mountainman

Yes of course, like mine - that are committed to the Gnostics as the (indigenous Alexandrian) Greek reactionaries to the Nicaean appearance of a literary (technological) and fictitious figure of Jesus.

Many abide within a predominance of the ethical and logical modes of persuasion as far as the actual evidence from the field of ancient history will permit, without breaking the edges of the four dimensional jig-saw puzzle, as is expected in a public forum.

Toto

This is too general and unfocused.

Please make a point related to Biblical Criticism or History.

Some people seem to object to the thread being closed, but I can't see the point of it.

Chaucer

Is this still too general and unfocused? -- The refusal to address directly the potential tendencies of _some_ historicists and mythicists alike toward being in equal, sometimes unconscious, thrall to emotional baggage suggests not the response of a scholar, but the response of a bureaucrat.

I am.

Chaucer

Toto

No you are not. You are implying that there are some non-rational factors that should be addressed. But you have not identified what scholars you are talking about specifically, what those factors might be, or how those factors affect the conclusions drawn.

It has long been the practice on this board to discourage if not outlaw speculation on the motives of fellow posters, because it tends to insult a participant, or drag the conversation off topic. We would otherwise have Christian apologists telling us that we don't believe in god because we had a bad relationship with our father, or because we want to sin, or some other nonsense.

Do you actually think that when you read scholarly journals, opponents spend their time pycholanalyzing each other instead of discussing the facts? Perhaps they do that over drinks at conventions, but really?

I'm getting tired of this. I will try not to respond again, until you actually make a point.

Chaucer

We have already brought psychological aspects into play here by the past and frequent allowance of emotional baggage as topics from plenty of others when it comes to the possible emotional baggage of some historicists -- yes, including non-believers who are historicists, whatever may have been said in this thread. It's rich that after letting so many speculations on historicists' emotional baggage pass from others on this board again and again and again, we suddenly don't even try to play fair when it comes to mythicists' possible emotional baggage.

It is clear that any discussion of historicists' emotional baggage must first be thoroughly discouraged from now on here before any credible attempt is possible at putting off-limits the possible emotional baggage in some mythicists as well. I've never seen any attempt here to put the possible emotional baggage of some historicists off limits. Unless and until I do, this ad hoc attempt to place the possible emotional baggage of some mythicists off limits ends up reeking of a double standard.

Chaucer

Toto

If you feel that any historicists have had their motives questioned in violation of the rules, please feel free to report that.

If you have a complaint about moderation, there is a separate forum for that.

Otherwise, I'm still waiting for anything related to BCH to show up.

spin

And from my limited view of the discussion in this thread, you've been ever so patient on the issue of BCH content.




spin

Huon

In his post #38, Chaucer speaks of "heresy". This word shows his way of thinking. Atheists will never accuse anybody of "heresy", and they do not have any stakes to burn heretics. Possibly, one would quote Stalin. Exact, he had a religious education. And he killed people on political motives. Nobody is perfect.

judge

Good grief, of course they will.
You might have missed the irony in his using the word heresy.
Everybody whether religious or atheist or freethinking is cabable of being narrow minded emotionally biased and intolerant of the views of others.

No Robots

It is not unusual for scholars to speculate about the motives of other scholars. William Arnal, for example, does so in his book, The symbolic Jesus: historical scholarship, Judaism, and the construction of contemporary identity:

The book concludes that current controversies centered around the Jewishness of Jesus are actually debates about contemporary identity issues - scholarly identities, political identities, religious identities, and the definition of cultural identity itself.

Arnal contends that conservatives are reacting to liberal scholarship when they insist that Christ adhered to a traditionalist expression of Judaism. Arnal is undoubtedly correct on this point, and we should be grateful to him for investigating the matter. Arnal does not, however, put forward his own views on the Judaism of Christ, focussing only on the critique of the contemporary conservative interpretation. This lack of a positive interpretation to accompany the critique is a significant weakness in the book.