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Post by timoneill on May 30, 2012 19:37:21 GMT
Champion! That'll leave a bruise alright. I notice Godfrey is rather peeved by the almighty beatdowns posted by Hoffman, et al. While I personally feel that Stephanie Fisher's post was far too polemical (frequently resorting to intemperate language), her central argument was superb. Casey's was even better. Hoffman's was arguably the best. Hoffmann's latest is a comprehensive drubbing of Artie Ziff over his Bogus Bayesian Balderdash (for want of a pithier B-word).
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Post by fortigurn on May 31, 2012 1:43:52 GMT
I think Bayesian analysis would be fine for the purpose, if Carrier only knew how to use it properly. The problem is that he doesn't He's carefully selective in the information he plugs into it, and is delighted when he arrives at the conclusion he predicted (how surprising!).
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Post by fortigurn on May 31, 2012 2:00:41 GMT
Why do Mythicists keep referring to the criteria for authenticity of the original Jesus tradition as the criteria for the historicity of Jesus himself? I see them make this mistake time and time again. Do they just not realise the difference?
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Mike D
Master of the Arts
Posts: 204
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Post by Mike D on May 31, 2012 13:05:16 GMT
Good to see him making a well-argued case against the misuse of statistical techniques in historical study, whether by Carrier or Swinburne. It's rather salutary that it was Christian apologists who were instrumental in starting the current craze for Bayesian b*llocks. However, that being the case, it's a bit weird that Carrier is now claiming IPR on the whole Bayes methodology...
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labarum
Master of the Arts
Posts: 122
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Post by labarum on Jun 5, 2012 13:06:19 GMT
Another blogpost below. This one on the Tacitus thing _____________________________________ In response to Bart Ehrman mentioning an oft discussed passage from Tacitus, Carrier criticizes as an error the statement by Ehrman where he wrote that he didn’t know of any trained classicists or scholars of ancient Rome who think the passage about Christians in Tacitus is a forgery. Given that Carrier agrees it is unlikely to be a forgery and that Ehrman only claims it as evidence of Christianity and not Christ, it again addresses nothing about Ehrman’s views on the historicity of Jesus. In determining whether Ehrman’s statement was false, there are two things to be considered. First of all, he clearly uses the word “think” which is present tense. Hence, he is not claiming that some scholar in the past may have thought the passage by Tacitus was a forgery but that scholars today do not believe it to be the case. Moreover, he does not even claim an absolute certainty for the current state but merely that he does not know of any such scholar. There may well be some obscure classicist at an even more obscure state university in the middle of nowhere who does think that but who has not earned much of a reputation in his field and whose opinion is considered of little consequence. Even if Carrier could dig up such a figure, it would only confirm what Ehrman stated unless Carrier could prove any competent scholar should have known of this opinion. Carrier, in reply to this statement, wrote: Now, I agree with Ehrman that it’s “highly unlikely” this passage wasn’t what Tacitus wrote; but the fact that he doesn’t know of the many classical scholars who have questioned it suggests he didn’t check. See Herbert W. Benario, “Recent Work on Tacitus (1964–68),” The Classical World 63.8 (April 1970), pp. 253-66 [and in 80.2 (Nov.–Dec. 1986)], who identifies no less than six classical scholars who have questioned its authenticity, three arguing it’s an outright interpolation and three arguing it has been altered or tampered with. This is important, because part of Ehrman’s argument is that mythicists are defying all established scholarship in suggesting this is an interpolation, so the fact that there is a lot of established scholarship supporting them undermines Ehrman’s argument and makes him look irresponsible. First of all, given the reference by Carrier is from works on Tacitus is concerning works from 1964-68, this would be things written 44-48 years ago. It is likely most of the scholars listed are either in retirement or the grave. For those who remain, there is the problem of whether their opinions were taken seriously by other scholars and whether Ehrman should have known of said opinions. Finally, there is the matter of whether Carrier has even relayed the opinions of these scholars accurately. Given the problems we have already seen in Carrier’s depictions of the work of others, this is certainly not a sure thing. Ehrman pointed out that he was concerned with the current state of scholarship, noted earlier such views from the nineteenth century onward, and made the point that current scholarship does not take such views seriously. He then checked with a colleague, James Rives, an expert on Roman history, who confirmed this view and pointed out that at least Carrier misrepresented at least some of those he mentioned. Charles Saugmagne, for example, does not claim it was a forgery but an interpolation taken from another work by Tacitus. More importantly, however, is the fact that even Rives was not aware of any objections and hence Ehrman certainly could not be faulted even if there were some scholar somewhere who held that view. Carrier, once more exposed, denied Ehrman did not restrict himself to current scholars in his book. Ironically, he exposes himself by contrasting Ehrman’s views as formerly being “no scholar says” and now being “no scholar today says.” In fact, these two mean exactly the same thing since “no scholar says” is in the present tense, the addition of “today” is redundant. For Ehrman to have meant to include scholars in the past, it would be “no scholars have ever said.” But perhaps the conspiracy theorist ideology of Jesus mythicism makes one impervious to fine points of logical reasoning. This little exchange does, however, illustrate a common strategy employed by Jesus mythicists and conspiracy theorists in general. If they can find some scholar somewhere who at sometime has believed some element of their theory, then they declare that those who disagree with them must engage that scholar’s work. On the other hand, they do not have to engage the thousands of scholars who think differently or engage those who have already show their favorite scholar was wrong. One eccentric crackpot trumps a world of sanity if he happens to agree with them.
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Post by fortigurn on Jun 6, 2012 6:19:11 GMT
Good work.
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Post by fortigurn on Jun 15, 2012 13:54:13 GMT
Stark has punished Carrier over the dying messiah issue.
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Post by sankari on Jun 16, 2012 4:05:18 GMT
;D
Stark is the gift that keeps on giving.
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Post by bjorn on Jun 17, 2012 9:41:28 GMT
Stark has punished Carrier over the dying messiah issue. Since Carrier's brief response to this post of Thom's is being trumpeted, I thought it would be a good idea to give Thom some publicity; Carrier's response looks almost convincing until you realise just how much he has left out. Stark takes Carrier apart, indeed. What is interesting, however, is how much Stark falls for the same temptation as Carrier, making strong conclusions based on too little familiarity and understanding of sources coutside his own field of study. " Carrier has a good handle on his own field. I’ve read lots of his work, and when he talks about his Greek and Roman sources, he knows what he’s talking about, and he knows the literature. I totally agreed with and loved his chapter in one of the Loftus books, in which he soundly refuted those Christian apologists who argue that Christianity made science possible. It was a joy to read, and he was right." What he is talking about is Carrier's critique of Rodney Stark and Jaki in The Christian Delusion ("Christianity Was Not Responsible for Modern Science" - which James took apart ... commented on in bedejournal.blogspot.no/2010/09/was-christianity-responsible-for-modern.html, bedejournal.blogspot.no/2010/09/was-christianity-responsible-for-modern_09.html and bedejournal.blogspot.no/2010/09/richard-carrier-on-ancient-science.html), where Carrier as usual manages to both misrepresent some of those he attacks (especially Jaki) and put the foot in his own mouth by claiming that the Greeks' belief in a rational God was what led them to doing science (and not their "paganism"). What Carrier says seems to be that (Rodney) Stark is right in spirit, though not literally. However, the main point is that (Thom) Stark makes grand conclusions in support of Carrier without having studied medieval history or read much of Jaki or relevant sources.
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Post by fortigurn on Jun 19, 2012 1:49:29 GMT
Stark has punished Carrier over the dying messiah issue. Carrier responded to this post by Stark, though avoiding most of what Stark had written, and failing to link to Stark's reply (even though he had linked to Stark's previous reply). I guess Carrier didn't want the faithful to discover that Stark had whipped him so badly, especially catching Carrier out on his inept use of sources (citing one scholar as 'the leading expert' when they wrote 30 years ago and they aren't the leading expert, and when what they wrote is the opposite of what Carrier claimed they wrote). Stark replied yet again. He also notes this: And this is Carrier's way; when he's wrong he avoids mentioning it, he simply doesn't respond to points on which he has been refuted, in order to avoid drawing attention to the fact that he has been corrected.
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Post by sankari on Jun 19, 2012 2:24:05 GMT
He's just not a very honest person, is he?
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Post by thomstark on Jun 19, 2012 21:15:34 GMT
Hi again, guys. I didn't say Carrier was right about everything in his chapter on pre-Christian science, but I was also just trying to be nice at the end of a scathing review. I wasn't making "grand conclusions." It's apples and oranges. If I had written an essay on pre-Christian science making all sorts of claims outside the field in which I'm trained, then Carrier and I would be comparable. But I didn't do that. I was merely writing an epitaph.
By the way, I'm working hard on part two of "It Is Finished."
All the best, Thom
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Post by timoneill on Jun 19, 2012 21:29:38 GMT
While we're waiting for Thom Stark's reply, I found this odd item hidden in a comment on Bart Ehrman's blog: Is this journal article by Richard Carrier real?Anyone got any insights into this? Carrier is not above obscuring his errors and pretending to objectivity he clearly doesn't have, but is he really pretending he published a paper that doesn't exist?
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Post by eckadimmock on Jun 20, 2012 2:46:15 GMT
The Journal of Higher Criticism has a list of contributors and their articles: depts.drew.edu/jhc/the only one listed for Carrier is Carrier, Richard "The Guarded Tomb of Jesus and Daniel in the Lions’ Den: An Argument for the Plausibility of Theft" JHC 8/2 (Fall 2001), 304-318. It's odd that a 2001 article showed up and a 2005 one did not. My university database search also came up blank. (Edit: The journal doesn't seem to have published anything since 2002, or if it has, it has not updated the website) Also 0 hits on Google Scholar. Very strange.
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Post by sankari on Jun 20, 2012 4:40:03 GMT
Has anyone asked about this on Carrier's blog? It's a strange little mystery.
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