Robert Tulip

The Zwaarddijk syndrome is to distort and ignore and fail to understand what he reads. Zwaarddijk's description of prima facie plausible statements as "fucking retarded" and "pure insanity", without context, shows how Zwaarddijk is dealing with this material from the viewpoint of emotion rather than reason. Whenever I have delved behind Zwaarddijk's aggressive superficial insults I have found little more than hot air.

On occasion he has managed to show something could have been worded better and needs clarification (as Acharya plans in the forthcoming revision of the fifteen year old book that Zwaarddijk is obsessing over).

Zwaarddijk has not demonstrated any 'retarded insanity', to use his delightful terms.

Zwaarddijk

...

<edit>.

Seriously, the benediction hand-sign appearing in Star Trek, performed by a Vulcan is a *plausible statement*? You mean I've misread it? What the fuck else can it mean, give a reasonable other meaning to it and I'm all ears.

mountainman

Nevertheless I for one would like to see some (or at least one) of these dated scientifically.

Contrary to the claim made by Ehrman palaeography is not a scientific dating process.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

tanya

?

"doofus"

How interesting. I write the word "dishonest", and the forum seeks my expulsion. Dickhead writes "fuck you", and no one objects.

He writes "doofus", in contempt, and no one utters a peep.

Well, almost no one.

I find this guy's submissions to the forum disgusting. Tulip is entitled to his opinion, and he apparently claims some redeeming quality about zaardick's contributions. Apart from that issue which divides us, I find Tulip's writing refreshing, intelligent, and above all, thoughtful, the very antithesis of what zwardicky has indicated.

Zwaarddijk

Oh, I am very well aware I might get a warning for that. I wouldn't complain. And it's what, half an hour since I posted it - no one uttering a peep might very well be a result of no one having reacted to it yet, rather than no one objecting to it.

As for intelligent posts, do look through my writings elsewhere on this forum and you'll notice I've contributed in several discussions. I do think my contributions to the mythicism debate (albeit only in regard to some books favoring the mythicism side of the argument) are intelligent, except when trying to nail Robert Tulip's evasions and misleading arguments, when I actually do get angry at the fucking evasive bullshit he presents.

tanya

Pete, you know I am one of your admirers, but, here, I wish to sound a note of caution. The empirical method of ascertaining, with confidence, a date of origin, using carbon 14 emissions, detected by mass spectrometry, assists us only to establish a point in time representing the earliest possible date when a particular document could have been written. That date, obtained by destroying the parchment, does not necessarily correspond to the date of authorship of any text written on the parchment. It corresponds to the date when the papyrus plants had been alive. A century later, someone could come along, and write a message on that papyrus.

I share your skepticism of Ehrman's explanations, including his idea, echoed by spin, that palaeography is "scientific", i.e. amenable to reproducible secular analysis. Their claim is that we possess literally thousands of papyrus documents from the first five centuries, CE, and we know the date of origin, using other methods, (for example, an actual date on the document itself) so that we can compare the unknown sample to literally dozens of standards, in order to obtain a persuasive date for composition of the unknown, using palaeography.

The problem is forgery. A skillful forger can imitate a particular, unique handwriting style, thus rendering "palaeography" useless. Further, even the ink, could have been sitting in a jar for a century, so dating only the ink, by mass spec, will also not yield a reliable date. In short, there is no "scientific" method to establish, with conviction, the date of authorship, for texts written on ancient papyrus.

We can collect DNA samples from fingerprints on the papyrus, but, how do we know that the person who touched the papyrus, 1800 years ago, is also the person who composed or transcribed text on the document two centuries later?

Robert Tulip

What a charming fellow is Mr Z! And so blissful!

The reference under discussion here is to a brief aside mentioning the Vulcan Salute on page 96 of the 1999 book The Christ Conspiracy: the Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Acharya S. I am so sorry that Zwaarddijk appears to find such references to popular culture so distasteful and incomprehensible in the context of comparative mythology.

My patience with Mr Z ran out long ago, but for the benefit of other readers, I am happy to answer given his insistence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_salute says "Nimoy wrote that he based [the vulcan salute] on the Priestly Blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim" as shown at Blessing gesture that was the inspiration for the Vulcan salute and meaning 'Almighty God'. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestl...ng#Pop_culture

Try as I might, I am struggling to see how Zwaarddijk's admittedly fertile imagination expands Acharya's innocuous mention of Star Trek to anything more than what that hyper-rationalist Leonard Nimoy himself said. Ah well, I suppose your mileage may vary regarding what is "pure insanity", Mr Z's cutting analysis of this side point.

Zwaarddijk may care to go to the bathroom to scrape the egg off his face. I am holding my breath in the expectation of his prompt apology to Acharya S.

Zwaarddijk

Robert Tulip. Acharya S wrote:
"Furthermore, a representation of the Jewish "Feast of the giving of the law" has an image of an erupting volcano - Mt. Sinai- with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments above it. As Jordan Maxwell points out, the benediction or blessing sign of the Feast is the same as the split-fingered, "live long and prosper" salutation of the Vulcan character Spock on "Star Trek." Vulcan, of course, is the same word as volcano, and the Roman god Vulcan was also a lightning and volcano god. In volcano cults, the thunderous noise coming from the mountain is considered the "voice of God," the same voice that "spoke" to Moses in the myth."

Either, Acharya is introducing entirely irrelevant things in her writing, or she's trying to convince people by bad reasoning. In academic writing, one should avoid irrelevant stuff - which this is, if your explanation stands.

Her reference to Jordan Maxwell does indicate she agrees with his stance on it - and his explicit stance is that HOLLYWOOD IS IN ON THE CONSPIRACY (watch his "The Naked Truth", for instance, where that exact argument is presented; he genuinely thinks Hollywood is controlled by the Freemason conspiracy, and to showcase just how powerful they are, they hide hints to the secret history of religion and politics in films, in TV series, in novels and in popular music). I did point out that same thing in my review:
"
*Leonard Nimoy - who has an orthodox Jewish background, had witnessed this salutation as a kid. In his role as Mr. Spock, he used this recollection as a basis for the salutation, since he thought it looked neat and dignified. That is a much simpler account for the relation between the Jewish ritual salutation and the Vulcan salutation, rather than believing that Desilu Productions and Paramount Television knew secret things about ancient history. I extend thanks to the esteemed gentleman from North America who provided this source [4] after reading my post."

The egg, mr. Tulip, is squarely on Acharya's face.

Tulip,
How about the claim that the Book of Jasher was not included in the Canon because of suppression of astrology? The Book of Jasher she's referring to was written way after the canon was established, and is a Jewish midrash-collection. No other midrash-collection from rabbinic Judaism has entered the Christian canon, so how is the Book of Jasher being excluded from the canon an instance of suppression of astrology?

The amount of mistakes along these lines is so staggering it only can lead to one conclusion: she fails at scholarliness.

And yes, Acharya does clearly appear to believe some kind of Masonic conspiracy theory along the lines of what Jordan Maxwell believes - she makes this pretty explicit in chapters such as The Mysterious Brotherhood (The Suns of God) and throughout that book in general. However, Maxwell seems more negatively inclined in regard to what the intentions and plans of the freemasons are.

Robert Tulip

Acharya has admitted she was wrong to quote Maxwell in ignorance of his loony views.

Now your real agenda is coming out, a desperate ad hominem of the most pathetic kind, a wink to readers to say Acharya quoted some one who has some other and entirely separate and irrelevant wrong views, even though the quote she uses is true. Your blatant resort to an empty assertion of guilt by association is fallacious.

The reference to Spock is relevant, as it illustrates a possible typology of the volcano in religious tradition. An ancient symbol for God Almighty has found its way into modern popular culture associated with volcanoes. Mention of Star Trek's use of ancient Jewish symbols is a reasonable topic for comparative mythology, not "pure insanity" as you suggested. I don't believe that conversation about difficult topics is assisted by ignorant and hamfisted attempts at bullying.

As in so many of Zwaarddijk's baseless attacks, on examination this proves to be purely speculative. Zwaarddijk explains that his fantastic castle in the air about Hollywood conspiracies flows inexorably from an innocuous mention of a writer. What rubbish!

Zwaarddijk

Again Robert chooses to ignore what Acharya says in her book in favor of what would be a reasonable thing for her to have said, which he tortuously reads into it. His agenda is becoming very clear, and his lack of reading comprehension even more so!

However, it's good she's decided to reject Jordan Maxwell's looniest views, and I hope she rejects even more of them in the upcoming edition.

So, how about that book of Jasher, I see you're still silent about that. Why's it ok to deceive readers about its age and about the reason it's not part of the Bible?