Johannes wrote:Kish, a couple of things. First, I wouldn't associate this fellow Licona's musings on Caesar's assassination with "New Testament scholars". THis is the sort of thing that you encounter in pop apologetics, not in serious mainstream scholarship.
Maybe not this error in particular, but I am accustomed to hearing errors in Roman history from New Testament scholars, for example, at SBL and elsewhere. It’s not their area, so I don’t expect perfection. Honestly, I wish this were more surprising than it is. Doubtless some scholars are much sharper than others. But I think you may be defending with the best in mind whereas I am criticizing with the average in mind.
Johannes wrote:Second, you might be interested to know that Christian scholars in the past have grappled, with some degree of sophistication, with your point about biblical and pagan miracle stories. (I make this point not because I'm interested in asserting a case for the historicity of miracles, but because it's interesting from the perspective of intellectual history.) Luke Hooke wrote on this at some length in the 18th century, and from memory I think he mentioned the Vespasian stories explicitly. John Henry Newman also wrote about them in the 19th century.
That is interesting. Not surprising really, especially given the polemics associated with competing miracle stories in antiquity. In my view pagan miracle stories are an insuperable problem for people who argue for the historical reality of the miracles of Jesus, unless you theologize pagan miracles in a way that is consistent with Christian belief. But once that move is made, no one but Christians will/should take the argument seriously.
Still, I have no problem treating the performance of acts perceived as miracles, just as people today interpret phenomena as miraculous. And, I don’t think this is something to be ridiculed. Seeing the Virgin Mary in panes of glass on the side of an office building is serious for believers. I just don’t think it is my business as a historian to adopt the beliefs of the people involved in the events I study.
Johannes wrote:THere was also an Italian historian called Ettore Pais who argued (with great erudition) that several centuries of early Roman history were entirely fabricated.
That is plausible, actually. Obviously the period of the monarchy is highly problematic. There’s the first 150 years. There are big questions about the consular fasti at least from 509 to 390. There’s another 120 years. Running total: 270. Fabius Pictor wrote the first history of Rome at the end of the third century.
Now some scholars accept the consular fasti as generally reliable. It would not be too surprising to find that there was a ruler named Tarquinius. The Twelve Tables are another early marker in Roman history. I think one can be overly skeptical about pre-4th-century Roman history. Still, it is difficult to know much beyond the archaeology for the first several centuries with any certainty, in my opinion.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist