jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 8, 2017 15:48:54 GMT
That's quite a leap. You made the accusation that criticism of Murdock/Acharya S was based on sexism with your only evidence being her sex. Actually, I was watching a YouTube video of Acharya, and she said she believed her opposition had a sexist element to it. I have noticed that all the people I'm familiar with who preach a historical Jesus are men, and with very few exceptions are white-European men. As women enter the debate, I think it's fair to say they will bring a fresh perspective with them. I have been scammed out of money by Christians. They used my belief in Jesus to do it. So I know that Jesus is a very useful figure in manipulating people. The claims about him need not be rooted in a real person--those claims might be rooted in the creation of a figure used to deceive people. In any case, please do not attack me. Not only is doing so abusive but is illogical as well. I have no reason to believe you're deceiving me. I'm not so sure about other people. It's good that you are thinking critically. I am thinking critically too. We have nevertheless arrived at different conclusions regarding the accuracy of claims about the historicity of Jesus. You think he lived, and I am unconvinced that he lived. I think it is inevitable that people will arrive at different conclusions regarding truth claims. Bias no doubt plays a part in these differences of opinion. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to change my mind and accept a historical Jesus if I have good reason to. Are you willing to see him as a myth if the evidence warranted it, or are you committed to belief in a real Jesus? In the context of what you said about being "taken seriously" you meant that I should cave in and agree with the opposition. I'm not out to agree with the mob. And you really should take back the name-calling. I have not treated you that way, and I'd like to be treated as well in return. I'm sorry, but I have examined the claims for a historical Jesus and remain unconvinced. Maybe someday I will change my mind, but for now at least I'm a skeptic. Sometimes good evidence isn't "practical." If good evidence is tough to come by in practice or even in principal, then it does not logically follow that we should lower our standards and accept poor evidence to reach a sure conclusion. Yes, poor evidence might be all we have, and we might come to some tentative conclusions based on that evidence. But in such cases we need to recognize that our conclusions are not assured. Many people have arrived at the conclusion that Jesus lived based on weak evidence. That's OK as long as the conclusion is recognized as having a shaky foundation and is subject to revision. It looks that way to me. I've endured a lot of abuse and hostility on this thread. People who act that way seem to have an emotional attachment to the idea that I find wanting--a historical Jesus. If I was a historian specializing in the protestant reformation, I would not show anger and abuse against those who expressed doubts that Martin Luther existed. I'd find their skepticism to be peculiar, and I might investigate their reasons to doubt. If I had the time I'd express why I think there was a Martin Luther. I'd probably just leave it go at that and let the doubters doubt. I wouldn't angrily attack them calling them liars and trolls. I'd only act that way if I felt threatened by the skepticism. That's what I see in my opposition here. They seem insecure and threatened by my skepticism. Just like Jesus, Zeus was a god who visited the earth in the guise of a man. He physically interacted with humans just like Jesus is said to have done. And like Jesus, Zeus returned to his heavenly realm when his activities on earth were complete. Like Jesus was opposed by Satan, Zeus was opposed by his jealous wife, Hera. I plan to investigate this issue further. Frank Zindler disputes this claim saying that such evidence for many people in the first century is available. Are you shifting the burden of proof to the skeptics? Do I need to prove Bigfoot doesn't exist to "actually challenge" the Bigfoot believers? I don't think so. I've read that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls created a lot of initial excitement over the "teacher of righteousness" mentioned in those scrolls. People were hoping that this teacher of righteousness was Jesus and that they finally found good, contemporary evidence for him. Of course it turned out that the Dead Sea Scrolls do not mention Jesus. Again and again somebody comes up with some hoped-for proof for Jesus only to have their hopes dashed. Maybe if we just recognized him as a myth we'd save ourselves a lot of disappointment. Again, if my avowed skepticism troubles you, I'm sorry. I might be wrong, but until I see good reason that I'm wrong, I am unconvinced. Just like Kuhn said, those who cannot fit anomalies into the current paradigm model are blamed for their failure to do so. Maybe the paradigm is at fault and needs to be changed.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 8, 2017 20:50:23 GMT
Thanks for sharing. That looks like a good example of why knowing the "Greek" might be helpful. Note that there are also other examples of Carrier's unfamiliarity with Hebrew leading him to untenable interpretations in that same post on Stark's blog. For instance, his point about the "seven years and sixty-two years" being a unit would be disproven by a simple glance at the Hebrew text. And often the tone of what Carrier writes is off, very off. If I made the kind of suggestion he makes about texts in unfamiliar languages, I would do so with a question mark. Carrier's demeanor, by contrast, is very assertive and he feels comfortable telling experts that they are wrong, while he doesn't even fully understand the experts whom he quotes approvingly. I don't think it's fair to read Carrier's mind. We could just as easily speculate why some people insist on a historical Jesus, but that wouldn't be fair to them. (OK, I admit I sometimes do it myself. I will try not to in the future.) I think that both the general point that Richard Carrier has a bias against Christians and the particular point that he was then out looking for a pre-Christian belief in a dying Messiah are supported very well by the evidence. Mind you, the people who post here are often acquainted in depth with Carrier's opinions and biases. Some of his polemical interests overlap a lot with the interests of the posters on these forum boards. As Tim O'Neill wrote: So we have had ample occasion to observe him flaunting his biases. Also, I think I have still treated Carrier (an amateur) much less rudely than you have treated Ehrman (an expert). An entire thread could be easily devoted to critiquing Did Jesus Exist. Indeed, an entire book has been published to do just that. It's entitled Bart Ehmran and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth, edited by Frank R. Zindler and Robert M. Price. I have read it. It's good. Okay, well I can't respond to points of criticism that aren't expressed here. The little that I have read by Zindler made it clear to me that he is an anti-theistic polemicist with no special skills in the humanities, so I doubt that I could find his contributions to the book "good". The late Maurice Casey also dealt it to him with both barrels. Feel free to repeat any criticism they have, however. Anyway, before I ever read any critiques of Did Jesus Exist, I think I must have had an objection to almost everything Bart wrote. He starts out with the old we-historicists-are-in-the-majority fallacy. He attacks DM Murdoch libeling her as making up a story about a statue in the Vatican museum which, as it turns out, is really there! He argues that the different stories about Jesus written by Christians are “independent” and evidence for a real Jesus. Doesn't he realize that you don't need a real Jesus to explain that? All you need are commonly-held beliefs among the early Christians that Jesus was historical. Here's a real howler from page 118: Oh? So this is the evidence for a historical Jesus? Paul said so? How naive can you get! The same kind of evidence proves the reality of the angel, Moroni, who delivered the Book of Mormon on gold tablets. Joseph Smith said so, after all. The crucial question with that quote is, how does Ehrman wield that argument? Can you quote the exact statement of Ehrman which you find objectionable? Because if he simply notes that there is a scholarly consensus and therefore there is a good reason for laypeople to believe that Jesus existed, then that is a valid practical argument. It is only a fallacy if he concludes from the existence of a scholarly majority or even a consensus that Jesus really existed. Do you understand why this distinction is important?By the way, that phallic rooster Priapus isn't in the Vatican, but in the Gabinetto Segreto. So it's not there. It's another piece of information from Murdock that she (and her source) messed up. So Murdock was spreading a falsehood about the location of the statue. Kudos to Fortigurn for getting to the bottom of that. He argues that the different stories about Jesus written by Christians are “independent” and evidence for a real Jesus. Doesn't he realize that you don't need a real Jesus to explain that? All you need are commonly-held beliefs among the early Christians that Jesus was historical. Here's a real howler from page 118: Oh? So this is the evidence for a historical Jesus? Paul said so? How naive can you get! The same kind of evidence proves the reality of the angel, Moroni, who delivered the Book of Mormon on gold tablets. Joseph Smith said so, after all. The gJohn and the synoptics are independent sources, regardless of whether Jesus did or didn't exist. Similarly gMark and Q and M and L are independent. Where does the Book of Mormon describe Moroni as having lived the life of a human? Common sense tells me at least that there are no magical men. Magic is but an illusion and a delusion. Christians or other religious people are not to be trusted because their fanaticism drives them to twist the truth or even lie outright. Since Jesus is clearly described as a magic man by the Christians who wrote the New Testament, he in all probability was their invention. Note that "magic man" is your term - for Jesus is nowhere in the New Testament described as a practitioner of magic. He is however described as a healer and a miracle worker. Obviously, secular historians can't rely on descriptions of supernatural events as statements of facts - they can however accept them as evidence for belief in miracles. Then the question becomes whether it is possible or plausible that there are natural explanations of these supernatural elements. You really ought to read Maurice Casey's Jesus of Nazareth, where he spends a full chapter on healing and exorcism developing criteria for doing just that. Also, maybe it's my lack of Americana emotionality, but "Christians or other religious people are not to be trusted because their fanaticism drives them to twist the truth or even lie outright." does not sound very judicious, moderate or practical. Most ancient historians were in some way religious - if we take your statement literally, should we just discard all their writings? Besides, someone who calls out others on supposed sexism, would do well to avoid bigoted statements oneself.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 8, 2017 20:52:27 GMT
Though others seem to have more patience with someone whose self-assurance far outruns either his knowledge or, to be blunt, their capacity for coherent and rational argument, and it's been amusing to watch him flounder around. Laugh it up, Tim! There's more to come. I see you graduated with honors. While that's very commendable, please check my diploma. As you can see I graduated in 1996 with a bachelor of science degree. I graduated summa cum laude. That's Latin for "with highest honors." I had a perfect GPA of 4.0. I beat you there! I know you love to troll insulting people. No doubt you'll go on the attack screaming that I have no formal education in the New Testament. (Always stick your enemy where you think he's weakest.) While it is true that my education in the issue of the historicity of Jesus is from self-study, I proved at the Pennsylvania College of Technology that when it comes to learning, you cannot get better than I. And after seeing your diploma, I can see that my learning abilities are superior to your own. What the sublunar heavenly realm? What kind of Trumpian outburst is that?
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 8, 2017 22:07:09 GMT
You have a single undergraduate degree from one of the lowest ranked colleges in the US. What is my alma mater's ranking? It was far from perfect when I studied there. Whatever deficiencies it may have had, I made up for it with very hard work. My studies paid off for me in 1994 when the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) awarded me the plaque you can see in the attached photo for my "excellence in accounting studies." I've made a point of excellence in any studies ever since. The same way I studied accounting, I now study the New Testament. You have quite a knack for hyperbole. I never heard of his college before. If O'Neill did well in school, then I'm happy for him. I used to tutor college students in algebra and trigonometry and many other subjects, and I believe in education, you might say. If Tim studied where and when I did, chances are I would have tutored him and been happy to do so. Like I've said before, I disagree with his reasoning and find his evidence weak. It amounts to: "I know Jesus existed because the Bible says so." I might expect that kind of sophistry from an ignorant fundamentalist preacher but not from anybody educated at a good university (somewhere in Tasmania). While I'm not sure what arguments you are referring to, I am essentially a skeptic who is unconvinced by the arguments made for a historical Jesus. If you don't meet the burden of proof, then that's your problem. In conclusion, I realize you are just "trolling for Jesus." However, I'm hoping that others can benefit from this discussion about the historical Jesus. Attachments:
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 8, 2017 22:24:34 GMT
.You've been talking about your alleged book for several years, and it remains completely fictional. I think that "mythical" may be a better description. I have about 1/3 of the draft of the book finished. I hope to have it ready for publishing next year. If I can trust you, then I'll be happy to email you the draft. Here's an excerpt:
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 8, 2017 22:31:41 GMT
This is all highly ironic given that you have consistently demonstrated poor ethics, made repeated personal attacks on people, made false accusations about motive, and been persistently rude. I will need to take care to conduct myself appropriately. I must admit that I tend to strike back when I get struck. The issue of the historicity of Jesus is too important to me to have this discussion devolve into a troll war.
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Post by gakuseidon on Nov 9, 2017 3:53:48 GMT
Fortigurn is better at exact-words then I am, and he seems to me to be winning the argument. I simply observe that Ehrman does not appear to have claimed the non-existence of a sculpture, or its non-presence in the Vatican. You need not rely on your judgment as to who is winning an argument. I'd recommend you go to the original sources to see what the truth is. The root of this issue can be found on page 168 of The Christ Conspiracy where Acharya first discusses “Peter the cock.” You can then find the sketch of the statue in question on page 295(b) of that book. Next, get a copy of Did Jesus Exist by Bart Ehrman. On page 24 of that book you will find Erhman's critique of what Acharya said. Finally, on pages 63-71 of Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth you can find a detailed rebuttal by Acharya. Note that on her website, Acharya apologised for her ambiguity, writing (my bolding below): [/b], but I was not in error here, despite the constant attempts to make me appear as such[/ul] So both Acharya and Ehrman could be honest in stating their positions: Acharya (honestly) didn't mean that the statue was that of St Peter, and Ehrman (honestly) read it that way. I certainly took it the same way as Ehrman when I read it. The thing is: if the statue isn't related to St Peter, why present an image of it at all? What does showing a Priapus statue get her any more than just showing a picture of a penis, or a dildo, or anything else? The caption "Bronze sculpture hidden in the Vatican" suggests something that the Vatican is trying to hide, which is consistent with the "Conspiracy" in the title, I suppose. But it doesn't support the idea of St Peter being associated with the penis, because the statue isn't about St Peter. So why is it there? Can you explain why she uses that statue, using her explanation from the book? If it is a hint about something that the Vatican has hidden, what exactly is it a hint for?
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Post by gakuseidon on Nov 9, 2017 4:26:19 GMT
The point is, why would Murdock include that picture if she weren't claiming that there be a connection? Archarya includes a lot of illustrations in her book. They help to clarify what she's discussing in the text. See the attachment for two good examples of these illustrations. The Hercules image, with the caption "Hercules bending under the Cross made of the two pillars of Heaven (Doane)" is interesting, since I've never heard of Hercules carrying a cross like that. The image doesn't really even look like Hercules carrying a cross, if you look carefully. He has a pillar over one shoulder and another under his other arm. So I checked her source. It is: Doane, T.W., Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions, Health Research, 1985 For starters, note that the book was originally published in 1882, so the "1985" is a reprint. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps, but it is something she does with a few of her other 19th Century and early 20th Century sources, like Col. James Churchward. Usually the reprint date suggests a recent update, which doesn't seem likely for those authors. You can search Doane's book on Amazon. The page discussing that drawing of Hercules can be found on page 70 here: www.amazon.com/Bible-Myths-their-Parallels-Religions/dp/1564599221There is nothing about Hercules carrying a Cross, or even "two pillars of Heaven". According to Doane, the two pillars are the Pillars of Hercules that will stand at the gate of the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. Check it out for yourself! And there are LOTS of other things I could write about Acharya S's "The Christ Conspiracy", but here is another sample: The Catholic Pope is the Grand Master of the Masons, and knows that Christ never existed! Some quotes: High ranking Masons and priests are informed about the real origins of Christianity, but are sworn by a blood oath not to reveal the truth: Some scholars today may be aware of the truth also, but they have gone to immense lengths to hide it: And don't get me started on her idea about a world-wide advanced Pygmy culture in ancient times! I can give you page numbers if you like.
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kj
Clerk
Posts: 9
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Post by kj on Nov 9, 2017 7:14:28 GMT
Nov 8, 2017 9:48:54 GMT -6 jagella said: Actually, I was watching a YouTube video of Acharya, and she said she believed her opposition had a sexist element to it. I have noticed that all the people I'm familiar with who preach a historical Jesus are men, and with very few exceptions are white-European men. As women enter the debate, I think it's fair to say they will bring a fresh perspective with them. Well, if she said she thought her opposition was sexist, that's different. Nobody every falsely claimed (or believed) they were being persecuted for something other than the quality of their scholarship. Sorry, I'm still unconvinced. (Personally, I believe some of her loopier "New Age" beliefs contributed more to opposition than her sex.) As the husband of a physicist, father of two daughters, and having worked with several outstanding women faculty in the sciences, I get a bit annoyed at careless accusations of sexism. There are real cases of sexists acting to limit women professionally; it is important to me that we not dilute these with wild accusations of sexism whenever there is a disagreement. Some women will bring a fresh perspective with them. That's because of their intellect and experience, not their biology. I've been cheated by dishonest people of many religions and no religion. Their dishonesty is at best tangential to their religious beliefs. I've been helped by good people of many religion and no religion. Their generosity and goodness is often linked to their religious beliefs. Dishonest people will use whatever tool they find to manipulate people. Their existence indicates nothing about the existence of either the historical nor the supernatural Jesus- to claim otherwise is just a variant of the "If God exists, why does He allow evil to exist?" debate. If you really distrust everybody (as you suggested by your "that's foolish" response to my statement that I generally don't distrust people's motives without reason), that suggests as issue which is within you. There may well be reason for it, but it has to make actual discourse very difficult. Productive discussion of nearly any topic can really only proceed with some assumption of honest motives on the rest of the participants. That's not intended as an attack, but an observation. I will repeat here that for someone who says "Please don't attack me. [It is] abusive [and] illogical," your questioning of Tim's degrees was a definite attack. You had no reason to believe he's lying about them. Alleging fraudulent credentials is very serious in academic circles- doing so falsely likely would rise to the legal level of libel. It certainly rises to the legal level of calumny. People can, have, and do lose jobs over falsified claims of degrees. People can, have, and do lose grant funding over falsified claims of degrees. In extreme cases, they can be prosecuted for fraud over them. While I am a proponent of rough-and-tumble debate, and have been part of heated discussions of science which involved shouting, cursing, and questions of general competence, to suggest that someone is lying about their academic background without real evidence is out-of-bounds, and calls your good faith and motives into question. As I've said, I see very little which will influence my thinking one way or the other. The existence of a historical Jesus does not mean that he was the Son of God. The quality of available evidence does not alter the essential truth of whether he existed- to do that, you'd need to have evidence that there really was no Jesus, which is nearly impossible to prove. Let me use another physics analogy. A friend and former colleague of mine did his master's thesis analyzing collider data for evidence of charmed baryons. The collider that was involved, it turns out, did not have enough energy to produce them. So his master's thesis is basically an explanation of a negative result: there was no evidence for charmed baryons. Charmed baryon theorists were untroubled- they were convinced (rightly so) that the problem was just with the data, not with the idea. With historical data, there are some significant differences. There is a presumption- the Totalitarian Rule of Physics: everything which is not forbidden is mandatory. If we had a collider which we knew to be of sufficient energy (assume we could determine such a limit), and still had no evidence for charmed baryons, the charmed baryon theorists would be going back to the drawing board to find a rule which precluded the formation of these particles. There is no such rule in history: evidence can be missing for a myriad of reasons not related to the actual lack of existence. I didn't say that you should "cave in", nor did I mean that. I mean that you have to understand and work with the methods and standards of historians if you want to be taken seriously by them. If you don't want to be taken seriously, but just to cast aspersions and trumpet your beliefs, then your behavior is that of a "troll" as commonly used on the internet. It's not a mere insult. When deciding whether any given person existed in history, it will almost always be a "more likely than not" judgement. Historians have, over time and many cases, developed some guidelines for what influences the two sides of that balance. That requires there to be a set of people that they largely agree existed. If the evidence for a person's existence is comparable to or better than that for people in this "existed" set, then it is more likely that that person also existed. Based on that standard, as Tim lays out in his post, it is more likely than not that Jesus exists. Different historians will have somewhat different criteria for inclusion in their "existed" sets. The majority of them find that Jesus belongs in the "most likely existed file," which suggests that the conclusion is a robust one. That robustness is the significance of the "consensus," not just that a collective decided something. You want to reject this standard in favor of a stricter one. But you have not considered the significance of doing so other than for Jesus. If the stricter standard causes the "existed" set to become empty, then it is not a useful standard- a history in which we conclude no individuals existed is vacuous. If you want to be taken seriously- actually to be considered as contributing to scholarship- and you really believe a stricter standard should be applied, it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate that a meaningful standard exists. Just repeating "I am not convinced" is not persuasive. The world of an accountant must be a candy-filled bubble if you think you've "endured a lot of abuse and hostility." I've been at professional meetings where disagreements devolved into shouting matches and it wasn't certain that actual fistfights weren't imminent. People are calling you a troll because your behavior matches that of a troll. They aren't reacting emotionally to your conclusion, but they are reacting to your abject refusal to demonstrate any understanding of the evidence for the historical Jesus, or indeed any willingness to develop in yourself the background knowledge needed to understand that evidence. Instead, you accuse them of sexism and academic fraud, and you attempt to pass of a bad online translation as your understanding of Greek. Frankly, you seem more insecure than anyone else on this thread. It gives the impression that you define yourself by your skepticism and not by your scholarship. And you have, in fact, called people liars. In particular, you suggested that Tim O'Neill falsely claimed degrees. Well, that may be a starting point. I know nothing about Zindler's work, but if you can frame a credible argument that the evidence for Jesus's existence is actually weaker than that for a significant number of similarly-situated people of the time, that would be significant. I would caution you to keep fortigurn's advice in mind, however: you need to really put forth the effort to understand not only Zindler, but the original sources with which he works, in order to assess the credibility of his work. That includes finding some way to deal with the language issue. Well, sort of. It's probably necessary to identify of whom we speak. The real die-hards, the Ken Ham types, aren't going to be convinced anyway. Anyone who believes in a 6000 year old earth and explains away the physical evidence to the contrary by suggesting that that evidence is there to "challenge our faith" will never be convinced of a mythical Jesus. Most other believers would need to be shown that there was either positive evidence of fraud, or a strong argument that the evidence for the historical Jesus was significantly weaker than for a substantial number of others of his time (individual values of "strong," "significantly," and "substantial" would vary) before they concluded that there was no historical Jesus. Similarly (with different thresholds of terms) for most historians, I'd suggest: they would need to be persuaded that, on balance, there was more reason to believe Jesus to be mythical than real. Nothing you have shown indicates that those thresholds are being approached. The analogy to Bigfoot is inapt as it applies to the forests of North America. There is significantly less evidence for such a creature than there is for any other large hominid (or indeed any mammal) in the region. So skepticism is warranted. Even so, there seem to be no lack of believers who will never be convinced, and there are "theories" of why Bigfoot might exist which can never be proven false. It's statements like this that make me think your skepticism may be as much emotional as intellectual, which is exactly the claim you make about those who disagree with you. Your skepticism, in and of itself, doesn't bother me at all. I don't think you've fully thought through the intellectual component of your skepticism. You keep making allusions to Kuhn, but you have presented no real evidence of an anomaly. So the current paradigm remains unthreatened. A substantial part of the difference between us is that you refuse to understand the current paradigm, and until you do, you will not be able to present compelling evidence of a "Jesus anomaly" which challenges that paradigm.
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 9, 2017 16:01:35 GMT
[/b], but I was not in error here, despite the constant attempts to make me appear as such[/ul][/quote]So both Acharya and Ehrman could be honest in stating their positions: Acharya (honestly) didn't mean that the statue was that of St Peter, and Ehrman (honestly) read it that way. I certainly took it the same way as Ehrman when I read it. [/quote] Acharya, yes, Ehrman, no. I never for one moment thought that Acharya stated or implied that the statue in question was a statue of Peter. If Ehrman isn't lying, then he has a very bad case of reading incomprehension. Are you sure you aren't allowing your bias to color what you were reading? I've noticed that people tend to twist the words they are reading if they don't like the message. For example, in a Christian forum I posted a challenge to the Christians there. I asked them to pray for the restoration of an amputated limb to prove the efficacy of prayer. One of them accused me of calling for a person to be mutilated! I said no such thing. They hated what I was saying so much that they twisted it into something I never said. The same phenomenon seems to be taking place in this debate.
The sketch of the statue is there simply to illustrate the symbol of St. Peter. (Note that I said the statue depicts a symbol of Peter, not Peter himself!)
You don't think the Vatican tries to hide things? You no doubt are familiar with the pedophile-priest scandal in which the Vatican tried to cover up the whole mess. Yes, conspiracies do happen. I don't know if the issue with the statue is a conspiracy on the part of the Catholic church, but it's not impossible that it is a cover-up.
Are you asking why the statue is in the Vatican or why the sketch is in Acharya's book? You'd need to ask the Vatican why they store the statue. And if you contact the Vatican, please have them notify Ehrman that they do indeed have the statue.
You'd need to ask Acharya, but she's dead and cannot answer. I never gave the issue much thought until I realized that Ehrman twisted her words. This adverse reaction to mythicism seems rooted in desperation.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 9, 2017 19:45:21 GMT
I am going to respond to the following in isolation, because it illustrates something you have to learn about hermeneutics. I don't believe illustrations of penises are appropriate for children's books. This was written in response to the following: The point is, why would Murdock include that picture if she weren't claiming that there be a connection? Including random images to clarify what a cock looks like would be highly appropriate for a children's book, but children are not Murdock's audience. (It probably would also be a difficult image to get into any children's book that isn't self-published.) The fact that 1) she claims that the name "Peter" means "penis", 2) she highlights the meaning "penis" that the word "cock" can also carry, 3) her heavy-handed insistence that the cock is a "symbol of Peter" (more correctly, it's a symbol of Peter's denial/betrayal) and 4) the rather conspicuous example of a rooster with a phallic beak all suggest that she's hinting at a stronger relation, no? Or do you think that she was listing all these banal facts to just convey "golly, what a big coincidence, but I'm sure it doesn't mean anything"? Okay, so what you had was a problem of how to interpret a certain word, "cock", that in this context could mean either "rooster" or "penis". The meaning you read it as, "penis", was the wrong one. Now the use wasn't very obvious, but there were clues to its meaning. Historians and other people trained in hermeneutics have learnt how to disambiguate different meanings and I suggest that you teach yourself about this as well if you want to engage with scholarship, because it is an essential skill. I'm going to give you a few reasons why the meaning "rooster" would be preferred here. 1. The statement "random images to clarify what a cock looks like would be highly appropriate for a children's book" suggests that images of "cocks" are regularly included in children's books. Pictures of roosters are very common in such books, pictures of penises (to my knowledge) aren't. 2. The concession that "It probably would also be a difficult image to get into any children's book that isn't self-published." indicates there is something about this image in particular that would likely make a publisher refuse this for a children's book, but not other pictures of the subject. That is also evidence the meaning "rooster" was meant, because this rooster has an unusual phallic beak, but the penis doesn't look especially weird. 3. The quote refers to the image as a whole, which is of a bust with a rooster's head. The penis, on the other hand, is only a small part of the image. So if only the beak was meant, that would have probably been specified. 4. The caption of the image uses "Cock, image of St. Peter" in the same primary sense of "rooster", because Peter isn't linked symbolically to penises, but he is linked symbolically to a rooster. So to wrap up, you need to develop skills to interpret texts more critically.
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 9, 2017 23:02:58 GMT
If the evidence for Acharya's sexism charge doesn't satisfy you, then don't believe her.
I'm not sure what New Age beliefs she may have held. She does discuss a lot of astrology and astrotheology in The Christ Conspiracy. However, she argues that if Jesus was based in astrology, then he was a myth. Dismissing astrological figures as mere myths doesn't sound very New Age to me.
I agree with what you're saying here, and I'm merely suspicious that the criticism of Acharya has sexist overtones.
We'll just need to disagree here. I've seen first hand how the figure of Jesus can be used to scam people. If it wasn't for belief in Jesus, the fake healers like Benny Hinn would be out of business.
Again, let's not engage in ad hominem arguments. How I feel is not the issue here.
I should point out that scrutinizing a person's background, especially a person who might be seen as an expert or authority, is logical if my opponents look to that person as a source of truth that relates to the discussion. As such, I'm not attacking anybody to abuse that person. I'm scrutinizing that person's education to judge if what that person claims is credible.
Again, I'm not saying Jesus never existed. I'm skeptical that he existed. The arguments for his existence I find unconvincing. I should point out, though, that just like Jesus, it also may be impossible to prove Zeus was not a real man. Nevertheless, we can sensibly conclude that Zeus was made up. It seems that for very similar reasons we can conclude that Jesus was made up.
In such cases we need to ask the question: Should we have that missing evidence? In some cases absence of evidence is evidence of absence if the evidence should be available. In the case of Jesus, should we have evidence from the first three decades of first century for him? If Jesus was anything like the Jesus of the gospels, then why the deafening silence from the historians of that time? One way out of this dilemma is to conclude, ad hoc, that Jesus just wasn't well known then. His fame spread only many decades after his death. While this scenario isn't impossible, I find it to be improbable. And history is based on probabilities.
It appears to me that those who insist on a historical Jesus, at least the ones on this thread, cannot be reasoned with. That's OK with me--they can believe anything they want. It's not terribly important to me that I convince them. I'm out to discuss the different points of view about Jesus and present them to the interested reader--people who can be reasoned with. I will let the reader make up her or his mind as to who or what Jesus was.
That's interesting because it seems to me that Jesus is quite different from people who likely existed and very similar to people who probably didn't exist. That's one of the main reasons I'm skeptical that he existed.
You can think anything you wish about my motives, but again, my motives have nothing to do with the existence of Jesus.
I'll just have to disagree and opine that the historical-Jesus paradigm is in big trouble. I'm hoping that universities will soon offer courses in mythical elements in the New Testament. There's tons of mythology in the New Testament, and people need to be educated in it. Maybe Richard Carrier and/or Robert Price can publish a text book in Jesus mythology. Until then, I think I will make a point of studying comparative mythology to learn about how mythology has impacted Christianity.
Finally, one more personal attack, and our dialogue is finished.
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Post by timoneill on Nov 9, 2017 23:46:16 GMT
In such cases we need to ask the question: Should we have that missing evidence? In some cases absence of evidence is evidence of absence if the evidence should be available. In the case of Jesus, should we have evidence from the first three decades of first century for him? If Jesus was anything like the Jesus of the gospels, then why the deafening silence from the historians of that time? One way out of this dilemma is to conclude, ad hoc, that Jesus just wasn't well known then. His fame spread only many decades after his death. While this scenario isn't impossible, I find it to be improbable. And history is based on probabilities. Why on earth would something as ordinary as a peasant preacher preaching to other peasants in Galilee being not well known outside of his backwater be "improbable"?
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Post by gakuseidon on Nov 10, 2017 0:04:26 GMT
Acharya, yes, Ehrman, no. I never for one moment thought that Acharya stated or implied that the statue in question was a statue of Peter. If Ehrman isn't lying, then he has a very bad case of reading incomprehension. Are you sure you aren't allowing your bias to color what you were reading? Bias is always possible, but I don't think so in this case. Acharya apologised for being ambiguous -- see the link I gave earlier. Thus it isn't surprising that Ehrman (and I) misread her. I believe it is not unreasonable to put this down to the ambiguity rather than to any maliciousness. I've noticed that people tend to twist the words they are reading if they don't like the message. But if Acharya was NOT claiming that the statue was of St Peter, and Ehrman knew that, why on earth would he need to twist her words? What's the message that he didn't like (assuming he didn't misread it)? The drawing is then not evidence of anything, rather it is just illustrating a point that was made in the text. Wouldn't a penis picture, with a caption "Symbol of St Peter", have done just as well? Again, that Ehrman misread an ambiguous statement seems a more likely proposition than lying. You'd need to ask Acharya, but she's dead and cannot answer. I never gave the issue much thought until I realized that Ehrman twisted her words. This adverse reaction to mythicism seems rooted in desperation. Desperation about what? How does a Priapus statue add weight to any mythicist argument or remove weight from any historicist argument? That might be a good way to bring the conversation back on track: "The Priapus statue depicted in TCC supports mythicism because..."
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jagella
Bachelor of the Arts
Posts: 86
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Post by jagella on Nov 10, 2017 0:27:43 GMT
In such cases we need to ask the question: Should we have that missing evidence? In some cases absence of evidence is evidence of absence if the evidence should be available. In the case of Jesus, should we have evidence from the first three decades of first century for him? If Jesus was anything like the Jesus of the gospels, then why the deafening silence from the historians of that time? One way out of this dilemma is to conclude, ad hoc, that Jesus just wasn't well known then. His fame spread only many decades after his death. While this scenario isn't impossible, I find it to be improbable. And history is based on probabilities. Why on earth would something as ordinary as a peasant preacher preaching to other peasants in Galilee being not well known outside of his backwater be "improbable"? Here's what I think is a very relevant passage from Matthew 4:24: Jesus is portrayed here as being a very notable person. His fame spread throughout all Syria. If that's true, then we should expect the historians of his day to have written of him. They didn't write about him. Now, like I have already posted, we can contrive an ad hoc explanation by arguing (like you and Bart Ehrman do) that he was an "ordinary peasant preacher" who might go unnoticed. But to argue that way we are altering the story to fit our preconception that he must have existed. That is, to save the historical Jesus we must change him to fit our model of him. By the way, didn't Bible scholars used to believe that Adam, Eve, and Noah were real people? I must wonder what the reaction was when people started to place these figures in the category of myth.
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