Much Ado about Nothing?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Steve J said:

I have talked to Mr. McGuire multiple times on various issues and he has always been patient in explaining his knowledge and views. Your view based on this one interaction is not a real representation of his willingness to help explain is answers to questions.

Totally agree with this.

[Danzo]

40 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

I agree. Explaining things clearly is hard work, though. So it's one thing to explain things to paying clients during your workday, and another to explain things to people on the Internet for free in your spare time. If you don't have the energy to work hard for nothing like that, then of course you could just let someone be Wrong On The Internet; but academics often care personally about their subjects in ways that tax advisors might perhaps not, and find it harder to just leave the topic alone. 

Also, people don't always politely ask for your expert explanation; often instead they declare some amateur verdict of their own as if it were the obvious truth. Would you still be patient with someone whose declared opinion was that the US tax code is transparently simple? It would be understandable if you got a bit snarky, because this opinion also casually implies that your whole profession is a scam. Some amateur views on academic subjects aren't far from that.

The other thing to bear in mind is that academic expertise is a high mountain, and even earning a PhD is really still just the foothills. Providing instant clarity to lay people is a legitimate expectation for the top experts, but it may well take a top expert to do it. Someone who is still working on getting there may be sure they are right about something, and also actually be right, but not be able to explain quickly and convincingly why they are right.

 

I usually prefer to let people be Wrong on the Internet, but if I decide to chip in, I usually try to offer an explanation as to what I think the correct answer is and why I think that way.   I don't expect to respected just because who I am or the Initials that I put after my name.

Academic expertise may be a high mountain, but what good does it do if you can come down off of it to engage with  us.  Those higher up should be trying to lift people up, show them new views, not push them down for not having got there yet.

 

[Danzo]

2 hours ago, Steve J said:

I have talked to Mr. McGuire multiple times on various issues and he has always been patient in explaining his knowledge and views. Your view based on this one interaction is not a real representation of his willingness to help explain is answers to questions.

I am sure that my view is not representative of everything Mr McGuire does.  I don't know him, I am sure he is a fine person who knows his stuff. In reading this very fascinating topic,  I am much more interested what he knows than why people who disagree with him are wrong.

 

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

It feels far more like frustration, arrogance and condescension to say something like "higher critics don't believe in the possibility of prophecy and revelation" while alluding to Bokovoy.  It's just false.  I dont' get the need to tell us what another believes when it doesn't seem like you have a very good grasp on where that other comes from.  To me it sounds like your participation has been one of frustration, arrogance, and condescension. 

Instead of saying "Its Just False" (which it very well may be), I wish a counter example could be given.   Perhaps an example of someone who believes in prophecy and the Higher Criticism and how they get meaning from both.

[clarkgoble]

1 minute ago, Danzo said:

Instead of saying "Its Just False" (which it very well may be), I wish a counter example could be given.   Perhaps an example of someone who believes in prophecy and the Higher Criticism and how they get meaning from both.

Isn't the obvious example the extensive analysis of Nephi and company in terms of the evolution of Jewish religion as outlined by the documentary hypothesis. If you go to The Interpreter you'll find a lot of analysis of the Book of Mormon presuming the tensions between the deuteronomist and what was perceived as Lehi's tradition.

Higher Criticism in abstract is of course hard to deal with. The bigger question are the actual particular arguments since there are really weak arguments using it and really good ones. I tend to think that the strength of the arguments in general is overstated, but it's also the case that people make compelling points.

[Danzo]

5 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Isn't the obvious example the extensive analysis of Nephi and company in terms of the evolution of Jewish religion as outlined by the documentary hypothesis. If you go to The Interpreter you'll find a lot of analysis of the Book of Mormon presuming the tensions between the deuteronomist and what was perceived as Lehi's tradition.

Higher Criticism in abstract is of course hard to deal with. The bigger question are the actual particular arguments since there are really weak arguments using it and really good ones. I tend to think that the strength of the arguments in general is overstated, but it's also the case that people make compelling points.

Can you link to the article? I do find these things fascinating.  It doesn't really bother me if Isaiah was a person or a writing committee (Maybe both). I love to get more context.  I find a high value in the writings of Isaiah (s?), but I am most interested in how they apply in my life.  I highly doubt the original Isaiah(s?) intended their writings to be read in the same way I read them.  

[clarkgoble]

24 minutes ago, Danzo said:

Can you link to the article? I do find these things fascinating.  It doesn't really bother me if Isaiah was a person or a writing committee (Maybe both). I love to get more context.  I find a high value in the writings of Isaiah (s?), but I am most interested in how they apply in my life.  I highly doubt the original Isaiah(s?) intended their writings to be read in the same way I read them.  

Just search for deuteronomist at the Interpreter. Lots of papers.

[Danzo]

6 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Just search for deuteronomist at the Interpreter. Lots of papers.

thanks

[Physics Guy]

10 hours ago, Danzo said:

I don't expect to respected just because who I am or the Initials that I put after my name.

And that's absolutely right. If science needed authority, science wouldn't deserve it. But in the arrogant academic posts that I've seen on the internet, people aren't usually proclaiming their own personal authority. They're usually thumping the table for the authority of their field as a whole. That's still not ideal, but it's not just demanding respect for their postnominal letters.

Quote

Academic expertise may be a high mountain, but what good does it do if you can come down off of it to engage with  us.  Those higher up should be trying to lift people up, show them new views, not push them down for not having got there yet.

I meant the mountain metaphor differently. The people who aren't yet that close to the top are not able to lift people up to their level, because lifting other people is a really high skill. Maybe a better metaphor than mountain climbing would be swimming. It's one thing to be a competent swimmer, and another to be a lifesaver who can quickly haul the drowning to shore.

[Benjamin McGuire]

I will be the first to admit that literary theory and higher criticism can be a difficult topic. It has its own 'language' which is often technical, and sometimes requires definitions of things that seem on the surface to be quite simple and straightforward. Part of it is because it requires people to often think about and look at texts in ways that are not really intuitive. Part of it comes because these disciplines force us to confront questions about the fundamental nature of texts and how we understand them.

The hot button issue for me is this idea that Rongo mentions more than once (and Lloyd supports) that " ... higher critics don't believe in the possibility of prophecy and revelation. That is what lies at the heart of those who question the authorship of Isaiah --- he made prophecies about things that happened centuries after he lived, so those items had to have been written by contemporaries. The arguments starts there with that assumption and branch out from there ---- focusing inordinately on style, given that assumption."

Why does this rub me the wrong way? Higher criticism (and literary theory more generally) is applied to all literature across every genre. The area where these kinds of issues might come up only occurs for a genre of scripture or revelation. And these represent a tiny portion of the literature that engages and uses higher criticism. There is an irony in this thread in that the question of the authorship of Shakespearean plays (including Much Ado About Nothing) is usually done using these tools (I also have a collection of Shakespearean literature). And yet, not only is there no need to worry about revelation and prophecy in this sort of analysis, it would seem out of place to engage these ideas in that context. Higher criticism is largely agnostic to these questions.

I noted in this thread that one way that many LDS use to deal with this question (Isaiah) who accept this kind of analysis of the text they often deal with this question of revelation and prophecy simply by changing the dates. And while matching history up to events listed in  text as a way of managing the date of a text is an area where the question of revelation and prophecy might change outcomes, this shouldn't be equated with higher criticism (which isn't nearly as interested with connecting a text to historically datable events.

You could, of course, argue that as a whole, scriptural texts are fundamentally different from other texts. And so the rules of higher criticism simply don't apply. But then we are left with a rather subjective assessment of what should be considered scripture and what shouldn't. And I don't see anything of that sort going on here (that is, itself, a potentially interesting question). But, if the tools of higher criticism work well for things like Shakespeare, they should also work well for things like the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Old Testament.

The reality is that current thought using higher criticsm finds multiple authorship layers in Isaiah because of the way that the text of Isaiah interacts with other texts and with itself. And this has far, far less to do with any sense of making prophecies centuries before things happen than Rongo suggests. So how do these ideas raised by Rongo actually engage what scholars using higher criticism are arguing?

So, this is what I confront when I read a thread like this. And my goal is to force the confrontation over what we are really talking about. These generalizations and caricatures aren't actually getting to the discussion that would be relevant.

[rongo]

Benjamin:

An honest and sincere question here.

Can you think of any examples of successful predictive prophecy in Bible texts that are borne out through the tools and methodologies of textual criticism to be in the original (i.e., not interpolations or additions of later redactors or unknown authors)?

In other words, does it happen that each and every instance of predictive prophecy in Bible texts ends up being disallowed as having originated with the "proto"-prophet?

[hope_for_things]

18 minutes ago, rongo said:

Benjamin:

An honest and sincere question here.

Can you think of any examples of successful predictive prophecy in Bible texts that are borne out through the tools and methodologies of textual criticism to be in the original (i.e., not interpolations or additions of later redactors or unknown authors)?

In other words, does it happen that each and every instance of predictive prophecy in Bible texts ends up being disallowed as having originated with the "proto"-prophet?

Ahh, here's the litmus test.  Rongo, will you follow the evidence where it leads or will you just stick with your currant bias?   

[rongo]

16 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Ahh, here's the litmus test.  Rongo, will you follow the evidence where it leads or will you just stick with your currant bias?   

I'll follow where it leads. My interpretation of the data may differ from others', but if this is the case, they shouldn't complain that I didn't do it in good faith, or that I did it wrong. Right? Wouldn't *that* be insisting on a pre-determined outcome?

I'm trying to see if my assumption is correct that those who insist that one's belief in the reality of revelation plays no role in the scientific analysis of texts are unable to name any examples of successful prophecy in Bible texts (after authorship layers from later strata are peeled off). I would be thrilled to learn that my assumption is mistaken.

Edited September 14, 2017 by rongo

[rongo]

27 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Ahh, here's the litmus test.  Rongo, will you follow the evidence where it leads or will you just stick with your currant bias?   

Say, you wouldn't happen to be able to give any examples of validated prophecy in the Bible texts, would you? It's an open question; it's not just for Benjamin.  

[rongo]

17 hours ago, Danzo said:

Instead of saying "Its Just False" (which it very well may be), I wish a counter example could be given.   Perhaps an example of someone who believes in prophecy and the Higher Criticism and how they get meaning from both.

This is kind of what I am asking for. I wonder how many statements of this sort are on record, and what, exactly, such statements are like. 

I would be thrilled to find such statements outside of the Church. I would also be very interested in such statements from Mormon scholars who both hold to multiple authorship of Isaiah and valid predictive prophecy from Bible prophets.

I know that LDS multiple authorship proponents take great umbrage at the charge that denial of prophecy lies at the heart of their acceptance of the theory. They insist that it is where the evidence leads, and that they are clinically agnostic on that question as they objectively apply their tools and methodologies to texts. But, notice again (using Bokovoy's explanation I quoted as an example ---- I find that it is representative) how uncomfortable and awkward they are trying to explain to an LDS audience that denial of the possibility of prophecy isn't a factor.

It is true that scholars who take a historical approach to the Bible cannot rely upon miracles to recreate what happened in the distant past . . . And it would be a miracle if a prophet in the 8^th century BCE saw into the future and predicted the very name Cyrus, the man who would liberate the exilic community in 538 BCE.

By definition, a miracle is the least likely thing to have happened in the past, and the nature of the historian’s craft is to identify the most likely thing that happened based upon the evidence. But it is misleading to suggest that scholars identify Isaiah 40-66 as a postexilic addition simply because they do not believe in prophecy. In reality, we have considerable evidence to support this position that Jackson’s essay fails to address . . . Scholars do not simply date this passage to the exilic era because they reject the possibility that the historical Isaiah could have correctly predicted this event . . . It’s wrong to leave LDS readers with the impression that scholars date Isaiah 40-66 the way they do simply because critical historians reject prophecy . . . Jackson’s essay wrongfully gives readers the impression that the mainstream consensus is determined solely by the fact that critical scholars reject prophecy and that there is a unique literary feel to 40-66 different from the rest of the book

actor. That's why it occurred to me to ask LDS who think that questioning multiple authorship  is tantamount to being a flat-earther if they can think of any examples of prophecy that survive the tools and methodologies. 

 

[stemelbow]

3 minutes ago, rongo said:

This is kind of what I am asking for. I wonder how many statements of this sort are on record, and what, exactly, such statements are like. 

I would be thrilled to find such statements outside of the Church. I would also be very interested in such statements from Mormon scholars who both hold to multiple authorship of Isaiah and valid predictive prophecy from Bible prophets.

I know that LDS multiple authorship proponents take great umbrage at the charge that denial of prophecy lies at the heart of their acceptance of the theory. They insist that it is where the evidence leads, and that they are clinically agnostic on that question as they objectively apply their tools and methodologies to texts. But, notice again (using Bokovoy's explanation I quoted as an example ---- I find that it is representative) how uncomfortable and awkward they are trying to explain to an LDS audience that denial of the possibility of prophecy isn't a factor.

 

 

There's no reason to do this backwards.  You made the claim of those not accepting revelation and prophecy.  I personally make room that anyone who accepts any theory can also accept prophecy and revelation.  The problem you have is, of course, you must assume a very narrow idea of prophecy and revelation and if one rejects your view they reject any possibility of prophecy and revelation.    It's your claim.  You must argue for it, else it is easily rejected.

[Danzo]

8 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

There's no reason to do this backwards.  You made the claim of those not accepting revelation and prophecy.  I personally make room that anyone who accepts any theory can also accept prophecy and revelation.  The problem you have is, of course, you must assume a very narrow idea of prophecy and revelation and if one rejects your view they reject any possibility of prophecy and revelation.    It's your claim.  You must argue for it, else it is easily rejected.

So you can't give any counterexamples . . .

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I'll follow where it leads. My interpretation of the data may differ from others', but if this is the case, they shouldn't complain that I didn't do it in good faith, or that I did it wrong. Right? Wouldn't *that* be insisting on a pre-determined outcome?

I'm trying to see if my assumption is correct that those who insist that one's belief in the reality of revelation plays no role in the scientific analysis of texts are unable to name any examples of successful prophecy in Bible texts (after authorship layers from later strata are peeled off). I would be thrilled to learn that my assumption is mistaken.

Have you ever read any of the prophecies of Nostradamus?  How is scholarship supposed to "validate prophecy" when the text can be interpreted so many different ways for so many different events.  I can't think of anything in the Bible that is specific enough of a prophecy that it could be validated or invalidated by science.  The text is vague enough to allow for multiple interpretations many of which the original authors never even imagined when they wrote the text, including a belief in prophetic utterance, whatever that means.  

Can you think of any prophecies that are specific enough to be tested for validity from a scholarly perspective? 

[Benjamin McGuire]

There is always the concern over interpretation, right? That's your issue of "successful". But, I think that for your question, and sticking with Isaiah, then Isaiah 8:4 would probably be a good example. The events in Isaiah 8:4 (and really the entire sequence there) would seem to have been fulfilled in the 733-732 campaign of Tiglath-Pileser III.

This example is good for a number of reasons though. Depending on how you want to deal with the change to Isaiah 9:1 made in 2 Nephi 19:1, you might understand this as referring to entirely different events. So, prophecy and the question of its 'successful' resolution is always dependent to some extent on interpretation which can be illustrated here.

[mfbukowski]

If God can tell one individual something, directly, word for word, logically why does that limit him from telling multiple people the same thing?

I am not a scholar in this area by any means and have no interest in being one, but I fail to understand the problem I guess.

Not only are there multiple ways of interpreting prophecies, there are multiple belief systems about what constitutes "prophecy" in the first place, and what would constitute "evidence" for confirming the alleged "prophecy"

Bringing it to our day, if someone says that Trump will be impeached, would it constitute a "prophecy" if it came true?   What if multiple people also "prophesied" the same thing?

Is that evidence that God spoke to any or all of them?

Trying to come up with a rational explanation of all this is a quagmire and I am not sure I see the purpose of trying.

[Physics Guy]

Never mind modern-day validation of prophecies. Are there any confirmed historical cases in which people were saved from something bad because they acted in response to a previous prophecy? That would be the smoking gun, after all. Conversely if there are no such cases, in all the history of prophecy, that rather suggests that no unambiguous prophecy was ever made in advance. And a genuine prophecy which could have saved people but was too obscurely worded to understand at the time would only be a cruel joke—in character perhaps for Apollo, but not for any God I could worship.

For example it has been alleged that Christians escaped the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE because they remembered Jesus's prophecy from Matthew 24. I couldn't remember where I had heard of this, so I googled it, and the top relevant hit was this lds.org page by George A Horton, Jr. The original was an Ensign article from 1989.

The authority Horton cites for the alleged fact of mass Christian escape is a book published in 1842—a translation of some early church historians that appears to be available now online. The passage cited seems to be on page 105 in this online edition, not 110 as cited by Horton, but it is in the short chapter 5 of Book III, as Horton indicates with "(3:5)". Having tracked down this source, it turns out that the document is in fact a translation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. Eusebius covered the years up to 324 CE, and he presented his work as history rather than prophecy, so it can be dated without much dispute. He was writing a couple of centuries after the siege of Jerusalem. How accurate was he about events long before his own time? I'm not sure anyone knows. Eusebius does not cite any sources. His book appears to be the oldest work to address this purported event of Christians fleeing Jerusalem in response to prophecy. I suspect that any later mentions of this alleged prophetic episode will turn out refer back to him.

So. I can't really count this as a clear win for prophecy. If you already believe in prophecy, you may believe Eusebius; if you don't, Eusebius probably isn't compelling. 

Any other examples?

Edited September 14, 2017 by Physics Guy

[stemelbow]

15 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

Never mind modern-day validation of prophecies. Are there any confirmed historical cases in which people were saved from something bad because they acted in response to a previous prophecy? That would be the smoking gun, after all. Conversely if there are no such cases, in all the history of prophecy, that rather suggests that no unambiguous prophecy was ever made in advance. And a genuine prophecy which could have saved people but was too obscurely worded to understand at the time would only be a cruel joke—in character perhaps for Apollo, but not for any God I could worship.

For example it has been alleged that Christians escaped the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE because they remembered Jesus's prophecy from Matthew 24. I couldn't remember where I had heard of this, so I googled it, and the top relevant hit was this lds.org page by George A Horton, Jr. The original was an Ensign article from 1989.

The authority Horton cites for the alleged fact of mass Christian escape is a book published in 1842—a translation of some early church historians that appears to be available now online. The passage cited seems to be on page 105 in this online edition, not 110 as cited by Horton, but it is in the short chapter 5 of Book III, as Horton indicates with "(3:5)". Having tracked down this source, it turns out that the document is in fact a translation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. Eusebius covered the years up to 324 CE, and he presented his work as history rather than prophecy, so it can be dated without much dispute. He was writing a couple of centuries after the siege of Jerusalem. How accurate was he about events long before his own time? I'm not sure anyone knows. Eusebius does not cite any sources. His book appears to be the oldest work to address this purported event of Christians fleeing Jerusalem in response to prophecy. I suspect that any later mentions of this alleged prophetic episode will turn out refer back to him.

So. I can't really count this as a clear win for prophecy. If you already believe in prophecy, you may believe Eusebius; if you don't, Eusebius probably isn't compelling. 

Any other examples?

Predictive prophesies sure sound great when the prophecies are written after the event.  Matthew was likely written after 70 CE. 

[Benjamin McGuire]

mfbukowski,

There is this series of unspoken issues in the question that Rongo asks. Rongo understands that for most academics, there is a generally broader acceptance of "prophecies" that never come true as having been real predictions, because, of course, no one writes about a prophecy that never happened after the time frame in which it was supposed to have happened (this isn't necessarily always true, but it makes for a good general rule). But, this doesn't preclude scholars from believing that there are actual predictions made which also come true. And Isaiah 8:4 (along with the surrounding predictions) is an example of this. This idea that there are both true and false predictions fits well into a perspective of agnosticism (in terms of faith). There isn't any reason to believe that prophets always get things wrong any more than there is a reason to believe that they always get them right. So there isn't any real controversy over this - and we can find examples where generally scholars have no problem with the idea of predictions coming true. And in Isaiah 8:4, the time frame is short, it is given as a sign, and this fits well into the pattern of prophecy that we see in Israel and in the surrounding culture at that time period. And the text isn't trying to make a larger statement out of it - it doesn't play into some larger rhetorical strategy that isn't entirely in line with the obvious context.

The reason why this is of interest in this context is that by the time we get to Isaiah 10-11, the focus has shifted to Messianic related ideas. And there is this push in early Christianity to reinterpret the text of Isaiah 8-9 into that Messianic context. Which is the appropriate interpretation? Once we get to that question, we end up with a lot of potential views. How do we understand revelation and prophecy? I note in passing that anyone who has read a lot of science fiction and fantasy will recognize that this is actually a thread that runs through our popular consciousness. Dune by Frank Herbert? The whole series of the Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind? The prophecies in the Harry Potter series? We actually do have a fascination with some of this (and you probably get the idea).

To get to the point of your last comments mfbukowski, I personally think that there is value for us (as individuals) to come to terms with how we understand these issues, although I don't think that there will be any sort of larger consensus reached over how this all works. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is to compare it to our ongoing decades long discussion of the translation of the Book of Mormon. Does a prophet simply receive revelation (tight control) more or less as nothing more than a reader of the text? In this case, the prophet himself isn't necessarily any better at understanding the revelation than any one else. Is the revelation filtered through a prophet so that he comes an active participant, and determines the language that is used? In this case, his interpretation is far more significant. Believers all have some assumptions (whether they recognize them or not) about how this works - and they read with those assumptions. I think it is far better that we become aware of these assumptions that we read with (even if this doesn't change them), so that we can understand why we read the way we do, and why others read things differently. And I think that this helps create rational explanations (even if we end up being wrong on some points), and it helps us see the way that others read as all being rational (given the assumptions they start with).

Of course, this creates the sort of literary pluralism that drives some people completely nuts ...

[clarkgoble]

36 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

So. I can't really count this as a clear win for prophecy. If you already believe in prophecy, you may believe Eusebius; if you don't, Eusebius probably isn't compelling. 

As you note Horton wasn't really engaging with the scholarship. The wikipedia links to an article "The Jewish Christians' Move from Jerusalem as a Pragmatic Choice" that does a nice job summarizing the arguments. As you note, there's really not a lot of evidence for this beyond a vague "well he lived in the area and so would know the traditions there." 

The main issue though is the prophecy and most scholars assume Mark 13:14-18 is prior to 70 AD. That leads some to assume this refers to an earlier event with Matthew and Luke reworking Mark after the destruction had happened. The main argument against the flight to Pella thus ends up being that Matthew doesn't mention it. Although if people just stayed out of the area because of the earlier statements recounted in Mark that too would not constitute fleeing as a group.

As for other examples, I can't think of anything that is for a large group. You hear individuals claiming personal revelation helping them avoid harm regularly. But a prophet to the people seems a bit more rare. 

[strappinglad]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Bringing it to our day, if someone says that Trump will be impeached, would it constitute a "prophecy" if it came true?   What if multiple people also "prophesied" the same thing?

On the other hand , had someone non- political said in 1990 that in 2016 Trump would be elected POTUS and within a year be impeached, we would have a much better example of a ' prophecy '. To state impeachment in the current atmosphere is less prophetic, in my opinion.