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> most of what we know about, say, gnosticism comes from its ideological opponents Bad example. The Gnostic Gospels tells us quite a lot about what they though
by AlbertCory 2y ago
> most of what we know about, say, gnosticism comes from its ideological opponents
Bad example. The Gnostic Gospels tells us quite a lot about what they thought, and in their own terms.
Secondly, saying "written records are incomplete and/or biased" does not say that oral records are any better. In fact, the Telephone Game grew up to illustrate their own weakness.
https://www.wikihow.com/Play-the-Telephone-Game https://www.wikihow.com/Play-the-Telephone-Game
- jcranmer 2y agoThe Gnostic gospels were only relatively recently discovered (1945 per Wikipedia), perhaps I should have picked one of the other heresies in early Christianity that are virtually unknown outside of some early church father dismissing them. And my point isn't that oral records are better than written records, it's that they're not really worse. Or put differently, written records are rather incomplete accounts: there's a tendency to treat written records as the ground truth of history which isn't particularly warranted.
- AlbertCory 2y agoI think they are worse, usually. But yeah, the written records are definitely incomplete and one-sided.