Steven Avery

Sauron, greetings.

Imho you are mixing a couple of issues. We saw on the LXX thread that Richard can be a gentleman as he accepted well a correction that I offered him on the LXX article (that he had used the 'weakest link' for the opposing view). And he took up the gauntlet to begin the correction process. No comment here on the major issue there, it was just too messy, but on the auxiliary issue he responded well.

Yet a person can be open-minded and yet still write their articles with lots of baggage and presumptions that really have problems. I ran into the two above only because we were discussing Beyer (I noticed other stuff in the Nativity article that looked good and most of the article I simply have not read). Judge and I see quotes like the two above as astounding, how could he write that ? That does not mean that either he or I paint Richard as a full-orbed "close-minded dogmatist" or that we are trying to "poison the well". We are simply pointing out a real scholarly concern.

Perhaps I am speaking too generally for Judge, and if so my apologies. However I see Judge's concern as contextual, that in certain elements, certain arguments, Richard lacks some of the objectivity and clarity that he seeks to bring to the table as an aspiring professional historian.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Toto

Well, now that I've read about 4 different versions of this, I do not understand praxeus' complaint. Richard Carrier and spin seem to agree that Beyer did not identify the manuscripts he examined by the necessary criteria to judge his work.

praxeus does not seem to understand what Carrier says. He misinterprets Carrier's confidence in his research for dogmatism. When Carrier says ""Even allowing such an inconceivable error on the part of Josephus" praxeus seems not to notice that Carrier goes on to examine the case where Josephus is assumed to have made that error.

So what is the problem here?

:huh:

spin

What makes you think that? What exactly is an apografh for?

Who retranslated the Hebrew back to the Greek version?


spin

judge

The reliabilty of Josephus is crucial for Richard Carrier, it is inconceivable Josephus may be wrong.

From the errancywiki article

Richard Carrier hangs a lot on this dispute. I mean here is a guy who has devoted years of his life to this stuff. he even claims he might have studied it more than anyone.


So what if Josephus cannot be relied upon? What if Josephus is not 100% relaible?

What might this mean for someone who has devoted themselves this?

He has a lot invested in this and this can lead to unconscious bias.

It seems reasonable to question Richard's ideas about the reliablity of Josephus, for example.

Steven Avery

Hi Toto, thanks for pursuing this. The confusion arose when I walked in with spin saying "Beyer does not cite the texts". I took this to mean cite what texts have the reading he indicates (ie. Beyer says he checked 20+ texts at the library without saying which ones, an issue that comes up in the Carrier reading of Finnegan, which Carrier clarified by going to the Beyer text). However spin was apparently referring to something other than citing whether the Josephus number was 20 or 22 in each particular named manuscript. Exactly what spin wants Beyer to cite he does not say. Perhaps the full section of every manuscript he looked at ? Who knows. Leading to the difficulty. I agree that if spin was talking about something else (eventually he might say what) he is not disagreeing with Carrier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto praxeus does not seem to understand what Carrier says. He misinterprets Carrier's confidence in his research for dogmatism.

If the confidence is based on simply glibly stating that any contrary Greek mansucripts would have had to be reverse translations, without giving evidence that this is considered common practice in Josephus manuscripts, plus how it applies to the specific manuscripts at issue, then the confidence is based on circular reasoning.

Interestingly, Richard does not indicate how many Greek manuscripts were involved, making his confidence that much more questionable, as if he were keeping that information away from the paper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto When Carrier says ""Even allowing such an inconceivable error on the part of Josephus" praxeus seems not to notice that Carrier goes on to examine the case where Josephus is assumed to have made that error.

Fine, but what exactly about such a possible Josephus number is "inconceivable" ? What precisely is the potential error that is being called "inconceivable" ? And what is the base of truth that would make the error inconceivable ? (Ie. is there an external base that definitely disqualifies one number or the other from being truth ?.. if not, both numbers are very conceivable.)

To follow up another angle, if all the Josephus manuscripts with 22 have crass and obvious numerical internal miscalculations there could be a base for such a claim as "inconceivable". Since it would be hard to find a vector from an original text to the later texts with 22. However I did not see that Richard actually made that claim. So what is the base ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Sauron

No, actually I'm not.

No, because the same open-mindedness you noticed will also influence their receptivity to the idea that they might be wrong.

You are trying to have your cake and eat it too :

(a) you want to to call Richard open-minded, but

(b) simultaneously accuse him of having hard & fast positions that he is unaware of, even though the assumptions he is working from have been the target of critical examination.

Doesn't wash.

Sauron

Incorrect. Carrier concludes that Josephus is correct; he is not operating from some a priori insistence on that point.

Carrier mentions evidence for Josephus- you clearly missed that.

You're repeating yourself.

1. But you haven't yet shown that Carrier insists - without supporting evidence - that Josephus is correct.

2. And you'll never succeed in showing that Carrier believes that Josephus is some kind of historian's foolproof gospel.

If I can spot mistakes in Josephus, I know that Carrier can do so 10-fold. The reality is that on this particular question, Carrier has examined the evidence and it supports what Josephus says. A point you have yet to refute. As I said: you're attempting to poison the well. You simply got caught doing so.

That is why Carrier relies on more than simply reading Josephus.

I mean *really*, judge. This isn't rocket science. All you have to do is read the actual article, instead of snippets.

Toto

prax - you have to actually read the entire article. It is all the surrounding circumstances which make an error by Josephus on this particular point so inconceivable.

Steven Avery

Hi Sauron,

Actually I would not say his positions are "hard & fast". I would say he writes with a particular ideological goal, which causes him to lose objectivity and colour an argument, as in the two examples we are currently discussing.

Or as we saw on the LXX thread, where his terminology and concepts were a mess precisely because he was trying to demonstrate a case of Matthew having multiple Greek OT's in front of him. (That fit his case that the other guy had bad methodology.) There was an ideological goal and it made it difficult for Richard to write about the Greek OT in a sensible manner, leading to the current necessary but very difficult rewrite attempt (really, he cannot get where he wants without a lot of chocolate fudge).

More consequential perhaps, on the LXX, why did Richard miss the 'weakest link' aspect of his presentation? It is good that it is being corrected but it is something a little research would have easily caught. It was not in his ideological interests to pursue that aspect and so he dropped the ball for a few years until it was pointed out to him here.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Toto

praxeus - we discourage people from speculating about others' motives or impugning their objectivity.

We know that one of Richard Carrier's primary purposes is to get a PhD in ancient history and maintain his professional reputation. To that end, he publishes on the web and encourages people who find any errors in his work to email him, and makes corrections where warranted.

Anything else is involves your overactive imagination. And charges of ideological motives are likely to blow back in your face.