1 Corinthians 15:3-11 is probably not original anyway:

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=258207&highlight=corinthians

but note the logical error of the quote. Fake Paul (late 1st century) only claims witnesses to a resurrected Jesus and NOT to a crucifixion. This indicates that well after Paul, there was still no claim of historical witness to the crucifixion or claim of witnesses to a resurrection sighting narrative = because “Mark”, the original Gospel narrative (with post resurrection sighting) had not yet been written. The purpose of “Mark” is not to assert that there was historical witness to the crucifixion but to assert that historical witness REJECTED the crucifixion. This may mean that historical witness accepted that Jesus was crucified but rejected any theological acceptance or it may mean that historical witness denied a historical crucifixion = doubt. That we don’t have anything from historical witness and only have from the Rejectors of historical witness, Paul and “Mark”, suggests the larger problem = no claim of crucifixion by historical witness.

The other problem with Christ’s logic is that assertian of resurrection impeaches credibility and makes the possible claims, such as crucifixion, less likely.

“Mark” also gives a perfectly good reason for Jesus to be executed, the Temple disturbance. If this was historical than Jesus may have been summarily executed by hanging. Would/did Paul interpret a hanging as a crucifixion? Does a Bar take a peshitta to read in the woods?

Joseph

One of the witnesses to which you refer, one of the twelve, even says that some of his fellows doubted when they appeared to see the resurrected Jesus.

Perhaps that is what this is truly about. Reality stares us in the face each day when we face who we truly are inside. If this form of intellectual silliness is what you need to massage the fear of our inner selves, then so be it. But let’s not pretend they are solid arguments.

This article is silly at best.

Another by R Joseph Hoffmann is The Death of the Jesus Project

Another on the death of the Jesus Project on Freeratio discussion board, Doherty on the Demise of the Jesus Project.

(This is different from Funk’s description of it. Funk would apply it when there is no other reason to mention something and that to mention it would be embarrassing. Some might wonder if a person goes out of their way to proclaim data that is damaging to their cause and themselves has a problem that goes beyond mere embarrassment. Best to ask if X is mentioned for a theological reason not entirely clear to us today and see how we might test such an idea.)

If indeed this — the fact that a damaging fact is too well known to be avoided — were the reason for the evangelists to narrate a version of, say, the baptism of Jesus, one would surely expect to see reference to the event (portrayed in different hues) beyond the gospel sources.

If, to continue the example of baptism, Jesus’ baptism had been so well known as a fact that evangelists could not avoid addressing it even if only sideways (e.g. Luke and John) then we have an additional problem: why Paul, when discussing baptism at length, made not a whisper of it. A common argument in the case of Paul is that X was so well known that there was no need for him to mention it. But when we want to apply the criterion of embarrassment to the baptism, we are arguing that it was too well known to be avoided!

Or if we bring the example back to the women witnesses, we are again in a double-bind: the gospels cannot avoid narrating the event, indeed must deal with it because it is so widely known and to avoid it would be leave them vulnerable to enemy fire; while Paul finds reason to avoid a whisper about them when discussing his resurrection appearances.

Or we can do a Bauckham and create a unique rule to explain each varying instance — embarrassment can explain NOT mentioning X when hypothetical A applies and it can explain times when we DO mention X when hypothetical B applies.

The simplest solution is to ditch the criterion as a pillar of historicity and keep the psychological state reserved for the way a tale is told if told at all, not the fact of telling it.

Or if we stick with Funk’s notion of it, then it is even less of a guarantee of historicity. To say that someone would only mention X if it really happened if that X were embarrassing and there were no other reason to bring it up is a very negative “criterion”. It leaves open the question of motive — why would someone publicize something that is an embarrassment to them? Just the “fact” of it being “true” is not a reason, let alone the only possible reason. We have learned enough since Freud to know how creative and self-deceptive the mind can be.

No, we are on unstable ground if we attempt to divine the mind and feelings of an author we do not know, writing at a time and place we do not know, and for an audience and in circumstances we can only hypothesize.

Sheesh, I’m beginning to write a whole new article! I’m embarrassed. Better stop.

On the other hand, if all you have is a single account of a fantastical event without the ability to corroborate any of the details, I don’t see how embarrassment could ever be a sufficient basis to determine historicity. Without a well-defined context, it seems impossible to weigh the potential embarrassment against all the other reasons the author might have had for telling the story the way he did.

John 4:39 ‘Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

And, who would believe a women’s testimony given that their reaction to seeing an empty tomb was to claim that somebody had moved the body!

Idiots! Thank God a man was there to examine the evidence and come to a more sensible conclusion.

In fact Jesus himself had to correct the testimony of a woman.

Many Australians were for a long time embarrassed by their convict past, and for many years schools taught that the typical original convict was guilty of no more than stealing half a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, etc. (I never learned of Irish “rebels” or violent criminals and extortioners among them until years after leaving school.) Some families once attempted to hide their convict ancestry.

Embarrassment affects the way events are told, the slant put on them, and to whom they apply etc, but it does not follow that embarrassment is “evidence” that Australia had convict beginnings. Embarrassment can be occasioned as much over misinformation, a myth, a theological metaphor, as a fact.

Some Australian historians claim, for example, that national embarrassment over genocidal massacres of aborigines is misplaced since such events did not happen, and are the product of very vivid imaginations greatly exaggerating a few suspicions or a few relatively minor and misinterpreted isolated cases.

If their denial is itself an embarrassed testimony to the fact of aboriginal massacres, then the criterion makes a claim unfalsifiable.

Your Posts are well Researched and supported by proper Links.

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Continue your Good Work.

I think that the logic behind the criteria of embarrassment is reasonably sound, but it can’t be enough to simply postulate a reason why a particular story element might be embarrassing without weighing that against the extent to which the element might support the author’s narrative purpose. I don’t personally think that the legal admissibility of women’s testimony was terribly relevant to Mark’s literary purposes, however, if it were, I think it provides as much incentive as deterrent to having the women first on the scene.