Dear Steve
Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 9:46 am
[reply to Steve]
You say -- In assessing you from your writings (which are all that I have to go on), I am actually taking your words more justly at face value than you are doing with the words of the New Testament writers. You have accused them of fabrication—on the basis of nothing that an unbiased man would regard as evidence that they have fabricated anything at all. Your case would be thrown out of a court of law, since actual evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the accused is generally required.
Really? Please cite me where I said the New Testament writers fabricated something. This is very telling. To contrive a rebuttal, you apparently devise misrepresentations of what I said, then to use those misrepresentations to contrive absurb and groundless ad hominem attacks on my character. What it does is speaks volumes of your character, integrity and honesty, or lack thereof.
You say -- My assessment of your honesty and your narrowness of research was drawn from your direct statements, in which an entirely gratuitous skepticism prevails, without objective warrant—a skepticism which, if applied to other areas of inquiry, would leave you incapable of knowing much of anything other than what you prefer to believe.
Thanks for proving my earlier assessment. About the only thing that can honestly be said about me is I am skeptical and use critical thinking in approaching any ancient legends. However, you interpolate and exagerate that, along with devising other 'assesments' such as accusations about fabrication, to fit your preconceived prejudices against anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of the bible. From this, my initial appraisal appears quite accurate.
You say -- Your statements about my desire to harmonize all my positions with some late-dated orthodoxy—and even with the assumption that the New Testament writings are the inerrant word of God—was not referencing any intimation made on my part that the documents are inerrant—nor did I appeal to any orthodox authority. I have simply looked at the New Testament material and assessed it as I would assess any other. You have found nothing beyond this in in my correspondence.
But you already have many posts on this board from which this appraisal is plainly evident. Are you saying my assessment is wrong?
You say -- I was able to point out the specific cases of irresponsible handling in your statements before accusing you.
You did nothing of the sort. What you did was to deceitfully mischaracterize and exagerate what was stated in a lame attempt to fabricate a fallacious, ad hominem attack.
You say -- Thus, your response was not "in kind."
No, it was actually more benign and considerate of you. I did not fabricate lies about what you said.
You say -- If assessing our arguments thus far, an unbiased observer would, I think, say that I have not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the gospels are historically accurate (it has not been my task to do so, nor is it my responsibility to do so), and, likewise, that you certainly have provided no solid evidence that they are not reliable.
What you just did is use the "no true scotsman" fallacy, as labelled by Anthony Flew. As you've demonstrated a penchant for leaping to conclusions about others based on devised evidence, your ability and integrity for speaking on behalf of an unbiased observer is rather questionable.
You say -- Such a position allows one to take the evidence in the Roman historians and in Josephus and the Talmud at face value (omitting, for the sake of argument, the evidence from Josephus' disputed paragraph)
Of course you would need to omit that evidence. lol. It is only by a superficial reading without any critical analysis that one can jump to the conclusion that these non-christian sources appear to provide evidence of a historical Jesus. For Josephus, even conservative christian historians recognize the TF was interpolated, probably around Eusebius's time. There is further evidence that it may be a total fabrication. But, of course, since it is inconsistent with your dogmatic preconceived interpreation on the historicity of Jesus, you must omit that evidence. Even if part of it is authentic to Josephus, he borrowed from other accounts for events prior to ~55 CE. A statistically significant correlation has been found between the text of the TF and the Emmaus Narrative in Luke, indicating Josephus probably used a christian source for the TF. Thus, it would not provide independent corobboration.
As to the Talmud, if you are referring to those Yeshu's, such as ben Stada and ben Panteira, you again should delve deeper than just the face value you think you see. If you read it more than just superficially, you may discover that these stories are set during the reign of Alexander Janneus, more than a century before the gospel stories. Other Yeshu stories are set over a century after.
You say -- If we accept this, we can then accept the testimony of the church fathers, many of whom were martyred for believing that these things happened within living memory of people whom they knew personally.
One of the earliest martyred church fathers was Ignatius. In his epistle to the Smyrnaeans, he warns of heretics who denied Jesus's physical existance (deny that he was of the flesh). Yet, Ignatius never relies on this argument of yours. He never says he knew anyone who knew Jesus personally.
You say -- We can then present a simple and coherent explanation of the phenomenon of Christianity that had such pervasive influence throughout the Roman Empire at least as early as twenty years after the alleged time of "the Jesus character's" death.
If you're referring to around the 5th decade, the evidence of a "pervasive influence throughout the Roman Empire" comprises, what, Paul's letters to about a half-dozen christian missions? You again show your disposition for exaggeration. In addition, there is nothing in Paul's letters indicating they were written just a few decades after Jesus's death.
You say -- We can give a sensible reason why so many of His local contemporaries either believed the written and preached accounts of His life—or at least never made any recorded protests that the records were inaccurate.
This time, you committed the fallacy of begging the question. You assume the gospels existed and were available in Jerusalem contemporaneously, and then argue that since no one protested, that assumption must be true. Please show me evidence that any resident of Jerusalem in the mid first century had read or heard any account of a Jesus according to the gospels which even could have been disputed. The Church fathers don't even mention the gospels until well into the 2nd century.
Also, please explain why Philo, who wrote both of Pilate's mistreatment of Jews in Jerusalem, as well as his syncretion of the Logos, never mentioned Jesus or any accounts of him, even though the Jesus of the Gospels would have been the validation of theory of the Logos.
You say -- We can make sense of the fact that secular research has again and again proven Luke's critics wrong in their earlier assertions that he had made things up, in which he was subsequently vindicated by fuller archaeological discoveries.
Old news, Steve. Today biblical historians are more concerned with the concordance between Luke-Acts and Josephus's accounts, to the extent they are considered not independent. Steve Mason has made a fairly good case that Luke used Josephus's account. That wouldn't make Acts inaccurate, but it would put its date of authorship almost into the 2nd century.
You say -- In other words, we can just let the evidence speak without feeling we have to desperately find imaginary errors in every Christian document, or have to debunk every early reference in secular historians that seems to confirm what the Christian story claims.
Given your disposition for accepting things at face value without critical analysis, this is hardly surprising. But, by your logic, why shouldn't I accept at face value the zoroastrian avestas, and believe in Mithra, or accept accept at face value the vedas, and believe in Lord Krishna?
You say -- To claim that Jesus never existed is, in my judgment, the most anti-intellectual position on the subject available. To say that He really did exist, but was not very much like what all the earliest Chrtistians believed Him to have been, is scarcely more intellectually respectable (except among determined idealogues, who simply have agreed to respect each other's theories without real proof).
Of course you'd feel that way, seeing as how you feel that any sort of doubt or questioning of the literal interpretation is equivalent to dishonesty. Based on your past posts, your competency for judging what is "intellectually respectable" is highly questionable.
You say -- To deny that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate is to set oneself against all relevant historical records, whether Roman, Jewish or Christian.
Other than the christian gospels, what records independently attest to Jesus's crucifixion under Pilate?
You say -- To suggest that He is still in His grave is a theory that allows no explanation for the belief of the early Christians that He was no longer in there—and for the inability of their opponents to prove them wrong.
Your point is moot, for I never said he was in the grave to begin with.
You say -- I guess my question to you, Jackal, is really, what if you are wrong? Do you ever consider this possibility? Does it even matter to you, or is this just an intellectual low-stakes game for you? If God (by the slightest chance) does exist and has visited His creation in the person of the man Jesus, and you have determined to reject this upon the flimsy arguments you have presented here, or upon the imaginary authority of some amorphous group called "the majority of critical scholars"—what have you gained, and what have you lost?
Good ole' Pascal's Wager. My question to you is the same -- what if you're wrong, and after death you come face to face with Allah, or Osiris, or Mithra or Yama, or the god of any other estological religion? How will you explain your worship of a false god?
You say -- Since those upon whose authority you are staking everything are a relative minority of thinking academics (considering all those who have lived and held some informed opinion or other about these matters) you are hanging a great deal of weight on a very slender branch.
Unlike you, I don't accept any authority uncritically. My present opinions are based on review and analysis of all sides, and balancing the weight of the evidence and arguments.
You say -- Do you realize that saying that "the majority of critical scholars" reject the Christian records is little else than saying "the majority of non-Christian scholars reject Christianity." No surprises there.
No, it is not the same. What you implicitly assume is that these scholars, in critically analyzing the bible, have some sort of prejudice against christianity. Analyzing the bible outside the orthodox dogma does not involve any a priori prejudice against christianity, any more than studying and analyzing ancient greek mythology infers some prejudice against Greeks.
You say -- That's why I would urge you to worry less about what one camp of "scholars" (or ideologues) believe, and put on your thinking cap—the same one you would wear if you were examining the evidence for a subject about which you were dispassionate—and look at the actual evidence without bias. If you can do this and come out still thinking that the arguments you have presented have merit, then I must leave you to your conclusions...and thank whatever Powers that be that I was given the grace of a greater objectivity.
Funny, I was going to suggest the same to you.
You say -- In assessing you from your writings (which are all that I have to go on), I am actually taking your words more justly at face value than you are doing with the words of the New Testament writers. You have accused them of fabrication—on the basis of nothing that an unbiased man would regard as evidence that they have fabricated anything at all. Your case would be thrown out of a court of law, since actual evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the accused is generally required.
Really? Please cite me where I said the New Testament writers fabricated something. This is very telling. To contrive a rebuttal, you apparently devise misrepresentations of what I said, then to use those misrepresentations to contrive absurb and groundless ad hominem attacks on my character. What it does is speaks volumes of your character, integrity and honesty, or lack thereof.
You say -- My assessment of your honesty and your narrowness of research was drawn from your direct statements, in which an entirely gratuitous skepticism prevails, without objective warrant—a skepticism which, if applied to other areas of inquiry, would leave you incapable of knowing much of anything other than what you prefer to believe.
Thanks for proving my earlier assessment. About the only thing that can honestly be said about me is I am skeptical and use critical thinking in approaching any ancient legends. However, you interpolate and exagerate that, along with devising other 'assesments' such as accusations about fabrication, to fit your preconceived prejudices against anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of the bible. From this, my initial appraisal appears quite accurate.
You say -- Your statements about my desire to harmonize all my positions with some late-dated orthodoxy—and even with the assumption that the New Testament writings are the inerrant word of God—was not referencing any intimation made on my part that the documents are inerrant—nor did I appeal to any orthodox authority. I have simply looked at the New Testament material and assessed it as I would assess any other. You have found nothing beyond this in in my correspondence.
But you already have many posts on this board from which this appraisal is plainly evident. Are you saying my assessment is wrong?
You say -- I was able to point out the specific cases of irresponsible handling in your statements before accusing you.
You did nothing of the sort. What you did was to deceitfully mischaracterize and exagerate what was stated in a lame attempt to fabricate a fallacious, ad hominem attack.
You say -- Thus, your response was not "in kind."
No, it was actually more benign and considerate of you. I did not fabricate lies about what you said.
You say -- If assessing our arguments thus far, an unbiased observer would, I think, say that I have not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the gospels are historically accurate (it has not been my task to do so, nor is it my responsibility to do so), and, likewise, that you certainly have provided no solid evidence that they are not reliable.
What you just did is use the "no true scotsman" fallacy, as labelled by Anthony Flew. As you've demonstrated a penchant for leaping to conclusions about others based on devised evidence, your ability and integrity for speaking on behalf of an unbiased observer is rather questionable.
You say -- Such a position allows one to take the evidence in the Roman historians and in Josephus and the Talmud at face value (omitting, for the sake of argument, the evidence from Josephus' disputed paragraph)
Of course you would need to omit that evidence. lol. It is only by a superficial reading without any critical analysis that one can jump to the conclusion that these non-christian sources appear to provide evidence of a historical Jesus. For Josephus, even conservative christian historians recognize the TF was interpolated, probably around Eusebius's time. There is further evidence that it may be a total fabrication. But, of course, since it is inconsistent with your dogmatic preconceived interpreation on the historicity of Jesus, you must omit that evidence. Even if part of it is authentic to Josephus, he borrowed from other accounts for events prior to ~55 CE. A statistically significant correlation has been found between the text of the TF and the Emmaus Narrative in Luke, indicating Josephus probably used a christian source for the TF. Thus, it would not provide independent corobboration.
As to the Talmud, if you are referring to those Yeshu's, such as ben Stada and ben Panteira, you again should delve deeper than just the face value you think you see. If you read it more than just superficially, you may discover that these stories are set during the reign of Alexander Janneus, more than a century before the gospel stories. Other Yeshu stories are set over a century after.
You say -- If we accept this, we can then accept the testimony of the church fathers, many of whom were martyred for believing that these things happened within living memory of people whom they knew personally.
One of the earliest martyred church fathers was Ignatius. In his epistle to the Smyrnaeans, he warns of heretics who denied Jesus's physical existance (deny that he was of the flesh). Yet, Ignatius never relies on this argument of yours. He never says he knew anyone who knew Jesus personally.
You say -- We can then present a simple and coherent explanation of the phenomenon of Christianity that had such pervasive influence throughout the Roman Empire at least as early as twenty years after the alleged time of "the Jesus character's" death.
If you're referring to around the 5th decade, the evidence of a "pervasive influence throughout the Roman Empire" comprises, what, Paul's letters to about a half-dozen christian missions? You again show your disposition for exaggeration. In addition, there is nothing in Paul's letters indicating they were written just a few decades after Jesus's death.
You say -- We can give a sensible reason why so many of His local contemporaries either believed the written and preached accounts of His life—or at least never made any recorded protests that the records were inaccurate.
This time, you committed the fallacy of begging the question. You assume the gospels existed and were available in Jerusalem contemporaneously, and then argue that since no one protested, that assumption must be true. Please show me evidence that any resident of Jerusalem in the mid first century had read or heard any account of a Jesus according to the gospels which even could have been disputed. The Church fathers don't even mention the gospels until well into the 2nd century.
Also, please explain why Philo, who wrote both of Pilate's mistreatment of Jews in Jerusalem, as well as his syncretion of the Logos, never mentioned Jesus or any accounts of him, even though the Jesus of the Gospels would have been the validation of theory of the Logos.
You say -- We can make sense of the fact that secular research has again and again proven Luke's critics wrong in their earlier assertions that he had made things up, in which he was subsequently vindicated by fuller archaeological discoveries.
Old news, Steve. Today biblical historians are more concerned with the concordance between Luke-Acts and Josephus's accounts, to the extent they are considered not independent. Steve Mason has made a fairly good case that Luke used Josephus's account. That wouldn't make Acts inaccurate, but it would put its date of authorship almost into the 2nd century.
You say -- In other words, we can just let the evidence speak without feeling we have to desperately find imaginary errors in every Christian document, or have to debunk every early reference in secular historians that seems to confirm what the Christian story claims.
Given your disposition for accepting things at face value without critical analysis, this is hardly surprising. But, by your logic, why shouldn't I accept at face value the zoroastrian avestas, and believe in Mithra, or accept accept at face value the vedas, and believe in Lord Krishna?
You say -- To claim that Jesus never existed is, in my judgment, the most anti-intellectual position on the subject available. To say that He really did exist, but was not very much like what all the earliest Chrtistians believed Him to have been, is scarcely more intellectually respectable (except among determined idealogues, who simply have agreed to respect each other's theories without real proof).
Of course you'd feel that way, seeing as how you feel that any sort of doubt or questioning of the literal interpretation is equivalent to dishonesty. Based on your past posts, your competency for judging what is "intellectually respectable" is highly questionable.
You say -- To deny that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate is to set oneself against all relevant historical records, whether Roman, Jewish or Christian.
Other than the christian gospels, what records independently attest to Jesus's crucifixion under Pilate?
You say -- To suggest that He is still in His grave is a theory that allows no explanation for the belief of the early Christians that He was no longer in there—and for the inability of their opponents to prove them wrong.
Your point is moot, for I never said he was in the grave to begin with.
You say -- I guess my question to you, Jackal, is really, what if you are wrong? Do you ever consider this possibility? Does it even matter to you, or is this just an intellectual low-stakes game for you? If God (by the slightest chance) does exist and has visited His creation in the person of the man Jesus, and you have determined to reject this upon the flimsy arguments you have presented here, or upon the imaginary authority of some amorphous group called "the majority of critical scholars"—what have you gained, and what have you lost?
Good ole' Pascal's Wager. My question to you is the same -- what if you're wrong, and after death you come face to face with Allah, or Osiris, or Mithra or Yama, or the god of any other estological religion? How will you explain your worship of a false god?
You say -- Since those upon whose authority you are staking everything are a relative minority of thinking academics (considering all those who have lived and held some informed opinion or other about these matters) you are hanging a great deal of weight on a very slender branch.
Unlike you, I don't accept any authority uncritically. My present opinions are based on review and analysis of all sides, and balancing the weight of the evidence and arguments.
You say -- Do you realize that saying that "the majority of critical scholars" reject the Christian records is little else than saying "the majority of non-Christian scholars reject Christianity." No surprises there.
No, it is not the same. What you implicitly assume is that these scholars, in critically analyzing the bible, have some sort of prejudice against christianity. Analyzing the bible outside the orthodox dogma does not involve any a priori prejudice against christianity, any more than studying and analyzing ancient greek mythology infers some prejudice against Greeks.
You say -- That's why I would urge you to worry less about what one camp of "scholars" (or ideologues) believe, and put on your thinking cap—the same one you would wear if you were examining the evidence for a subject about which you were dispassionate—and look at the actual evidence without bias. If you can do this and come out still thinking that the arguments you have presented have merit, then I must leave you to your conclusions...and thank whatever Powers that be that I was given the grace of a greater objectivity.
Funny, I was going to suggest the same to you.