Reducationism (part 2): Scientific Methodology, Atheist Philosohy, Rhetorical Ploy.

 

 I resume my three part discussion of reductionism as a philosophy and a rhetorical strategy of atheism. Scientific reductionism may, at times, be a valid scientific method, but as a philosophy applied broadly to the whole world reductionism only serves to impose ideological view point of scientism. (see part 1). In this segment I show reductionism as a rhetorical strategy of atheists. I show philosopher Wyne Proudfoot using it to dismiss religious experience as a valid option. I also deal with other issues.

(see also ideology of Scientism part 1)

Reducing Religious Experience:

            Proudfoot makes a certain amount of valid criticism of mystical experience so I wont bother with discussing everything. I want to focus on those aspects where he uses re-labeling, re-describing and losing the phenomena. Losing the Phenomena is a particular tactic of reductionism. It means some behavior or experience will be taken apart and so reduced to the point that it will no reflect the phenomena that makes it what it is. Then the reductionist is able to say “see there’s nothing there.” This essentially what they are doing when they reduce “self actualization” to “getting happy.” They lose the phenomena involved in transformation. A simple version of this is seen above where some reduce a long list of transformative characteristics to “getting happy.” Proudfoot does a much ore complex version of the same thing.  He goes beyond methodological reduction to ideological redicutionism. He begins this by correction of Schleiermacher’s language. This is also an example of re-labeling. One of the aspects of mystical experience is that it is said to be beyond word, thought or image. This is said to be a pure moment where the experience proceeds any attempt to describe it. Of course this must be understood in a particular sense and is probably a misstatement because to say hat one has a sense of the numinous or an all pervasive sense of love, a sense of the divine, one must use words, thoughts and images.  Obviously then the experience is not so entirely beyond such our understanding in once sense, that we can label it in certain ways. But Proudfoot exploits that seeming contradiction then uses the inaccuracy of the original experiencer’s label to pull off a bait and switch. He essentially argues that what we believe about an experience determines the nature of the experience. We can see this in his statement “The belief that a particular moment of consciousness is immediate and prior to all concepts and beliefs may well be constitutive of the experience..”[1] Constitutive would mean that it is made up of more simple concepts tht are used tu build the construct like an edifice, then in tern becomes another building blog in a more complex edifice. That means its’ not just a pure moment of experience but what is being experience is conditioned by prior understanding.

            There is probably some extent to which that is true. Yet we see a bit of a bait and switch here. He didn’t say if the moment is immediate he said if we believe the moment is immediate. He’s changing the idea form the actuality of a pure moment that really be experienced to ideas about experience that we might hold. Perhaps we can’t have a puree movement that is not conditioned in some way, that doesn’t mean that the experience itself can’t contain this aspect that is not expected and that in some way exceeds understanding. He’s not concerned with the actual experience but with losing the phenomena and re-labeling. In other words what we believe about an experience may determine that experience. That may sound valid and probably is in some ways. If we believe going to the Dentist is no big thing we may not amplify the pain in our minds and we may find it less painful than if we dread it and worry and think it a very painful experience. The problem is this gives the impression (and excuse) that any time we experience something of the divine it must be conditioned by expectation and it ignores experiences when they are new, when they are totally unexpected and it ignore reflection upon the past. If all ideas of experience are read back into the memory then there is no memory that is unconditioned by belief. This is not necessarily the case. If we look for ti to be the case or dogmatically assert that it always is then we lose the phenomena because ignore the aspects of those times when it is not. By Proudfoot’s logic we have no experience. We never did love we never did enjoy, we don’t really miss our parents, this is all back reading into a moment that never was. The tactic becomes a means of knocking down the experience of being human and replacing it with an ideology about someone else’s ideas of what being human means. Proudfoot is going to use this bait and switch to wipe out the concept of religious experience completely. In fact he actually will wipe out all experience.

            Proudfoot  re-labels Schleiermacher’s view of emotions and feelings from an honest appraisal to “apologetics.” By re-labeling it in this way he moves it out of the category of an empirical approach to something of which we must be suspicious. He observes that religious experience has come to be associated with a set of experiences that transcend the verbal, according to “some quarters.” He finds that there are two reasons why this is so. One is descriptive, the other apologetic. The descriptive is the need to find commonality among “different experiences we call religious.”  The second reason is to distinguish “religious” experience from other kinds of experience. This latter reason (2) he dubs “apologetic.” Now Schleiermacher believed that religion is more deeply entrenched in the lives and communities of people than are doctrines. Feelings are more basic and more entrenched in life than words on paper. This probably seems pretty reasonable to most people but to Proudfoot it is an apologetic ploy. In calling one reason “descriptive” and the other “apologetic” he is trying to cast a pall on the whole process of attempting to make a distinction between religious and other kinds of experiences. This is important for his strategy because it will enable the switch from religious experience feelings to all feelings.[2] If we can describe commonalities between religions does that not automatically imply that we can distinguish between religious and non-religious feelings? If not then how can we find commonalities? If so, then why is no. (2) apologetic? It seems that both are equally necessary to one another, and that both are equally apologetic and equally descriptive. Of course even if there is an apologetic going on that does not mean there are no religious experiences. But setting that up is part of the hermeneutic of suspicion and losing the phenomena. After page 78 he slides in to a critique of all feelings in general.

            Proudfoot uses the example of Stephen Bradley, an example of a dramatic religious experienced found in William James Verities of Religious Experience.[3] The example Proudfoot selects seems to be that of a man who is having a heart attack and takes it for religious conversion. He is in fact converted by the experience. The experience was brought on while at a revival meeting. Proudfoot centers on the physical phenomena, the man’s heart speeding up very fast and beating like a trip hammer, but says nothing about any other aspects, such as any special feelings or anything that might have put Bradley in a mood to repent. The assessment is entirely in terms of physiological phenomena then of course analyzed as the recipient labeling physiological phenomena so he would know what to think. Then that is taken as proof proof that internal states are nothing more than labeling physiological phenomena. Of course all he’s done is mine the data. He ignores other aspects. Of course most mystical experiences do not contain such overt physical phenomena. The subject does speak of being filled with “the joy and grace of the Lord.” These aspects are ignored he doesn’t think about them at all. These are obviously the feelings that produced the idea that he was being saved. So it’s clear Proudfoot ignores the aspects that count against his view. He only pays attention to the aspects that confirm the labeling theory. Proudfoot says of this instance:  “Bradley, like so many prospective devotees before and since, could not understand his feelings in naturalistic terms. Religious symbols offer him an explanation that was compatible both with his experience and with his antecedent beliefs.”[4] One problem with this is that his antecedent beliefs were not religious. He even says “had any person told me prior to this that I could have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in the manner in which I did I could not have believed it.”[5] This actually disproves the labeling hypothesis. Moreover, since this was a conversion experience it’s important because it disputes the “placebo” argument. Religious experience is said to be a placebo, but placebos requires expectations and Bradely had none. Many such religious experiences are conversion experience with no prior expectation.

            We see reductionism at work here in a major way. The reductionist is just reading the situation in terms favorable to his theory, even at the experience of losing phenomena by ignoring aspects that don’t fit the theory. The classic sense of the phrase “losing phenomena” means when the reductive process is finished the phenomena has been explained away and lost rather than experienced. We might suspect, however, that a great of reductionism is helping along the process of losing the phenomena by ignoring part of it. There’s another case where Proudfoot does very similar things. [6]

Other reductionist arguments

            When atheists make the general assumption that there is no God, as a matter of  course, they are reducing the God belief phenomena to naturalistic proportions as a consequence of this assumption, weather they have proof or not. Thus they are employing techniques of reduction to make this move. The old atheist saw that religion was invented by priests and leaders for social control and that after life is just a reward and punishment system designed to enforce the social control is an ancient form of atheist reductionism.[7] This approach evolved into a psychological reductionism in the ninetieth century with Freud and Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity. [8] In more recent times these tactics have developed into an attempt at evolutionary reductionism. That is the nature of evolution is used to account for the evolution of religious belief in humans, thus the sense of the numinous that has guided religious experience is reduce to evolutionary biology. Of course this is based entirely upon assumption. Dawkins argues that the “deeper” explanation will be the one that explains why people are susceptible to the allure of religion. He contends that this more fundamental than the social control argument (also assumed) because it explains the basis upon which people are vulnerable to social control and upon which people hit upon such approaches to social control. [9] Of course all of this is assumed prior to any sort of proof and without ever obtaining any. Both Dawkins and Dennett, major contributors to the New Atheist arsenal, draw upon evolutionary psychology to offer a biologically reductionst account of religious origins.[10]

            Both Dawkins and Dennett are working from a prior assumption by Pascal Boyer[11] The theory says that religion is a by product, not directed selected for but a “misfiring by product,” whatever that means. Presumably they are thought to be the result of some dysfunction of brain chemistry, since all of human thought is reduced to that. Moreover, “Drawing upon evolutionary psychology, Dawkins suggests that if the brain is an aggregate of organs or 'modules' for dealing with particular sets of data, religion can be regarded as a by-product of the mis- or over-firing of one or more of these modules..”[12]

According to this explanation of religion, religion has a survival advantage insofar as it is a product of the human tendency to 'overshoot' in attributing agency - since from an evolutionary perspective it is better to be wrong in attributing too much agency to things in the environment than another agent's dinner due to a failure to attribute enough agency (e.g., to predators), the religious probably had a survival advantage: 'At the root of human belief in gods lies an instinct on a hair trigger: the disposition to attribute agency - beliefs and desires and other mental states - to anything complicated that moves. The false alarms generated by our overactive disposition to look for agents wherever the action is are the irritants around which the pearls of religion grow.’ Dawkins concurs with Dennett that the 'intentional stance' has survival value, pointing for example to experimental studies showing that children are especially likely to adopt the intentional stance towards inanimate (but moving) objects.[13]

The main problem so far is that this really doesn’t tell us why belief should count for survival. So people are more likely to attribute consciousness and intention to something if it moves. But how dose that enable survival? Such a view might explain why humans moved in the direction of belief in a god like their father, but it doesn’t explain religion overall. We will deal more extensively with the nature of religion in the final chapter. The main point is that religion is not based upon explaining things. This is the assumption that scientists make because it enables them to do their reductionist techniques and also because that is their main concern. That doesn’t mean it’s the main concern of religious people. It seems it might be more helpful to survival if we weren’t even conscious. Attributing intuition to innate moving things might just get a whole tribe killed. What if they think volcano god just won’t be satisfied until they are all dead? This seems to be an assumption necessitated to legitimize the reductionist assumptions but based upon no proof or logic. It also seems to ignore the basic motivations of religious belief. Of course it does this because it has to in order to justify reduction. They can’t accept the idea that there is a sense of the numinous because that would mean there’s something more there, an added dimension besides the material. Moreover, religious experiences are a complex, diverse, and rich in both nuance and texture. They are not surfaces level aspects of human being but indicative of the existential depth of human being. They cannot be reduced to mere physical workings of brain chemistry without losing the phenomena.

            The sense of the numinous is correlated with mystical experience. The sense that there some special aspect of reality, perhaps vested in an object or an activity (prayer); a sense of truth and all pervasive love, or the sense of meaning or ones in all things. This is the basis of religious experience. Rudolf Otto called this the “sense of the Holy.” Holiness is a part of this special aspect. Otto used Latin term to show the extremely special quality of the sense. The numinous is  wholly other, entirely different from anything we experience. It provokes a reaction of silence, sometimes terror. Otto used the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Tremendus mystery and fascination. He used the Latin terms to emphasize the unique nature of the experience. The experience is both terrifying and fascinating that is merciful and gracious. The term numinous is from the Latin noumen meaning the power implicit in a sacred object.[14]

            The sense of the numinous is part of mystical consciousness and saying that it is correlated with mystical experience is to say that empirically it has been found in connection with it. The scientific basis for understanding mystical expense is provided b the “mysticism scale” (Or “M-scale”) develop by Ralph Hood Jr. and validated by him and others in specific research.[15] I have dealt with Hood and M-scale and the scientific basis for the study of mystical consciousness at length in The Trace of God.[`16] The corroboration of Hood’s studies demonstrates a universal nature to mystical experience.[17] Hood’s work on the M-scale is designed to validate the theory of W.T. Stace, and was able to do so with corroboration from several studies done in many cultures. Instead of dealing with the nature of the experience itself, with its nuances and it’s texture, the reducitonists lose the phenomena by focus upon assertions involving causes. They assert that the cause must be chemical since the nature of the experience can only be epiphenomenal and illusory. This is the same trick we see above, although a more sophisticated version, where by the atheist reduces the complex set of results to one concept of “getting happy.” There are two aspects of the research on mystical experience that the reductionisms are overlooking and that really make the case against reductionism: (1) The effects of having had the experience; (2) the universal nature of the experience.

            These two major points form the basis of the apologetic arguments that can be made based upon religious experience, and they also form the basis of the defense that the studies provide the believer against charges of religion as a coercive source of mental illness, derangement, or pathology. The studies that indicate that religious experience results in a healthy psychological state such as the studies of Nobel and Wuthnow on self actualization listed above make up a huge body of empirical scientific work. This body of work stretches back 60 years to the 1960s, and culminates in Hood’s M-scale research which brings all the findings into focus with the means of scientific control on mystical experience.

The Wuthnow study was an example of a study using questionnaires. Wuthnow collected questionnaires from a systematic, random sample of 1000 people in the San Francisco-Oakland area. He asked them about transcendent experiences, revealing contact with the sacred, beauty of nature, harmony with the universe, whether it was within the last year or before, and if it made a lasting difference in their lives. For those who said they had had contact with the sacred: 68% of those experiencing within one year said life is very meaningful, while 46% of those (contact with sacred) not within one year answered this way. Forty-six percent of those (contact with sacred not in the last year) said yes but it was not lasting, and 39% and 36% respectively said they had not had such an experience or they did not want to have such an experience. "Knowing the purpose of life" applied to 82% of those experiencing within one year and 72% of those whose experiences were further back than that, compared with 18% and 21% for those who had not had or did not want an experience. The figures for the other categories (sensing beauty of nature, harmony with the universe, etc.) were similar. One of the more compelling findings was that 41% of past-year experiencers and 39% of those whose experiences were further back than one year felt greater self-assurance, compared with just 22% and 31% of the no-experience groups.[18]

In Macnamara’s ground breaking collection of essays, Where God and science meet, Ralph Hood Jr. links psychologists convinced of the falsehood of religious belief with the reductive impulse.[19] In comparing mystics who either accept religious interpretations and traditions or who reject religion in the name of a deeper “spirituality” Hood finds that the experiences are the same when the specific terms identifying tradition are controlled for.[20] This means that the experiences are universal as other studies have found commonalities transcending specific traditions and that all religions have mystics.[21] The specific arguments these studies are used to back up are not important here. Just to be clear about the issues, however, I ague that because the dramatic positive effects, such as self actualization, are identified consistently with religious experiences there’s a valid reason to understand these experiences as “the trace of God,” like the track or footprint in the snow they are indicative of divine presence and experience because the long term positive nature of the effects can’t accounted for in naturalistic terms. The second argument is that due to the navigational abilities offered (emotional stability and strength to get through the trails of life) as well as regular consistent and inter-subjective nature of them, they fit the criteria we habitually use to understand the real nature of experiences anyway. They studies do show that these experience are regular, consistent and inter-subjective, at least in the sense that they are found in all times and cultures and shared by all faiths.

            The point here is not to argue for the validity or benefit of religion but to show what reductionism misses and how it loses phenomena. As we have seen already Dawkins and Dennett both make abductive claims about the origin of religion: they argue that reductionism enables them to best explain why people are susceptible to religious claims. They begin with the assumption that there is no valid basis to effects which would tip us off as to origin. In approaching the issue abductively they claim to demonstrate an explanation that answers the conditions we find empirically existing. Not to say that abduction is necessarily reductionistic, yet no attempt is made account for the full texture of the experiences. Instead the experiences are assumed illusory, reduced to “happy” and the cause is put over as the only way to determine truth. Why assume people are “susceptible” to religion as though it’s some sort of false claim that hoodwinks people? The fact that the effects are transformative is enough to indicate that it’s valuable and positive. If it is such then it’s not likely to be a lie or a false claim. Seldom does it work out that lies and false claims are very good for us. At this point the atheist will assert that an advantage is not a valid argument for the truth of a hypothesis. That’s not true in science because it is assumed always that working is an indication of truth content. If we ask the scientist “how do you know science is giving us truth?” they will “it works.” Workability is one of the major assertions about truth content. Barabra Forrest in the academic journal Philo states:

I conclude that the relationship between methodological and philosophical naturalism, while not one of logical entailment, is the only reasonable metaphysical conclusion given (1) the demonstrated success of methodological naturalism, combined with (2) the massive amount of knowledge gained by it, (3) the lack of a method or epistemology for knowing the supernatural, and (4) the subsequent lack of evidence for the supernatural. The above factors together provide solid grounding for philosophical naturalism, while supernaturalism remains little more than a logical possibility.[22]

That’s a fancy way of saying science works so we can trust it to be true. The point is that she is equating working with truth content. The attack that science must rely upon philosophy and naturalism is a philology that must draw upon metaphysics is given a happy faced and turned into an assault upon Supernaturalism on the grounds that naturalism works to supply the fortress of facts while Supernaturalism doesn’t. In other words, science works so we know it’s true. We just saw that religious experience works to do what religion is supposed to do, make life better. That workability is reduced to “happy” and to other fleeting issue that are easy to ignore, and causality is put over as the only important aspect because reductionists can actually correlate that with naturalistic processes through their methods without challenging their own assumptions.

            There are our old friends the popular level new atheists such as the blogger for “why evolution is true.” In “refuting” the works of a literary critic (Stanley fish) who argues that science can’t furnish a priroi reasoning as justification for it’s theories he responds:

Fish’s big mistake: the reasons undergirding that belief are not that we can engage in a lot of philosophical pilpul to justify using reason and evidence to find out stuff about the universe. Rather, the reasons are that it works: we actually can understand the universe using reason and evidence, and we know that because that method has helped us build computers and airplanes, go to the moon, cure diseases, improve crops, and so on.  All of us agree on these results.  We simply don’t need a philosophical justification, and I scorn philosophers who equate religion and science because we don’t produce one.  Religion doesn’t lead to any greater understanding of reality. Indeed, they can’t even demonstrate to everyone’s satisfaction that a deity exists at all!  The unanimity around evidence that antibiotics curse infections, that the earth goes around the sun, and that water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, is not matched by any unamity of the faithful about what kind of deity there is, what he/she/it is like, or how he/she/it operates.  In what way has religion, which indeed aims to give us “understanding” has really produced any understanding?[23]

He says it pretty explicitly, science works to provide the knowledge and religion doesn’t. Except the studies I’ve been discussing prove that it does. Atheists assume providing the goods is a sign of truth content, thus they should consider the truth content of religion. Yet the reductionstic approach rules out the possibility before the data is even presented. Look for example at the way the blogger reduces the issue to physical evidence because that’s the kind his method can procure. Other kinds of working such as making one a better person are not important because atheists don’t’ truth feelings and accept the thesis that we can be better people through religion. No need to observe that religion works for the things it sets out to do. They are not the things we want to accept as valid anyway, so we can lose the phenomena. The way science really works and they way it’s fans think it works aer often two different things. As shown in the chapter on fortress of facts, with Popper, science doesn’t prove theories but furnishes explanations. The debunking ability of science clears away competing explaining and we take the one’s fit best, not the one’s that “prove truth.” Yet according to the studies of Hood the common core theory of mysticism is the explanation that best explains the results of mysticism. Hood is actually a social scientist (psychology) and his works is scientific. It’s the “new atheists” ideologues who reject as not scientific because it doesn’t back their fortress of facts but threatens to offer explanations that are not negative toward religion.

---

[1]  Proudfoot, ibid, 13.

[2] Ibid 75,76

[3] Proudfoot, Ibid, 103, quoting from William James, the Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nautre, being the Gifford Lectures Delivered at Edinburgh, 1901-1902. New York and Bombay, Longmans Green and Company 1905. 190-193.  

[4] Ibid, 104

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] “Investigating Atheism.” Online resource, Researchers at Faculty of Divinity at Cambrige and Oxtord Universites,URL:  http://www.investigatingatheism.info/religionnatural.html  visited 4/17/2012.

This sight is the product of a group of academics from the faculty of Divinity at both Cambridge and Oxford, it takes no stand either way on the topic. On this point they site Winfried Schroeder, Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998), 213.

[8] Furerbach referenced in ibid.

[9] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006), 169. sited in “Investigating Atheism,” ibid.

[10] Dawkins, ibid, and Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Penguin, 2006), 115. both sited in “Investigating Atheism.”

[11] Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors (London: Vintage, 2002). Sited in “Investigating Atheism,” no page reference made.

[12] Investigating Atheism sitting Dawkins, ibid, 179.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Bernard Spilka, Ralph Hood Jr., Bruce Hunsberger, Richard Gorsuch. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. New York, London: The Guilford Press, 2003. 292

[15] Ibid.

[16] Hinman, Trace…, ibid. (see chapter four, “Studies”).

[17] ibid

[18] Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

[19] Ralph Hood Jr. “The Common Core Thesis in the Study of Mysticism,” Where God and science meet, P, Westport, CT: Praeger,. McNamar (Ed.), Vol. 3,. 119-138.

[20] Ibid, 134-35

[21] D. Lukoff,. The diagnosis of mystical experiences with psychotic features. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, (1985). 17(2), 155-181.

[22] Barbara Forrest, Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturism, Clarifying the Connection,” Philo, Vol. 3 no 2 (Fall-Winter 2000) 7-29, Abstract.

[23] “Why Evolution Is True, “ Blog, online resource, March 31, 2012. URL: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/stanley-fish-misunderstands-science-makes-it-a-faith-equivalent-to-religion/ visited 4/24/2012.

Did Mark Invent the Empty Tomb?

Giotto's Resurrection

The crux of the Easter faith is the empty tomb. Atheists and sketics believe they have proved that Mark made up the empty tomb.Peter Kirby once defended the idea, claiming a huge number of scholars agreed with that. I'm not sure if he still holds to that or not. The paper is still up and the argument was made so I will  refute it. Peter Kirby once wrote:

Several schoalrs doubt the historicity of the empty tomb. I intend to set out the reasons for disbelieving the empty tomb story. I will argue that the empty tomb narrative is the invention of the author Mark. This conclusion will be supported by showing that all the reports of the empty tomb are dependent upon Mark, that there are signs of fictional creation in the empty tomb narrative, that the empty tomb story as told by Mark contains improbabilities, and that traditions of the burial and appearances support a reconstruction of the events that excludes the discovery of the empty tomb.[1]

 In response I am to focus just one aspect, the idea that the empty tomb is the invention of Mark. I will demonstrate that the empty tomb existed in Christian preaching before Mark was written.

Skeptical schoalrs argue that because Mark's gospel ends with no sightings of the resin Jesus Mark must have made up the empty tomb. They reason that the longer ending of Mark was made to cover up the insufficiency of the orignial.

This original ending of Mark was viewed by later Christians as so deficient that not only was Mark placed second in order in the New Testament, but various endings were added by editors and copyists in some manuscripts to try to remedy things. The longest concocted ending, which became Mark 16:9-19, became so treasured that it was included in the King James Version of the Bible, favored for the past 500 years by Protestants, as well as translations of the Latin Vulgate, used by Catholics. This meant that for countless millions of Christians it became sacred scripture–but it is patently bogus.[2]

He's just reading in a motivation to fit the facts. BTW the longer ending includes the snake handler passage. There is no attempt to consider evidence that the Gospel really didn't end at verse 8. He just assumes it must have becuase that would give us a reason to assume his position on Mark's invention. Thus he reads into the motivations for making other endings the motives he needs to see to bolster his argument. He tries to illicit Bruce Metzger to help out:

The evidence is clear. This ending is not found in our earliest and most reliable Greek copies of Mark. In A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Bruce Metzger writes: “Clement of Alexandria and Origen [early third century] show no knowledge of the existence of these verses; furthermore Eusebius and Jerome attest that the passage was absent from almost all Greek copies of Mark known to them.”¹ The language and style of the Greek is clearly not Markan, and it is pretty evident that what the forger did was take sections of the endings of Matthew, Luke and John (marked respectively in red, blue, and purple above) and simply create a “proper” ending.[3]

 All that proves is that those particular verses are not fond in any Ms that is not proof that the Gospel really ended at v8, or if it did, why it did. There is no particular reason to assume that we know why and just becuase it did end at 8 does not establish a logical reason to believe that Mark made up the empty tomb. The "added verses are 16:9-20." There are scholarly arguments that they are valid. "...[T]he witnesses which bring the verses into question are few, and that the verses are quoted by church Fathers very early, even in the second century." [4] F.H.A. Scrivener makes arguments for vv9-20 as the proper ending. This is an older source quoted at length by Marlowe.[5] My purpose is not argue for the ending of Mark, I wont belabor that point. No logical reason is given as to why a short abrupt ending means Mark made up the tomb.

Another point that is often made is the lack resurrection sightings in Mark. That is also not proof that the tomb was made up. We are conditioned by Matthew, Luke and John to think that there must be sightings and that they must be certain ones and come out in a certain way. Since Mark was written before Matthew, Luke, or John he didn't do it the way they did. My view is that what we have in the ending in verse 8 may well be the original ending, but it reflects not a made up tomb but the uncertainty of the very period before the community sorted out all the differing testimonies. They didn't understand the event so they don't talk about it that much.

We know there was more than one version of Mark. The Version we have today is not the original version. There are at least three we know of by the end of the first century. The concept of the Ur Mark, a pre-Mark version of Mark that was latter corrected and verged into two versions, one used by Matthew and one by Luke. Neil points out that the study for an "UrMark" the Gospel behind Mark, is really very old, stretching back into the 19th century.[6] But Helmut Koster traces the actual textual criticism to show that there is clearly a Gospel behind the Gospel of Mark. This primary material is much older than the version of Mark as we know it, and there is good reason to believe that it is of great historical significance.

The Gospel of Mark as we know it, draws upon many sources. One such source already mentioned is the Passion Narrative which all the Canonical and the Gospel of Peter draw upon. But Koseter also shows that there was another whole version of Mark that was apparently not known to Matthew and Luke. Whether or not this is the same source as that of the passion narrative we cannot say. In addition to this other version, there are several other sources which can be seen in the Gospel. These may be sources used by the original or they may be those drawn upon by the redactor who put the work into the form in which we know it.

"External evidence for two different versions of Mark circulating at an early date can be derived only from the observation that Luke does not reproduce the section Mark 6:45-8:26. Luke 19: 19= Mark 8:27 follows directly upon Luke 9:17= Mark 6:44. Luke may have used a copy of Mark that had accidentally lost a few pages. However there are some special features which differentiate this particular from the rest of Mark's Gospel. It begins with Jesus going to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45) and ends with the healing of a blind man from Bethsaida (Mark 8:22). Thereafter Jesus goes to Cesaria Philippi and the town of Bethsaida never occurs again the Gospel. This section is also of a number of other doublets of Markan pericopes. 6:44-54 the walking on the water is a variant of the stilling of the tempest (Mark 4:35-41). 8:1-10 the feeding of the 4000 is a secondary elaboration of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44)...The cumulative evidence of these peculiarities may allow the conclusion that an earlier version of Mark, which was used by Luke did not yet contain the Besiada section (Mark 6:45-8:26) whereas Matthew knew the expanded version which must have come into existence very soon after the original composition of the original gospel."[7]

Koester doesn't' argue for a complete UrMarkus ..as a more permeative version of the Gospel, but this evidence does suggest different versions of the same Gospel. While we can't find an UrMarkus, we can see clearly that the redactor who first formed the Gospel used several sources. The passion narrative has been mentioned, moreover, a miracle story source that is compatible with John, two written documents of saying sources are also recognizable. These include a collection of parables and one of apocalyptic material. (p.287)

But does this mean that Mark [the primary redactor] is merely a "cut and paste" which destorts previous sources and collects rumors and legends with no historical value? Where the skeptic sees this aspect, Koester does not. What Koester sees is a faithful copyist who has collected materials known to be of value to the community, and forged them into a certain order for the purposes of edification to the community.

"Mark [the primary redactor] is primarily a faithful collector. In so far as he is also an author he has created an overriding general framework for the incorporation of traditional material but he has still left most of his material intact.His Gospel is therefore a most important witness for an early stage for the formative development of the traditions about Jesus. The world which these traditions describe rarely goes beyond Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem, which is not the world of the author [primary redactor] or the readers for whom the book was intended. Mark's information about Palestine and its people is fairly accurate whenever he leaves his sources intact. But from his redaction of the sources it is clear that the author is not a Jewish Chrstistian and that he does not live in Palestine."[8]

That would explain that frightened, reverenced, alarming rushed quality that one gets reading those passages. The mysterious men in white (angles?) and the lack of sightings. Not becuase there were none but perhaps becasue they didn't know which group to believe. If James was claiming to be the first to see him,[9] (scholarly consensus holds that this is a very early creed)[10] then the claim is made about the women there may have been confusion about which group had primacy. You have two groups of women, the women who stayed at the tomb and Mary Madeline who apparently left early to get John and Peter then came back after then and had one of the sightings.[11] That would explain the confusion about naming which women went to the tomb.[12] My argument is that v8 could well be the proper ending, but this is not proof that Mark made up the tomb, a better reason for the brevity of the chapter is the copy that ends there reflects the Ur Mark which did end there. The longer version may have started with one of the other two versions that are quoted in the synoptic.

The major arguments for Mark inventing the empty tomb, apart from the brevity of his ending,are it's lack of presence in other sources, both Gospels (except for those dependent upon Mark--Matt and Luke) and it's absence from Paul's work.[13]Paul's lack of mention I exlpain in a similar way to Mark's lack of attention to post resurrection sightings, which offer above (this is my own original argument): there were two different factions, or maybe even more than two, one of them associated with James as the first witness to risen Jesus, and the other being the communities that produced Mark, Matthew, and John. Paul spent time in the James community when he was in Jerusalem following the three years he spend in Aria after his stay in Damascus when he was first converted.

I'm not saying that these different communities disagreed about James and the women. I'm not saying the community that produced Matthew said "no James did not see him." Nor am I contending that James said "Mary didn't see him." But each community lauded the witness of it's members. So the community with Mary in it emphasized that Mary was in on the discovery of the empty tomb. while the James community focused upon James's experience of seeing his risen brother, presumably first. After all this was two decades before the Gospels began to be made known to people in written form. Without having a Bible to read it in, the James followers probalby just said "some women saw him too, I don't know who they were just women, but James saw him!" The community with the women in it probably said "Hey our women saw him, and btw James saw him too!"

Helmutt Koester

The key question is, is there a literary tradition that is not dependent upon Mark that includes the empty tomb? Yes, there is one. It's not only independent of Mark but it existed before the Gospel of Mark was written.The Gospel of Peter was discovered in Egypt at Oxryranchus in the 19th century. It was probably written around 200 AD and contains some Gnostic elements, but is basically Orthodox. There are certain basic differences between Gospel of Peter (GPet) and the canonically, but mainly the two are in agreement.

Gpet follows the OT as a means of describing the passion narrative, rather than following Matthew. Jurgen Denker uses this observation to argue that GPet is independent and is based upon an independent source. In addition to Denker, Koester, Raymond Brown, and John Dominick Crossan also agree.[14] It is upon this basis that Crossan constructs his "cross Gospel" which he dates in the middle of the first century, meaning, an independent source upon which all the canonical and GPet draw,(also see my article dating the tomb story in the passion narrative). But the independence of GPet from all of these sources is also guaranteed by its failure to follow any one of them. Raymond Brown, who built his early reputation on study of GPet, follows the sequence of narrative in GPet and compares it in very close reading with that of the canonical Gospels. He finds that GPet is not dependent upon the canonical, although it is closer in the order of events to Matt/Mark rather than to Luke and John. Many Christian apologists think it’s their duty to show that GPet is dependent upon the canonical gospels, but it is basically a proved fact that it’s not. Such apologists are misguided in understanding the true apologetic gold mine in this fact. The fact that GPet is not dependent enables it to prove common ancestry with the canonicals and that establishes the early date of the circulation of the empty tomb as a part of the Jesus narrative. As documented on the Jesus Puzzle II page, and on Res part I. GPet is neither a copy of the canonical, nor are they a copy of GPet, but both use a common source in the Passion narrative which dates to AD 50 according to Crosson and Koester. Brown follows the flow of the narrative closely and presents a 23 point list in a huge table that illustrates the point just made above. I cannot reproduce the entire table, but just to give a few examples:

Helmutt Koester argues for the “Ur Gospel” and passion narrative that ends with the empty tomb. He sees GPet as indicative of this ancient source. Again, the argument is not that GPet is older than the Canonicals but that they all five share common ancestry with the Ur source. There is much secondary material in Gpet, meaning, additions that crept in and are not part of the Ur Gospel material; the anti-Jewish propaganda is intensified, for example Hared condemns Jesus rather than Pilate. [15]
Gospel of Peter (GPet) follows the OT as a means of describing the passion narrative, rather following Matthew. Jurgden Denker uses this observation to argue that GPet is independent is based upon an independent source. In addition to Denker, Koester, Borwn, and the very popular Charles Dominik Corssan also agree[16]

One might be tempted to argue that it's just one source, but Mark takes it form the Passion Narrative so it's still just one source. Not so, Raymond Brown proved there are two independent sources. The Passion narrative does not follow the synoptics are John, they all share a common ancestor, but Mark and Passion narrative are copied as idepndent sources. Neither depends upon the other. Mark is original and Passion narratives follows patterns from the OT. We are talking about reading that are preserved in latter documents. So while the form in which we have Gospel of Peter is latter than Mark the readings that survive in it or of a form that show they are older than Mark. They are not just copying the OT they are telling the story in the from of certain OT renditions.
       
Brown, who built his early reputation on study of GPet, follows the sequence of narrative in GPet and compares it in very close reading with that of the canonical Gospels. He finds that GPet is not dependent upon the canonical, although it is closer in the order of events to Matt/Mark rather than to Luke and John.

GPet follow the classical flow from trail through crucifixion to burial to tomb presumably with post resurrection appearances to follow. The GPet sequence of individual episodes, however, is not the same as that of any canonical Gospel...When one looks at the overall sequence in the 23 items I listed in table 10, it would take very great imagination to picture the author of GPet studying Matthew carefully, deliberately shifting episodes around and copying in episodes form Luke and John to produce the present sequence.[17]

Brown follows the flow of the narrative closely and presents a 23 point list in a huge table wich illustrates the point just made above. I cannot reproduce the enire table, but just to give a few examples:

In the Canonical Gospel's Passion Narrative we have an example of Matt. working conservatively and Luke working more freely with the Marcan outline and of each adding material: but neither produced an end product so radically diverse from Mark as GPet is from Matt." [18]

Koester demonstrates agreement with many scholars as he puts the date for the Passion narrative mid first century. However, "there are other traces in the Gospel of Peter which demonstrate an old and independent tradition." The way the suffering of Jesus is described by the use of passages from the old Testament without quotation formulae is, in terms of the tradition, older than the explicit scriptural proof; it represents the oldest form of the passion of Jesus.Philipp Vielhauer, Jurgen Denker argues that the Gospel of Peter shares this tradition of OT quotation with the Canonicals but is not dependent upon them. [19] Koester writes, "John Dominic Crosson has gone further [than Denker]...he argues that this activity results in the composition of a literary document at a very early date i.e. in the middle of the First century CE" (Ibid). Said another way, the interpretation of Scripture as the formation of the passion narrative became an independent document, a ur-Gospel, as early as the middle of the first century! This means the source for the Passion narrative is much older than our version of Mark, it's only 18 years after original events. It constitutes two independent sources testifying to the empty tomb early on, Mark (Ur Mark) and Pre Mark passion narrative. Even if we want to say it's just one source which stands behind all of these different Gospels it removes the onus that Mark invented the tomb and it places the tomb well witin living memory of eye witnesses.




 [1] Peter Kirby, The Case Against the Empty Tomb, fall 2002. 176 Online materiel pdf  http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/kirby_tombcase.pdf
accessed 4/12/14

[2] Jame Tabor, "The Strange Ending of the Gospel of Mark and why it makes all the difference: James Tabor Presents a New Look At the Original Text of the Earliest Gospel." Bible History Daily, published by Biblical Archaeology Society. 4/24/2013. on line http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-strange-ending-of-the-gospel-of-mark-and-why-it-makes-all-the-difference/
accessed 4/13/14.

[3] Ibid. the quote from Metzger is from Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd edition, (Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 123.

[4] Michael D. Marlowe. "Bible Research, Textual Criticism, Finding the Ending of Mark," Bible Research: Internet Resources for Students of Scripture. site dated since Feb 2001. On line
http://www.bible-researcher.com/endmark.html 
accessed 4/13/2014.
Marlowe also presentes F.H.A. Scrivener's arguments from 1984, that argue for Mark 16:9-20 as the valid ending.

 http://www.bible-researcher.com/endmark.html#dissent

[5] Marlowe, quoting Scrivener, Ibid, http://www.bible-researcher.com/endmark.html#dissent
accessed 4/13/2014

[6] Stephen Neil, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1961, Oxford: Oxford University Press. see UR Marcus.

[7] Koester, 285

[8] Ibid.Koester p.289

[9] 1 Corinthians 15:5.

[10] Peter May, quoting Gary Habermas, "the Resurrection of Jesus and the Witness of Paul." Be Thinking blog. on line
May is a retired GP who held layman's rank of leadership in the Church of England.Peter May served on the General Synod of the Church of England from 1985 to 2010 and was Chair of the UCCF Trust Board from  2003 to 2010. He is a retired GP.He cites  C.H. Dodd The Founder of Christianity Fontana 1971, and Gary R. Habermas The Risen Jesus & Future Hope Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2003, Chapter 1.

[12] Metacrock, "Resurrection Harmony Page 1," The Religious A prori, no date given. on line:
http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blogspot.com/2010/05/resurrection-harmony-page-1.html  accessed 4/13/2014

Please read my page on The Religious a priori and follow my sense of harmony of the events. we see Mary leave when they first see the tomb stone is ajar. She goes to get Peter and John, returning after them, and seeing Jesus.

[13] Peter Kirby, Op cit. 176.

[14] Helmutt Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, Their History and Development. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990, 208.

[15] Ibid, 217

[16] Ibid. 218

[17] Raymond Brown, Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, A commentary on the Passionnarratives in the Four Gospels. Volume 2. New York: Doubleday 1994, 1322


[18] Ibid., 1325

[19]  Koester, Op cit, 218

Film Review: Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole."

 

Hey it's not friday! Firday is Good friday so I'm doing my bit for Easter on Friday by running an original new essay, "Did Mark Invent the Empty Tomb?" Be sure and read it! Today I'm doing the film review that I would have done on Friday.

I mainly like to review old European films but I'm always looking for American films that hold their own in comparison to European art films. I don't expect them to have the ambiance: one candle power of light, dark and gritty, earthy squalor, but I expect them to have a serious great plot and to be creative and not corny in cinematography. Such is Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951). It's a fine film. It's not a great film. It's no Seventh Seal, but it is engaging, serious, well done, and just a hint of Hollywood corn but that's to be expected.

Director:

Billy Wilder

Writers:

Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, 2 more credits »

Stars:

Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur | See full cast and crew » 

 IMBd page:

 

Cast overview, first billed only:
	Kirk Douglas	...	Chuck Tatum
	Jan Sterling	...	Lorraine Minosa
	Robert Arthur	...	Herbie Cook (as Bob Arthur)
	Porter Hall	...	Jacob Q. Boot
	Frank Cady	...	Al Federber
	Richard Benedict	...	Leo Minosa
	Ray Teal	...	Sheriff Gus Kretzer
	Lewis Martin	...	McCardle
	John Berkes	...	Papa Minosa
	Frances Dominguez	...	Mama Minosa
	Gene Evans	...	Deputy Sheriff
	Frank Jaquet	...	Sam Smollett
	Harry Harvey	...	Dr. Hilton
	Bob Bumpas	...	Radio Announcer
	Geraldine Hall	...	Nellie Federber

notice it has Frank Cady, who played Sam Druker, one of the funniest characters on Green Acres (ran the general store--65 to 71) and played the same part on Petticoat Junction. (63-70) It's a small part in film. Mostly all he does is say "we were the first car here," several times. He's only in a couple of scenes but his Character (Al Federber)drives a 1951 Studebaker Champion, which is a big personal thrill. [1] Notice also Ray Teal who played Sheriff Roy Coffee on Bonanza (59-73).

Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) is best known for comedies ("The Apartment", "Some like it hot"), but he did some good drama's too ("Double Indemnity", "Lost Week End," "Sunset Boulevard."). This is one of his best dramas. It's not one of his better known films. It's not even listed on the usual list of his greats, but it should be. It's a real gem.

Kirk Douglas plays a washed up news paper reporter who had been a Pulitzer prize winner and worked at the top of the heap on ever major American Daily. He is not washed up, having been fired from every major American daily. He's trying to start again at the bottom at a small time newspaper and work his way back up with a big story. He finds himself in Albuquerque New Mexico. In 1951 New Mexico was pretty primitive. At that time they didn't have a single free way. After a few months he's bored out of his scull. He's been covering garden parties and drunks who busted up bars on Saturday night. Those the biggest stories they had to offer.

The editor assigns him and a photographer to cover a snake hunt in the desert. He's plotting to make the story bigger by swiping one of the snakes and doing stories on "no 6 still missing, will it turn up in your backyard?" The photographer is a young kid just out of journalism school who is thrilled to have  any job on any paper, and he's willing do anything the old veteran newsman says. They stop at a gas station and the kid goes in to the hotel that's attached to the gas station and there's no one around. It's the middle of the day the plays is open but deserted. He finds a woman in the back bedroom praying fervently in Spanish. She doesn't even recognize him there. The kids goes out to the car and reports back, as though he's just put out, there's no concept of a potential story. The old fire horse Newsman jumps out of the convertible without opening the door bolts into the place, right to the back bedroom. He's standing beside the woman who does not alter from her prayer so he knows something is wrong.

He and the kid drive onto the property down the little road in back and find a woman walking back to the main hotel and she tells them her husband is trapped under the mountain. So they go down there. There are Indian ruins, cliff dwellings, and they are collapsing. They are very dangerous to go in. The man had gone through caves behind the cliff dwelling and was digging for Indian things to sell. Little by little we learn he's doing this to get money to satisfy his wife, who married him thinking that a hotel and lots of land meant he was rich, and found he was land poor, hotel poor. gas station poor and now she is stuck in the middle of now where with no way out and hates it totally. She hates him totally. He loves her and wants her love and is willing to anything. On his latest expedition to find artifacts to make money to please her he was in a cave in and is trapped with big rocks on his legs. He's flat on this back. He's freezing becuase it's cold in the cave and he's got his back to the floor, and he's covered in dust making it hard to breath, no one else will go in because it's falling apart. At this point there's only his father, a couple of neighbors and a deputy sheriff, no one else knows about it. None fo them will go in because it's too dangerous.

The reporter agrees to take him the blanket and coffee. He talks to the guy, he learns about his trouble with his wife. He likes the guy. He likes the story better. He tells the kid how they are going to build the story into another Pulitzer prize winning extravaganza. He starts manipulating. The wife of the trapped man was about to split. She stays just long enough to wait on the costumers who start coming in becuase they read about it in the Albuquerque paper, after it was phoned in. She's amazed. More costumers in one day, come down to gawk, than she had in a month (including the Studebaker driving Federbers, who were the first car there). Suddenly she has more money than she's ever had at one time (she cleans out the register for herself). Douglas convinced her to stay, but now she wants to stay. She's making plans with Douglas to leave with him before her husband get's out and he's to take her to New York when he gets reinstated with the major paper there. He's kind of iffy about it because he likes the guy and doesn't like betraying his trust. He grows sick of this mercenary woman who clearly doesn't care if her husband lives or dies. But Douglas needs her to be based there and build the story and have control so he plays along. She sees this as her best time to get out, because she left before and Leo found her and brought her back. Now he wont be able to go after her. But now she sees the point in staying, to milk the customers.

Eventually the story builds into a circus side show. There are thousands of cars. It's the being broadcast all over the world. People from eery major News Paper are there. This one guy from the Albuquerque paper (in 1951 that was truly "Podunk") he is in control because he's the guy who will go in and talk to the trapped man. All the other press is kept away form the story but he has the run of the place. There's a Ferris wheel, restrooms, all kinds of food venders. Since a couple of thousand people can't tear themselves away they need food, amusements and rest rooms. Douglas has wrangled a temporary job with the major New York Paper (fictional) and he's going to give them an exclusive and he has severed ties with Albuquerque. We also learn that the engineer who has gone in to get him is trying to borne in form top of the moutian. This is taking a couple of weeks. We find that this is because the reporter manipulated the guy into being overly cautious so that it would take longer and he can stretch out the story. People all over the world anxoiusly wiating for the next paper to learn all they can about the guy trapped under the moutain.

The problem is The guy is dying. He has double pneumonia from lying on his back in freezing cold cave and breathing all the fine dust that is being knocked down on him from the pounding of the guys trying drill down from the top. We learn from a miner who goes there that the direct route could be done safely and he could be gotten out  in  a couple of days, but the reporter poos poos that and chases the miner away. He uses cleaver cognitive dissonance to make the engineer feel committed to present course. Chuck Tatum is very slick more showman and snake oil salesman than reporter. In fact there's a conflict bewteen Tatum and the editor in Albuquerque over what kind of newsman to be. Tatum clearly belongs to the "anything for a story" school. 

Tatum learns that the trapped man (Leo Minosa) wants to get out and give his wife the anniversary present because he feels she really needs to feel that he can give her things. Douglas now realizes he will die. The doctor has gone in and seen him and tells him he may not last the night. Leo is wanting a priest. Douglas finds the present where Leo told him it was, tries to give it to the wife telling her it is from Leo. At first she thinks it's from Tatum then when she learns it's from Leo she doesn't want it. She laughs sat it. It's only a fox fur she scorns it, it's all he can afford. She's talking about how wonderful it will be when Tatum can buy her minks in New York. She's so sick of her by now he puts the fox around her neck and tries to chock her. Of cousre he's eaten up with guilt that he's murdered Leo. She is fighting for her breath she takes a letter opener that's basically a knife, and a big letter opener, and stabs him in the side. He's really wounded but he doesn't care. He leaves and get's in his car and drives to a near by little town and brings back a Priest. They go in, give the last rites he dies. Tatum is just torn up. He's crying. He goes up to the top the mountain and get's on the mike, tells everyone Leo died and just go. Get out. They all suddenly realize how carried they got and how over it is, they start streaming out. Tatum should have phoned in the story before he told anyone because that was the deal, he would get them the exclusive. He's so torn up the doesn't even care and he walks slowly back. By the time he get's back they have taken out his teletype and he's fired. The New York editor is angry becuase they where the last to get the story. The last we see of the wife she has missed the bus because she was packing and now she's walking down the higher by herself with a stream of cars around her, trying to get out and go.

Tatum is not done. He tells them he has the real story behind the story. He has to shout because the editor is shouting, he shouts, "He was murdered!" The editor becomes even more angry, this is more flim flam. The New York is the same kind of Newsman, he's so hard boiled he can't recognize that Tatum is not trying to make a story but to confess. The confession is cut off because the editor just wont listen. He thinks to go back to Albuquerque and confess to the readership of that paper. It's better than nothing. Yet his wound is still un treated, and it's taking its toll. He's beginning to have a hard time walking. He gets back to the old paper he comes in issuing orders about stop the presses he has the real story. They wont listen to him either because he doesn't work there anymore. He starts saying the same stuff he did when he first came. "I'm the great thousand dollar a day Pulitzer winner." He's trying to make same kind of pitch for his services he did before and he just drops dead in the middle of it. That's the end of he movie.

The confession was also mixed in with the impulse to do another big sensational story. At the end he's building it up again like the same kind of story. Even when he tires to do the right thing, even when tries to aswage his guilt and make the grand confession the confession becomes the story. He's not going to go tell a priest in private he wants to make the big scoup. His sense of truth is so jaded by the need to sensationalize that he can't even seperate his personal guilt from teh need for a big story. This is a fine film. It demonstrates the foibles of human frailty and captures people at their worst. It shows people at their best as well, those who cared about Leo and wanted to help him. The priest the doctor they braved the potential cave in in order to minster to him. Yet it is a Hollywood movie I find I have two criticisms, both related to what I hate about Hollywood movies. This touches upon why I prefer European and Japanese cinema.

First, it portrays the press as just a bunch of sensational yellow journalism mongers who can't think clearly. In that portrait presents many stereotypes of movies of that era, such as "His Girl Friday" (1940--Rosiland Russell and Carry Grant) and "Teacher's Pet" (1958-Doris Day and Clark Gable) for example. On the other hand some of those stereotypes had more of a place in reality in that age. The Albequerque editor is presented as the "good reporter" so they are not all like that. At one point in the discussion bewteen him and Tatum, the editor says he's been after exposing the Sherrif of that country for years, but Tatum has secured the guy's re-election, on purpose, so he can get cooperation to build the story. But this really is not enough. It's just tokenism to divert the very criticism I'm making.

Secondly, there's a element of corn. Stereotypes are Corny too, but I'm thinking of the way the end was rushed in. He just drops dead. It's mellow dramatic. There's no Denouement no sense of building to the resolution. Although I just see the writer arguing that dropping dead is less corny and more dramatic than some drawn out confession. While that is probalby true, perhaps a scene where the editor sums it all up the kid photographer or something.It doesn't have to be a corny death bed confusion to not be just dropping dead and ending the film. Don't let that poil the enjoyment. It's a fine film. it's a gem it's well wroth seeing.

[1] My father collected Studebakers. He loved them. We owned 9 of them in my life. We had 2 52 Champions. They were good cars, that big bilious fat kind of shape for the body, stick shift on the steering column so the shifting pattern must be learned side ways to the four on the floor. Studebaker was not at the top in terms of sales, although they did ok until management problems brought production to a halt in 1963 and they got out of the car busienss in 65. Even though they were on the street it's still rare to catch them in old tv shows and movies. The highest concentration of Studebaker can be found on the tv show "Mr.Ed" (61-66) the only show they ever sponsored.

 Be sure and read my essay "Did Mark Invent the empty tomb." I will publish that Friday.