stephan huller

And just to keep it real it is now 5:27 AM in Australia. He says he sent his first email at 12:56 PM which is the equivalent of 2:56 AM or something in the morning. Then he says he contacted the DMCA at the equivalent of 11:48 AM (I am on the road). That means he gave Neil the equivalent of three working hours assuming Neil was up and at 'em at 9:00 AM. Wow there must have been some high stakes issues at work for that sort of a demand here. Even the government gives you 30 days. Three hours? Please remind me what are the principles at stake here?

I've got to go into a meeting but even if I am off by a couple of hours please explain how Joel's actions were justified outside of 'I like him.'

stephan huller

Screw the meeting. As I said, unless I am missing something the real issue at stake here is the dehumanizing effect of group thought. Neil was treated different than other colleagues because he had been thoroughly dehumanized through the Biblioblog Top 50 cabal. In Joel's words 'he wasn't a Biblioblogger' he wasn't in effect (my quote not Joel's) 'one of us' so we can mistreat him and abuse him. He's not human. This is how minorities are always treated by the majority. Neil didn't kiss the ass of the powers that be over at Biblioblog Top 50 so he stopped being a 'brother.' In the same way Joel is your brother and you go out of your way to avoid seeing the mistreatment of the real victim here (BTW I love when a Christian like Joel calls out 'playing the victim card'; isn't that he very basis to his religion - love the exception?)

Oh but of course there's the difference. Neil isn't 'really' a Christian either so a second level of estrangement. Notice also the James Tabor and Joseph Hoffmann have also been added to the cellar dweller list. Is it that they lack credentials? No. They aren't mythicists either. Somehow they crossed a level of estrangement and have been publicly called out for it. This will repeat itself over and over again. I don't know why Neil wasted his time with Joel.

stephan huller

And just to turn the subject to me (as no one else is saying anything) it is this defense of the vulnerable - kindness to the stranger - that attracted me to the Morton Smith controversy (a controversy which got me in trouble with the same Biblioblog cabal). Let it be said that a Jew always has an obligation to protect the stranger. I know it seems like a 'cheap shot' (I was watching that Judd Apatow movie where they questioned whether there were any limits to invoking the 'Jew card' and the consensus was no). But I think charity is a common belief in the three monotheistic religions. It is what separates us from the animals (even the animals are probably better than most humans).

In the case of Morton Smith, yes he's dead now but there is a parallel obligation to the dead as to the stranger (although I am not quite sure if the two principles actually meet). But when I saw the evidence at Roger Viklund's blog - another blogger unwelcomed into this cabal - I said people should know about this; this is worthy of attention.

Again at the time the acceptance of Secret Mark was a minority position. So I took up a position contrary to the beliefs of the Biblioblog cabal and got into the stupidest fight with Joel. I mean I learned a lot from that fight but I think I have been vindicated by this http://www.jesusgranskad.se/VC_067_03_235-247.pdf

Again I took a minority (= fringe position). I took up the 'cause' of the authenticity of the letter. I got some of my friends to help and asked every scholar we could find - go to this blog and what do you think about this new discovery? It was just a post on a blog at the time. But when I look back I think in effect I was helping Roger get peer reviewed and in the process I think I was rescuing Morton Smith's reputation.

Of course in the process, whenever I did get a response, I published that response at my blog. This whole thing blew way out of proportion - in part because 'the cabal' had a misplaced sense of 'defending' Stephen Carlson and was convinced that the now defenseless Morton Smith was guilty based on that evidence.

The difference was of course that I quickly pulled down Casey's rejection of Carlson and I tend to get more unhinged than Neil. There is a visceral reaction 'we' get when faced with lynch mobs. Maybe it goes back to stories of my family during the war. I don't know. But if humanity can't get its act together, if we can't get beyond tribalism, then let's stop pretending we are a civilization rather than a collection of little tribes and associations.

Steven Carr

Hey, declaring your work copyright and then closing down criticism of it!

That's a great idea.

Wait until I tell my Scientology friends about it. I'm sure they would love to use that one to stop people criticising them.

Roger Pearse

Well, I myself have not considered him to be a believer, but rather a religious type.

If Neil did pirate a whole post in order to abuse its author, tho, and was asked not to but persisted, then I really don't see what else Wordpress could have done. Not sure that the author is in the wrong for asking it, you know? I don't mind my own stuff being copied, but I am aware that few feel the same.

What Neil should do is ask Wordpress for a Wordpress export of the blog for his personal use. They will probably agree to that. Then he can upload it to a site of his own. If he is lucky, he may even get the wp-content/uploads directory.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
[Edited as I read more of the thread - don't want to derail]

Steven Carr

Roger is right.

Neil did look at ALL the links that Joel Watts gave.

What a bastard! No wonder he had to be silenced.

And he was. Neil fell right into the 'Scientology 101' left hook - get the critics on copyright, no matter how petty the 'violation'.

stephan huller

Well before we get into all that I wanted to put up this demonstration of what it means to be a Christian before we all forget. On the Paula Deen fiasco the Christian position is ...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/28/us/geo...een/index.html

neilgodfrey

Joel Watts is now claiming he emailed me a warning notice.

I can assure everyone that I received absolutely no warning or take-down notice from either Joel Watts or Wordpress prior to Wordpress deactivating Vridar. None at all. I have asked Wordpress to tell me when they sent me a warning notice and they do not reply. I have checked my spam email and there is nothing from either Joel or Wordpress. Nothing.

I did ask Wordpress for a copy of the take-down notice I was supposed to have received and they did send me that -- and I showed that in my alerts to other sites -- but there was no header to indicate when it was supposedly sent or to what email address. They have not replied to my requests to tell me when they supposedly sent me that notice.

I received no notice whatever. If Joel says he sent me email notices I ask him to show copies of the emails with send address and times.

Neil Godfrey

Grog

Vridar has become a thorn in the side of the establishment for questioning the actual existence of Jesus. It's clear that Neil had gotten the attention of Jesus scholars (see New Oxonian (R. Joseph Hoffmann, Maurice Casey, Stephanie Fisher), Ehrman's book and responses on his blog, Larry Hurtado, James McGrath, etc. Many, many scholars had become aware of that blog.

That being said, this is the act of one person, it seems.

MrMacSon

Joel L. Watts response says a lot
Besides, Watts has essentially made a category error - history is hardly science, apart from things like radio-isotope dating and forensics.

add: the "Historic Method" is the objective methodology for history