Alan Kirk vs David Litwa on searching for the historic Jesus

 I have vague familiarity with Litwa, and per a not bad question about him and actually good response on this post at r/AcademicBiblical, I have some thoughts on Alan Kirk's review of Litwa's "How the Gospels Became History."

I do NOT think Kirk has the better of Litwa, but that's not the only thing involved.

First, my familiarity with Litwa is not so much directly with him, but with the "bios" school of New Testament, and specifically, gospels, exegesis. As No-Moremon notes in his response, this includes Robyn Faith Walsh and others.

First, contra Kirk, the "bios" idea can be used as a scaffolding around which to construct social memory ideas. That, of course, from my point of view, though, means the scaffolding came first.

Second, on the idea that this discounts conflict between Judaism and Hellenism? While Kirk may be right that at times, Litwa strains on finding specific Hellenistic parallels rather than mining the Hebrew Bible, Kirk in turn oversells this. Mark portrays a Jesus in conflict with "Herodians" and "Pharisees" and "Sadducees," but not, contra Matthew's Passion-crowd bloodlust, let alone John's "The Jews," is Jesus shown in conflict with the Jews in general.

So this? 

“Hellenistic,” however, describes not so much a cultural homogenization as the fraught cultural encounter of rich national traditions with Greek culture, on a spectrum of assimilation, adaptation, and resistance.

Not so totally so, especially if Kirk thinks Litwa is describing homogenization.

Besides, per Lee Levine's great "Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity: Conflict or Confluence?", the idea that Judaism wouldn't incorporate Hellenistic mythos is simply not true. 

Beyond that, as early as Justin Martyr, Christian leaders acknowledged that the tales about Jesus' virgin birth were like those in the Greek world — only true. Otherwise, Adam Gopnik notes that Elaine Pagels' new book compares early Christians' evolving views about Jesus' post-death to Lubavichers' about Rebbe Menachem Schneerson. Gopnik notes that believe in a Lubavicher Moshiach redivivus would have surged had anything like the Jewish Revolt hit the Lubavicher community. 

But? This is NOT a nod toward Litwa's "bios." Rather, it's Pagels' way of explaining how "rips" in the fabric of memory were restitched. Indeed, from there, Gopnik first pivots to Richard C. Miller, with whom I am unfamiliar, and then Walsh.

And so, why wouldn't the Gospelers use, and adapt, specific bits of Greek legend and myth? There, Pagels at least gets the overhead right. As for any Eastern myth Litwa might say backs the gospels, well, Levine notes that Judaism had been extensively Persianized before this. Emphasis on extensively, in my eyes. Idan Dershowitz, per what he says was originally The Great Famine, not Flood, has tackled this issue in detail.

Third, that said, is Litwa really that new? To riff on D.F. Straus, mentioned by Kirk, is this really that much different than a repackaged θεῖος ἀνήρ theory with a broader background?

And, per personages like Metatron in some of the Jewish apocalyptic literature from Qumran, that idea was not totally alien to Judaism before the gospels, either. Nor, however its theological interpretation is skinned, was the מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה or "angel of the Lord." And, Kirk knows this as well. 

The search for the historical Jesus

Fourth, but not spoken in detail, I think is Kirk's real plaint. And that's that, as noted, Litwa is shutting the door on new searches for the historical Jesus.

And, really, it should be shut.

On the gospels, stand or die on Markan priority or not, whether you're pushing the communal social memory idea of the gospels' writing or not. As I see it, this is in some ways, with the Synoptics, an attempt to work around, or dodge, traditional theories of transmission, as was the push for oral transmission in the 1970s-90s, riffing off the Balkan bards of Parry and Lord. And, in part because social memory can be just as malleable as individual memory, I see it as being not much more likely than oral transmission theory to say anything significantly new about composition of any of the canonical gospels, let along the Synoptics. Oh, and yes, social memory can be that malleable; it starts with the sociology of crowds.

Perhaps Litwa could use more of the traditional 20th-century exegetical forms and methods. Perhaps use new ones, like the social memory idea, without over-leaning on it.

But, accept that you'll never get back further than an author's, or an author and his community's, ideas about the historic Jesus.

Period.

That's for you, and others of like mind, Alan Kirk.

To riff on Bultmann? The Christ of faith is all you can find.

4 strands of biology, sociology, economics, philosophy connect

The four strands? Competitiveness in general, capitalism, Pop Evolutionary Psychology and social Darwinism.

Regular readers know that I’ve recently written about No. 4, including listing one candidate most wouldn’t put there. I’ve regularly written about Pop Ev Psych and its largely unscientific, occasionally pseudoscientific claims; I’ve been wary of it even when less liberal than I am now, so this is not driven by political issues.

I am that liberal, though … left-liberal of a sort for America, at least. So, in various ways, I’ve definitely written about No. 2, capitalism?

No. 1, competitiveness, somewhat ties all the others together.

Evolution by natural selection does involve a degree of competitiveness, to be sure. However, that competitiveness is usually against members of other species, more than members of one’s own species. To the degree there is intraspecific competition, it’s often sexual selection that’s the driver. That said, at the same time, group selection can be a driver for collaboration with other members of the same species.

So, that’s biology. Pop Ev Psych is sociology, primarily in what it says about its adherents. Ditto for social Darwinism (the fourth modern variety of social Darwinism, New Atheism, has many libertarian adherents, and yes, adherents is the right word). Capitalism is obviously a matter of economics.

Philosophy? Trying to extrapolate from the biological basis of and need for competitiveness to the other three gets us to Davie Hume’s famous is-ought distinction. (It’s worth noting that, in my opinion, many people who claim that Hume’s comments on this are misconstrued, misinterpreted, wrongly implied, etc., have personal reasons for stating this; see ox, whose and goring.)

Just because we have to fight to escape a lion (or per the old joke, run faster than a companion also seeking to escape it) doesn’t mean that Wall Street plutocracy, Pop Ev Psych “just so” stories and the beliefs behind them, or the social Darwinism of either New Atheism or old-time religion has to be that way.

Because it doesn’t.

And, this is part of why the American education system is problematic, and not just K-12 education.

I don’t think I am overstating matters when I say 90 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with Hume’s is-ought distinction. And that’s sad. Hume is one of the most “approachable,” largely non-technical, philosophers in modern, or even modern plus ancient, philosophical history.

Are atheists more charitable? Maybe, maybe not

I was kind of sorry to see Skeptic's Dictionary author/editor Bob Carroll to post a link to a site that made that claim on less-than-rigorous evidence.

Atheists, non-believers, secular humanists, skeptics—the whole gamut of the godless have emerged in recent years as inarguably the most generous benefactors on the globe. 

Inarguable, eh? It would be one thing, and possibly bad enough, to say that was an arguable claim. But, to say it's inarguable is even worse. The site goes on.

The current most charitable individuals in the United States, based on “Estimated Lifetime Giving,” are:
1) Warren Buffett (atheist, donated $40.785 billion to “health, education, humanitarian causes”) 2) Bill & Melinda Gates (atheists, donated $27.602 billion to “global health and development, education”) 3) George Soros (atheist, donated $6.936 billion to “open and democratic societies”)
A century ago, one of the USA’s leading philanthropists was Andrew Carnegie, atheist.

Sorry, but, this sounds like cherry-picking. Picking out the top couple of individuals, and noting their religious belief, is different than general research polling. Gates and Buffett are the two richest people in America, as well as being atheists. (If they are. Many "famous atheist" websites either don't have them or list them as agnostic.) Beyond that, and also per the post, there are relatively few "secular" aid charities, so a place like Kiva will likely attract a higher concentration of secularists. It's no big deal for secularists to outraise Christians there. Similar might be true at a place like The Heifer Project.


Arthur Brooks, at Hoover, claims the religious are more charitable even to non-religious charities. However, Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy shoots down his methodology.

Some people like Brooks claim that the religious invest more time in charities, too. Well, religious, or non-religious but moral-based charities (like pro-life groups) expect that. Certainly, explicitly religious groups do.

This all said, the little I can find on this question to "settle" it one way or the other.

Of course, that gets back to the link Bob Carroll posted. Since there is little evidence one way or the other, it's an unsupported claim.

ESPN's Scoop Jackson should move past dime-store sociology

ESPN's resident raceologist claims that reaction to Brett Favre's repeated retirement dances has been nothing compared to fan reaction to LeBron James' "Decision."

Bull. Scoop occasionally has good things to opine, but, more and more, he seems to be playing a character with a shtick. Jason Whitlock has smacked him down far better than I could, but has probably gotten tired of it.

Fact is, Favre never strung Green Bay out the way James did Cleveland. The full-blown retirement dances only came later. Ditto on undercutting coaches.

Is there no racism involved with white reaction to James? Of course not. And, someone like Whitlock would say the same. But, is it the primary driver? No.

As for blacks rallying around James, that's another issue, and arguably a problem itself. Scoop, if you want to move above the dime-store level of sociology of racial issues, try tackling that.

Beyond that, if you'll pardon the pun, race issues in general aren't always black and white; they're certainly not in this case.

Music IS the universal language

Turns out sub-Saharan Africans can pick out the likely emotional state reflected by particular items of Western music, even people who may never have heard such music on a radio before.

That said:
1. The study is small;
2. I’m not sure of the p-value;
3. I’m pretty sure that they weren’t asked to listen to Schoenberg or even more avant-garde items.

What is religion?

I am not going to give you a Webster’s definition, nor a Latin etymology-based one. Instead, based on my own academic experience and insight, I am going to offer one of my own, which will also illustrate why, in contradistinction from many of its adherents, I consider Buddhism a religion.

First, I believe religion arises from the juncture of philosophy, psychology and sociology. Most people could readily see the first two, but sociology? Yes, even for a hermitic monk. Even that monk’s idea of religious expression and devotion were originally developed in a communal setting and out of guidelines developed by a religious community.

Second, looking at the main branches of philosophy, I see religion as being concerned with metaphysics, ethics, epistemology and ontology. Even Buddhism falls into the first area, on a couple of grounds. Karma, as a law, is not a law about material substances, but the metaphysical idea of reincarnation. And, even if Buddhists reject the idea of an individual soul or the collective atman, something metaphysical, that is, something beyond the material world, is believed to be reincarnated. Not that I agree with Paul Tillich’s use of words, but if we want to talk about “ultimate grounds of being,” Buddhism has one, as I see it.

Ethics is obvious. By that, I am not saying that it is the primary, let alone sole, preserve of religions, just that every religion has some ethical focus. It may be minor in some, great in others, but it’s there.

Epistemology? Yes. Every religion is teleological in some way, and its mythos is in part, to riff on Aristotle, an attempt to explain either an efficient or a final cause of things.

Ontology connects with metaphysics as to the nature of what that cause might be, the nature of metaphysical objects, and the nature of anything, be it individual soul or individualized soul or not, the nature of humanity.

And, there is where psychology enters. Psychology in religion is about more than faith in the religious sense of “hope in things unseen.” Rather, it’s about how one orients toward the ultimate object of one’s concern, whether a personal God with a salvific-based resurrection, or moving beyond karma and its rounds of reincarnation to a depersonalized nirvana. As part of that, I can’t think of a major religion that doesn’t have prayer or something roughly analogous to it.