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Post by timoneill on Nov 16, 2017 2:23:40 GMT
Everything I said about O'Neill is true: He's a troll, he's angry, and he insults. I think it's very fair to tell the truth about him. Utter garbage. A troll simply posts stuff to get a reaction. I stepped away from this thread once because I could not see the point in arguing with someone who is clearly not competent and yet thinks he's on the same level as everyone else here. I returned when I thought you might be made to see your argument from silence was clearly wrong but I've since decided not to bother again, given your evasion of even that clear point. This is hardly the behaviour of a "troll". I'll leave you to others who have more time to waste than I do. I'm not even remotely "angry" - I'm wryly amused at most. And, as I said, if I decided to merely "insult" you, you would know about it. Criticism and mere "insults" are not the same thing. Your silly whining about "insults" is just your rather feeble way of trying to avoid admitting your failed argument from silence.
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
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Post by jagella on Nov 16, 2017 4:02:23 GMT
Everything I said about O'Neill is true: He's a troll, he's angry, and he insults. I think it's very fair to tell the truth about him. Utter garbage. A troll simply posts stuff to get a reaction. I stepped away from this thread once because I could not see the point in arguing with someone who is clearly not competent and yet thinks he's on the same level as everyone else here. I returned when I thought you might be made to see your argument from silence was clearly wrong but I've since decided not to bother again, given your evasion of even that clear point. This is hardly the behaviour of a "troll". I'll leave you to others who have more time to waste than I do. I'm not even remotely "angry" - I'm wryly amused at most. And, as I said, if I decided to merely "insult" you, you would know about it. Criticism and mere "insults" are not the same thing. Your silly whining about "insults" is just your rather feeble way of trying to avoid admitting your failed argument from silence. Hardly the behavior of a troll? Attachments:
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jagella
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Post by jagella on Nov 16, 2017 14:51:13 GMT
Quite a few posts ago this "jagella" person asked me why I was bothering with someone like him. Tim, you've gotten into a battle of wits only to find yourself unarmed. Attachments:
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Post by timoneill on Nov 16, 2017 19:01:35 GMT
Whereas posting feeble taunts and childish, mocking pictures in otherwise content-free contributions is the behaviour of a troll.
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
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Post by jagella on Nov 16, 2017 22:01:41 GMT
Whereas posting feeble taunts and childish, mocking pictures in otherwise content-free contributions is the behaviour of a troll. You keep asking for it. Attachments:
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 16, 2017 22:50:35 GMT
The "both sides" trope does not work here. Everyone agrees that Carrier's views on a dying and rising Messiah is extremely unusual in secular scholarship, though it is something that many fundamentalists believe or would love to believe. I'm curious, can you name some of the fundamentalists you have in mind? Peter. I was mostly thinking of the internet nobodies I have come across, but I believe Pat Robertson and Josh McDowell are of the view that Isaiah 53 prophesies that the Messiah were to die (though I am very pleased to learn that Robertson's ministry dates Isaiah 53 to 538 BC, better than I ever dated to hope; unfortunately they also date it to the eighth century BC in the same article). Both also believe that the Old Testament predicts Jesus' resurrection. Why the question? The "both sides" trope does not work here. It works for me because I'm surveying both sides of the Jesus-myth debate. To do so I need to know what arguments are being made by both historicists and mythicists. The "both sides" trope doesn't describe surveying the claims of both sides, which is something that you are absolutely right to (intend to) do. It describes the habit to divide any spectrum of discussion in two and ascribe similar habits a similar level of sin to both sides. It is a very common trope in American political journalism and also in how many global media treat topics like climate change, Brexit, macroeconomics and so on, usually equating sense and unsense as having equal merit. But the rub is that you don't get secular NT scholars to repeat the views of Christian fundamentalists. This is precisely what Carrier is doing in saying that Jews before Jesus read the Old Testament as predicting an executed and resurrected Messiah. So that is why I call Carrier's views "extreme" (they resemble extremist Christians' outlooks) and why that doesn't apply to the secular NT scholars who contradict the fundamentalists. I was just watching a YouTube video of a debate Carrier had with Craig Evans. Watch it here. Evans denied the existence of dying-and-rising gods in mythology, and Carrier proved him wrong. Carrier scored big there. I'm far from convinced. This is not anywhere close to the meticulous refutation that Stark dealt. All it proves to me is that Carrier could execute an (abnormally nasal) Gish gallop against a rather conservative Christian NT scholar. The "dying and rising gods" category is an unfortunate survival bequeathed to us by the Tylorian savages who botched social science with the methods of positivist primitives. But it was already regarded as unempirical by contemporary Biblical scholars and modern ones have confirmed that. It is sufficient for now to say that none of his examples died and were resurrected. Many died, yes, but then those (except Inanna) went on to live in the afterlife without first getting resurrected. Osiris was not resurrected, but put back together and mummified by Isis and remained ruler of the afterlife. Inanna comes the closest, but her life or death is a function of her power, dress and regalia without any special intervention such as a resurrection like Jesus. It is more or less a typical "escape from the underworld" myth. People on both sides of the debate attack those on the other side this way. It seems obvious to me that Richard Carrier isn't the stupid ignoramus that you seem to be trying to make him out to be. Blame Carrier, not me. I think he is a qualified classical historian who could make many contributions of value in his field, but I don't force him to dive into topics like exegesis of the Old Testament or early Judaism where he clearly is out of his depth. The charges I made about him (for instance messing up his chronology of Daniel, getting his scholars wrong) are all as empirical as they get and they are all abject errors. For the record, I also think that his textual criticism is completely nuts. But I do not think that he is an ignoramus all around. It looked that way to me. Thanks for the correction. Thanks for noting it. I really appreciate it. I suppose it is bizarre. Sometimes human behavior is not easy to understand. That's why we have psychologists. The meaning of what I wrote is that I don't believe that atheists generally have a bias towards believing in a historical Jesus. Sure, we all have our biases and our life stories influence us. But those biases mostly depend on the beliefs we have and change as our beliefs change. Many atheists who are former Christians have shown clearly that they are quite capable of believing that Jesus didn't exist. So I refuse to believe that bias works in such mysterious ways. Everything I said about O'Neill is true: He's a troll, he's angry, and he insults. I think it's very fair to tell the truth about him. I don't think Tim was angry and I'm sure he's not a troll, though I know he can be both blunt and insulting (but to see his real fireworks you need to go to a different venue because he holds back here). But our standards of what insults are evidently differ. You've called Tim insulting at places where he says you're not an expert or a professional (see the first page of this topic), but I wouldn't bat an eyelid if he called me an "amateur" - which is exactly what I am. But the point was simple. You can call Tim out for whatever you like, but you should not complain about the words he uses (e.g. "troll") and then use these same words of him. Or post those images about him. I essentially agree with what you're saying here. Yes, we should always know our sources. Why, then, base any argument for the historicity of Jesus on the New Testament? Or, for that matter, why cite Josephus or Tacitus as sources of information about Jesus? What were their sources? The fact is we do not know. I believe you have just unwittingly destroyed virtually all the evidence for Jesus! Rest assured, if I destroy something you can assume I do so wittingly (including bad attempts at being witty)! Now, the essence of what I wrote here was to show why it is important that modern texts cite sources when they make unusual claims. I hope we are agreed on this. But before this I underlined the distinction between primary sources and modern interpretations. Though some ancient sources were very careful in mentioning sources, that was certainly not a ubiquitous practice. You can hate ancient primary sources for that, you can curse and shake your fist at them, but they're not going to change their ways now because of our modern scholarly conventions. So we will have to do the job with the texts that are available. However, there is more. Insisting on an infinite regress of sourcing is silly. So at a certain point we come to assess the inherent plausibility that a source has some valuable information. It is here that the case for a historical Jesus is looking up. We know that Paul claims to have met Jesus' brother, James, and also other people whom he regards as having known Jesus personally. He also mentions other brothers of Jesus. Paul was at a certain point in a doctrinal dispute with some of these, including James, so if he had reasonable grounds for questioning James' relation to Jesus he could have denied them credibility to great effect. The fact that he doesn't is thus significant evidence that James was related to Jesus. Now as for the gospels, they were likely not written by eyewitnesses, but Q often gets a reliably early date. Josephus was also a contemporary of James and was in a place to access trustworthy information about him - and his relations. Tim has already addressed the reasons for considering Tacitus reliable and I won't repeat them. There are no primary sources in the New Testament. For that matter, neither are Josephus or Tacitus primary sources. These documents were written decades after the time when Jesus allegedly lived. In ancient history, primary sources would certainly include texts like the gospels, the Pauline epistles and the writings of Josephus. Not all of these were written decades after Jesus lived (Paul's first epistles were written within two decades of his crucifixion, and the gospel of Mark was possibly written around 40 though I am not an ardent advocate of an early date). But even then, consider how likely it that an unhistorical character is fabricated in a setting less than a generation ago and then widely adopted as historical. Is that kind of fabrication possible? Sure! But is it probable? Far from it. I have already mentioned Simon bar-Kosibah to you as an example. According to Mythicist standards scholars could have once concluded that bar-Kosibah didn't exist (Justin Martyr can be explained away with the usual Mythicist bag of tricks; perhaps it was an interpolation, the text surely flows nicely if you remove the reference), but then in the 1950s letters written by him and addressed to him were discovered. That is clear evidence that Mythicism's historical standards are off base. You focus on the differences in the evidence, and I can point out the similarities. Jesus, like Adam, appears in Jewish religious texts that are not meant to inform but to convey religious belief. Like Jesus, it was very common not that long ago among scholars to believe Adam existed. Just like there's no solid evidence for Adam, there is no solid evidence for Jesus. Luke 3 includes a genealogy that links Jesus all the way back to Adam! In fact, Jesus' job was to mop up after Adam. (1 Corinthians 15:22) So in Jesus was see a midrash on Adam. But in this case the differences are of far greater import. Yes, Adam and Jesus both appear in Jewish religious literature (though the appearance of Adam in Israelite semi-mythological texts probably predates Judaism). So do many early rabbis who are attested much more meagrely than Jesus but whose historicity is widely accepted by specialist scholars. Yes, it was common centuries ago for scholars to believe that Adam existed. Yes, it is common for scholars now to believe the historical Jesus existed. But it is also commonly believed among scholars that Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Judas Maccabeus, Alexander Janneus, Julius Caesar, Hillel the Elder, Judas the son of Ezekias, Simon of Perea, Theudas, Gamaliel, Rabbi Aqiva, Simon bar-Kosibah and Babatha really existed. Nothing whatsoever can be inferred from the fact that Adam was once thought to be historical. No, Jesus was not considered a midrash on Adam, 1 Corinthians 15 simply mentions them in contrast. Midrash is a specific way of interpreting texts by linking them based on the words they use. No, we do have quite solid evidence for Jesus, unlike for Adam. We have four gospels with a total of five independent sources for Jesus. We have Paul's epistles, in which he passingly mentioned that he met Jesus' brother. And we have non-Christian mentions by Josephus and Tacitus. Quite a few posts ago this "jagella" person asked me why I was bothering with someone like him. Tim, you've gotten into a battle of wits only to find yourself unarmed. Not to be judgemental here, but I haven't seen you "unarm" or refute him on any point yet.
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Post by gakuseidon on Nov 17, 2017 0:38:55 GMT
But the rub is that you don't get secular NT scholars to repeat the views of Christian fundamentalists. This is precisely what Carrier is doing in saying that Jews before Jesus read the Old Testament as predicting an executed and resurrected Messiah. So that is why I call Carrier's views "extreme" (they resemble extremist Christians' outlooks) and why that doesn't apply to the secular NT scholars who contradict the fundamentalists. You know, that's something that I strongly suspect Dr Carrier of doing -- using fundamentalist and evangelical readings of the Bible to help build his "Jesus was a fictional person" idea. It first struck me when he proposed that Philo was hinting at a pre-Christian "Jesus Son of the Righteous" figure in Zech 6 in the Old Testament. I googled the idea, and the only ones I found making that argument were evangelicals, to "prove" that Jesus was pre-figured in the OT. If I'm right that Carrier is using that approach, then that's kind of brilliant. Every argument that evangelical scholars have made to show that the OT predicted Jesus could then be flipped to show that that was the source used by early 'mythicist' Christians to CREATE the figure of Jesus. Carrier just has to pick and choose. It may have been why he may have run into trouble with Thom Stark over the two Messiah figures argument, not that I really followed or was interested in the details of the argument. But perhaps Carrier had simply built off poor evangelical scholarship, one that suited his conclusion. Thirty years ago, the evaluation by some atheists was that passages in the Old Testament used as Messianic predictions were so inaccurate and at odds with the historical Jesus, that Jesus obviously wasn't the predicted Messiah. Now, the evaluation by some mythicists is that the passages in the Old Testament are so accurate, that Jesus is obviously a fictional person!
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Post by timoneill on Nov 17, 2017 1:18:50 GMT
But the rub is that you don't get secular NT scholars to repeat the views of Christian fundamentalists. This is precisely what Carrier is doing in saying that Jews before Jesus read the Old Testament as predicting an executed and resurrected Messiah. So that is why I call Carrier's views "extreme" (they resemble extremist Christians' outlooks) and why that doesn't apply to the secular NT scholars who contradict the fundamentalists. You know, that's something that I strongly suspect Dr Carrier of doing -- using fundamentalist and evangelical readings of the Bible to help build his "Jesus was a fictional person" idea. It first struck me when he proposed that Philo was hinting at a pre-Christian "Jesus Son of the Righteous" figure in Zech 6 in the Old Testament. I googled the idea, and the only ones I found making that argument were evangelicals, to "prove" that Jesus was pre-figured in the OT. If I'm right that Carrier is using that approach, then that's kind of brilliant. Every argument that evangelical scholars have made to show that the OT predicted Jesus could then be flipped to show that that was the source used by early 'mythicist' Christians to CREATE the figure of Jesus. Carrier just has to pick and choose. It may have been why he may have run into trouble with Thom Stark over the two Messiah figures argument, not that I really followed or was interested in the details of the argument. But perhaps Carrier had simply built off poor evangelical scholarship, one that suited his conclusion. Thirty years ago, the evaluation by some atheists was that passages in the Old Testament used as Messianic predictions were so inaccurate and at odds with the historical Jesus, that Jesus obviously wasn't the predicted Messiah. Now, the evaluation by some mythicists is that the passages in the Old Testament are so accurate, that Jesus is obviously a fictional person! The irony is profound. I've been commenting for some time how much Mythicist and evangelical apologist arguments and positions parallel each other. This happens so often that I regularly find myself using the same counter arguments against both, which is kind of bizarre. Most critical scholars accept the Two Source Theory on the relationship between the synoptic gospels. But both the Mythicists and the evangelical fundamentalists oppose it and reject the idea of "Q" - the former because it wrecks their claim that all the gospels derive from gMark with no independent traditions and the latter because they don't like the idea of a divinely-inspired work of the Word of God that God didn't preserve for us except in fragments in gMatt and gLuke. Most critical scholars accept that early Christology was low and that Jesus only came to be regarded as God in any sense at the very end of the first century. But both the Mythicists and the evangelical fundamentalists oppose this - the former because it wrecks their conception of Jesus as a divine, celestial being who got "historicised" and the latter because it doesn't fit their theology. There are several other examples, including the one Don highlights above. These strange parallels have a number of origins, though at least part of it seems to be that many Mythicists come from an evangelical background themselves and so their conception of Jesus seems blissfully unaware of the last 70 years of historical Jesus studies and depends on a curiously naive, Sunday School conception. This is why they have virtually no interest in the theme that has invigorated Jesus studies for the last half century: Jesus in his historical Jewish context. Carrier in particular is remarkably ignorant of this context and the few times he stumbles into this area we end up with the things like tangled mess he made of the Dying/Rising Jewish Messiah nonsense that Stark ripped to pieces or his equally bungled arguments about a "Jesus" he thinks he found in Philo.
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jagella
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Post by jagella on Nov 17, 2017 1:57:12 GMT
But the rub is that you don't get secular NT scholars to repeat the views of Christian fundamentalists. This is precisely what Carrier is doing in saying that Jews before Jesus read the Old Testament as predicting an executed and resurrected Messiah. So that is why I call Carrier's views "extreme" (they resemble extremist Christians' outlooks) and why that doesn't apply to the secular NT scholars who contradict the fundamentalists. I remember when I was a Christian fundamentalist it was popular among us to see prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament. While many of those passages cited as prophecies of Jesus were not really prophecies, the early Christians, most notably the author of Matthew, did interpret them that way. I was reminded of that interpretation while reading Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus. Carrier explained that there are indeed clay tablets upon which are inscribed Inanna's dying and rising to heaven. I don't believe Evans tried to counter this claim. Of course there are differences in the stories. Carrier likes to argue that you can focus on the many differences between West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet, but the former is obviously influenced by the latter. It just seems really strange to me that Carrier would make these kinds of mistakes. He's not stupid, obviously, and he knows a LOT about the relevant material. Sorry, but I find your charges to be hard to believe. Now how is anybody supposed to respond to this criticism? Do you expect Carrier to prove his textual criticism isn't "nuts"? I'm not really sure why some atheists so passionately argue for a historical Jesus. I can only speculate. That sounds scary. He keeps telling me I'm a troll. I really love it because I can respond with a knock-out punch in the form of a graphic. Never troll anybody who has Photoshop skills. You've got to admit that they're hilarious, especially the one of the Tasmanian devil from the University of Tasmania! OK, but the evidence still sucks no matter how you adeptly you argue about why it sucks. Why stop there? Go all the way and use the same proof that Jesus is the risen Lord! After all, Paul claims to have seen Jesus in a heavenly vision. That's really good evidence for Jesus in the heavenly realm. Paul said so. And we know we can trust Paul on other matters like the Lord's Supper. Paul said God told him about it. ... How improbable is it? How long did it take for tinfoil found at Roswell to transform into a crashed alien spacecraft? No, it's evidence that "Mythicism's historical standards" don't prove anything but merely provide reasons to doubt. Mythicism might very well be wrong. Who knows? Maybe all our doubts about Bigfoot might be proved wrong some day when somebody catches one. Until then, I remain a skeptic. I have noticed that all these scholars tend to toot their own horns. They keep assuring us that they have the best evidence and reasoning regarding Jesus. Who judges their credibility besides themselves? I would hope we all do judge them. Robert Price discusses midrash a lot as he argues that New Testament passages are based on Old Testament stories. Uh, Paul and the gospel writers were all Christians. They wrote what they believed was true based on their religious beliefs. Josephus' works were tampered with by Christians to make it appear he wrote about Jesus. As for Tacitus, we do not know what his source about "Christus" was. He may have been merely repeating what Christians believed. This evidence is woefully weak. You can be his cheerleader! Attachments:
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 17, 2017 7:24:29 GMT
But the rub is that you don't get secular NT scholars to repeat the views of Christian fundamentalists. This is precisely what Carrier is doing in saying that Jews before Jesus read the Old Testament as predicting an executed and resurrected Messiah. So that is why I call Carrier's views "extreme" (they resemble extremist Christians' outlooks) and why that doesn't apply to the secular NT scholars who contradict the fundamentalists. You know, that's something that I strongly suspect Dr Carrier of doing -- using fundamentalist and evangelical readings of the Bible to help build his "Jesus was a fictional person" idea. It first struck me when he proposed that Philo was hinting at a pre-Christian "Jesus Son of the Righteous" figure in Zech 6 in the Old Testament. I googled the idea, and the only ones I found making that argument were evangelicals, to "prove" that Jesus was pre-figured in the OT. If I'm right that Carrier is using that approach, then that's kind of brilliant. Every argument that evangelical scholars have made to show that the OT predicted Jesus could then be flipped to show that that was the source used by early 'mythicist' Christians to CREATE the figure of Jesus. Carrier just has to pick and choose. It may have been why he may have run into trouble with Thom Stark over the two Messiah figures argument, not that I really followed or was interested in the details of the argument. But perhaps Carrier had simply built off poor evangelical scholarship, one that suited his conclusion. Thirty years ago, the evaluation by some atheists was that passages in the Old Testament used as Messianic predictions were so inaccurate and at odds with the historical Jesus, that Jesus obviously wasn't the predicted Messiah. Now, the evaluation by some mythicists is that the passages in the Old Testament are so accurate, that Jesus is obviously a fictional person! Yes, it is in a way clever of Carrier, but it is also risky as it can just as well end up boosting the credibility of fundamentalist views among certain non-scholars. After all it depends on the rest of Carrier's case working and that isn't really convincing (though the aspects that copy fundamentalists are unpersuasive as well). Though I think Carrier's actual use of fundamentalist scholars is relatively limited. He is influenced by the super conservative NIV at times, but his normal MO is to pick an unusual but professional non-fundamentalist scholar, claim that this scholar's views are somehow almost gospel truth and 'base' his own views on those. These strange parallels have a number of origins, though at least part of it seems to be that many Mythicists come from an evangelical background themselves and so their conception of Jesus seems blissfully unaware of the last 70 years of historical Jesus studies and depends on a curiously naive, Sunday School conception. This is why they have virtually no interest in the theme that has invigorated Jesus studies for the last half century: Jesus in his historical Jewish context. Carrier in particular is remarkably ignorant of this context and the few times he stumbles into this area we end up with the things like tangled mess he made of the Dying/Rising Jewish Messiah nonsense that Stark ripped to pieces or his equally bungled arguments about a "Jesus" he thinks he found in Philo. It's noteworthy that the Bible that Carrier got when he began to investigate Christian claims was a fundamentalist "NIV Student Bible". But it's also not an unusual sight that a classical historian who isn't versed in the subject of early Judaism makes sweeping pronouncements on early Christianity - years ago there was a crazy one over here that saw evidence of the imperial cult in the formation of Christianity. And uncritical treatment of the Septuagint is also seen more often among them.
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Post by timoneill on Nov 17, 2017 8:53:40 GMT
It's noteworthy that the Bible that Carrier got when he began to investigate Christian claims was a fundamentalist "NIV Student Bible". But it's also not an unusual sight that a classical historian who isn't versed in the subject of early Judaism makes sweeping pronouncements on early Christianity - years ago there was a crazy one over here that saw evidence of the imperial cult in the formation of Christianity. And uncritical treatment of the Septuagint is also seen more often among them. I'm a patron of Carrier's on Patreon - mainly out of kind heartedness, partly for a laugh, but also because it means I get advance notice of all his blog posts and hilarious announcements about his favourite subject - himself. The one I got today informed me that this guy who has never studied the New Testament and has no training at all in the relevant disciplines and contexts is giving his "Online Christmas Course" entitled "Mastering the New Testament Skeptically". Here are the details: "Want to study the Reason for the Season this December? Christmas is coming! So you should know how to critically examine the Book that it sort of almost loosely isn’t based on. The best fake news ever. Master how to debate and understand the Bible skeptically and skillfully. Spread the word to everyone you know who might want to learn about this from a real expert!
That’s right. I’m teaching my popular course Introduction to Biblical Scholarship on the New Testament online in December. This is for anyone who wants to be better equipped to debate or understand the Bible. You will learn a lot of useful and surprising facts and skills. More than almost any Christian you meet. You’ll even learn how to understand a lot about the New Testament in the original Greek, without having to learn Greek! Ever want to know how to test the merits of an English translation? Well this is the course for you!
So if this is something that interests you, click above to register. And let others know about it, too.
The only required course text (which students should purchase as soon as possible) is my anthology Hitler Homer Bible Christ (available in print or kindle). We will use its contents as springboards for learning and discussing all manner of issues related to textual, historical, and literary analysis in New Testament studies. All other course materials (articles and/or video lectures) will be provided for free, including research papers by various scholars we’ll discuss, and excerpts from critical scholarly editions of the Bible in the original Greek (no prior knowledge of Greek will be required), public online tools, and other readings and resources.
Starting December 1 (2017).
So what exactly will be covered?
Official Course Description:
Richard Carrier (Ph.D.), who has years of training from Columbia University in paleography, papyrology, and ancient Greek, will teach anyone the basics of how to investigate, criticize, and study the New Testament from the perspective of how its text is constructed from manuscripts, as well as how to work from the original Greek without learning anything more than the Greek alphabet and the international terminology of grammar, and how to investigate and make the best use of academic and peer reviewed biblical scholarship.
Students will learn how to: locate words in the Greek text of the Bible, and find their definitions using online resources, and to use that skill to critically examine English translations; check if the manuscripts disagree on what the text says at that point, and what to make of that if they do; talk and reason about disagreements in the manuscripts, as well as the differing valences of words between modern translations and ancient originals; discern what kinds of errors and deliberate alterations are common in the biblical manuscripts; and how to use scholarship on the New Testament critically and informedly.
This course will also be a basic introduction to the contents of the New Testament and its composition, textual history, and assembly. After a month you will have a much better understanding and skill-set for studying, discussing, and arguing over, the content and history of the Christian Bible, as well as learn fascinating and interesting things about ancient history and how we know what we know about it from the perspective of how all ancient writing has been preserved yet distorted in transmission.
As usual, these courses are one month long, and you learn at your own pace and on your own time, and participate as much or as little as you want (many just lurk and read the assigned readings and resulting discussion threads).
Register now."So for the privilege of having Carrier lecturing you on a subject he's taught himself you have to buy his book ($22.00 or $7.99 on Kindle) and then fork over $79.00 for "Secular sage level registration" or $139 for "Academy Certificate registration". Whatever that means. Just in time to buy for your loved ones this Christmas. Still, I suppose the poor guy has to keep himself in instant noodles somehow.
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jagella
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Post by jagella on Nov 17, 2017 18:53:48 GMT
Yes, it is in a way clever of Carrier, but it is also risky as it can just as well end up boosting the credibility of fundamentalist views among certain non-scholars. The mistake I see you making is that you equate a fundamentalist view of the Bible as a wrong view of the Bible. Actually, I prefer Christians who have a fundamentalist view because their view isn't wishy-washy like more liberal interpretations. A fundamentalist interpretation seems more honest and straight-forward. In particular, it does seem that fundamentalists are right in that there are allusions to Jesus in the Old Testament, most notably Joshua. We can either see these allusions as being miraculous predictions of the coming of a real Jesus, or like Carrier view them as stories that Christians used to invent Jesus. I will, of course, side with Carrier.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 18, 2017 8:12:27 GMT
So for the privilege of having Carrier lecturing you on a subject he's taught himself you have to buy his book ($22.00 or $7.99 on Kindle) and then fork over $79.00 for "Secular sage level registration" or $139 for "Academy Certificate registration". Whatever that means. Just in time to buy for your loved ones this Christmas. Still, I suppose the poor guy has to keep himself in instant noodles somehow. So we are to conclude you won't patronise him by signing up for "registration"? Though demonstrating how the traditional Nativity story is a terrible incoherent mishmash is a worthy and I trust Carrier to get the main things right on this, I doubt it's worthy enough to pay more than five bucks.
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Post by peteri on Nov 22, 2017 17:34:28 GMT
I'm curious, can you name some of the fundamentalists you have in mind? Peter. I was mostly thinking of the internet nobodies I have come across, but I believe Pat Robertson and Josh McDowell are of the view that Isaiah 53 prophesies that the Messiah were to die (though I am very pleased to learn that Robertson's ministry dates Isaiah 53 to 538 BC, better than I ever dated to hope; unfortunately they also date it to the eighth century BC in the same article). Both also believe that the Old Testament predicts Jesus' resurrection. Why the question? When people talk about fundamentalists, I am rarely entirely sure if I am one or not, or what they mean. Fundamentalism was originally a orthodox protestant response to the modernist takeover of theological colleges, and was intended to encompass a broad understanding of protestant orthodoxy. Although the term had become something of a byword for narrowness in the secular press by the second half of the 1920s, most of the people who used the term of themselves through the 1940s understood it to mean only that they weren't going to stop believing the story of the virgin birth and other such unfashionable things. The number of people calling themselves fundamentalists started dropping strongly after the publication of the RSV and the ensuing controversies and the much smaller number of people who continued to call themselves fundamentalists had a somewhat more justified reputation for narrowness and anti-intellectualism. There are now very few self-described fundamentalists, and the word is mostly used of people who do not use the word of themselves. A few years ago, I saw Roger Pearse call himself a fundamentalist - and he is certainly not anti-intellectual. I think perhaps that I should choose to own the term too. I remember from the time I was eleven years year old being somewhat bewildered by the clause in the Nicene creed : "and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures" because I had looked up every reference to three days in the Old Testament and none of them seemed to have any obvious connexion with Christ's resurrection. I still haven't found a really satisfactory answer, but it appears to have been in a very early credal formulation in 1 Corinthians 15. What I have understood since then, is that the primitive church had a rather creative way of reading scripture for prophecies about Jesus. I have been doing a study of Matthew with a friend, and we always make sure that we read the context of the passages from the OT which he uses. My working hypothesis is that Matthew wants and expects his readers to do this - to have the original meaning of the prophecies in mind while he draws out a new meaning. Peter
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Post by unkleE on Nov 22, 2017 21:15:56 GMT
What I have understood since then, is that the primitive church had a rather creative way of reading scripture for prophecies about Jesus. I have been doing a study of Matthew with a friend, and we always make sure that we read the context of the passages from the OT which he uses. My working hypothesis is that Matthew wants and expects his readers to do this - to have the original meaning of the prophecies in mind while he draws out a new meaning. It wasn't just the early church, but Judaism at that time. It was considered legit to re-interpret prophecies, and even other forms of writing, to refer to Jesus (e.g. the virgin birth is a re-interpretation of Isaiah 7) and to put quite different thoughts into passages (e.g. Jesus does this in quoting, and interpreting quite out of context, Psalm 82:6 in John 10:34-35). Richard Longenecker's " Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period" explains all this, including the rules for such creative interpretation, in great detail, while Peter Enns " Inspiration and Incarnation" addresses the same issue more briefly in one of three main sections. I find it very difficult to understand how christians who read their Bibles seriously and regularly don't see the obvious, as you have done here, that Jesus and the NT writers do not treat the OT the way evangelicals want us to treat the whole Bible, and therefore learn something about how God has revealed himself to us.
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