Huh? Where the hell did you pull that crock of shit from, deLayman?

That was never Dennis' point. He has said, several times now, that he was addressing the often-made claim that the evidence for Jesus is better than any other person of antiquity. Specifically, better than the evidence for Caesar.

Indeed. That is probably one reason why Dennis is not making such a stupid claim.


And since Dennis isn't doing it either, that only leaves you with this silly strawman position.

Gee; imagine that- deLayman creating strawmen versions of his opponent's views, and then demanding that the opponent defend the bogus position.

"Huh? Where the hell did you pull that crock of shit from, deLayman?

That was never Dennis' point. He has said, several times now, that he was addressing the often-made claim that the evidence for Jesus
is better than any other person of antiquity. Specifically, better than the evidence for Caesar."

Often-made by whom? He specifically mentioned Nomad and me, but it is clear that neither Nomad nor myself has made such a claim. He is the one who invented the strawman.

Huh?

Dennis already provided you with the quotes, in direct response to the question. Here they are again, since you clearly don't read the responses:

So the question is: did you get it this time?

In addition to Nomad, we can also add Josh McDowell to the list of uneducated individuals making such wild claims.


Wrong again. As Dennis said: you need to read the threads more carefully.

Actually, you need to read this thread more carefully. I attempted to engage Dennis on the issue of the specific reference to Ceasar that Nomad raised, the assasination of Ceasar v. the execution of Jesus. He declined to comment and kept his discussion on a general level, refusing to discuss the the one specific reference Nomad made.

And it is abundantly clear that I have never made this claim, and in fact admitted that we have more evidence regarding Ceasar than we do regarding Jesus. I only quibbled about the evidence regarding their deaths. And Dennis bailed.

As for Josh McDowell, I guess we can categorize this under the "after acquired evidence" category since Dennis never mentioned him. And I know I have never relied on him and I have not seen Nomad rely on him. And I have never read where he stated that we have more evidence for Jesus than we do for Ceasar. Of course I don't read a lot of his work for a while, so I might have missed it. Could you give us the reference?

Except that is not what Nomad raised, nor did he limit it to that. If you read what EgoNomad said, it was:

Therefore Dennis is perfectly justified in saying:


The central point is the comparison of source material for:

(a) the life and key events surrounding Caesar, vs.
(b) the life and key events surrounding Christ.

Notice, folks, how deLayman serves a red herring on a bed of straw. Dennis never said you made claims about Caesar. He included you because:

Basically, he is taking you to task for the same reason that everyone else has: you demonstrate a shallowness when dealing with ancient sources, and engage in special pleading to save your preferred sources from scrutiny.

1. Your entire set of posts are quibbles. Dennis' main point,that the evidence for Caesar abundantly exceeds that for Christ (and therefore stupid fundie claims to the contrary are bogus) is a point that has not been refuted.

2. Dennis bailed? I think not. He simply grew tired of you not addressing his points.


I might, but only after you address Dennis' main point, in bold, above. There is no point in widening the discussion as long as there remains unaddressed material. That question is still on the table, and neither you nor EgoNomad has had the cojones to come near it.


Oh, by the way: what is up with this statement of yours:


There is no requirement that gods cannot die; Roman mythology, Greek mythology, other mythologies are all replete with gods that die. Norse mythology is obsessed with the idea of preventing the death of the gods. Your condition is flawed.

Once again you have chosen to argue personality and he said/she said instead of discussing history. Moreover, you have completely failed to respond to my last post on the Jesus, the Miracle Worker thread where I pointed out that you have misrepresented the statements of three New Testament scholars and requested that you clarify your position.

Since you accused me of lying about my request for information indicating which scholars endorsed the position that the Arabic version of the Josephus reference to Jesus was more original than the redacted version, I take the matter seriously. I have again reviewed the provided link and the three scholars you list do NOT say what you imply they say, and one even explicitly REJECTS the very idea that you imply he endorses.

So. I ask you to retract your accusation OR demonstrate where in the provided article Eisler, Pines, and Charlesworth endorse the view that the Arabic version of Josephus is the most original (especially in preference to the redacted version).

As a reminder:

http://www.infidels.org/electronic/f.../000238-4.html

Anyway. On to this thread.

Nomad specifically raised the manner of their deaths. Dennis refused to discuss it. Even if we accept your interpretation of the thread, that he was referring to ANY specific event, why avoid the one specific event Nomad referenced? Dennis kept the conversation at such a general level that it amounted to nothing.

As for my inclusion in the post, Dennis only offered that up after I pressed him on the point that I had never endorsed any such idea that the evidence for Ceasar was less than that for JEsus. Nevertheless. Dennis never responded to any specific discussion of the sources regarding Jesus. Again, he kept the discussion at such a general level that it was meaningless.

"1. Your entire set of posts are quibbles. Dennis' main point, that the evidence for Caesar abundantly exceeds that for Christ (and therefore stupid fundie claims to the contrary are bogus) is a point that has not been refuted."

Well, since I have admitted the the evidence for Ceasar is greater than that for Jesus, I don't argue with you that it has not been refuted. Of course, I admitted this in my first post and have not attempted to refute it. So I don't really see that this is any sort of victory.

But Dennis' point when beyond merely claiming that we had more evidence for Ceasar's life than we do for Jesus' life. He claimed that this fact somehow renders the amount of evidence for Jesus to be weak.

Dennis: "It is my thesis in this thread that, if you compare what we know about the sources for Caesar to what we know about the sources for Jesus, the evidence for Jesus is very weak indeed."

This is what I have objected to and this is what he has failed to defend. That is why I was continually asking why the evidence for Ceasar should be the standard by which we judge history. Even so, I thought that certain events that we take for granted in Ceasar's life, such as his assasination, might be a useful point of comparison for a particular event in the life of Jesus, his crucifixion. Dennis declined, however, to discuss anything specifically.

"2. Dennis bailed? I think not. He simply grew tired of you not addressing his points."

He bailed because he did not want to discuss the one specific example that Nomad raised. I even admitted he might be right, but I wanted to see the comparison. He made some rather strong assertions regarding the evidence for Ceasar's assasination, but when pressed for his sources and details, he bailed.

Regarding YOUR reference to J. McDowell and my request for a source for your characterization of his statements:

"I might, but only after you address Dennis' main point, in bold, above. There is no point in widening the discussion as long as there remains unaddressed material. That question is still on the table, and neither you nor EgoNomad has had the cojones to come near it."

I didn't raise Josh McDowell, YOU did. Moreover, I responded to your [mis]characterization of Dennis' point. So, if you please, the J. McDowell reference and/or any indication you might have that Nomad or myself relied on him for the notion that we have more evidence for Jesus' life than we do for Ceasar's?

"There is no requirement that gods cannot die; Roman mythology, Greek mythology, other mythologies are all replete with gods that die. Norse mythology is obsessed with the idea of preventing the death of the gods. Your condition is flawed."

No, my condition is different. I was specifically asked why *I* did not accept Ceasar's claim to be god. Since I am neither a Roman, Greek, or Norse pagan, why would I accept their "conditions?"



[This message has been edited by Layman (edited April 13, 2001).]

Indeed, Layman's insistence that we change the subject to something he found more desirable (since then he could have presumed the view that I was attacking -- that the evidence for the the events of Jesus's life is comparable to the evidence for the events of Caesar's life) was tiresome indeed. I have no doubt that any fair-minded person reading this will have no doubt that Layman was quite unresponsive and that he has left my thesis untouched. I see no reason to continue a conversation with someone who refuses to address the point.

Oh, and at the risk of giving Layman something to LOL about, thanks for the support Omnedon.

Depends on what your point was doesn't it? I agreed with you all along that we have more evidence for Ceasar's life than we do for Jesus'. A fact you continually ignore.

I disagreed with your implication that this fact in and of itself rendered the evidence for Jesus' life somehow "weak."

My focus on the deaths of Jesus and Ceasar was hardly a sideshow, it was the one area that Nomad specifically compared Jesus' evidence to Ceasar's evidence.

Your unwillingness to engage in discussion on this issue tends to reinforce my view that you don't KNOW what all of the sources are for Ceasar's assasination, much less that they there are so many independent sources that ALL agree as to the manner, method, time, and people involved.

Of course, I haven't accused you of lying about this, despite the fact you have utterly failed to support it. Hmm. Maybe if I accused you of lying about it, then stated that I would consider you to be a liar until you provided evidence for this assertion, THEN you would feel compelled to defend your assertions?

That would hardly be fair, however, and I wouldn't think of doing it to you. Why? Because I think it tangential, leaves no room for mistake, and generally just bogs things down.



[This message has been edited by Layman (edited April 13, 2001).]

madmax ponders... "I wonder when the pissing constest of who misunderstood who, who said the wrong thing, who wrongly accused who, who maligned who, who created which strawman, etc. etc. will ever end?"

You have no one to blame for that except yourself, deLayman.

You made claims about what EgoNomad said. The claims you made impacted the flow of the debate. You were wrong about those claims, and correcting you was the right thing to do.

You also made claims about what I have said ("many" scholars vs. "some" scholars). In that situation, you were also flat wrong.

If you would refrain from misquoting people, then it would no longer be necessary to go back and correct you. If you find the experience of being corrected tedious or unpleasant, then again: stop misquoting people.


Your "Miracle Worker" thread is totally busted. You have completely failed to address the points that turtonm, SingleDad and I made about the flaws in your so-called "tools" of textual criticism. So I am not sure where you get off demanding that other people address your points.

As a reminder, here is what you owe the audience:


You posted your busted Miracle Worker thread on the 16th of February. You've been promising ever since to revise it and fix the flaws.

It's now the 13th of April. What's the delay, deLayman?