everybody proclaimed him as the Messiah. It should also be noted that, because the term in Greek wouldn’t be understood by most Greeks and definitely not by Greek-speaking Romans that, while Josephus will talk about Vespasian fulfilling Messianic prophecies, he never applies this term to him. He may have had other reasons for not doing that, too. One may have been Josephan religious scruples. The other may have been, having toasted Vespasian and with Domitian now on the throne, talk of “Christ” was no bueno.

From here on out, like Schmidt, I will use TF to save time and space. He says Origen surely knew some version of the TF. If we accept that some portion of it is original, but was later interpolated? That’s not a problem for that theory and Origin offers no support for Schmidt.

He wraps up his first section with this, about the TF’s reception in Greek Christianity, namely, why weren’t the parts about the resurrection, testimony of the prophets, miracles, played up more?

“In the present book I suggest a solution to this puzzling reception history. I argue that those statements in the TF which sound so extravagantly suspicious to our modern ears seemed quite different to most ancient and medieval writers who read them as not only ambiguous, but as also quite similar to other non-Christian reports about Jesus. This explains why so many never bothered to make use of the spectacular details in the TF; for to them, the TF did not have anything spectacular about it. Instead, the TF merely presented a neutral, ambiguous, or even vaguely negative account about Jesus that was of little benefit for their purposes. Yet, that very ambiguity allowed a minority of writers—most of whom only summarized or even manipulated its content —to interpret the TF in a way that promoted various Christian claims about Jesus.”

This too sounds like special pleading.

I remain unconvinced, wholly unconvinced. The “believed to be,” to riff on Schmidt, may have been original, and removed by whomever surely interpolated the last one-third:

“He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

The idea that Josephus wrote that himself is laughable. And, the “tribe of Christians,” if Acts is right about Christian self-naming, and when it might have happened, if Acts has an early second century dating, also puts this as post-Josephan.

Early Christian Writings still has the best roundup of evidence, above all based on it interrupting narrative flow, for the whole thing to be an interpolation. It also has a good refutation of some of Schmidt’s stylistic claims, above all the “principal men” issue, and other things mentioned above.

Per ECW? Perhaps the original version of Josephus had calamities or similar attached to his Jesus story, if he was the original author, and that what we have today is more than a partial editorial interpolation, but rather, to invent a word, even more an editorial exterpolation. On this idea, Josephus would have called Jesus a messianic pretender, like others. The calamities, per other events in Chapter 18 (same link as above), so this wasn’t originally interrupting the flow of that book, might have been inflicted by Antipas rather than Pilate, albeit with some pushing by Pilate. Per Luke, yes, Antipas maybe would have seen Jesus as John the Baptizer redivivus — as a Zealot.

Also per the link, on Section 3, the Jesus passage, note how short it currently is, as well as missing any "calamities." 

Under my theory, Josephus would eventually have written something like this:

Some time after this, there arose in Galilee a man named Jesus. He was acclaimed a wise man by his growing followers. Many cited the wondrous deeds he performed, and as proof of his wisdom, though others said he performed these things by sorcery or magic.

Some of his followers eventually talked about his as the Messiah. Perhaps in reaction to this, he went to Jerusalem during one of the festivals. The procurator Pilate, as well as Antipas the tetrarch of Galilee, who had already had experience with John, feared that he might start a tumult and even proclaim himself the Messiah.

They both interrogated him, then Pilate checked with the priesthood to make sure there would be no troubles if he were executed. Assured of their cooperation, he crucified this Jesus.

After the festival was done, Antipas searched throughout the Galilee and the Decapolis, knowing of past uprisings in this area, and brought many punishments down on the chief cities and villages of his followers.

Obviously, that would have been editorially mutilated by a combination of interpolation and extirpolation.

One big problem with this theory, though?

Celsus.

We already know Origin doesn’t reference the TF as stands as a tool against Celsus. Had the original been a highly negative narrative like this, Celsus, not Origen, would have cited it and Origin would have moved heaven and earth to refute it or try to.

My conclusion? While I don’t believe in a literal version of Bayes Theorum, because I don’t believe you can in general put precise percentage numbers on belief system probabilities, I’ll play along on the idea on this.

Before reading Schmidt’s book, I would have offered 3 percent for Josephus substantially writing the TF (MINUS the ending; if you make me include that, I’m at 1 percent); 67/69 percent that Josephus wrote some core kernel but it has moderate to extensive editorial interpolation; and 30 percent that most to all the passage is an interpolation.

Schmidt actually lost me. I’m now at 2/0 percent on Josephus writing substantially all, 58/60 percent on option THREE, and 40 percent on option TWO, flip-flopping those. That comes after pondering the “negative Josephus later exterpolated” idea and rejecting it. And, going directly against his alleged elimination of him, I’ll finger Eusebius as the most likely interpolator. (Richard Carrier seems to agree.) He was well-read in both secular and Christian history within the Empire, was at the right hand of Constantine, and had motive.

As for comments about Josephan style and the author’s stylistic analysis emphasis and claims? We’re not talking about 300 lines of text or even 300 words. The TF as received, without the “believed to be” conjecture? Just 84 words in Greek. Someone as well-read as Eusebius could have done a reasonable imitation no problem. In fact, it's arguable that 84 words is too short to do a stylometric analysis.

Let's compare it to something else that I thought of after posting to Goodreads.

That's the likely interpolation in Tacitus about the Fire of Rome and Neronian persecution of Christians for it. That interpolation, for those of us who accept it as such, contra Chris(sy) on r/AcademicBiblical and others, was likely by Sulpicius Severus. Even though it's more than half again as long as the TF, I've never seen arguments against this being an interpolation lead off with Severus (or whomever else) failing to do a halfway adequate imitation of Tacitus' style.

I'll move on briefly to other items.

First, if the TF is an interpolation en toto (I won’t follow Schmidt on the “forgery” word) then the James “the brother of Jesus” in Antiquities Book 20 is an insertion, or “gloss” as a better term, for obvious reasons. Eusebius again is most likely, especially given some questions about "where he saw" the TF within the Antiquities, if he isn't the interpolator himself. And, I disagree with Schmidt here, claiming this passage as authentic is an ambiguous to negative portrayal of Jesus, just like he does with the TF. Early Christian Writings, and other sites, address this in more detail. As for the use of “brother”? Paul repeatedly uses it in a non-literalistic sense.

More on that?

Alice Whealey, cited widely by the author? Her claim that the shorter passage on James and Jesus in Antiquities Book 20 cannot be an interpolation because Jesus having a brother had been rejected by Christians in general in the second century is laughable. (Wheatley is also where Schmidt gets his “Missing Words” idea from. Indeed, she believes that they were dropped only after Jerome, and that he saw them in Eusebius’ quote — and that Jerome didn’t read the manuscripts directly.) See this site for more. Whealey also is a historian and not a biblical scholar or related. The "brother" is refuted indirectly on one grounds, above. Other grounds for the Whealey-Schmidt claims are some version of argument from silence.

Speaking of, it seems much of Schmidt's argument really isn't original but is lifted from Whealey in many ways. (Per my update below, I have no idea if Wheatley is some sort of "traditionalist" Christianity apologist, but it wouldn't surprise me. That said, per other Carrier material, she may not be.)

Sixth, The Amateur Exegete, where I found the link, included a video interview of Schmidt by the often odious Tim O’Neill of “History for Atheists.” I'm not watching the video any more than I would listen to his podcast, contra his pleadings years ago. I suspect O’Neill likes the book because it’s contrarian and anti-mythicist if nothing else. (Regular readers here know that I am not a mythicist, nor am I a Gnu Atheist. But, O'Neill is still odious.)

If my guess is correct, then he’s fallen to general Gnu Atheist level.  Yes, Schmidt has. Just as, contra atheists in general and Gnus in particular, I don’t have to be a mythicist to be an atheist, so, too, do I not have to accept these claims about the TF to be an anti-mythicist.

Update: A potentially quasi-fundagelical institute, The Institute for Christian Reflection, founded and funded by some anonymous Daddy Warbucks, is behind funding Schmidt's book. That "about" link says:

Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. (Matthew 13:52) At the Institute for Christian Reflection we believe that faithful scholars should be as scribes trained for the kingdom of heaven, articulating the old truths of Scripture, while bringing forth new discoveries from them.

Such an endeavor takes much patience, the field has been well tilled, but there are still many treasures left undiscovered and unpublished—and the Institute aims to bring them to light. To this end we develop media to train believers in ageless Gospel wisdom while also sponsoring faithful scholars who are making fresh discoveries.

OK now.

Well, not OK now yet. Their "ongoing projects" page adds more:

They include new evidence regarding the extraordinary spread of ancient Christianity in East Asia, a new discovery of perhaps the earliest Christian artifact, new testimony concerning the famous darkness of the crucifixion, among others. These, we trust, will prove to be of outstanding value.

Clearly an apologetics site, and a fundagelical one if it's trying to prove the actuality of biblical signs and wonders that are really only literary devices, and thus this book is not trustworthy for that reason, which is reflected by the author.  

And, with that, I'll label the text criticism, the idea that Josephus's original had those two allegedly now-missing words, and some of the translation, as mendacious.

Finally, rather than just quote-tweet him? Since he quote-tweets Rusty Doubit, aka Russ Douthat, calling out Adam Gopnik for claiming the TF is a forgery, I directly responded to them.

View all my reviews

LCMS prez Matthew Harrison headfakes, then dives back into full wingnuttery.

Harrison, the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the US's largest fundamentalist (you are) religious body, is trying to thread his theological and denominational camel's body through the eye of the Charlie Kirk needle with his official statement on Kirk's killing.

I had originally titled this post that he had backed off slightly from being a full wingnut, but a follow-up piece in an official publication of the denomination shows that's not true. I'll get to that below. 

It says it's about 15 years in the president's seat. Most of it backs off his previous nuttery and actually talks about assisting immigrants.

That said, besides the Charlie Kirk paeans that ignore his racism, etc., let's unpack something else.

That's Harrison officially stating that on one thing, he's unchanged, and that he's a Samuel Huntington type cultural Christianist. This:

I think it’s vital to retain Western Christian influenced culture and its wonderful blessings. But we Lutherans do not exist to “Christianize the state.” Our Augsburg Confession says the state and church are not to be “mixed.” I worry, frankly, about Muslim immigration and the orthodox Muslim denial of the two kingdoms. But some evangelicals have the same dogma! A great many of the decisions of the nature of state and law, are left to sanctified individual choice and action, biblically informed.

Is the proof. 

First, you DO want to "Christianize the state," just more indirectly.

Second, not all Muslims are "orthodox" Muslims.  

Third? Most of what does make Merikkka in particular, and the West in general, actually, non-snarkily good, has nothing to do with Christian, or Christian-influenced culture. Locke, Hume, Montaigne, Voltaire and others who influenced the American constitutional structure, the American political science structure and related, weren't "Christian-influenced." Locke was probably a U/unitarian or Deist. Hume was a secularist, non-theist, atheist, etc. Montaigne may have been a Catholic, but his essays on the tripartate division of government were in no way influenced by that. Voltaire was a deist. 

On other non-Charlie Kirk stuff, he references the wingnuts squared to his right, who think that officially breathing the air of other Christians in official Christian events is akin to heresy:

As I pulled into the gas station this a.m., I turned on the radio. There were interviews with children whose fathers were firemen, killed in 9/11. Oh my, I thought. Another anniversary of that horrid day. I remember it all too well. Within a week I was at ground zero. The LCMS provided a million dollars for the victims’ center in Manhattan. The controversy in the LCMS which ensued nearly broke my heart. Thank God we’ve moved beyond it and our approach to such situations constructed in the wake, has very largely kept us out of further internal controversy.

Have fun with that. 

Beyond that, he, in talking about Kirk's death:

Yesterday was the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk. A confessing Christian murdered for political speech. I beheld the news in shock, bouncing between the reports of sorrow and vitriol, putting the worst possible construction on sound bites. ... A few on our far edges say untoward things about race, failing to take into account the beautiful message of the N.T. that “God is no respecter of persons.” (Acts 10) And that repeatedly in the N.T. we see lists of early Christians which include multiple ethnicities from around the Mediterranean world. There is no N.T. argument against the freedom to marry among ethnicities, much less any such distinctions in the church. Jesus said, “Go therefore to all ETHNAE.”

Ignores Kirk's own racism.

Maybe he doesn't know that much about Kirk in general. Maybe fear of the even further right wingnuts pushed him to say something. Maybe he's just a lying hypocrite.  

Hence my "backs off slightly."

He's still a hypocrite, perhaps a lying hypocrite, and hoisting himself by his own petard. 

Sadly, this is in my own family of semi-origin. A cousin, a former LCMS parochial school teacher, ran Kirk up the flagpole and saluted him. I'm not going to bother to quote her, but without naming her by name, I called out on Fuckbook, in a general way, Lutheran family and friends for glorifying Kirk, a "racist wingnut." I also told them to read Matthew 7:3-5 if they thought this secularist needed praying for. Per Jesus himself, elsewhere? "A word to the wise." 

==

The wise don't include Harrison, who, since I first started writing this, in the Reporter, the official LCMS newspaper, runs Kirk up the flagpole and salutes him. Time for a takedown.

This:

Pundits have crafted lists of Mr. Kirk’s statements, which allegedly justify his murder. But no speech of any human being justifies his or her murder.

Is a lie. Actual pundits have listed Kirk's wingnuttery, but without attempting to justify his murder. I said that if he had named named, it could have been slanderous. Even without that, I told him to look at Matthew 7:3-5 and tell himself the Sixth Commandment rather than shouting it at others.

This:

Marxism, which is pervasive on many university campuses, praises anarchy and violence because violence is the means to throw the status quo into chaos and overthrow allegedly repressive regimes. As an atheistic paradigm of human social existence, Marxism views all law and ethics as utilitarian, indeed merely a human construct — including sexual identity itself, which has always been (Rom. 1) and is again, with an intensity never seen before, the frontier of “freedom” from Divine design. Hermann Sasse, the friend of the LCMS and great Lutheran who lived through the Hitler years in Germany, was the first publicly to reject the Aryan Paragraph of the Nazi party platform. He blew the whistle on real fascism and racism.

Is a mix of stereotyping, strawmanning, handwaving and dogwhistling. The "real fascism and racism" is an attempt to pretend that Kirk wasn't that.

This:

Charlie Kirk was such a Christian. I am such a Christian. And I know thousands more. ... “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:43–45) Charlie’s debate videos are a marvelous example of this.

Is whitewashing. And gaslighting. And other things.

Harrison likes to blather about the Sixth Commandment, all while ignoring the Eighth Commandment, in all of this, too. 

==

Harrison also ignores Romans 8 about submitting unto the governing authorities!

Harrison claims not to meddle in church-state issues and to respect the Lutheran doctrine of the "two kingdoms."

BUT? He officially glorifies in Charlie Kirk an official 2020 election denier. And, AFAIK, while he may have disciplined (or may not have disciplined) a semi-retired Illinois LCMS pastor for participating in an interdenominational event, he has done NOTHING (AFAIK) about said pastor trying to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results.

Romans 13, along with the Eighth Commandment, Matthew Harrison.

Biblical criticism roundup tidbits

' James McGrath gets called out for getting Judeophobia backward, and it's kind of hilarious, too. It's the biblical criticism version of librul identitarianism, applied wrongly. This is part of a book where the authors in general are apparently of McGrathian mindset. The bottom line, per this review, is:

Opposite the one-dimensional depiction of Judaism as positive and innocent stands a corre-spondingly one-dimensional depiction of Christianity as negative and malicious.

Oops.

That said, the review is itself spoiled to some degree by this at the end:

I confess that in this time of rising antisemitism, I have misgivings about reg-istering so dim an assessment of a volume with patently good intentionsZ

And, I say "spoiled" on the assumption the author is conflating antisemitism and anti-zionism. Schwartz is indeed Jewish, with a master's from JTS, and also one blog post on the Times of Israel AND, interestingly, with a wife who is a female Orthodox rabbi. Now, goys can do the same conflation, but Schwartz also condemned Pope Francis for his post-Oct. 7 comments. I'm reasonably comfortable in labeling him a conflationist.

==

A book that appears to do better on looking at early Christian writings beyond the New Testament, though it's purview would likely include the original Simon Magus story in Acts, challenges the "magic=heresy" idea.

==

Pilate putting a guard on Jesus' tomb, as recorded by Matthew, might have a kernel of historicity? Thanks for the laugh. Just because the Gospel of Peter may be behind it doesn't increase its chances of historicity. This guy is some sort of quasi-fundagelical.

The latest questionability from r/AcademicBiblical

First, touting this historical Jesus conference hosted by Bart Ehrman. We know Bart's gotten Jesus wrong on the claim he preached JW annihilation instead of hellfire, and other things. Other keynoters? James Tabor is a whack job with his Jesus family dynasty nuttery. Dale Allison is on the conservative side of New Testament critical scholarship. Paula Fredriksen, outside of biblical scholarship, has at least a degree of odiousness, and possible Zionist background as a Jewish convert, in past comments about Palestinians in general and Palestinian Christians "running away" in particular.

==

"Are Catholics really the first Christians" is a theological question, not an exegetical one, and should have been removed by mods. 

==

Early church fathers were NOT contemporaneous with Jesus' followers, contra this goob question. OP gets plenty of other pushback, but not on the most key thing. SMH.

Tidbits from the New Search for the historical Jesus

In this Academia piece, from 2010, a number of scholars answer three questions about the "New Search."

The first question: Is this phase over? My own answer, riffing on one of the commenters, is, it should be considered on pause, until more digestion of the sociological elements of Judaism(s) at the time of Jesus, along with broader culture at this time, is complete.

The second question asks each to comment on that social and cultural background. All stress Jesus' Jewishness while also showing that, in terms of education, style of life, teaching focus and many other things, they can still have large differences in interpretation.

The third question spills from this and asks about Jesus' originality.

Some of their specifics are interesting. 

For example, John Dart, after talking about images of bad faith in Mark in general, notes the presumably original ending of the gospel is one more example of bad faith, as the two Marys run away from the empty tomb in fear, just as fear motivated Peter's denials, etc.

Dart also makes an argument of the early date of several non-canonical writings.

Several respondents talk about Jesus and halakhah. Several of them go beyond the basics to talk about how this influenced Jesus' understanding of purity issues, his disputes over this with the Pharisees and possibly others, and from that, his relations to the emerging, but not established, oral Torah.

Several place this in the larger context of "Hellenization" of Galilee. From a couple of books I've read on the issue, like Lee Levine, "Hellenization," even before the Maccabees may have "de-Hellenized" Galilee in some ways, was not in direct opposition to "Judaization" or whatever term should be used.

Many contributors note the great variety of Judaism(s) at this time. I think one thing that unites "New Search" scholars is going beyond Josephus' "four sects," way beyond, in some cases.

Richard Horsley notes that at least parts of what eventually became collected into I Enoch may have been considered "canonical" in some circles at this time. He argues for a sociological reinterpretation of the Daniel 7 vision.

It's also Horsley who talks about the low level of literacy in Judea and Galilee of this time in general.

Somewhat riffing on that, and the Lukan special material, Rainer Reisner argues for a relatively high educational level of Jesus.

Paolo Sacchi talks more about the varieties of Judaisms. He also says he doesn't think Jesus had that much focus on purity issues.

Brendan the History Nerd Toddler, the cult-followed book review idiot

 This guy on Goodreads.

He calls himself, after his name, "History Nerds United."

First, plenty of history lovers, like me, don't consider ourselves "nerds." 

Related is that this plays up to all sorts of history stereotypes.

I called him, in a comment on his review of "The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV" the History Toddler instead of Nerd. Why? This:

I plan on going on quite a bit of diatribes in this review. So, before you say, "Brendan can you get to the point, please?" I will summarize it with this. Helen Castor's The Eagle and the Hart is magnificent and you should read it. It is long and in-depth but never boring. It is a dual character study while also putting its time period in perspective. It is definitely going on my list of best books of 2024. Okay, now on to the diatribes! If you want to exit now, I thank you for your time.

Still with me? Great! Now that the impatient and rude people have left, let me tell you something. I believe Richard II might be the reason men named Richard are nicknamed Dick. (My apologies to all Richards who do not deserve it.) Do I have any scholarly source on this? Absolutely not. Will I look it up? Definitely no. Was this all to elicit a cheap laugh from those people who share my sophomoric sense of humor? Not entirely! Castor's narrative did make me believe he is one of the worst English kings in history.

How can anybody take him seriously as a reviewer, at least anybody who actually cares about learning about history in depth? We start with pretentious, pontificating prattle. Then, it's off to insulting anybody who won't agree that his pretentious, pontificating prattle is more than that. Then, there's the claim that, after admitting his humor is sophomoric (grow up), that it has real insight behind that. (It does not.)

Again, how can anybody take him seriously. Well, his cultish followers do.

So I mentioned that bon mot:

God, what a stupid review, with the second paragraph. Perhaps you could retitle yourself "History Nerd Toddler."

Which apparently fed his ego (shock me):

But that means you liked the other paragraphs though, right? By the way, truly enjoy you being so obsessed with my reviews. Thanks for reading!

To which, one last reply:

I just like pointing out stupidities. Otherwise, don't flatter yourself. (Not that that admonition has any chance of success.)

From here on out, I call him out in my reviews, as I first did here.

And also, dood, an occasional comment elsewhere doesn't mean obsessed. I think I've commented on four or five of his reviews.

Otherwise, taking right-wing nut job Maureen Callahan's book about JFK seriously, let alone 5-starring? You're not even serious as an alleged historian. He also reads a lot of semi-clickbait fluffy history.

And, as exemplified by "The Eagle and the Hart," many of his reviews are surface-level, not noting actual historical problems, as does my review. (I'm often the first reviewer to catch such things.)

Note to Aldous Huxley: Wherever you go, there you are

Per this Vice piece, contra Aldous Huxley and "Island," his 1962 anti-quel (how's that for a mash-up) to "Brave New World," psychedelics aren't a utopia and can't bring one about.

Contra also Timothy Leary, influenced in part by Huxley, per this Guardian piece that led to the first Vice piece. (Huxley went beyond his initial mescaline to LSD.) Contra (somewhat, hold on to that) Michael Pollan. Contra Black Lives Matter.

One of Vice's good counterpoints is the CIA's use of LSD in MK-ULTRA. QAnon "shaman" Jake Angeli dropped psychedelics. The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh incorporated them into his cult.

People evil, whether lawful evil, neutral evil or downright evil, can use psychedelics to their own ends.

Anthropologist David Dupuis compares them to pluripotent stem cells that can turn into all sorts of body cells. So, psychedelics can promote all sorts of psyches.

They are also becoming one of the latest vulture capitalism focuses of tech dudebros, broligarchs, whatever your term. 

This second Vice piece has a further word of caution.

That's that psychedelics aren't necessarily a magical mystery tour for fixing depression and other mental health problems.

The psychologist interviewed in the piece notes that a good cautionary starting point is that counselors should not project their own beliefs about mystical experiences — and their alleged therapeutic benefits — onto clients. That's because, in part, the counselor "you" is not the client "you" and is not going where they are. 

In an interview for most the piece, Australian philosopher Chris Letheby talks about the "comforting delusion" that they may offer, and (pick up that thought) Letheby does cite Pollan, wondering if psychedelics offer nothing but a comforting delusion in their mystical experiences. I think that for many, they do. But not everybody.

I know science writer John Horgan, who has done ayahuasca, and some other substances. I think he "accepted" his experiences, and had a degree of what others would call "mystical," but returned to his normal state of consciousness normally grounded. But, that's the self he brings.

The self of scientific naturalism, which Letheby also discusses. 

As for Huxley and the self-help phrase? The Guardian piece notes that "Doors of Perception," about his mescaline, may in part have been about his trying to deny that he was semi-blind. 

Whether totally true or not, since Letheby also indicated he's sympathetic to the Buddhist idea of no-self, I wish he would have picked up more on the "wherever you go" idea. 

As for its take on "Island"? It's been a long time since I read that. I do recall, at a minimum, that it didn't really float my boat. 

As for Pollan? While he doesn't use his one tripping to write blank checks for anything, he does tilt partially in that direction. 

The varieties of free will – and determinism – not worth discussing

This is a lightly updated version of a piece at my main blog site.

To riff on Dan Dennett, in part, with that title, that's my take on two paired essays by the same person, Gregg D. Caruso, a professor of philosophy at Corning Community College.

Somewhat in the first, and even more in the second, essay, he insists that free will — or certain types of free will — are connected with what he calls retributive justice.

(In all of this, I'm trying to practice the principle of charity to suss out the argument that I think Caruso actually is trying to make, which is discussed near the end. That said, I've only gotten there through repeated comments by him, and others. And, if I'm coming to a wrong conclusion by that principle of charity, then we have a bigger issue.)

That right there, the retributive justice, sounds like we're in John Rawls territory, but with the addition of explicitly connecting this to free will.

Should it be? Ethical naturalism is sometimes tied too closely too, or even conflated with, free will versus determinism.

Little Bobby Sapolsky committed this category mistake so badly that I spent a full 10,000 words crushing him. (And I thoroughly enjoyed it.)

In response to the second essay, specifically, and in connection with the issue of "retributive justice," I set out a laundry list of both logical and empirical or epistemological objections.

The logical one is that there is no logically necessary connection between the two. And, I wasn't alone on this, either. I said:

There may (or may not) be empirical connections, based on psychology; hence my references to neuroscience. But, that’s a different matter. 

It’s like reading Rawls as if Rawls trying to justify his ideas by appeal to certain versions of free will. And, what Rawls says about issues of ethics and justice has no logically necessary connection with free will. 

I can be a hardcore determinist, yet still believe in the value of retributive justice.
I can be a compatibilist, and believe in retributive justice. I can be a libertarian free willer and believe in… I can be some sort of free will optimist-skeptic and believe … I can be like I actually am, thinking the whole free will “versus” determinism issue wrongly framed …. 

and believe in retributive justice. 

Or, I can be any of the above, and reject that idea. 

Or, I can be any of the above, and reject the idea of objective morality in general.

His response?

Essentially to offer a stipulative definition of free will. 

Well, if someone wants to put forth a stipulative definition of free will that insists it contains free-will actions for which one can be held morally accountable, then I guess ethics and free will are logically connected, especially if one insists that that's a two-way if-and-only-if connection.

The two-way direction of an if-and-only-if is part of the key here.

Let's take the three main schools of normative ethics — consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics.

The details of how to be ethical in consequentialism and deontological ethics are compatible with any school of thought on volition from the hardest of classical determinists to the most libertarian of free willers. Virtue ethics, in that it lays stress on the individual more, and the psychological stance of the individual, is seemingly incompatible with full-on determinism.

But, two of three major schools of normative ethics say that claims that ethical actions in general must be linked to free will are simply wrong.

And, given that justice is a subset of ethics, two of three major schools of normative ethics say that claims that ethical actions in general must be linked to free will are simply wrong.

Some people may think that a hard determinism dehumanizes people.

Actually not, or at least not necessarily. As long as determinism is applied to theories of ethics in a non-Randian way, it should treat all people as equally human. What that means for all people may be different than in a free will system, but, still, it's not proposing to treat all people like livestock or something. 

Beyond that, deontological ethics has as one of its core tenets the command to not dehumanize by treating people as means rather than ends. Beyond THAT are questions of what it means to be "human," whether versus being a chimpanzee, being a Homo erectus (if one doesn't count them as "human") and so forth. 

 

 That said, back to Caruso.

There seems to be further deck-stacking. And, rather than try to shoehorn comments into a 500-word limit at the time, there's my blog post, right here!

First, Caruso goes on to sometimes talk about "harsh retributive justice" or "just deserts." It's almost like he's at a pipe organ that has stops and ranks that are all conservative dogwhistles of some sort.

And, to boot, I think he knows that.

He talks about conservatives who believe in free will having harsher views on “just desserts” than those who don’t.

But, he doesn’t talk about political liberals and their stances on justice being influenced, or not, by their thoughts on free will

I doubt that most liberals reject free will. Rather, it’s either that they think it’s more attenuated by circumstances than conservatives do — but NOT obliterated by circumstance.

Related? An old chicken or egg argument — for conservatives, does insistence on free will come first, or a just world? To be honest, I don’t know if most conservatives even consider that.

The fact that Caruso only posts analysis of conservatives' relationship to free will and certain theories of justice makes me think he's pulling a Chris Mooney by implying that only conservatives, and not liberals, engage in motivated reasoning.

He also ignores that political conservatives in the rest of the developed world don't necessarily have a lot in common with US conservatives. (This, too, is a mistake Mooney also makes.) I do agree that religious overtones often influence discussions of free will, and theories of justice. But, again, religiosity, or lack thereof, is precisely where conservatives in the rest of the developed world most differ from their American compadres.

So, outside of America? False move, Prof. Caruso.

Back to the arguments against linking free will and theories of justice.

Walter Kaufmann’s book “Without Guilt and Justice” critiques Rawlsian theories of justice and ethics in general, and Rawls himself in particular. It rejects both “retributive” AND “distributive” justice alike, on other grounds. People are individuals, and we cannot treat them like data points in population genetics, therefore there is no way of being “fair.”

Thus, I can — and do — reject ideas of retributive justice in general based on anything that smacks of Rawls’ version of ….

Let’s call it liberal moral redistribution, with a deliberate riff on socialism, even communism, in that “redistribution.” And, that's quite deliberate, and yet another reason I call myself a skeptical left-liberal.

So, with Caruso, I reject (for now) retributive justice, but with a reason that is 180 degrees opposite of the reason that Caruso wants to reject retributive justice.

And, I do so without throwing out babies with the bathwater.

Then, we have what I’m going to call “folk philosophy,” paralleling “folk psychology,” on the issue of free will. And, frankly, I think some professional philosophers engage in it, too.

Caruso, while referencing Libet, doesn’t really appear to wrestle with the idea that neuroscience is still in the Early Bronze Age, if that. We’re going to need science to tell us more about consciousness in general, and volition in particular — without going down the road of scientism — before we can talk about free will in general with any great degree of clarity.

In addition to wrongly linking a cart and horse that doesn’t necessarily go together, Caruso is putting an ill-defined cart ahead of that horse.

And, again, it’s unnecessary. To riff on Gilbert Ryle's "category mistake," I am inventing the term "conjunctive mistake."

As I mentioned in my first comment to him on his first essay, I covered a lot of this — the uncertainties of talking about free will in all its glory — in the essay I did at Scientia Salon about saying “mu” to the idea of “free will vs. determinism.”

In that issue, like Caruso in his two essays and in other writings, wrestled not only with Libet, but also Daniel Wegner and others. Do we have a conscious free will in the classical sense? I think Wegner has, at a minimum, raised some good questions.

 

Update: Wegner's "The Illusion of Conscious Will" is reviewed by me here.

That said, if he's right, or to the degree that he's right, that doesn't leave some sort of determinism as a  default. And, that, in turn, gets me back to Caruso's thinking.

I think Caruso’s still stuck to a degree (but not necessarily a huge degree) of viewing this issue in terms of polarities.

Finally, as I also noted, consciousness is not a “hard” problem in the sense of David Chalmers. But it is, and will continue to be, a difficult problem, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

As for that "conjunctive mistake"? Theories of ethics are complicated enough, even if we stay on the side of moral realism, without committing philosophical entanglement of mixing them with free will.

That said, to parse out Caruso.

You want to talk about more humanistic justice? Let's set aside free will. Here's my thoughts.

Can we adopt a less all-encompassing pragmatic utilitarianism toward justice? Yes. And we should.

If, without dehumanizing people, retributive justice has at least some value for the person upon whom it’s administered, as well as larger society, to the best our limited, non-Rawlsian point of view can tell, then retributive justice is what we need. (Note that this largely does not describe the current American retributive criminal justice system.)

If retributive justice doesn’t have such value, then we need to do something else.

Simple pragmatism. No particular stance on free will involved.

Does this treat people as “automatons”? I think not. It treats them as persons with some degree of freedom. On a free-will oriented stance, it can also lead to them being more conscious about “drivers” of their behavior. On a less free-will stance, it can simply work on those unconscious drivers, while offering the possibility of more, including possible enlightenment of their consciousness.

And that's not all. Caruso could have — and should have — brought in Daniel Kahnemann's "fast" vs. "slow" thinking into the issue. Even without tying it directly to free will, it would directly tie to issues of degrees of consciousness. But, it didn't.

Back to the logical disjunction. It's possible that some varieties of free will might be MUCH more averse to retributive justice than might a quasi-determinism. Any sort of theory of free will that sees free will as something evolving would likely favor a theory of justice that aided that evolution, even with cases like criminal behavior. Per my "dehumanizing" notes above, that's that type of free will.

And, as for Caruso's case for free will being an illusion, in essence for committing to some broad variety of determinism, beyond my issue-by-issue, action-by-action partial psychological determinism? Per a good (well, decent) review of his book on the subject, I think I'm far from alone in finding him wanting, even if it's for other grounds, and beyond those, of the review. That said, the reviewer is Jonathan MS Pearce with all that entails. In addition, I disagree with his take on Wegner. Pearce cites Alfred Mele saying he had disproven scientists who claim they have proven free will is an illusion.  I had much more written here, but decided to extract it into a separate post about Mele, who I find wanting.

So, Caruso can claim until the cows come home that retributive justice, and a desire for it, are based on free-will stances on volition. He'll still be wrong.

And, yes, he writes a lot about free will. So, I'm not sure if he thinks attacking retributive justice — his claims aside — is a winning "move" because it will appeal more to liberals, whom secularists are more likely to be, or what.  But, it seems he also has legitimate concerns about retributive justice.

Fine. Write a separate essay about that. And, I would likely love to discuss it with you.

As for engaging with, or not, the idea that belief in free will could be harmful to society?

First, the shorter answer, as I Tweeted Caruso: How would one even begin to try to scientifically prove such a claim? Surveys would offer correlation evidence, of course, and might point to causation. But that's not guaranteed.

Second, you cite what you do note as "a few studies," while noting that they're limited in what they indicated, but not noting whether they wrestle with either of the two issues noted above:
1. Distinguishing US conservatives from those elsewhere and
2. Looking at how belief in free will may affect liberals' thoughts.

Third, a belief in the existence of free will is about as much like the actual existence of free will as belief in Santa or Jesus is the same as actual existence of Jesus or Santa. If Caruso can't differentiate between the two, or ...

If THAT is his premise for claiming a logical connection between free will and theories of justice, that it's actually some connection between a BELIEF in free will and theories of justice, then I don't want to go further down a rabbit hole about making assumptions to clarify his thinking, assumptions which he might reject even though they seem true.

That said, per that principle of charity, I think that's what Caruso is trying to argue. He may have a point.

Let's assume that we can do research, and ignoring liberal/conservative issues to start, we just confirm that, for society in general, in the US and elsewhere, that a belief in free will leads to a belief in the efficacy of retributive justice.

Let us say that criminology studies show retributive justice in general is not efficacious, and generally becomes less efficacious the more harsh it is.

We can then discuss this in terms of ethics, and relatedly, in terms of political philosophy.

Perhaps Caruso will actually wend his way to that in final comments, or maybe will be given an opportunity by Massimo Pigliucci to write a third essay that comports with my charitable interpretation of his first and second ones.

As for the rest of what's actually in his two essays?

I would say, or write an essay on issues in volition, but ...

On my "mu," not just with Caruso but in general, I'm at the point where I think we should just stop talking about free will for, oh, about another century or so.

 

Finally, authors responding to reviews on Goodreads is bad enough and usually a sign of being butt-hurt by a bad review. Reviewing your own book, as Caruso does?  I've never before seen this, and consider it highly un-kosher. Perhaps not as bad in one sense, but worse in another, is that it's just copy-pasting literary reviews.

Seriously.

Cognitive neuroscience in particular, and science of mind in general, isn't going to move from the Early Bronze Age into the Iron Age for at least that long, and it's ridiculous, ultimately, to talk about issues of volition, and theories of them, before then.