Meta, the silence is deafening. Which merely proves that "You are not honest in your use of argument or authority. And, when called on it, tend either to disappear until the dust settles or get extremely pissy."

In fairness, on a couple other threads, Meta has at least acknowledged the issue over the fish story. Thus, on What is mythology?, he says:
Then, on the Census and other matters, we have this little throwaway:
So everyone can follow, let's review the fish story. Meta started a thread called Science Does not privilege atheism. Someone, Technos, responded by pointing out the Jonah story as an example of how unscientific religion can be. To which Meta replied:
Technos objected that the story sounded suspect and requested citations. Meta derisively dismissed the request,
Note he's backpedaling on Jonah, but still affirming the modern fish story. Technos objects:
To which Meta responds:
By now, the repudiation of Jonah is complete, but the fish story is still fact.

Curious, several people went digging through the net and came up with what was almost certainly Meta's fish story, only it dated back to the late 19th century, not the 70s. The story is a fascinating read in its own right - highly recommended - especially as a historical detective story delving into the foundation of myth. Of course, the skeptics (including Bede, a theist) were right. It never happened; sheer fabrication.

Meta never posted to the thread again. (Nor is there any apology by SingleDad.) Indeed, Meta continues to insist (on this thread and elsewhere as quoted above) that the fish story really happened. Apparently the words, "Oh, I must have been mistaken" aren't in his vocabulary. Which was, after all, my original point.

And this was the second example. He has ignored the first one entirely.

[This message has been edited by JubalH (edited June 03, 2001).]

You've tried your slander tactics before Dennis, and where slammed for them. You completely misrepresented Nomad's assertions re: his use of sources and the historical Jesus. When directly asked several times to produce his alleged statement you completely dodged the question.

If you invested as much time into research as you do into attacking the character of your opponent, you might post something interesting.

BTW, I finally figured out to what apology Meta was referring in his post on the mythology thread. It wasn't "SD", as he said, which I took to mean SingleDad. The apology Meta had in mind was the one from Neoatheist (the last post on the thread).

Didn't catch this the first time around because I was looking for SD/SingleDad and Neoatheist's apology had nothing to do with the fish story (though Meta implies it did). Rather, Neoatheist had used some rather crude language to describe Meta. Bede objected to the language. The apology was Neoatheist's response.

It's interesting that Meta recently reread the thread (he quotes it above) and somehow managed to draw from it the inference that "SD even apologized for raising it." Where I come from, that's called a distortion.

Richard Carrier

I will resolve at least this one matter: I said no book since 1990 had provided “a complete synthetic history of Israel” for laymen that incorporates archaeological finds of that decade. Neither book you cite above does this. Who Wrote the Bible? was written in 1987, and thus does not cover 1990’s discoveries (I cross posted this in two other threads, in one of which I added my observation that my 1997 copy does not say 2nd ed. or new ed., while the copyright is still 1987, and I didn't notice anything that looked like a revision in the main text, but I could have missed something). Moreover, it is about textual criticism and, to put it bluntly, the Bible. It is not a history of Israel. Likewise, Archaeology and the Old Testament is a textbook for college students of Evangelical Biblical Literalism, not a lay book, and argues for how the Bible can be read literally in light of archaeology. It is not much of a synthetic history of Israel, certainly not a complete one, and indeed talks about the Biblical narrative far more than archaeology. When it deviates from that plan it spends entire chapters on Mesopotamia and Egypt (and despite the title, a chapter on the new testament). Finally, Hoerth rejects all archaeological evidence that contradicts a literal reading of the Bible, rather than incorporating it. It is thus not even an honest work of history.

Though I did not read the rest of the thread, it seems apparent that if this is the sort of dispute you have with my review of Bible Unearthed, you are indeed misrepresenting what I said. I have another post that will address the other criticisms of my work, to follow.

Richard Carrier

Funny how all my critics say this. Even Ryan Renn, the only Christian on the whole internet willing to write a rebuttal to one of my essays, says this, even though I have rewritten my essay in resonse to his and even thanked him.

It is funny how all my critics misquote me. Never mind that I never ever use the words “very good chance” in such a connection (I am not aware of having ever used it in any of my essays). In Doctors Pronounce Jesus Dead! I state “Even I agree with the conclusion that Jesus probably died on the cross” and in Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story I say point blank “I do not believe Jesus survived.” But the fact that there was a 0.7% chance that Christianity began from Jesus surviving the cross does mean this is ”still well too high to lead anyone to conclude that a miracle had to have happened” since things of such low probability do happen. It seems that it is your reading that is sloppy, not my work.

Funny how my critics get so easily confused. I say this in Doctors Pronounce Jesus Dead! (repeating, incidentally, MacDonald’s observation of the same fact, cf. my Review of The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) in a sentence about the Gospel of Mark, not John. Apparently, my critics are so ignorant of the Bible that they don’t even know that this detail is in there! To be fair, I can see how the confusion arose: in a sentence about Mark I end with a parenthetical comment about Mark that has a comma-delineated aside about John. I just fixed that, so the reading and Bible challenged won’t stick their feet in their mouth over this again.

Do tell. You are not impressing me with your examples so far.

Sources please. You call me sloppy, yet at least I supply the sources of my claims about antiquity.

I don’t see what this has to do with 1 Cor. 15. If Paul conceived of the resurrected body as angelic, he would say so. Yet never once does he refer to such an analogy. No one does. Instead, he says flesh cannot inherit the kingdom (and elsewhere that the body of Christ is now the Church).

Nor did Luke see any problem with contradicting himself all three times he describes Paul’s vision, none of which fit Paul’s circumstances as Paul himself relates in Galatians. Luke is trying to sew together disparate traditions, and he gets Paul’s doctrine wrong more than once (read any current scholarly Bible commentary on Luke). The principal point is that Paul himself refers to his experience as identical to the experiences of Peter and others. Then there are droves and droves of circumstantial evidence that further bolster the point: the Jesus that was risen was not the fleshly body that was buried, but a life-giving soul. He was not made of dust like Adam, but of spirit: Paul himself says this. See What Do 'Pneumatikos' and 'Psychikos' Mean? and Could the Original Gospel Have Been of a Spiritual Rather Than a Physical Resurrection? The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, and can hardly be matched by a single irrelevant and unsourced assertion that angels were regarded as “made of pneuma, too.”

Okay. I am interested to see what would make anything “immature dung.”



This belongs in another Forum. I have now posted a Topic on this called Can We Be Skeptical of the Big Bang? in the Science and Skepticism forum, as I recieved permission from Dr. Stenger to quote his emails to me.


[This message has been edited by Richard Carrier (edited June 04, 2001).]

It has been brought to my attention that my comments on Richard Carrier's article abut the big bang have been posted here. I would like to say publically that I have great respect for Richard as a historian and he has helped me a lot on two of my books. I simply have a strong, academic disagreement with him on the validity of the big bang, for which I claim the evidence is overwhelming.

JubalH

To Metacrock's credit, I actually did apologize to him. I called him a liar for claiming that he had read his fish story in a reputable document. Since the search feature was down and I couldn't substantiate my claim at the time, I withdrew it with an apology.

Since you have reposted the relevant thread, readers can now see the actual facts underlying the original dispute.

Richard Carrier

The Big Bang discussion is now open in Science and Skepticism.

In fairness to Richard, he appears not to have had an opportunity to read all of this thread. Therefore, I will offer it again in order to restate my point regarding his review of The Bible Unearthed (actually a review of a review, but no matter).

From page one of this thread:

I did this in both my original post, and the one you are critiquing. I will give you a more extensive list, and suggest that you read some of them.

From my original post: Who Wrote the Bible? (Richard Elliot Friedman, HarperCollins: New York, 1997)

From Ish’s post: Archaeology and the Old Testament by Alfred J. Hoerth released in June 1998.

Additional reading:
Commentary on the Torah : With a New English Translation by Richard Elliott Friedman
released February 2001.

Editorial Review from Amazon.com: This new commentary draws on recent archeological discoveries, medieval commentaries, and modern textual scholarship "to shed new light on the Torah, and, more important, to open windows through which it sheds its light on us." The book also continues Friedman's ongoing project of making serious religious scholarship accessible to the general reader (as did his previous works, including Who Wrote the Bible and The Hidden Face of God).

What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel by William G. Dever. Since this book was written by the very scholar that Carrier was attacking, and it was released in March 2001, perhaps Carrier can explain why he did not know that this book existed when he wrote his review.

Carrier said very plainly that there are NO books written for the layman about either ancient Israel or the OT that take into account recent archaeological findings of the 1990’s. I have demonstrated that this is patently false, and given that Carrier fancies himself an historian, he should know better than to make such outrageous and broadbased statements that are so easily shown to be wrong.

End of Quote

Now, I have not even tried to do an in depth search of additional books that deal with the history of ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible, but as I have demonstrated, there are plenty of books out there aimed at lay readers. Further, my original criticisms of Richard’s arguments against footnotes and endnotes stands. As I said previously, such citations are the norm in books about the Bible, including books written for laymen.

Brian (Nomad)

Thank you, SingleDad, for the correction. I take it this happened on another thread. Or have I misunderstood something?