Nomad,

Now that I've gone through the debate again I see why Doherty didn't respond to that point of yours. The reason is both simple and obvious. Here is the order of events.

(1) Doherty wrote a post (May 14, 2001 10:59 AM) where he made that side-comment about the later letters "building on" Paul's thought.

(2) Nomad wrote a reply in which he asked for a clarification of this "building on" comment, offered three arguments for Jesus' historicity, but also unfortunately failed to give any detailed response to Doherty's arguments.

(3) Doherty then wrote a NON-RESPONSIVE post demanding that things change or the debate would have to end.

(4) Some people talked to Doherty and Doherty decided to compromise. So he wrote a short post that redefined the terms of the debate. Specifically Doherty said that he would go through Brian's three arguments, beginning with the baptism, if Brian would go into much more detail regarding Doherty's arguments on Paul.

(5) Nomad then wrote a summary reply to Doherty's original post in the debate.

(6) Doherty then kept his promise and wrote a detailed, FOCUSSED post on the baptism.

(7) Nomad then wrote a post that merely skimmed over Doherty's arguments, and made that argument I've been talking about: five times Nomad mentions Doherty's "failure" to answer Nomad's question about the "building on" comment.

What does all this mean? It means that Nomad must tell us WHEN Doherty was supposed to answer that question, given that he almost ended the debate right after it was asked and returned to the debate only on the condition of his compromise in which he suggested that he would focus on Brian's three proofs, starting with the baptism. There is no reason whatsoever to have expected Doherty to answer this question about an off-handed remark he made in brackets several posts ago, given that the old debate effectively ended and a new one began. Between the post where Doherty made the "building on" comment he wrote a post ending the debate in Nomad's terms, a short post redefining the debate and offering a compromise, and then his first post following through with the compromise and focussing on the baptism. Nomad must answer the question: Just when was Doherty supposed to answer Nomad's question regarding a side-comment, given that the debate had ENDED and then begun again under NEW terms, the terms of Doherty's compromise?

And yet, instead of taking into account this series of events--Doherty's unhappiness with Nomad's approach, his compromise post, and his first post in the new debate in which he kept his promise and focussed on the baptism--Nomad went ahead in what I've called (7) and chastised Doherty for not clarifying this issue, saying "At no point later in other posts did Earl withdraw this statement. What does it mean? Very simply, ANYTHING we find in ANY Pauline Epistle, even if it was not written by Paul himself, represents Paul's thought." And four more times Nomad would repeat this in (7), the "represents" misread of "building on."

As to whether the passage in 1 Timothy "contradicts" Paul's thought, this shows that Nomad doesn't know what the word "contradiction" means. Did Paul ever say explicitly "Jesus did not testify under Pilate"? For all we know, the later Paulinists had no trouble with the consistency of Paul's earlier thought about the heavenly Christ, and the new notion that Christ also lived as an historical person. That's not a logical contradiction, although it is a construction or "building on." And this doesn't mean that Paul himself had believed that Jesus was historical, only that his followers had no trouble assimilating Paul's theology with the new idea of an historical individual. The new followers saw no contradiction because there wasn't one. The followers did just what Doherty claimed: they "built on" Paul's theology, using Paul's theology as their guide not a strict rule book they had to follow to the letter.

If Paul had come out and said directly that Jesus was ONLY a heavenly figure and definitely did not testify physically under Pilate, then the followers would have contradicted Paul and Doherty would probably have to qualify his "building on" comment. Big deal. Doherty could just say their construction on Paul's theology was a very free one, allowing for the explicit contradiction of aspects of Paul's theology, and that the identity of these more creative followers would be more important for us. Since Paul doesn't directly contradict the interpolation in 1 Tim 6:13 regarding Pilate, though, the interpolation can be described as a "building on" Paul's theology. Paul taught that Christ was a spiritual not a physical being, but he didn't come out and forbid the notion that Christ was an historical individual. There's just no good evidence in Paul's letters that he believed Jesus was an historical individual. Using these letters Paul's followers would have had no basis for considering Jesus an historical individual, since there are no details regarding Jesus' historical life in them. But the followers likewise wouldn't have had any expressed teaching against the view that Jesus was historical. Paul's letters simply assume that Jesus was a heavenly being. Paul's followers were free to reinterpret Paul's theology and add to it the new idea that Jesus actually lived as an historical person. This is a "building on" Paul's theology by way of an extension of Paul's view that Christ lived in the earthly sphere in general to the view that Jesus was actually isolated in a physical, historical form. No contradiction, just a reconstruction.



[This message has been edited by Earl (edited May 27, 2001).]

I can see that there is no straw that Philip will not grasp at in order to save the day for Doherty.

I'll tell you what Philip, write to Doherty. Get HIM to tell you what he meant when he told us:

Who was the exact author isn’t important here; all these epistles come from a Pauline ‘school’, and the later ones build on Paul’s thought.

If he did NOT mean what I thought he meant (namely, that "building on Paul's thought" means that the Pauline 'school' did not believe in an historical Jesus any more than did Paul), then I will deal with his argument, whatever it may be. At this point I am not going to waste time dealing with your speculations as to what Doherty really meant.

Nomad

P.S. While you are at it, could you please ask him why he did not reply to my emails (or Ethan's) when we were trying to establish the rules for the debate to resume.

Toto

Nomad - the unifying theme of this thread is that Nomad is an unworthy opponent for Doherty because he can't carry on a decent debate. Exhibit one was the fact that you had not read Doherty's book containing his arguments for dating Luke-Acts (but not the other gospels) in the mid-2nd century, and had not bothered to read the 2 previous threads that discussed the matter. If you read those threads, you will see that Acts can be shown to have borrowed heavily from Josephus, therefore was certainly written at the earliest near the end of the first century, and probably later. The case for a mid-century dating of Luke-Acts is contained in a scholarly work that I have not read yet, but is accepted by at least some other scholars.

The consensus of scholarly opinion is against your very early dating of the gospels. Since the exact dating of the gospels is all guesswork and is not going to resolve any of life's more important mysteries, I, as a working computer programmer, am not about to take the time to learn all the details behind the scholarly consensus just so I can debate you. Especially since debating you seems to be an exercise much like banging my head against the wall.

(You're on the Jesus Mysteries List - you know there was a recent short discussion of it. Why don't you try to defend you early dating there?)

Don't see what the fuss is. Of course the Gospels were written mid-first century. They all (well, three of them) predict the destruction of the Temple. Wouldn't be a prophesy if it were written after the fact, would it? QED, they were written before.

Anyway, to confirm the obvious, Nomad's radical redating is at least as idiosyncratic (and far less defensible) than Doherty's thesis.

Toto

I told you that you were not good at this, yet you fail to listen to me.

Doherty dates Mark to c. 95AD, and says that there is no passion narrative that predates this gospel. Further, he tells us that Matthew, Luke and John are ALL dependent on Mark for much of their story. This, BY DEFINITION, puts all three of the remaining Gospels in the 2nd Century. Do the math.

Are you going to defend Doherty's work or not? First you said you would not do this, now you are at least making the effort. If you wish to do this, then go for it Toto.

Now, I asked you, from Doherty's web site or book, can you find him addressing the arguments for an earlier dating of the Gospels than his own? A yes or a no will suffice for now.

LOL! Please tell me that this is not an appeal to authority.

And I have no problem with you appealing to authority if you wish. What I do object to is when you come here and carp about my arguments, appeal to authority yourself, then scoot off without bothering to stay for the debate.

So Toto, are you in or out?

Based on this answer, I would say you are not prepared to defend your beliefs, nor to examine the evidence, nor to address my own arguments.

If you have nothing useful to say, then I would suggest that you not bother posting to the threads Toto. On the other hand, if you have a serious question to ask, then please do so.

As I have told you before Toto, I have no interest in participating on a discussion board that feels free to delete my posts, and to ban Christians when their questions get too hot.

BTW, have you chimed in, supporting Doherty's call for the head of the moderator (including the censoring of his posts, and possible banishment from the boards)? After all, the man did have the audacity to call Earl to task for his sloppy and self serving translations of the Koine Greek.

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited May 27, 2001).]

Hello Jubal

I have dealt with the "Olivet Discourse" in my Redating the Books of the New Testament thread. It is still active, so if you have anything to contribute, a question to ask, or an actual argument to make, then I would be happy to hear it.

Thank you.

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited May 27, 2001).]

Brian,

"Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

That's my guess anyway.

joe

Hello Joe

While there may be something to this theory, all of these emails occurred after his first departure, and long before his second, so I doubt that his unwillingness to co-operate on a format for the debate was motivated by a feeling on his part that I was trying to fool him. I did, and still do, want this debate to take place, but cannot compel him to attend.

At the same time, so far as I am aware, he did not correspond with Ethan (PhysicGuy) either, and I hope that Ethan will attest that I made no unreasonable demands in my own letters. Since Doherty failed to reply to either of us, I never did know exactly what he was hoping to achieve in the debate, especially after his first return.

In any event, he is gone now, so I suppose we are not likely to ever really know.

Nomad

Toto

You continue to confuse the argument and the meta-argument. I am not going to get bogged down in debating details with you at this point (if ever). I started this thread to point out problems with your debating technique. I only mentioned the various sources as illustrative points to show that you were not addressing issues.

But to prove to you that I have NO LIFE, I went and read your Redating the Books of the New Testament thread (at least until my eyes crossed).

I will point out your inconsistant stance towards authority. Your main argument against Doherty is that his theories go against the presumed scholarly consensus that Jesus existed. But you have proposed various theories that go against the scholarly consensus without batting an eyelash, and when others point this out, you accuse them of arguing based on authority. And then you assume that because you have made some argument, the burden is on others to refute your argument or agree with you.

I do not want to get into arguing about the dating of the gospels because I do not attach great importance to that issue. I think that you do because you are trying to shore up your faith with bogus science.

Doherty spends some time on the dating of Luke-Acts in his book and addresses at least some of your points. I found his analysis more persuasive than yours. I do not recall Doherty addressing your arguments for the early dating of Mark, but that is probably because they are so lame. You argued that if the Christians had edited the story, they would have removed the false prophesy that the end was coming within this generation. This is a novel argument that shows no familiarity with end-of-the-world sects, and I am not surprized that most scholars would reject it.

So now you know that Doherty has made some cogent arguments on the dating of Luke-Acts, and that I am not going to go into details or defend them here. You wanted to debate him - you should be willing to read his book and give him the respect of understanding what he is saying.

No, this is not my main argument against Doherty, although it appears to be a handy strawman for you.

I have no problem with anyone arguing against scholarly consesus, so long as they present well reasoned arguments, and especially offer evidence as to why they do not find the consensus convincing. I have done this by addressing the arguments of these scholars directly, listing what those arguments happen to be, then expanding on why I reject their conclusions.

Doherty consistently fails to even mention the arguments used against his theories, and when a scholar agrees with him very often presents his arguments as if they are the only ones that exist. With such a one sided presentation, I am not surprised that those that do not know all of the arguments for both sides find him convincing. It is not, however, good scholarship to do this on a regular basis. If you are going to argue against the consensus, you must first demonstrate that you understand the reason for this consensus, and in dismissing his opponents as biased, and failing to address their points, Doherty is negligent in his arguments.

Well, this is how debate takes place Toto. I have made positive assertions with supporting evidence and arguments. If you do not find them convincing, that is cool, but if you will not tell me why you do not find them convincing, beyond an appeal to authority, then I do not see this as a refutation. In addressing my arguments directly, and actually rebutting them, you will show that you at least understand what my arguments are. Right now, I am not sure that you do understand them, and based on what you have said thus far, there is no way for me to know.

See what I mean? I do not care about your opinions. I want to see any evidence or arguments you may have against my own. Since you do not have any, then that is alright, but I do wish that you would not act as if my arguments have no merit when you will not bother to even address them.

Just so that I know, for my own peace of mind, that you do actually understand my arguments, and how Doherty addressed them, could you please offer an example where he directly addressed any of the points that I raised?

LOL! You did know, Toto, that my arguments for the early dating of Mark are hardly radical. Further, your hand waving is not very convincing. You think they are lame, yet will not list a single argument as to why you believe this, nor will you present counter evidence, nor will you do any of the leg work to find out why scholars reject my thesis.

Do you know what "lame argumentation" means?

Demonstrate some familiarity with "end-of-the-world sects" that applies in this instance.

Face it Toto, you do not know why scholars date the Synoptic Gospels to the 66-85AD era, you do not understand my arguments for dating them to 55-70AD, and you feel qualified to offer an uninformed opinion on the matter.

I have read his web site extensively Toto, and I have worked from the assumption that it offers many of the same arguments as he makes in his books. I have begun to tell you why I find him unconvincing, but you refuse to defend his work yourself, and thus far no one else has stepped up to the plate. When I get into my detailed arguments against Doherty's dating of Luke/Acts and the other Gospels I hope that this will change, and someone will try to defend his ideas.

In the meantime, your carping is noted, but if you will not (or cannot) invest the time and resources to participate in the discussion, then try reading and learning as others do this.

Nomad

[This message has been edited by Nomad (edited May 28, 2001).]