Troy is a red herring. There are no Greek documents preceding the Iliad. The Homeric poems are rife with legend, and certainly can’t be used as history in the way that Tacitus can, but it’s easy to believe there might be some fragments of history underlying them.
The Glastonbury legends, on the other hand, come after centuries of active Christian writing on the early days of the church. Eusebius wrote a comprehensive history of the Church in 325: no mention of them. Bede wrote a comprehensive history of the English church in the 7th century: no mention of them. William of Malmesbury wrote a comprehensive history of the English Glastonbury church in the 12th century: no mention of them. Countless other writers put pen to paper over 1200 years and never said a word about it. It is not until a century later that monks revising William’s text introduce the story of Joseph of Arimathea.
1200 years of silence over a very literate period filled with people interested in the church’s early days is overpowering evidence that the legends are without truth.
No, Troy is not a red herring. I hadn't heard of Glastonbury and therefore wasn't trying to comment on it at all -- I proceeded to the larger issue of the reliability of oral tradition at all.
There are no Greek documents preceding the Iliad. The Homeric poems are rife with legend, and certainly can’t be used as history in the way that Tacitus can, but it’s easy to believe there might be some fragments of history underlying them.
Yes, and then the problem is to sift out which bits. J.R.R. Tolkien had a couple of interesting essays on this (e.g. Tree and Leaf. The issue seems to be that a large number of people reject ab initio any suggestion of the supernatural or of (say) prophecy; although, oddly enough, many of the same people enjoy such themes in science fiction, such as H.P. Lovecraft or Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.
It comes down in such cases to dogmatism vs. degrees of evidence; scholasticism vs. empiricism; and other such topics too long to get into now.
1200 years of silence over a very literate period filled with people interested in the church’s early days is overpowering evidence that the legends are without truth.
Not necessarily, as communication and archaeology were not as accomplished then as now; how long was it until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered? There may *happen* to be documents relating the story of Joseph of Arimathea which have not yet been discovered; or which were briefly discovered, incorporated, and then lost again; or whatever.
I'm not arguing for the truth of the Glastonbury legends, nor against them, as I hadn't heard of them until this thread. I *am* suggesting that the lack of coverage of this topic need not be disposative as you suggest...which brings us back to Troy. Even highly dramatized oral history may contain historical fact; and lack of external corroborating evidence should not be used as *proof* of falsehood all by itself.
Cheers!