Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- The Zealots and Jesus
- The revolution theory from Reimarus to Brandon
- The date and character of Mark
- Some observations on Tendenzkritik
- Argumentum e silentio
- The Poor and the Zealots
- The opposition between Jesus and Judaism
- Judaeo-Christianity and the Jewish establishment, A.D. 33–66
- A.D. 70 in Christian reflection
- The trial of Jesus in the Acta Pilati
- Christ as brigand in ancient anti-Christian polemic
- Jesus as a political agent in a version of the Josippon
- The Feeding of the Multitude
- The coin of ‘Render unto Caesar …’ (A note on some aspects of Mark 12: 13–17; Matt. 22: 15–22; Luke 20:20–26)
- Render to Caesar
- The Temple tax
- ‘Not peace but a sword’: Matt. 10:34ff; Luke 12: 51ff
- The decision of the Supreme Court to put Jesus to death (John 11:47–57) in its context: tradition and redaction in the Gospel of John
- The ‘triumphal’ entry
- The two swords (Luke 22: 35–38)
- The titulus
- Romans 13
- Biblical criticism criticised: with reference to the Markan report of Jesus's examination before the Sanhedrin
- The political charge against Jesus (Luke 23: 2)
- The trial before Pilate
- ‘His witness is true’: A test of the Johannine claim
- Index of Authors
- Index of References
Argumentum e silentio
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- The Zealots and Jesus
- The revolution theory from Reimarus to Brandon
- The date and character of Mark
- Some observations on Tendenzkritik
- Argumentum e silentio
- The Poor and the Zealots
- The opposition between Jesus and Judaism
- Judaeo-Christianity and the Jewish establishment, A.D. 33–66
- A.D. 70 in Christian reflection
- The trial of Jesus in the Acta Pilati
- Christ as brigand in ancient anti-Christian polemic
- Jesus as a political agent in a version of the Josippon
- The Feeding of the Multitude
- The coin of ‘Render unto Caesar …’ (A note on some aspects of Mark 12: 13–17; Matt. 22: 15–22; Luke 20:20–26)
- Render to Caesar
- The Temple tax
- ‘Not peace but a sword’: Matt. 10:34ff; Luke 12: 51ff
- The decision of the Supreme Court to put Jesus to death (John 11:47–57) in its context: tradition and redaction in the Gospel of John
- The ‘triumphal’ entry
- The two swords (Luke 22: 35–38)
- The titulus
- Romans 13
- Biblical criticism criticised: with reference to the Markan report of Jesus's examination before the Sanhedrin
- The political charge against Jesus (Luke 23: 2)
- The trial before Pilate
- ‘His witness is true’: A test of the Johannine claim
- Index of Authors
- Index of References
Summary
The title of this note might perhaps be better in the plural: argumenta e silentio. It is not only that Dr Brandon draws attention to a number of instances of a surprising silence in the ancient sources, both Jewish and Christian. It must also be noticed that silence can be interpreted in more ways than one, and that different lines of interpretation rely for their force upon a different logic. It is with a brief glance at the different logical principles that we will begin.
First, there is the direct argument, which uses the silence of a witness to cast doubt upon an alleged, or otherwise attested, fact. It may be schematised like this:
(a) X makes no mention of y;
(b) X would surely have known y, if it were true;
(c) he would surely have mentioned y;
y is not true.
This is the argumentum e silentio proper, and it is to this class that the chief arguments to be examined belong.
But secondly, there is also the reverse argument, which uses an alleged or agreed fact to cast doubt upon the integrity of a witness who is silent about it. In schematic form it runs like this:
(a) X makes no mention of y;
(b) and X must surely have known y;
(c) and he ought surely to have mentioned it; therefore,
(d) since y is a well-attested fact, or well-established inference, his silence is due to deliberate concealment.
Both the direct and the reverse argument are in principle sound. Whether in practice they will carry conviction will depend on the soundness of the individual links, (a), (b), (c) and (d).
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- Jesus and the Politics of his Day , pp. 101 - 108Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1984