|
Post by fortigurn on Apr 24, 2012 3:58:57 GMT
When someone is very knowledgeable, it becomes easier for them to paint targets around arrows. This type of thing gets called out among real experts in academia. Is Doherty in academia? Doherty is not in academia, and has never been in academia. He has a bachelor degree in Ancient History and Classical Languages.
|
|
|
Post by euglena on Apr 24, 2012 4:16:42 GMT
Why do I get this feeling the mythers spend their days working at the GameStop or Target and spend their nights on the basement computer convincing their avid fans that academia is censoring the Truth?
|
|
|
Post by ignorantianescia on Apr 24, 2012 5:24:59 GMT
Professor Hoffman comments on Carrier and Myers: rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/mythtic-pizza-and-cold-cocked-scholars/I got the feeling too. In fact, it looks to me like fortigurn's comment is much more powerful. To use an analogy from football, Ehrman comes off as a cornerback tackling Carrier by his ankles. Fortigurn came off like a middle linebacker who just flattened Carrier et al. head-on. Thanks for the compliment. My personal approach to such discussions is to use what I call The Bodkin; instead of writing lengthy tirade-ridden screeds like Carrier, or equally lengthy and complicated rebuttals such as Ehrman, I prefer to focus on a key point which can be articulated simply and efficiently (essential if you want the punters to read and comprehend it), and stay with it until that issue has been addressed, then move to the next one. In this case it's clear that Carrier hasn't carried out a diachronic or synchronic analysis of the 'X, the brother of Y' construction, and I suspect strongly he is assuming his conclusion instead of basing it on evidence. Ehrman has a short reply to your comment by the way.
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Apr 24, 2012 5:49:59 GMT
Ehrman has a short reply to your comment by the way. I noticed that, very good of him.
|
|
|
Post by humphreyclarke on Apr 24, 2012 10:25:40 GMT
Ah excellent. Bart Ehrman just linked to this: rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/mythtic-pizza-and-cold-cocked-scholars/who says: This little rant (and it is a rant, I acknowledge and I do not apologize for it: somebody’s got to do it) will be followed next week by three essay-length responses to Richard C. Carrier’s ideas: The first by me, the second by Professor Maurice Casey of the University of Nottingham, and the third by Stephanie Fisher a specialist in Q-studies. We will attempt to show an impetuous amateur not only where he goes wrong, but why he should buy a map before starting his journey. Other replies will follow in course, and we invite Carrier, his fans, and anyone else interested in this discussion to respond to it at any stage along the way.
|
|
|
Post by sankari on Apr 24, 2012 10:29:58 GMT
Hoffman's reply is masterful! I look forward to those three rebuttals.
|
|
|
Post by turoldus on Apr 24, 2012 11:26:41 GMT
Hoffman's reply is masterful! I look forward to those three rebuttals. Hoffman being an atheist, it will be hard for Carrier to call him biased. Unless of course he puts him in the so-called "Neville Chamberlain" school. He may be overstating his case here, though: These questions are still debated among scholars.
|
|
|
Post by humphreyclarke on Apr 24, 2012 13:30:24 GMT
I don't know if anyone knows the answer to this. Carrier claims that theory that the Arabic version of Josephus's TF in Agapius derives from an earlier version of the passage in Josephus is false. Instead it derives, by a Syriac intermediary, from Eusebius. Anyone know what the current state of the debate is on this?
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Apr 24, 2012 13:51:13 GMT
I don't know if anyone knows the answer to this. Carrier claims that theory that the Arabic version of Josephus's TF in Agapius derives from an earlier version of the passage in Josephus is false. Instead it derives, by a Syriac intermediary, from Eusebius. Anyone know what the current state of the debate is on this? Well we could start by looking at his evidence. What does he have?
|
|
|
Post by humphreyclarke on Apr 24, 2012 13:58:13 GMT
I don't know if anyone knows the answer to this. Carrier claims that theory that the Arabic version of Josephus's TF in Agapius derives from an earlier version of the passage in Josephus is false. Instead it derives, by a Syriac intermediary, from Eusebius. Anyone know what the current state of the debate is on this? Well we could start by looking at his evidence. What does he have? freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/667/' The arguments against it are strong (I list them in a footnote to my article for JECS). And the arguments for it typically rest on a single premise: that the Arabic version in Agapius derives from an earlier version of the passage in Josephus. We now know that to be false: it derives, by a Syriac intermediary, from Eusebius, and thus represents a corruption of Eusebius and not an earlier version of the TF';.......Whealey is actually the one who proves that the Arabic version derives from Eusebius. Her argument is that Eusebius’ version originally had the “believed to be.” But that is improbable, because it requires a massive conspiracy to doctor dozens of unrelated manuscripts simultaneously, whereas the opposite thesis (that “believed to be” was added to one manuscript in an attempt to make the passage more believable from a Jewish author, and that this manuscript tradition is occasionally the one later quoted) explains all the evidence we have.I've noticed that David 'Nailed Fitzgerald trots out the same line in his response to Tim: davefitzgerald.blogspot.com/2012/01/nailed-completely-brilliant-or-tragic.html'So this was already the sorry state of evidence for both these writings before 2008, when Josephan scholar Alice Whealey made her rather conclusive case (see Alice Whealey, “The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic,” New Testament Studies 54.4 (2008) pp. 573-90) that even the once-much-touted Arabic version of the Testimonium actually also derives from... you guessed it - Eusebius, by way of an intermediary Syriac version, and so long story short, neither of these medieval Arabic or Syriac texts came from Josephus. '(though Whealey also argues for partial authenticity of the TF) Relevant paper from Whealey is this one: journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=A94BC2A2BE5D262F07B5944FC2C75F0E.journals?fromPage=online&aid=2188740
|
|
|
Post by James Hannam on Apr 24, 2012 14:35:12 GMT
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Apr 24, 2012 14:45:34 GMT
Well no they don't. The argument for it typically rest on other premises, because the Arabic version wasn't even known until 1971.
|
|
|
Post by humphreyclarke on Apr 24, 2012 15:52:58 GMT
Ok, from my limited understanding, the mythers seem to be citing Whealey as saying that the Arabic version (Agapius' passage) is a paraphrase of a Testimonium taken from the Syriac translation of Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica. Eusebius's version reads:
'Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.'
Fine, but the version from Agapius (a Christian Arab and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis) reads:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.
Which is obviously a paraphrase but even so it lacks a lot of the overt Christian overtones from Eusebius which would have been useful to Agapius. If Agapius was working from a translation of Eusebius, why did he leave them out ?.
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Apr 24, 2012 16:13:03 GMT
Which is obviously a paraphrase but even so it lacks a lot of the overt Christian overtones from Eusebius which would have been useful to Agapius. If Agapius was working from a translation of Eusebius, why did he leave them out ?. Indeed. And for all Carrier's bombastic claims ('We now know that to be false', 'Whealey is actually the one who proves that the Arabic version derives from Eusebius'), it remains an unproven theory.
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Apr 24, 2012 23:57:30 GMT
A reply from Carrier. My response. My response hasn't been approved yet. It's still in the moderator queue.
|
|