Antipope Innocent II

Wow. I'd love to see that modest little claim backed up with evidence! Wild hyperbole or something else?

Acharya S

And here we go again with a slew of insulting remarks. It is quite simple, really, and unending assault on my character is completely unnecessary.

The word "IRONICALLY" should be quite visible to anyone reading this thread, but, in your haste and desperation to denigrate my work, you have apparently skipped over it.

In his fervor to DENY that Christians worship the sun TERTULLIAN HAS IRONICALLY PRESERVED THE SUN-WORSHIPPING CONTENTION AGAINST THEM - do you understand? If he hadn't said anything about it, and in consideration of the vast destruction of data from the ancient world, we may never have even known about these denials in antiquity. The fact that this retort against sun worshipping exists is not only worthy of note but provides us with critical clues. I am neither remiss in relating this quote, nor in commenting on it that, while it was designed to deny sun worshipping, it ironically admits that such is how Christianity was perceived - and how I and many others to this day perceive it in reality. What is more plausible, that Jewish scribes took old myths and reworked them to revolve around themselves, as they had done previously in the Old Testament and as many other priesthoods had done with other myths, or that a superhuman Jewish guy really walked the earth? If the latter is implausible, then we must come up with a manner in which this story was created. I have done my best to do so.

It is not I who am engaged in sloppy anything, when you have not understood the IRONY at all and are now using this MISUNDERSTANDING on your part to trash me without having read my work.

It is going to be a very long process if I have to explain every single detail to all of you in such a manner. Perhaps it would constitute a better policy if you were not to assume the worst about me or anyone else and proceed from there. Is this simply a contest to demonstrate who is more erudite or clever? If you are not interested in my work, why do you even bother to be here discussing it?

Acharya S

No, it is not hyperbole. I have dedicted my life to this work, sometimes up to 16 hours a day. It can take me a number of days to track down ONE quote in Greek or Latin. If you had read my work - and if you yourself had actually participated in any type of like research - you would know these facts.

I suggest we stop with the childish personal attacks on my integrity.

Jeffrey Gibson

But in point of fact, I didn't ask you to regurgitate a 600 page book. I asked you to provide the specific bibliographical data, if any, beyond the name of the author, that AS gives for only the three "quotes" from Diodorus, Macrobius, and Tertullian that you adduced.

Does she or does she not say in which work of Macrobius, Diodorous, and Tertullian and at what place within these authors works we can find the particular "quotes" of these authors that you cited her as giving? Yes or no?

In other words, all I've asked you to do is to reproduce, at best, 3 lines of her book.

But where in the Saturnalia? In which book and in which line of that book?

The Siculus

Siculus? You do know that that's just Latin for "of Sicily", don't you? and that no one who is familiar with Diodorus and his work ever refers to him as Siculus.


Noting that this is the title of a "section" (book 1) of a work entitled Bibliotheca historica ("Historical Library"), where within that section does the quote appear?

But as is clear from what she says is the source of her (mis)"quote" from Tertullian, i.e., the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, she most certainly does rely on 19th (early 20th) century sources and has not made use of the relevant primary source.

Could you give us her text of this "quote". Is it her own translation of the Apologeticum, or is it someone elses?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

FWIW, it's not even certain that he ever gave the cigar line.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Wow. Argumentum ad Misericordiam.

Don't you use the TLG or the PHI 7 or the PLG or Minge (or a spell checker)?

Jeffrey

No Robots

And how about the charges of incest and cannibalism rebuted by Athenagoras? Do you believe these to be ironically preserved reality?

Jeffrey Gibson

I didn't ask them to tell me whether or not it was a fair summary.

And you neglected to say that others on Lt_Antiq said that it was not a fair summary, and certainly not an accurate translation, of the Latin I gave.

In any case, I'm asking you if what AS "quotes" Macrobius as saying in the Latin text I gave you is really what the Latin text says.

Are you going to answer this or not?

In any case, it's interesting that it took me about half an hour to find the text in question.

Jeffrey

Acharya S

All of my sources are carefully cited, and the notion that we cannot refer to Diodorus Siculus by "Siculus" is just silly and petty, as he is clearly known by that name. I suppose that, because "Christ" is not a last name but a title, as in "o Christos," we had all better stop using that term in addressing Jesus.

Are you going to continue with this type of behavior, which appears to me to be an utter waste of bandwidth?

I will provide you with the citations you are requesting for the quotes, nevertheless. The one from Macrobius I mentioned above.

The pertinent quote about the Egyptian gods Osiris and Isis representing the sun and moon may be found on p. 14 of Murphy's translation:

Siculus, Diodorus, The Antiquities of Egypt (or via: amazon.co.uk), tr. Edwin Murphy, Transaction Publishers, 1990.

Of course, if you really knew Siculus's work, as you pretend to do from your remarks regarding his name, you would already know where this very famous quote can be found.

As concerns the Tertullian quotes - which I have certainly NOT misquoted and do not appreciate your libelous remarks - you have already been given the links, including to Roger Pearse's site. If these translations are too old for you, I suggest you take it up with Roger.

ApostateAbe

Sir, the reason I called you a loyalist was because you do the thing that all the other loyalists do: you demand that those who criticize her claims must read her books. That isn't normally the way things work in scholarly debate. One only needs to be aware of the claim and the proposed evidence in order to criticize. You were a gentleman and you supplied the claim and the proposed evidence. That is the information I need in order to debate the argument. But ALL of the loyalists of Acharya S have one thing in common: they incessantly demand that I read her material. The more loyal they are, the more they do it. It reminds of my encounters with the Lyndon LaRouche group. If I would dare to criticize their claims, they would demand very loudly that I must first attend a meeting, or that I must buy the books they sell on their tabletops.

I was afraid that would be your argument, chief. I have seen cartoon tracts written by Jack Chick that accused Muslims of worshiping the Moon. Now tell me: is that evidence one way or the other that Muslims worship the Moon? No it isn't. It is normal for religious adherents to bullshit about a competing religion. Tertullian explicitly denies that his religion has anything to do with Sun worship, and his assertions match the religious orientation of the earliest Christian manuscripts (the synoptic gospels). The paraphrase that you got from Acharya S who got it from a Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 who got it from Tertullian seemed to imply that Tertullian conceded the charge, which would have made a better case, if it were legit. To find that there were Roman polytheists in the second century who accused Christians of worshiping the Sun would serve to inform me just a little about the Roman religion and almost nothing about Christianity.
Sir, let me give you a lesson on how to do research. You won't get this lesson from Acharya S. This is how it is done: if you want to make a point about what Christians from the second century believed, then you find a source from the second century and you quote from that. If you want to make a claim about what Tertullian said, then you go to the scholarly-translated writings of Tertullian.

You do NOT quote from Christ Conspiracy.

You do NOT quote from an encyclopedia.

Finding the scholarly-translated writings of early Christian authors is very easy. They are all published online. You just do a Google search. You find the published documents. You go to the pages where the relevant material may be. You hit "Ctrl-F" to search for the keywords. And you copy and paste the relevant material. What Acharya S did was quote from a paraphrase from an encyclopedia of 1913. Can you please explain to me why she did that? You want me to read her books, but why should I read her books if any excerpt of her books including the footnotes would get a failing grade in Eng 311 Persuasive Writing? She is a historical scholar, right? She knows where to find copies of the translations of the original documents of Tertullian, yes? Primary sources, not secondary sources and not tertiary sources--that is something I learned in high school. Acharya S is teaching her loyalists to trust the material of secondary and tertiary sources as if it were original. You repeated the same faulty paraphrase. Do you see a problem with this? Please say yes. "Yes, Abe, I see a problem with this, and I will correct the problem, but that doesn't mean that Acharya S is entirely wrong..."