Principle of Embarrassment
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[edit] Definition
The Principle of Embarrassment is a principle applied to historical documents to evaluate their trustworthiness, authenticity, and veracity.
Briefly stated, the Principle is:
- Statements by authors which tend to disparage their own agenda are more trustworthy.
[edit] Basis
The reasoning behind this principle is that falsifications and exaggerations are worthless unless they advance the same ulterior agenda of the historical source. Thus, where we find embarrassing facts, they are not likely to be inventions. No one would make up such a thing.
[edit] Applied to the Bible
The Principle of Embarrassment has also been applied to religious scriptures such as the Christian Bible. Honest scholarship uses the principle to determine the historicity of events described in the bible, as well as the provenance of the biblical writings themselves.
For example, in Judges 1:19, we read that the army of Judah, even with the help of God, could not prevail against an army with iron chariots. Since this is not exactly pro-God or pro-Judah propaganda, we might see this as evidence that 1) Judah did in fact lose such a battle, and 2) this portion of the book was not invented by later scholars biased towards Judah.
This is as far as the Principle will take us. However the Principle is often invoked in defense of biblical interpretations that it does not support. This can take the form of
- Assuming that a statement is embarrassing, when it is not necessarily so;
- Concluding absolute certainty from the Principle
- Extending increased credibility beyond the embarrassing fact; to adjacent text, or even other books.
A common citation of the Principle in Biblical apology concerns the discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb by women (Matt 28). For an invented story, women would, at the time, have been a poor choice of witness, so the story is unlikely to be a fabrication. Therefore, says a common fallacious argument, the tomb really was empty, Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus is the Messiah, etc. [1] This particular example is a case where a statement is assumed to be embarrassing when it is not necessarily so. True, if women were purportedly the only witnesses to the supposed resurrected Jesus, it would be embarrassing. However, in the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, there are clearly references to male witnesses of a resurrected Jesus, and even of the empty tomb, and in Mark 16:7, there is an implication that the soon-to-be apostles will meet the resurrected Jesus in Galilee. This blunts the embarrassment of having female witnesses.
