Ok well why don't you explain to me how your theory of oral tradition differs from saying that its people spreading rumors?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rodahi:
[b]Layman: I say you once again forsake any discussion of history and resort to anti-religious bigotry.

rodahi: Prove anything I said is inaccurate or anti-religious bigotry. You just don't like hearing the truth.

Meta: Well your hermeneutic of total suspicion sure strikes me as anti-religious bigotry.

Is anyone supposed to be greatly surprised by the fact that the truth would strike you as "anti-religious bigotry?"


Meta =>Should it surprize me that you equate mere assertions with truth? You have presented nothing but sheer speculation and a very biased hermeneutic and that, in my books, is truth by stipulation.

Meta: And you've been totally wrong in all the assertions you've made about oral tradition in ancient cultures

No, this is just a Chrsistian opinion.


Meta =>Well yours is just an atheist opionion, and the opprative word there being OPINION!


Meta: (see evidence above)

You mean "see the quotes of a few biased Christian scholars."


Meta =>ahahahahaha! yea, right! when they seem to back you they are "shcoalrs!" But when they go against you they are just "biased 'Xians'"! What a farse! This is what passes for schoalrship in your mind isn't it? So you've given up substantive argument and resorted to ad hom and truth by stipulation and guilt by reason of the charge. That figures. You weren't doing half bad trying to make real substatian arguments but what was really behind them was nothing more than sheer prejudice, and you can try to deny it but your own words prove it. "I'm not a bigot, I just can't stand...them!"

Meta: the indiependence of our sources on Papias for Eusebius, and the dating of the book of ACts, the evidence for Lukan authorship,the meaning of the connybear quote and host of other things.

What does "host of other things" mean?


Meta =>All the other stuff I'm right about. What difference does it make? The fact that I'm a Christian means I can't be right, a priori, and if I document my view my sources are just "mere Chrsitians" and if I even got Bautlmann to back me up you would call him a fudnie!

Layman: And, as you well know, I never said I believe everything I read.

rodahi: You certainly seem to believe a great deal.


Meta: Apparenlty, you have fallen into the error of thinking that anything less than a hermeneutic of total suspecion is naively accepting everything. What's with this "all or nothing" thinking?

Do you believe the words of a few ancient Christian propagandists? If you do, then YOU are naive.


Meta =>Yea, guilt by reason of the charge. Why he must be guilty, someone borught the charge against him! Now who are you going to believe, guys that spend their lives at Oxford and Cambridge studying the MS in the original langauge, or an atheist! O well no contest, atheist has to be right, that's just an a priori turth. than why did you bother to read any of that stuff you quoted before?


Layman: Is this the best you skeptics have to offer?

rodahi: You can't handle the truth, can you? (By the way, I am not "you skeptics." I speak for myself and no one else. You will not hear me use the pronoun "we.")


Meta: You can't handle the evidence, that would stack up to truth.

I can handle the truth and the evidence. The problem is this: ALL you have are ancient MSS depicting the opinions/beliefs of ancient, superstitious people.


Meta =>Yea all I have the words of people who knew the Apostles and other deciples. You can't believe them they were Christians! What ciruclar load of crap! Can't you see how your blind bigoted hatred has crippaled your logical abilites? Look the cricular nature of your reasoning!And at that rate if Papias did know John and the guys, than so much the worst for him,because they were just christinas; and so what if they saw Jesus, that old Jesus was just a Christian!


Layman: Given your focus on reason and knowledge you spend much more time ignoring the historical evidence than you do evaluating the historical evidence.

rodahi: Here is a challenge: Give "historical evidence" to support your belief that Jesus rose from the dead.

Meta: That's the pay off. The community saw him after his death. We know the community is reliable, since archaeology corroborates Luke, there are no other versions of the story, so everyone knew the facts, oral tradition cotroled for veriation, the Passion narrative was written just 18 years after the events, plent of eye witnesses still around at that time.

THAT is what you think, Meta. Present EVIDENCE.

Meta =>Look back over the thread! that's what all of this is! the guys that saw the risen Christ told us about him,andthe people who knew them testify that their account is right. That's evidence.You can't do any better than that! How do we know that Custer's last STand happened? Only because people who were there recorded it! Why believe them, they were only witnesses!?

Meta: Now one might be inclined to disregard all that,and it's not real absolute proof.

I don't consider what you "think" to be proof of anything beyond what you think.


Meta =>You haven't been able to overturn my documentation, the fact that you have to break into ad hom and gult by reason of the charge proves that. So apparenlty you just dont'understand the nature of hitorical evidence.

Meta: But given that all history is probability, three independent trajectories witnessing to the sightings, (Paul, Gospels, passion narrative) than there is ample reason to accept it as it is a likely senerio.

Baloney! There is no good reason to think people can be born in any way but the natural way. There is no good reason to think that dead people can come back to life.


Meta =>right, just as I thought. You hvae no argument, no evidence you can't argue withe the evidence we have and the facts dont' matter.IT's all ideology. I dont' want it to be true so it isn't! and that doens't disprove the words of the people that saw him, but you can't deal with them so you just impose your ideology. That is closed minded biogory, but what else should I expect from a "free thinker" which is just a euphemism for "narrow minded."

If you want to argue that Jesus lived as a man in Galilee, then fine. I have no problem with that. When you get beyond that, there are problems.

Meta =>You are not just talking problems, you are talking turth by stipulation. Ipsie Dixit (sp?)

Meta =>All ancient world historians were propagandists. The discipline of academic hitory didnt' exist. No serious academic historian today doubts these accounts for the reasons you set out, "that they were Christians." Most tend to understand the propagandistic nature of their writings, but hardly any jut up and decide that therefore none of what they say is true at all.



Meta =>I've told many times, there are independent fragments which are not dependent upon Eusebius. They include the famous passage about listening to the Elders (the Elder John passage), his take on the death of Judas, and the extra-biblical saying of Jesus, the one's with the eschatological import. I dont' have a copy with me, I've seen them, I know they exist.

Meta: Sorry, you are repeating yourself.

I don't mind repeating true statements.


Meta =>Ok, when are you going to start?


Meta: I've already answered that several times. We can see it in the text

You haven't given a sufficient answer to any of my questions. What text?


Meta =>I told you the content, I'll have to look it up to find the name of the MS.


Meta: in the accounts of the witnesses, In Clments statement about those who are here who knew Peter and saw him among us, and we can aslo see it in the fact that there are no alternative stories. No other versions!

You are naive.

Meta =>Your a bigot! and you never have answered that last argument, though I've made it many times. There are tons of Orthodox freindly Gospels,suchas Nicademas, Apocryphon of James, Peter, and so on, and many Gonsitc one's a ton of them, Jewish Chritsian such as Ebionites and Hebrews, and infancy Gospels, I counted about 50 apocryphal Gospels and that's just in English and in the books I could get, and in all of that not one single alternate acocunt of how Christ died, when or where, or not one single deniel of the empty tomb, not one single deniel of the basic outlines of the story. Why is that? If its just people spreading wild rumors why dont' we find that sort of thing? It's all over mythology. There are about 17 versions of the Story of Tamuz, why not even 1 other version of Jesus death?

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by rodahi:
[b]
Meta: O come on man! anyone can see he's speaking rhetorically!

Can you not read what he said? What makes you think he means anything other than what he says?


Meta =&gt;Duh, by the context? Is it a confession? If so why doesn't he go on and say "I'm sorry,I decieved you?" Is it bragging? Why would he brag to them about decieveing them if he expected them to continue support? So it must be something else. what else is there? Sarcasim maybe? How does one tell when a writer is being sarcastic? Can you tell when I am? how? (OK now I've set you up for a natural come back, make it a good zinger).

Meta: The old atheist inability to read a text! So funny how you guys just stead fastly refuse to read anything with any kind of literary acumen.

I read as well as you do and so can any other person of average intelligence. I read what the text SAYS. Obviously, you do not. BTW, I am one person. Where did you get the idea that I am "you guys?"


Meta: Hmmmm, I'm sure you can read the dennotations, it's the connotations I'm worried about.

ALL we have available to us is what the writers WROTE. Shades of meaning can be debated forever.


Meta =&gt;Well hell,you don't seem to think you have any trouble understanding the shades of meaning! You seem to think all you have to do is pronouce a text to mean what you want it to and it does! You prove he was really admitting to being dishonest. Start with why he would admit that?

Meta: For example, does "much adue about nothing" really mean acutal 'nothingness?' Would you read that play and say "It's a wedding, it's not nothihng?"

Poor analogy, Meta.


Meta =&gt;O I see you are actually admitting that I'm right, prove you didn't mean that!

Meta: Your reading too much into statements that are clearly rhetorical.

Again, present evidence demonstrating the writer is speaking "rhetorically."


Meta =&gt;No I have presumption on that point. You are the one who is introducing an hermeneutic of suspeicion, you justify that assumption!

Meta: Have you ever heard anyone in conversation say "it's not that way, no wait, I tell a lie, maybe it is a bit..." ? Would you assume, O he's confessing to being a pathological liar? Well maybe this isn't quite that innocent, but I think it's pretty much in that category.

Another poor analogy, Meta.


Meta =&gt;O you agree with me again? Prove you aren't! And what's poor about it. That's exactly what you are doing. Taking something that is clealry playing off the charge to refute it, and turning it into a confession of wrong doing. And with no warrent in the context.


Meta: "You guys," didn't mean to offend, I just hear that sort of analysis all the time, and it's pretty apparent you don't want to give the tex tany kind of benifit of a doubt. No willing suspenscion of disbleief here!

I give the writer every benefit of a doubt that I give any other ancient writer. I only suspend my disbelief when reading fiction. Are you suggesting that the NT is fiction?


Meta =&gt;That is contrary to every principle of true hermeneutics. No shcolars apparoches a text with the assuption "the author is a bad person and he's lying throiugh his teeth." No text could stand up to that sort of apparoch. That's a totally incopmetant method!


Meta: That's not really a very fair way to read a text. If all you ever do is look for ways to make it seem stupid that's all you will ever see in it.

Again, I READ what the writer SAID. If the writer wished to write something stupid, then so be it.


Meta =&gt;No, clearly you don't just read what they wrote. But fine, I just read what you wrote, like all those statements that I take to be agreement with my position. Clealry you don't read what they wrote in a neutral manner, and you've basically admitted that. You start with the assumption that they are Chrstians so they must be lying. That's essetnially what you said.


Meta: obviously he's responding to charges agaisnt him!

Sure he is! How do you KNOW the charges are not legitimate?

Meta: Why should I assume they are? That's my point, find every little opportunity to cast suspicion on the text, that's an ideological reading, it's not a fair way to approach it.

I have given reasons for suspecting that Paul sometimes lied to further his cause.


Meta =&gt;Why would he tell them that unless he was apologizing? I dont' see an apology, I see a defense of his actions

Meta: Is he really going to brag to his flock that he's good at lying?

According to the text he did. Now, if you wish to argue he meant something other than what he said, then you have a problem. ALL WE HAVE IS WHAT HE WROTE!


Meta =&gt;NO! WE have what he wrote and we have the way you twist it to support your ideological grudge.

Meta: Obviously he really is confessing to be a con man isn't he?That's really what it means! why is it that major Bible Scholar has ever read that way? Because cleary that's not what is going on!

You have no idea what "major Bible Scholar" think. You read only works that have a Christian bias.


Meta =&gt;The major Bible scholars are Christians! You think you know anything about this stuff? I got my Masters degree in Theology at Perkins school of Theology, one of the top liberal schools in the country,where did you get yours? Have you read Bautlmann? I have, but than he was Christian. You think he wasn't! Name me one major Bible schoalr that doesn't claim to be part of the Christian tradition? I think of two, one of whom is dead. There are some, but even Crosson and Helmutt Koester claim to be Christians. I doubt very seriously that you have read any major shcolars who aren't in the so called "Jesus seminar" and it's apparent you know nothing about exigesis or hermeneutics. You would have an F so far at any seminary anywhere. Have you read David Kelsey? You know he is a Christian? How about Joette Basslar, I took three of her classes. How Fwellwell? I took one of her classes. YOu even heard of these people? Extremely liberal but even they claim to be christians!

Meta: that makes no sense at all.

rodahi: Whoever said Paul made sense in what he said?

Meta =&gt;circular reasoning.Apparently you seem to think that any assumption of suspieicion on your part liberates you from the need to do any real exegsis, so anyhting you decliar to be the case auotomatically is as long as you insist that it's "just reading what's there." And that is probably what you see shcolars as doing because you have never had a class on hermeneutics and you don't know enough about it to even identify one major principle that real scholarship proceeds by.


Meta: HA! circular reasoning!

I suspect you have no idea what you are talking about.


Meta =&gt;O you agree with me again! Just reading what's there.


Meta: It's your reading that makes no sense, that's what I was alluding to.

I READ what the writer WROTE.


Meta =&gt;I just read what you wrote.

Meta: But clearly he's speaking sarcastically. The things he says assume the charges for the purposes of mocking them!

rodahi: Whether he is "mocking them" or not, SOMEONE considered him a liar and he admits it!


Meta =&gt;O well he must be, anyone whose charged with something is guilty or they wouldn't be charged right? That's just guilt by reason of the charge, this is what we call an "informal fallacy."

Meta: ]O well than he must be! cause in the atheist universe

Your bias creeps into many of your statements, Meta.


Meta =&gt;ahhahahahaahahahah, so when you say "they are just christians so they must be wrong" that's not bias that's just objective observations from a 100% smart genius guy. but when I assert a mere opinon that's bais!


Meta: if there is the slighest opening for suspecting any problem wiht the tex that's just as good as an aboslute fact and a confession of of a con job by Peter and the boys in the smoke filled room.

I presented textual evidence to support one of my views.


Meta =&gt;No you didn't! It takes more than just twisting the context and decliaring yourself right to have "textual evidence." NO analysis of the context, no word study, no sense of why he would say such a thing, just easigesis, read in what you want to be there!


Thus far, you have not presented one iota of text to support your view. Paul HAD PROBLEMS with the "super apostles."


Meta =&gt;And in your mind that means they must be right, or they wouldn't be called "super" is that it? Guilt by reason of the charge is a fallocy.


Meta: Come on try look at the text fairly! I don't think that is even indicative of any charge against him. I think it's just like saying "I know you are going to think I'm lying but i caught a fish that was four feet long the other day."

It seems that to you the word "fairly" means any reading that agrees with your Christian bias.

Meta =&gt;You gotta stop agreeing with me like this. It's embarrassing. Look whose talking! You think all you have to do is dawn suscipion of the author that all your pet theories are proven.


Meta: This is the natural common sense reading anyone would give it long before deciding that he's bragging to people if your theory was right, he should be trying to fool rather than impress with his abilities as a con man!!

Give evidence demonstrating he WAS NOT a con man!


Meta: ahahahahahahah! What infomral fallacy is this? you want to assume that if you can muster a suspician of something that's as good as proof and the other guy has the burden of proof to disprove it.

You were the first to use the words "con man." All I asked for was evidence, not proof.


Meta =&gt;Neither here not there, you are making the charge that he was a liar. You have to prove that. I don't have to disprove it just because you can assert it.


Meta: Presumption of Guilt by being charged! Guilt by reason of the charge. Well if he wasn't a con man I wouldn't be able to claim that he was! That is not logical! YOu prove he was.

I don't know if he was a con man or not. You brought it up. All I said is that Paul admitted lying and presented evidence to support my claim.


Meta =&gt;O I guess that really means that you really did agrue he's a con man, hey I'm just approaching the text with a healthy amount of suspcion. I wouldnt' want to be accussed of being naive!

prove that you know anything about hermeneutics.


And apparently you think that the way to read a text is to just say "I want this to be false, so I'll insist that it must be." It's your argument, you prove Paul was dishonest! It doesn't say that. He never says "OK I confess I was dishonest." I think anyone with any integrity at all can understand why your argument is just a dishonest and fallacious reading based upon bigotry, and isogesis.


[This message has been edited by Metacrock (edited April 01, 2001).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Metacrock:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by rodahi:
Layman: I say you once again forsake any discussion of history and resort to anti-religious bigotry.

rodahi: Prove anything I said is inaccurate or anti-religious bigotry. You just don't like hearing the truth.

Meta: Well your hermeneutic of total suspicion sure strikes me as anti-religious bigotry.

Is anyone supposed to be greatly surprised by the fact that the truth would strike you as "anti-religious bigotry?"


Meta =&gt;Should it surprize me that you equate mere assertions with truth? You have presented nothing but sheer speculation and a very biased hermeneutic and that, in my books, is truth by stipulation.

You haven't been paying attention, Meta. I presented NT text to support my arguments.

Meta: And you've been totally wrong in all the assertions you've made about oral tradition in ancient cultures

No, this is just a Chrsistian opinion.


Meta =&gt;Well yours is just an atheist opionion, and the opprative word there being OPINION!

My opinion is supported by textual evidence. What is yours supported by?


Meta: (see evidence above)

You mean "see the quotes of a few biased Christian scholars."


Meta =&gt;ahahahahaha! yea, right! when they seem to back you they are "shcoalrs!" But when they go against you they are just "biased 'Xians'"! What a farse! This is what passes for schoalrship in your mind isn't it? So you've given up substantive argument and resorted to ad hom and truth by stipulation and guilt by reason of the charge. That figures. You weren't doing half bad trying to make real substatian arguments but what was really behind them was nothing more than sheer prejudice, and you can try to deny it but your own words prove it. "I'm not a bigot, I just can't stand...them!"

Talk, talk, talk.

Meta: the indiependence of our sources on Papias for Eusebius, and the dating of the book of ACts, the evidence for Lukan authorship,the meaning of the connybear quote and host of other things.

What does "host of other things" mean?


Meta =&gt;All the other stuff I'm right about. What difference does it make? The fact that I'm a Christian means I can't be right, a priori, and if I document my view my sources are just "mere Chrsitians" and if I even got Bautlmann to back me up you would call him a fudnie![/b]

Again, talk, talk, talk. Present something substantive, Meta.

Layman: And, as you well know, I never said I believe everything I read.

rodahi: You certainly seem to believe a great deal.


Meta: Apparenlty, you have fallen into the error of thinking that anything less than a hermeneutic of total suspecion is naively accepting everything. What's with this "all or nothing" thinking?

Do you believe the words of a few ancient Christian propagandists? If you do, then YOU are naive.


Meta =&gt;Yea, guilt by reason of the charge. Why he must be guilty, someone borught the charge against him! Now who are you going to believe, guys that spend their lives at Oxford and Cambridge studying the MS in the original langauge, or an atheist! O well no contest, atheist has to be right, that's just an a priori turth. than why did you bother to read any of that stuff you quoted before?[/b]

Talk, talk, talk.


Layman: Is this the best you skeptics have to offer?

rodahi: You can't handle the truth, can you? (By the way, I am not "you skeptics." I speak for myself and no one else. You will not hear me use the pronoun "we.")


Meta: You can't handle the evidence, that would stack up to truth.

I can handle the truth and the evidence. The problem is this: ALL you have are ancient MSS depicting the opinions/beliefs of ancient, superstitious people.


Meta =&gt;Yea all I have the words of people who knew the Apostles and other deciples. You can't believe them they were Christians! What ciruclar load of crap!
Can't you see how your blind bigoted hatred has crippaled your logical abilites?[/b]

Let's see, Meta. Anyone who disagrees with you and presents the text of the NT to support his argument is a "blind bigot." Now, I know where you are coming from.

Meta: Look the cricular nature of your reasoning!And at that rate if Papias did know John and the guys, than so much the worst for him,because they were just christinas; and so what if they saw Jesus, that old Jesus was just a Christian!

The so-called church fathers had a vested interest in promoting their position. They had no interest in telling history.


Layman: Given your focus on reason and knowledge you spend much more time ignoring the historical evidence than you do evaluating the historical evidence.

rodahi: Here is a challenge: Give "historical evidence" to support your belief that Jesus rose from the dead.

Meta: That's the pay off. The community saw him after his death. We know the community is reliable, since archaeology corroborates Luke, there are no other versions of the story, so everyone knew the facts, oral tradition cotroled for veriation, the Passion narrative was written just 18 years after the events, plent of eye witnesses still around at that time.

THAT is what you think, Meta. Present EVIDENCE.

Meta =&gt;Look back over the thread![/b]

I have; there is nothing there.

Meta: that's what all of this is! the guys that saw the risen Christ told us about him,andthe people who knew them testify that their account is right. That's evidence.You can't do any better than that!

Name ONE witness who said he saw Jesus in the flesh after he rose from the dead. Saul of Tarsus doesn't count; he said he had a vision of a bright light and heard a voice. You have no "evidence." You have stories.

Meta: How do we know that Custer's last STand happened? Only because people who were there recorded it! Why believe them, they were only witnesses!?

Irrelevant. No one has claimed Custer rose from the dead.

Meta: Now one might be inclined to disregard all that,and it's not real absolute proof.

I don't consider what you "think" to be proof of anything beyond what you think.


Meta =&gt;You haven't been able to overturn my documentation, the fact that you have to break into ad hom and gult by reason of the charge proves that. So apparenlty you just dont'understand the nature of hitorical evidence.[/b]

I presented text from the NT to support my argument. You have presented the OPINIONS of a few biased Christian scholars.

Meta: But given that all history is probability, three independent trajectories witnessing to the sightings, (Paul, Gospels, passion narrative) than there is ample reason to accept it as it is a likely senerio.

Baloney! There is no good reason to think people can be born in any way but the natural way. There is no good reason to think that dead people can come back to life.


Meta =&gt;right, just as I thought. You hvae no argument, no evidence you can't argue withe the evidence we have and the facts dont' matter.IT's all ideology.[/b]

I have presented text from the NT to support my argument.

Meta: I dont' want it to be true so it isn't! and that doens't disprove the words of the people that saw him, but you can't deal with them so you just impose your ideology.

All you have are a couple of ancient stories.

Meta: That is closed minded biogory, but what else should I expect from a "free thinker" which is just a euphemism for "narrow minded."

Name-calling does nothing for your case.

rodahi: If you want to argue that Jesus lived as a man in Galilee, then fine. I have no problem with that. When you get beyond that, there are problems.

Meta =&gt;You are not just talking problems, you are talking turth by stipulation. Ipsie Dixit (sp?)[/b]

I am talking about the problems related to the belief in superstitious stories by ancient people.