Sheshbazzar

Walkin' down ol' rocky road, I met a man oh most friendly was he, he shook my hand and placing his hand upon my back, said, let us walk together and talk a bit, for you see, I also am headed in the same direction as thee.

As we walked along he told me his story, and I told him mine, and as we journeyed along we met many others headed in the same direction.
Oh what a great and merry gang were we! and oh so many we found, reading and loving the same books, the same authors, and the same songs, and all together we sang the same old tunes in beautiful harmony, stretching out along 'ol Rocky Road from horizon to horizon, -for as as far as the eye could see.

But Lo! what is this we now see, a few travelers a'treading the 'ol rocky road in the direction opposite from we!
And listen! they are not singing our songs, nor are they in perfect haromony!
But with faces oh so grave you hear them a'saying; turn, Turn! Turn back! and Return.

Should you venture to inquire of why they are traveling in a direction opposite from thee and all saying; 'Turn! Turn Back! Turn Back! and return'
An old one traveling amongst them will tell you this thing;
Upon 'ol Rocky Road many fellow travelers you will see, some few will be your friends indeed, full of concern for your welfare. Others, many whom you will meet, will be but demons in disguise.

And O My friend, how will you be able to know which one is which?

That man whom you met along the way, he who shook your hand, and placed his hand upon your back, who listened to your tale without dispute, and assured you again and again that you were right, and that you ought to continue on your journey with him and with his company. He was a demon at heart, he had no care for you, and that is why he did not dispute or correct you in any of your oh so many errors, his only concern being to add you to the number in that long long line, all headed towards that great city called Babylon.

It is only the demons along 'ol Rocky Road that will shake your hand, and pat you on the back, and seek to flatter and seduce your vanity with unmerited praise, and say unto you; Yes. this is the way', while guiding you ever onward in the direction of Babylon the great.

Every real friend that you will ever find, will be that one who has your good interest at heart, and thus will be ready and willing to dispute with you vehemently, and will plead with you at every post, hill, and turn along The Way.

Chili

Hi Shesh, I think that friends are said to have things in common which has not so much to do with right or wrong but more in that things must be shared in understanding.

Here then I would say that not just 'you guys' married the serpent but we all did as Adam and we all love her in for the fun that life has to offer along the river called Phison that winds through the entire land where we want to be as it holds the promise of pleasure without pain, and gold and bdellium and lapis lazuli are also there to put prestige in our mind and charm on our chest as individuals outside of Eden now with a mind of our own. So it is for outside Eden that we chose her as life-mate in the promise of pleasure in a land of our own . . . except that we are the animal man first with a body to maintain in good health and of good spirit because we still have the greater serpent on board, who really pulls the strings in our life by striking at the head of the lesser serpent in turn who gets us to move in the direction she choses, and then also with the measure of pain that comes in every which way we can that magine that to be and she handed this to us on the way out so that we would be mindful of her . . . even if she never has the last word but only takes things to heart so they can [re]verberate there (and I am thinking here now of the [gone] wild "Emperor Jones" of Eugene O'Neil, despite the fact that pain is an illusion to exists only in our TOK and therefore was given to us 'on the way out).'

As such then are we determinate creatures with a mandate to follow and soon armed with 'critical theory' learn to gain knowledge so we can charm the maiden we married long before puberty came our way as human and no longer man. Here now I can add that the period known as adolesence is in evidence of a life without valor which in turn is caused by the woman 'at home,' but that is not part of the agrument here except to say that she is instrumental as the efficient cause to gain stripes among men with an ego to blow and so 'insights to gain' of which the primary was 'first cause' by the woman on board while yet we take all the credit for them . . . until finally we realize that good fortune was ours as imposters and wonder why that is so and sooner or later will ask the question with regard to the meaning of life and so on, which then is where we carve this clearing in our jungle [or valley] and there built a hut to find comfort in while it was the Bodhi tree with leaves like gourd plant that gave us the comfort within to see right down into our very own soul and there meet the woman who was cause of it all.

Just figure of speech, again, but the bottom line is that we must get lost as if a lamb caught in 'Lorca's thicket' to find ourself therein and from there its is down-hill all the way, obviously, as valor is the quality that takes us uphil wherefore then indulgences [like Siberia] make it steeper yet still to bring that clearing closer to us.

Critical here is that on the way back we need apostles on board who once were our self-made strongholds on the way up, who's critical view has already proved itself as shepherds with flocks of their own, now to be abandonned and converted into apostles with apologies instead for being a winner to make losers known in a race that is called life on earth as it is given to us. The word 'winner' here has nothing to do with richess as such, but with being a 'good sport' for the first lady inside who so exhausted our desire in being responsive 'sensual beings', and that is about all I have to say, except maybe that we call her Mary today who is the dilligent Conservative in us to make us a Liberal in the end.

spin

Attempting to recuperate some face after his dismal responses here, Adam emits this little provocation:

Adam, #353
I then respond by pulling the legs of the rubbish he linked to, which provoked the following ass covering:

Adam, #368
So I then respond by pulling the legs of the next load of rubbish he linked to, which in turn provoked the following ass covering:

Adam #371
I mean seriously folks, this guy expects me to pull all his legs off, rather than trying to save face, going down with all popguns blazing. I think I have established a pattern with Adam's ravings.

But let's go back to his #364!

Adam #364
That's because Adam would need to supply evidence for his stuff.

Well, whaddayaknow? Another assertion with nothing to back it up.

Well whaddayaknow? Another assertion with nothing to back it up.

Yeah, another assertion, but this time with an ugly note. He says that I chose to misrepresent him, when I cited what he wrote and linked to. This is a disgraceful accusation, that he should apologize for.

As seen above, my responses were provoked by the links Adam supplied. I cannot help if he feels inadequate about those links. He should have posted ones he felt happier about.

If he didn't want his assertions laid bear, why did he point people to them????

There is no need for footnotes to point out bald assertions like all those that have been posted here.

Adam seems to misunderstand what is going on here. Despite having refuted his theory twice (Latinisms & chiasms), I don't need to actively refute what was provided with no evidence to support it.

Adam asserts that he is dealing with Peter's memoirs. I can understand why Harnack, a century ago, might pin his hopes on Papias and conjecture about Peter's memoirs, but all Adam is doing is appealing to authority. Yup, evidenceless again.

This of course would require me to stop dealing with the current ravings to go back to his first article in Noesis here.... Oh,... but wait,... that was the first load of assertions I highlighted in #357.

Does anyone see any sense in this comment? Perhaps he has succeeded in confusing me with his vagueness.

No content.

And Adam of course has still shown no knowledge of the matter, preferring to appeal to an authority that suits his opinions.

That should tell Adam something about what he doesn't know. It is a certain rejection if an article shows such a lack of knowledge of the scholarly material.

Based in Adam's failure to deal with the Latin influence on Mark and the chiasms that inconveniently cross his layers.

It potentially could, but I don't believe Adam has a clue about what he needs to provide to get past the web of assertions and appeals to authority he has unloaded here.

This is the opinion of the guy who has shown he doesn't understand how to put together an argument.

What the fuck? Who of the interlocutors is using anti-Christian arguments in this discussion?? This is an off-the-wall, crassly inappropriate accusation by someone who just doesn't understand what it takes to communicate in a rational manner.

Arguments are made up of assertions supported by evidence which lead to new understandings, which can lead to new assertions and new supporting evidence, and so on until you reach your conclusion. They are not just strings of assertions--even if sometimes based on the opinions of authorities--that lead to what you want. However, this latter approach is the epitome of what Adam has consistently been doing. Criticize his efforts and he will respond by shifting the goalposts.

What he needs to do in order to give some substance to his theory would require forty times the effort and output that he has already given to it. He needs to argue for each and every fragment of text that he assigns to his various layers, saying what grounds put them there and not elsewhere. But if he wants to talk about Aramaic, he needs to know some Aramaic. If he wants to talk about Greek, he needs to know some Greek. He can't be as half-assed about these things as he has been thus far.

If he wants to cite scholars he needs a reason to cite scholars of a century ago rather than contemporary scholars who in most cases have already dealt with the older scholars. And it is insufficient to name a scholar to support some held view. This is vain appeal to authority and adds nothing to the content of the argument being put forward.

I can imagine all this will be water off Adam's back, so he will soon enough hit my ignore list.

Sheshbazzar

You may be pleased to know Adam, that I never put anyone on the ignore list.

(although admittedly, sometimes when they continue to spout crap incessantly, I'll read it but not waste effort in responding to it. Its not good to feed the trolls.)

Adam

Thanks, spin,
for your #383. However, since it covers 5 1/2 screens, I can't respond to it in detail without copying it over to Word. Then I can eliminate sections that cover old ground and deal with your new charges.
For a quick response now, I already admitted that I no longer hold to your Assertion #17, though your response may look like I was retracting my whole thesis, not that I no longer follow Boismard and Benoit that gMatthew copies some of gLuke. Similarly, I apologized (before it was pointed out to me) that my early links were to my third article, not the first one that developed an argument.

spin twice took the opening paragraphs in either article and noted that each sentence said something he did not personally believe that thus needed further support for his purposes. He only once (unsuccessfullyJ) attempted to refute an item on his two lists of assertions. But since spin never accepts as satisfactory any answers I make and routinely asks the same questions again; providing a few sentences supporting each assertion would just lead to several more questions to which he would not later accept my answers. Even footnotes would be rejected as an appeal to authority, so neither what I say or what anyone else says will solve the matter. That's why his #383 is so long, he repeats what I have already answered. For the layers (my peripheral thesis), for example, I don't need to deal with Latinisms and chiasms in early layers when there is no evidence they were preeent in earlier layers before Layer 4 (what I would now choose to call Layer 4.5) was edited together with the other three layers. spin seems incapable of understanding this. It's not that six layers is too many, but that it is too few: separate allowance needs to be made for editorial additions when source layers were put together or added. (I handwrote this up, but havn't typed it here yet.)

spin has still not dealt with any of my posts in which I present my thesis(Posts #1, 18, 38, 52,, 74, 132 144, 170, and 230). He has only criticized the first paragraphs of two relevant links. We are now at 230 posts since Doug Shaver admitted that recent scholarly literature has not dealt with written eyewitness claims. No one here has tried to fill the void.

Sheshbazzar

This kind self-excusing drivel is not a effective way of convincing anyone of anything Adam.

Mired up to your chin in your horse-shit, you are making no progress here at all, just sinking deeper.
But don't stop now, wade in deeper till you finally sink and totally disappear from sight,
you won't be the first to do so. The Pit is full of your friends who have all went under before you.

arnoldo

For purposes of this thread, what impact would it make if Mark himself was one of these so called "eyewitnesses"? I'm currently reading a book by Dr. A. Nyland entitled " The Gospel of Thomas (or via: amazon.co.uk) which claims, "A literary devices of the times was for the author to identify themselves by means of a token. The author would identify themselves by allusion." Nyland states this in reference to the young man in Mark 14:51-52 to be no other than Mark himself.

Adam

Yes, arnoldo,
Thats my OP. I attribute the Passion Narrative to him:
This source is the Passion Narrative, the largest part of the material common to both John and the Synoptics. The source for the information in it is most likely John Mark, who was the most likely “disciple known to the high priest”.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=306983
See the bottom paragraph(s) there in that Post #1.

Iskander

Mark

http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/Mark.htm
http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/IndexNTIntr.htm

Toto

The Gospel of Mark has a sophisticated literary structure. The idea that it has a simple and popular style is somewhat outdated. Most people now refer to "the spoken Greek as revealed by the papyri and inscriptions" as Koine Greek.


This is just silly. Are you under the impression that all eyewitness accounts are vivid and detailed, while fiction is dry and boring :huh: ? Have you heard of the word verisimilitude?

From a course at Crandall University "Atlantic Canada’s Leading Liberal Arts University Devoted to the Christian Faith" taught by Barry Smith, B. A., Richmond College, B. A., M. A., Ph. D., McMaster University, M. Div., McMaster Divinity