Peter Kirby

Clutch, we are talking about the guy has Jesus ride in on two asses for Christ's sake. The saints are raised at the crucifixion and crawl out of their graves three days later to spook the residents of Jerusalem. A single speech on a hill spans many chapters. Don't expect Aristotle. This is Matthew the scribe in the school of what you and I would call obtuseness.

You ask a good question, "This part makes sense in the text itself, but presupposes a mono-anti-theism, if you see what I mean. Was this a reasonable presupposition, or did Jews at that time believe that there were many other gods/demons/spirits (of other tribes, say) not necessarily unified under one anti-Yahweh command?" I don't know. Somebody know what the Dead Sea Scrolls say?

"Is the Scripture trying to portray Jesus as incapable of following the plot for longer than two sentences?" Jesus is simply denying the distinction and implying that he is a good exorcist, as the Pharisees admit there are such (unlike the later pagan Celsus who says that we should conclude that exorcists are invoking the power of an evil spirit). Jesus is saying that even their own (the other exorcists) would judge against them. It is an argument by assertion at the core, but its rhetorical effectiveness as such is to insinuate that the Pharisees are hypocritical. Which insinuations throughout the Gospel have been canonized in the English language as "pharisaical". (Moreover, if the "your people" include some of the "people" who think Jesus might be the Messiah, who I think Matthew portrays Jesus as ultimately trying to persuade, not the incorrigible Pharisees, then the rhetorical impact is still stronger.)

"Again, how exactly is this a conclusion?" Jesus has just argued that his exorcism is not by a demon's power; ipso facto, it is the Spirit of God, or so the Christian composer would have us believe.

"Nothing in the text supports this sudden change of the orientation of the remarks, that I can see." The phrase that he who is not for me is against me has been used throughout time to rally people around you (i.e. "gather with me"). The final plea makes sense as working on the people and not the unrepentant Pharisees. But I agree with you that Jesus is still speaking to the Pharisees in the text of Matthew. The people saw the miraculous exorcism, and asked if he could be the Son of David. The Pharisees spoke to the people that Beelzebub is at work. This is why Matthew oddly says "Jesus knew their thoughts," as the statement was "behind his back." The whole speech is for the condemnation of the Pharisees (bad Jews for Matthew) and the persuasion of the people that what the Pharisees speak is wrong (good Jews who could be Christians). The latter portion is no different in this respect, only in that some of the rhetoric is made more in mind of galvanizing the people in the audience to his side than the Pharisees for whom there is no hope, though they still get a good lashing throughout the latter part, and though the persuasion of those simply skeptical is a purpose of the earlier part. The "sudden change" is indeed an artifice of my structuring, and "Getting Back to the People" is a quip.

best,
Peter Kirby

Wayne Delia

Peter, you are just as terrific as you were on alt.atheism. In my mind's eye, you are still 16 years old, displaying more wisdom and philosophical understanding than those who are four or five times your actual age.

Wayne Delia, formerly redsox3@aol.com in a previous "lifetime"

Clutch

Peter, you've convinced me of a thematic connection between verses 24 and 31-32. But I don't think we disagree on my remark that:It's one of those cases, I think, in which it's unclear whether charity recommends positing no intention to argue at all, or an intention to argue very, very badly.

Magus55

Where did you get that idea?

Peter Kirby

Bertrand Russell would wince, but that's imposing our expectations about what logic is on the primitive Christian composer. The intention was to confute and illustrate and persuade by means of analogy, insinuation, threat, appeal to traditional themes, and a well-turned phrase. There is no syllogism here. You and I can of course indulge in a bit of reader-response criticism and point out a non sequitur, but the passage flowed just fine from the evangelist's pen and in the mind of his audience.

best,
Peter Kirby

Clutch

Yes, my dichotomy was badly chosen. Of course there would be no primary intention to argue badly! Conveying a "flavor" was probably closer to the mark. Still, the classic Greek philosophers were plausibly known to those educated to write in Greek; it does not seem anachronistic to project then-familiar notions of competence onto the use of therefores and consequentlys. Matthew quite deliberately recruits the rhetorical force of such logical-structure terms without conforming to their competent use by the standards of the time, I think it's fair to say.

I agree that anachronism is a danger here, but an equal danger is deciding that ancients held non-sequiturs to be valid reasoning. The fact is, lots of incredibly shitty reasoning is effective even today: Think of those towers! Think of the dead firemen! Are we going to let the perpetrators get away with it? Therefore, let's attack Iraq. The effectiveness of such rhetoric -- that it flows just fine from the writer's pen and in the mind of his audience -- does not establish the inappriopriateness of diagnosing it as irrational.

Peter Kirby

I agree that looking at other writers of the time, both Jewish and pagan as well as pre-Nicaean Christian, to become familiar with their patterns of persuasion, would be a step in the right direction. I think the best place to look would be the handbooks on rhetoric used in tutoring budding politicians. Not that I've looked at them.

Yes, that thought occurred to me after I made my last post. Persuasion through effective rhetoric is indeed a venerable tradition, put to use to prove the irrational, and that tradition is as strong as ever. So perhaps we are applying the standards of a particular group of moderns, the tough-minded logical atheists, and expecting to find conformance in the ancient biblical texts. Logic in the manner of Russell is my way of evaluating the truth status of the claims, and I think it's the best way there is, but my fiercely logical mind leads me to believe that the audience wasn't thinking the same way as I do when hearing these words and taking them to heart.

best,
Peter Kirby

Clutch

Jeez, Peter, you have to stop fooling around and do some reading.

But seriously. I'm curious: Why do you think those would be more widely known in the Hellenized world than, say, Aristotle or Plato or Thucydides (think of all those gloriously structured argumentative exchanges between diplomats!), &c?
Well... I don't know if the relevant cohort is anywhere near that specific. The phenomenon is not the giving of unsuccessful arguments, but the nearly random use of words like 'consequently' and 'therefore'. Even wooly-minded half-logical theists rarely produce that sort of talk. One hardly need be committed to "logic in the manner of Russell" to think that the logical terminology in the passage is just botched.

Peter Kirby

I am trying to explain the method of the Christian composer in this passage. I think that the slick and strictly illogical rhetoricians might provide the best parallel.

Wait a second, you already said that this is common enough today, "Think of those towers! Think of the dead firemen! Are we going to let the perpetrators get away with it? Therefore, let's attack Iraq." So either an author is (1) attempting to pass off an illogical argument to a logical audience with technical logical terminology like "consequently" or (2) the author himself accepts a non sequitur as being "logical to him and his buddies" and so naturally uses such discourse in his diatribe.

best,
Peter Kirby

Clutch

<<when I tried the quote function on your last post, Peter, I got gibberish that would not post properly in reply. FYI.>>