The Resurrection of Jesus: Part 1
Michael Licona took on the daunting task of approaching the resurrection of Jesus in a refreshing way. His book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, takes on the task that many scholars dream to tackle yet very often the task swallows the researcher up in a myriad of unanswered questions and dead ends. Here through a series of posts I am going to critically review his new work and determine whether he too became one of many swallowed up by this daunting task. Licona’s first chapter, rightly named, “Important Considerations on Historical Inquiry Pertaining to the Truth in Ancient Texts,” walks through the many considerations any historian must deal with in trying to come to a conclusion that can go beyond ones bias and rightly figure the correct determination of the fragmented data at hand.
Licona first enlightens readers into understanding the biases one must overcome in order to correctly determine historical outcome of data. All readers, writers, historians, listeners, speakers, and might I dare even say it, scientists come at their work biased. Whether or not that bias controls the outcome of the understanding, writing, historical theory, comprehension, and even scientific data is to be seen. Licona attempts to combat that bias by putting it through a series of checks and balances to identify if the bias has determined the outcome. Refreshingly Licona admits that no matter how hard one may try, the outcome will be slightly influenced. So Licona puts himself through six checks.
1) Simply, or not so simply depending on the grasp of which bias holds on to the ‘researcher,’ one should find themselves reviewing their method. One’s method should be used in the approach to find objectivity. If a method in any way could prove to have traces of subjectivity that method should be thrown out.
2) Both the method and the historian’s “horizon” (their ideological swing on the matter) should be public. When anyone begins to study a subject and write on that subject the matter of both their preconceived idea and how they tend to best it with their method should be pointed out in the writing.
3) Peer pressure as an attempt to hold the researcher to be honest in his approach, knowing that other researchers will peer review their work and judge it based on its objectivity. This can be both a great and horrible persuasion. Since peers of any particular research (especially when it comes to historical Jesus research) can be very broad, peer pressure can only hold to the peers of your particular persuasion. For as we see in debates , by not holding on to the same thoughts as another person, no matter how good the proofs may be, different views often bring people to butting heads on the objectivity of a notion.
4) Yet Licona seems to understand this past flaw by going through the next step on his guidelines to minimizing objectivity. Simply submitting the ideas data and research to those of opposing viewpoints the flaws of the researcher’s theory can be pointed out in which further research may help fill those wholes and bring the researches theory to a more solid case.
5) When coming up with a hypothesis one must view the solid facts already associated with the base of the theory. Licona calls this the historical bedrock of his approach to history. Despite the minority of what would be called ‘post – modern’ historians the majority in academia in history subscribe to the idea that facts can be known in history.
6) Lastly one must actively pursue to detach himself from his bias. This of course comes through practice in one’s own research and can hardly be put on a scale (of course other than through their writings). This may be the hardest of the six guidelines but can be seen as the most important of the six.
Now, of course, in any research but especially in this topic of history, the idea of the burden of proof comes about. Burden of proof has always been a subject in tension especially in historical research. In being open with his method, Licona explains his thought on the burden of proof. For most the idea of burden of proof is as if people are going in circles with who needs to prove what. Yet in historical methodologies one way is evident. When looking at a historical theory, according to Licona (and most of academia in history), the idea of methodical credulity should be how the burden of proof is approached. Simply stated this means that the theory which provides the best information with the least amount of ad hoc and takes best use of the historical understandings with the least amount of speculation. So in a theory, like the Resurrection of Jesus, we would take the theory which has the least amount of speculation and makes the best use of the information that is there. When this is done that theory which does that is the theory that should be taken as correct. From there the burden of proof is laid upon any other theory which would try to overthrow the reigning theory. This of course does cause complications between opposing world-views in the thought of a God who does have a personal interjection with his creation and the thought that he does not or there is no god.
This may throw this idea into quite a conundrum, but doesn’t have too. In any instance the theory that takes best use of the information is the one to be preferred and used. For those holding that God would have a personal hand in our human history the probability of that theory greatly increases. What this holds still has great weight and needs to be processed. Scientific method holds well over historical process yet still lacks some finesse on how this data should be handled.
Now not to cut this short (if you can call this short) but this will be expanded on in future articles. Overall so far this book is well worth the read. For anyone interested in the philosophy of history or the burden of proof this is a must read.
No comments yet.