jgibson000

Why should what you "are familar with" be the arbiter of truth, especially since (as you yourself have admitted) what you are "familar with" when it comes to original langauges, primary sources, and to the actual range, contours, and substance of the religious and philosophical views and beliefs held by Jews and others in the first century is pretty narrow?

This is simply the fallacy of the appeal to personal incredulity.

Jeffrey Gibson

dog-on

Dr. Gibson, just a hypothetical question for you, if you don't mind.

If, hypothetically, we could prove interpolation in Paul with regards to born of a woman, seed of David and Lord's brother, what, in your mind, would be the strongest argument contra Doherty for an HJ?

jgibson000

Let me answer you by saying why I can't take Earl's case for an MJ seriously. Among other things, there is how he has misconstred, misread, and cooked the evidence from the Ascension of Isaiah that he appeals to support the idea of a crucifixion in a heavenly realm, how tenditiously he has read 1 Cor. 2:6-8 and his "proof texts" in Hebrews, and how idiosyncratic and unsupportable his claims about the beliefs and worldviews of Middle Platonism are.


And there is also, of course, the torturous exegesis that he has engagaed in of the phrases above which seem to have no other grounds for being regarded as interpolations (the last argument of the desperate, I think) other than a committemnt to the MJ as an apriori.

Jeffrey Gibson

EarlDoherty

Be that as it may, my remarks are simply a natural consequence of what Bart Ehrman has to tell us about the corruption of this passage by later Christian scribes. It is he who makes the point that those scribes changed genomenon to gennwmenon to make it clearer or more dramatic, or whatever, that Christ was actually "born" as a human being. It has nothing to do with my knowledge of Greek, or alleged lack of it. I wonder that Gibson does not criticize Ehrman or those scribes, but instead chooses to demonize me with remarks (including others I haven't quoted above) that fairly drip with venom and fall little short of ad hominem insults. But then that has always been his debating style.

As far as Tertullian's Latin texts go, again, I was simply relying on what Ehrman said, as I was hardly in a position to easily check the manuscripts myself. Since I doubt that Ehrman got it wrong, I presume there is simply some misunderstanding here.

Anyway, I have no intention of getting into a detailed debate, I just wanted to call attention to the principles involved in Ehrman's book. I also have no intention of discoursing with Gibson. A few months ago, after his disreputable behavior here in regard to Richard Carrier, I said I would henceforth be ignoring him, and I am reaffirming that policy.

I am presently working on a very lengthy website article in response to the common claim (recently restated on another thread here) that published New Testament scholarship has long discredited the Jesus Myth theory, from Case in 1906 to Van Voorst in 2000. I have declared that a fantasy, and I think this article will demonstrate that. It looks in detail at several major would-be refuters like Goguel and Van Voorst, and a number of lesser ones. At the same time, it addresses Christopher Price's website article, "A History of the Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth." Hopefully, it will be ready in a couple of weeks. I intend to condense it later for inclusion in my second edition of The Jesus Puzzle.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

jgibson000

Natural consequence? Does Erhman use the word "dramatic" or "clearer" or actually say that GENOMENON with EK GUNAKAI does not make perfectly clear that Jesus was a human being who had a human birth, let alone that GENNWMENON makes this more clear?

Please, Earl. As with Burton, you have entirely misread what Bart has to say on this matter. And you have utterly ignored the context in which those few scribes who made the change to GENNWMENON did so, as well as the fact that, as Bart implies, other fathers seemed to think that in combatting Gnostics GENOMENON EK GUNAIKAI was clearly enough.

Well, you appealed to your knowlwdge of Latin as a a factor in saying that with respect to the Latin Ehrman cited, that Ehrman got it wrong. Why are you prescinding now from saying that your knowledge of Greek should't be considered as a factor in your statements about the import of Erhman's Greek citations and the conclusioins of yours you thought they justified?

Because I didn't read him as you did and saw nothing in what he said or in what the scribes did to criticize.

Always been my style? Seesh. Come on Earl. I really wish you'd stop this practice of attributing things to me that I didn't do ("demonize you"?? lace my words with "venom"??:huh: ) in order to play the aggrieved scholar card and to score some rhetorical points against me.

Funny.:huh: The Latin of these Tertullian texts is online at

http://www.tertullian.org/latin/latin.htm

And since your knowledge of Greek should have clued you in to the fact that what you thought Erhman was saying about GENNWMENON was not what he actually was saying, should't you have also presunmed that there was a misunderstanding here as well, only this time on your part?. Just a question. No venom.

Oh geeze louise, Earl. Isn't this holier than though speech a little hypocritical? I mean, how about your disreputable behaviour when you impugned my character and my integrity when you charged me with making up the quote I gave from another scholar about RC's piece on KATA and then not apologizing to me publicly when you were informed by the moderators that this charge was absolutely false?

How about you give these personal self justifying remarks a rest?

Jeffrey

dongiovanni1976x

A very likely reason would be to demonstrate his opposition an early branch or docetists who objected to a god "suffering" on a cross and thought Jesus only SEEMED (hence - the Greek term) to be like a man...

S.C.Carlson

Does anyone have a URL/link for this?

Stephen

jgibson000

http://www.bede.org.uk/price8.htm

Jeffrey

S.C.Carlson

Indeed. Interestingly, Ehrman even cited that very passage in the portion Doherty quoted with ellipses (emphasis added):

The "Tertullian..." in Doherty's quotation of Ehrman actually reads "Tertuallian, de carne Christi, 20)".

Stephen

jgibson000

What do you make of this? Do you think that Earl's ommission of this was intentional? That he can't read Latin? That he misreads/misunderstands the sources he appeals to in support of his claims?


Jeffrey