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Post by timoneill on Feb 25, 2016 7:44:16 GMT
While having a whale of a time on holiday in New Zealand, I was sent this by Carrier's latest minion and chief parrot, recently ex-fundamentalist Christian Raphael Lataster:
I am, formulating a response. Any thoughts on what I should say?
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Post by unkleE on Feb 25, 2016 13:03:29 GMT
Hi Tim, I don't think I'm enough of a scholar to say much intelligent on this. But my perception is that NT scholars tend to be more careful and conservative than classical historians generally - I got that view from classical historians Michael Grant and AN Sherwin-White. It may therefore be that NT scholars try to delve into sources to a greater degree than classical historians generally. That was the view of CS Lewis back in the 50s, reacting to scholars like Bultmann et al. Lewis said that classical history and literature used to divide works (like Shakespeare, Homer, etc) up into hypothetical sources like the NT scholars were doing, but that fad had passed, and he expected NT studies to go the same way. He may not have been totally right, but certainly Bultmann is no longer much quoted in NT studies, and scholars like Sanders, Casey, Wright etc, seem to be more confident of the value of the gospels as history than Butmann was. For what it's worth, the CS Lewis reference came in " Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism and the quote is: It's worth noting that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not hypothetical sources, but documents closer to the events and with many more texts than any other ancient documents. (I could give you some good quotes in the morning.) If classical scholars tried to get behind other texts like NT scholars do, there'd be much more scope for doubt than with the gospels. Lataster must know all this, so what's he actually on about? The comparison he is making works the opposite to what he is inferring. |
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Post by fortigurn on Feb 25, 2016 15:14:16 GMT
He needs to explain exactly what he's talking about when he says this.
* "overuse of hypothetical sources"
* "draw conclusions of certainty from hypothetical sources"
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Post by timoneill on Feb 26, 2016 19:42:15 GMT
He needs to explain exactly what he's talking about when he says this. * "overuse of hypothetical sources" * "draw conclusions of certainty from hypothetical sources" Which I will do. But analogous examples of hypothetical sources like Q? |
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Post by fortigurn on Feb 27, 2016 0:46:07 GMT
He needs to explain exactly what he's talking about when he says this. * "overuse of hypothetical sources" * "draw conclusions of certainty from hypothetical sources" Which I will do. But analogous examples of hypothetical sources like Q? I hesitate to reply because I just don't know what he means. Does he mean scholars reconstructing Q and then saying "This event is in Q therefore its historical"? |
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Post by timoneill on Feb 27, 2016 6:30:45 GMT
Which I will do. But analogous examples of hypothetical sources like Q? I hesitate to reply because I just don't know what he means. Does he mean scholars reconstructing Q and then saying "This event is in Q therefore its historical"? The Mythers have a weirdly fundamentalist aversion to the whole concept of any lost sources behind the Q material in gLuke and gMatt. The fundies don't like the idea because it means some of "the word of God" got lost (which doesn't actually make much sense if God allowed it to be preserved in gMatt and gLuke but, hey - fundies). The Mythers don't like it because it ruins their whole "the entire story cab be traced back to gMark" argument. Multiple sources make it much harder to reduce the whole tradition to some celestial/allegorical story that got "historicised". But the reason behind his argument, he is trying the line that NT scholars are doing something with Q that other historians don't do with ancient or medieval texts - positing a hypothetical source that lies behind the sources we have. I'm trying to think of a solid analogous example to show him that he's wrong. |
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Post by fortigurn on Feb 27, 2016 17:48:15 GMT
But the reason behind his argument, he is trying the line that NT scholars are doing something with Q that other historians don't do with ancient or medieval texts - positing a hypothetical source that lies behind the sources we have. I'm trying to think of a solid analogous example to show him that he's wrong. It happens all the time in textual criticism (not just biblical textual criticism). In Old Testament studies several hypothetical sources have also been proposed; apart from the very obvious JEDP, there are also the independent text units, such as the History of David's Rise. Godfrey pulled a similar stunt to this, and I addressed it here. You can find a stripped down version here. This is the relevant conclusion. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Feb 28, 2016 22:54:42 GMT
He needs to explain exactly what he's talking about when he says this. * "overuse of hypothetical sources" * "draw conclusions of certainty from hypothetical sources" Which I will do. But analogous examples of hypothetical sources like Q? I can't think of a clear example in which anonymous authors use anonymous sources without attribution, but maybe Jona Lendering's pages about Apollonius would be helpful in tracking down an example? My gut feeling is that any example from a subject that's "too theological" would only make the Mythicists feel vindicated. Also, the only NT specialists who deny any literary interdependence between the gospels that I know of are all Evangelicals. It's likely no coincidence that Mr Lataster is of a fundamentalist background, though you might want to forgo that point. |
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Post by fortigurn on Mar 3, 2016 0:43:01 GMT
This is an example of the use of hypothetical texts to reconstruct a textual lineage and historical events. In this case it's a swordsmanship treatise.
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Post by timoneill on Mar 3, 2016 11:18:07 GMT
This is an example of the use of hypothetical texts to reconstruct a textual lineage and historical events. In this case it's a swordsmanship treatise. That's (potentially) what I was looking for. At least, I think so. I'm familiar with the fencing manual of Ringeck, which I think is the one in that chart entitled the "Dresden version", are the two hypothetical sourcesin the above it in the stemma posited sources or just hypothetical manuscripts? |
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Post by fortigurn on Mar 3, 2016 12:04:48 GMT
This is an example of the use of hypothetical texts to reconstruct a textual lineage and historical events. In this case it's a swordsmanship treatise. That's (potentially) what I was looking for. At least, I think so. I'm familiar with the fencing manual of Ringeck, which I think is the one in that chart entitled the "Dresden version", are the two hypothetical sourcesin the above it in the stemma posited sources or just hypothetical manuscripts? They are hypothetical. Ringeck wrote a gloss on Liechtenauer's Recital. We know this because of the subsequent texts which used and refer to Ringeck's gloss as a source. However, Ringeck's original text has never been recovered independently, and only exists in the form of later glosses. Actually you might as well just look up Johannes Liechtenauer while you're there, since all we know about Liechtenauer is hypothetical, from his life to his writings. And wouldn't you also count the reconstructions of ancient writers such as Manetho, Berossus, Thales, and Memnon? Those are all works from which apparently valid historical information is gleaned, despite the fact that they no longer exist other than in the form of partial quotations by commentators who lived many centuries later. And shall we start on the hypothetical sources which are used to assess the accuracy of Pliny's and Polybius' records of Hannibal, as described in the document to which I linked previously? |
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Post by timoneill on Apr 1, 2016 2:29:56 GMT
Hmmm, well it seems Latatster's odd e-mail was leading up to the rather terrible article discussed here. For those who don't want to pay to read what this jumped up nobody says (I can send you a free copy if you're really interested, Carrier's latest overconfident parrot seems to think that his "historians don't never use hypothetical sources" argument adds up to "so Jesus didn't exist". The levels of overweening pomposity and assumed conclusions in his article do show that he has learned well from his master. McGrath usually tries to be outwardly civil, but his open scorn for this guy is pretty clear. Small wonder. Fortigern, I may need to pick your brain for some more detail about the Ringeck stuff above, because I feel a counter-blast to Lataster's amateur hour warbling coming on ... |
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Post by wraggy on Apr 1, 2016 7:18:31 GMT
I see James McGrath has a post on the superb skills of Mr. Latatster.
"The inability of Lataster to realize just how poor his writing style is, and that he is contradicting himself within the space of a few sentences, is truly remarkable. Just within the first couple of pages, Lataster described Ehrman’s book Did Jesus Exist? as an attempt to prove the historicity of Jesus, but soon afterwards he quotes Ehrman himself insisting that proof is not what historical study offers in relation to ancient figures."He then quotes Lataster here:
"Also, Ehrman’s approach is inconsistent as he and his immediate or like-minded colleagues are apparently the only ones who can appeal to non-existing sources. Somehow, Christians, who could use them to prove the Christ of Faith, need not apply. Likewise the more sceptical secular scholars like myself, who could appeal to non-existing sources – perhaps a long lost letter of Paul, Peter, or James – that contains an admission that Jesus is wholly fabricated. Ehrman’s approach is also inconsistent in that he is unwilling to posit even earlier hypothetical foundational sources behind other (existing) sources, which actually predate the Gospels. I suspect that this is all part of a strategy to overcome the ‘Problem of Paul’. That is, the problem that Paul doesn’t seem to know about the Jesus of the Gospels."McGrath:
"Click through to read the article, and then please come back and tell me whether you find it to be as terrible as I did, both in style and in content." Unfortunately I cannot read the comments as when I click on the comments they will not load. www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2016/03/tim-hendrix-vs-raphael-lataster-on-richard-carrier.html#comments |
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Post by timoneill on Apr 1, 2016 7:52:32 GMT
Try clicking on the 'Disqus" tab. |
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Post by wraggy on Apr 1, 2016 11:37:16 GMT
Try clicking on the 'Disqus" tab. Yep,that worked fine. I never had to do that in the not too distant past. Thanks for the tip to the computer moron.  |
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