Toto

Er, no, it's completely different.

Holocaust deniers, like creationists, try to pretend that they are merely presented a possible alternative view of the evidence, rather than an agenda driven denial of the evidence.

This author is a credentialed scholar and presumably Christian friendly, whose work has survived peer review and all.

I don't think the National Cathedral would sponsor a crank.

MrMacSon

how dare you break up that line and misrepresent it - so fucking dishonest. You fucking creep.

andrewcriddle

I am a little concerned that the lecture may imply that because a/ some accounts of martyrdom are legendary therefore b/ some modern uses of the tradition of martyrdom are misguided.

If so it would be a non-sequitur, in the sense that even if b/ is true a/ would not be evidence for b/.

Andrew Criddle

Sheshbazzar

Anyone who does not stick to the Party Line is painted as a 'crank'.

Duvduv

Let's not introduce the whole issue of "denial" in relation to the Holocaust or anything else. Freedom of speech and thought control has had a bad enough name in society as it is.

"Denial" is a shorthand way of condemning anyone who questions ANYTHING about the official line in recent history.
It is applied equally to the "Holocaust", to the case of the Armenians, to 9/11 and to who knows what else.

I know from personal experience that if I so much as question a single detail of what is claimed and its veracity, the reply is invariably "Aha! So you are a ****** denier, aren't you?!"

Let's try to stay away from this. Just my two cents.

sotto voce

Such a pity that 'rhetoric' cannot make verity out of fallacy.

spin

AIPAC style!

(Where's that Korean pop star with the funny wrists when you need him?)

Roger Pearse

I agree with your definition of holocaust deniers; that was the usage that I had in mind. Note in the quote specific attempts to link this question to modern political situations. This reads, to me anyway, as very much about a modern agenda.

When people try to rubbish past sufferings, alleging that people today are trying to exploit the situation, that, to me anyway, is politics. We might or might not agree with those politics; but we need to be clear that we are not in the academic world. I can, in fact, even guess what the politics is; and the episcopal church of the USA is involved in some of the abuse which, in modern times, is being described as persecution.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

We are at cross-purposes here, I'm afraid. I must admit that I haven't seen the word "documentary" used as a synonym for approval before, tho.

Ancient texts come to us in two ways, which mostly reflect the different types of text involved.

Literary texts, compositions that were published, things like Homer and the bible etc, were circulated by copying and reach us through that process.

Documentary texts are things like letters, notes on packaging, other sorts of writing. These are mostly lost, but the sands of Egypt have revealed masses of papyri containing things like "Please send me my spare underwear" and "This is a certificate that XYZ has sacrificed to the gods".

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

From what I have read, it appears that this is an academic lecture, not political, and that Professor Moss does not deny that there were early Christian martyrs.