Gamera

Again, your admission that you get your history from historical fiction is devastating for your credibility.

Here's what I recommend: get history from history texts, and get entertainment from novels and historical fiction. I know the difference. Apparently you do not!

BWHAHHAHAHHAHAH!

Gamera

The Historia Augusta comes to mind. As does Clifford Irving's "Biography" of Howard Hughes. Both used all the conventions of historiography (even citing sources), and both are more or less pure inventions.

Amaleq13

Your ignorance of the fact one can learn some history from historical fiction is astounding.

It can be found in all three but only if you are willing to do some research. Oh, that's right, you don't need to do research. You "somehow" just know which characters are historical and which are not.

As expected, you cannot defend your assertion and will not admit that it was an exaggeration. Disappointing but not all that suprising given your track record. :wave:

GakuseiDon

Does Doherty actually talk about "varying degrees of corruptibility per layer"? I'd love to see that! Can you give a reference, please?

Ben, thanks for giving that quote from Doherty. TedH, what do you think Doherty is inferring about demons in the incorruptible realm? Is he being "steely rigid", IYO? And are you in agreement with him on this, or in disagreement?

Mars coming down and raping a Vestal Virgin would be interaction. The whole point of virgin conception was so that they didn't interact, I would have thought.

Tatian doesn't say that. He says that humans (Adam and Eve, presumably) "were driven from earth, yet not out of this earth, but from a more excellent order of things than exists here now". They were driven from Paradise. By the way, is your view about what Tatian is saying there another thing that Doherty believes as well?

Ted Hoffman

Doherty has been following this thread and emailed me. Regarding GDon's insistence that there is only the corruptible and incorruptible with no distinctions and no variances (and implying that there was an agreed structure), read below and reach your conclusions. Doherty is making the same point I was making and that Carrier has made: nobody formalized the platonic cosmology (at least before Aristotle). I am travelling and may not be able to post again. At any rate, I dont see us making much progress even if I were to continue with the discussion.
This is an excerpt from a draft of his upcoming second edition of TJP:
[All the emphasis is mine]
Regarding TedM's insistence on wisdom of man, this is what Doherty has to say:
Since TedM has declined to respond to my counterarguments, and I have argued with GDon for hours in the past, I think I am done here.

Ted Hoffman

If they did not interact, Mary ipso facto was not the mother of Jesus.

premjan

Virgin conception was to preserve social modesty and elevate life over sex.

TedM

Sure, it's "ridiculous" to argue that Paul was consistent all the way through, and therefore he wouldn't suddenly change his focus on one verse that has to do with Jesus' historicity!

Absolutely. He COULD have done that. But he didn't. It should be OBVIOUS to anyone who isn't blinded by there own bias. The second chapter looks NO DIFFERENT than the first in this regard. See 1:20 that says so-called human wisdom of "THIS AGE" is foolish. Same thing in Chapter 2. In chapter 2 Paul is referring to wisdom of MEN (either from God or their own) in verses 1,4,5,6,9,10,11,12,13,14,15.... There is NO SUGGESTION that he would switch to talking about the lack of wisdom of demons in the middle of it, and then switch right back to human wisdom!


There is NO SIGN of such a "new" addition of thought. It would break up the thought--as if a Turrets shout out--and then we are back to the original comparison again.

Ridiculous. The same comparison is throughout both chapters. 1:21 "the WORLD did not know God through wisdom". He isn't talking about demons. He tells us in the next verse 22 WHO he is talking about: Jews and Greeks. And in the prior verse: the wise man, the scribe, the debator. AND he tells us when: "THIS AGE", the same language he again uses with regard to the lack of wisdom of those who crucified Jesus.

I don't know how anyone can genuinely think this is a logical argument at all. There is NO logical reason why Paul WOULD repeatedly talk about the lack of wisdom of men, switch to talking to the lack of wisdom of demons, NOT give a hint that he has done so, and then IMMEDIATELY switch back to talking about people again. In fact he CLEARLY IMPLIES WHO he is talking about in verse 9: Right after mentioning the lack of wisdom by those who crucified Jesus, Paul explains that the REASON the CRUCIFIERS (alleged "demons") lacked wisdom is because God didn't reveal it to such MEN: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of MAN conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." Are demons men?

Doherty has twisted and distorted this argument to an extreme. Once again.

ted

badger3k

You miss my point. The genres that we use are human conventions for classifying literature (and other writings). Your contention that there is a genre called "historical imitation" is one that I have not found supported. The genre is clearly "historical fiction", and your attempts to separate it from your "historical imitation" seems to be an attempt to support your argument, so you won't have to admit that historical fiction can include a lot of actual historical facts which readers can easily be confused by.

Your actual reasons may be different, but that is what it looks like to me. The fact that historical fiction can lean towards either history or fiction undercuts your argument.

EarlDoherty

Since Ted Hoffman has bowed out, I will make one contribution of my own here. Ted’s “logic” is that no one (especially NT epistle writers!) ever mixes topics or subtopics or deviates from a hyper-controlled layout of arguments in his letters. For Ted, Paul was a paragon of clear and scientific reasoning, and rigidly enforced prose, which is why, of course, that all modern theologians and commentators fully agree on everything he meant.

If Paul, by “rulers of this age” meant the demon spirits in some spiritual dimension, and everyone knew this, then there was no necessity for him to “hint” let alone spell out that he is referring to them rather than humans. The meaning of that term is a question that is separately arguable (and has been), so nothing is circular here. Ted, OTOH, is seeking to counter those independent arguments about the meaning of “rulers of this age” by a quite feeble contention that Paul cannot be allowed to deviate from one narrow type of comparison through the course of a couple of dozen verses.

Certainly, the bulk of his subject about wisdom and the lack of it has been devoted, quite naturally, to men, since he is dealing with opposing apostles’ preaching. But no rule of logic or writing says that he can’t include a secondary feature illustrating his overall point, especially one that fits quite well into the discussion. He doesn’t have to have talked about demons in the preceding chapter. It is possible for him to get an additional idea and add it to the mix. In fact, there is a reason why chapter 2 is a separate chapter (as those who created those divisions no doubt recognized). Commentators generally agree that Paul is now devoting himself to dealing directly with the Corinthians’ claim of deficiencies in his message in regard to “wisdom” preaching of a gnostic sort (in the term’s basic meaning) in comparison to the new preachers who have apparently won them over from Paul, and Paul is anxious to win them back by claiming that, oh but I too preach a message of wisdom. Thus, there is also some reorientation here on Paul’s part, which surely contained some scope for allowing him to break Ted’s rigid rules.

Ted also overlooks another consideration in this regard. Many mainstream scholars consider that “rulers of this age” does indeed refer to demon spirits (I have often quoted Paul Ellingworth who pronounces them to be “a majority”), but they often employ the ‘out’ (as do some here) that such demon “rulers” were working through earthly proxies. But even if this were so, still the “rulers of this age” would refer per se to the demons, as Ellingworth’s “majority” opines, and so Paul has indeed deviated from Ted’s strict rules of presentation. After all, even if the earthly rulers served as puppets for the demons, it is still the demons themselves, as the “brains” behind the deed, that are accorded by Paul the lack of wisdom. Paul cannot be referring to the earthly rulers’ lack of wisdom; his wording and sense of logic (such as he might have possessed) does not allow for such a reading. In verse 8, the “rulers of this age” cannot refer to the demons, and then the pronoun “they” referring back to them in the immediately following clause switch to referring instead to their human agents. Consequently, Paul would still be doing exactly what Ted claims he cannot have done, attribute the lack of wisdom to the demon spirits. Now, Ted may find himself having to disagree with that “majority” opinion, but the whole issue hardly stands as “OBVIOUS” as Ted wants to maintain, in capital letters.

Ted might want to question his own logic in demanding that verse 9, with its quote of what “no eye has seen, etc.” must be so closely integrated with what came before that, once again, it requires that only MEN can be referred to in all the preceding verses. Paul’s overall subject in this passage is God’s hidden wisdom, no matter who it has been hidden from, humans or demons. He reaches for a scriptural quote to illustrate or sanctify his contention. Unfortunately, there was no scriptural quote available to illuminate hidden wisdom for both men and demons, let alone for the latter only, so he had to settle for one which referred only to men. His necessary choice, however, does not rule out that he also saw the quote, for his purposes, as encompassing the lack of wisdom possessed by the demons as well. Once again, Ted is trying to force Paul’s brain and writing skills into something not even my university professors demanded from any student’s essays.

Once again, as he has proven in the past, Ted will always come up with some interpretation of his own, no matter how forced and poorly thought out, to counter other possibilities and more sensible considerations in a text. It is this sort of thing that I am simply not willing to be caught up in on a continuing basis, and one reason why I’ve bowed out of IIDB, at least while I’m working on my second edition of The Jesus Puzzle. (The other reason, of course, is that while Jeffrey Gibson still lurks on the scene, ready to indulge in the antics he consistently does, I’m not willing to get caught up in that either.) Consequently, I am leaving the last word to Ted, confident that his reasoning will be no more effective than it has been thus far, requiring no further response from me.

Earl Doherty