Solitary Man

And I await that you drop the strawman.

How very closed minded of you! What makes you think that you're competent enough to deal with the evidence? Obviously, you've had to read someone somewhere. You didn't grow up speaking ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew, ancient Aramaic, ancient Latin?

I'm sorry, but you answered my questions with substance where? I'm not "supposed" to do anything. I asked you a question, and if you are incapable of answering, then admit it. Don't pretend otherwise.

They're primary sources of what their author written down. They also contain, as all ancient works do, the personal biases, assumptions, and beliefs of their authors.

Yes. That much is evident in his Semitic substratum, which I believe even you referred to before.

You have already assumed that the gospels are such and such. You've given no indications that this is so. That is assuming your conclusion. You want the text to be X; therefore, the text is X.

I saw you picking on poor Mr. Gibson. You drew me into this conversation. I've asked you a couple of times now to offer something substantial, and you've been hesitant so far. Ignore me if you wish, but then you'd be what you charged Mr. Gibson with doing - avoiding questions. Why are you avoiding questions?

Solitary Man

Both. That doesn't mean that there's any actual history in there, but a) it had the form of history, and b) he was writing history to the best that he could (writing still as the ancients did, which means that it was not free by any means of bias). This also is evident by his prologue.

I did back up my assertions. I pointed out the chapter where Streeter talks about the origins of the gospels.

No, this is unfair. I gave you a reference, now you do the same.

Toto

Hi SM:

Problems with gospel geography.

and "picking on poor Mr. Gibson." :rolling:

Solitary Man

I only saw one reason against Mark being from Palestine, and it was not wholly convincing, since the material in question was from Syria, which is north even of Galilee, which is north of Judea. You'll have to do better than that.

spin

Please indicate such a historical analysis.

If you don't want to deal with the primary evidence, then you're in the wrong place.

All you need do is stop acting like an ignorant illiterate and support your claims rather than abnegating your responsibilities and shifting the burden.

I agree. Now, try very hard to make that tangible without knowing any contextualization.

It would be nice if you read my comments in that thread before showing that you hadn't.

Can you be clearer please? Give specific examples rather than waffle.

Fuck that's tragic. Poor Mr. Gibson is quite capable of protecting himself. He has been here long enough for one to know that.

Just to help you remember, this was your main entry into the discussion:

The fact is you entered the conversation with an axe to grind. Nobody "drew" you in.

We return to the same farcical proposition. Someone who wants to defend a substantive position by demanding the opposite be proven.

You need to provide some substance so that you could be ignored. As it is you're too busy trying to shift the burden of proof.

I'll let the forum members decide if I've ignored any questions you've posed. Why don't you ask them if they agree with you?


spin

Toto

Please tone things down a notch.

Thanks

Solitary Man

spin, are you really that dense? I said you have created a strawman. When will be dropping that strawman?

Do you even know what primary evidence is?

What responsibilities? What burdens? I asked you the questions. You're the one shifting. And creating strawmen.

Once again, I'll repeat - why are you precluding the use of the gospels. You've failed immensely in giving any sort of substantial reason why. I pointed out where Richard Carrier shows Luke using Josephus as an indication of historical writing. Now you have come up with some strawman of my position.

That means to take the authors at their face value unless there is contrary evidence. Otherwise you're assuming a priori that they're wrong. You need to have evidence before you can make such conclusions, else you're merely assuming your conclusions. And this is precisely what you're doing. You're assuming you can't use the gospels as evidence because you don't want to.

I wonder how many fallacies you've racked up in these few posts? You've created a strawman, you're using circular logic. And then you have the gall to claim that you're interested in working with primary evidence. You don't know primary evidence.

It would be nice if you could actually come out and take a stance and make a position rather than shuffling around the issues. Quit waffling!

Yes, clever of you. Try this again:

"Looking at the gospels themselves we can identify information within them that the writers had no way of obtaining from real-world sources, such as the temptation and Jesus's actions in the garden of Gethsemane and probably the angelic appearance to Joseph, the letter from Pilate's wife, and host of other sections of the narrative. But let's put these aside in an effort to see if there is a historical core, so we discard as those searching for a historical Jesus have done. We've discarded material which may reflect the purpose of those texts. The thing is the texts do not without a context allow us to know how they fit into history. This means that there is no way to understand the significance of the content and what it is evidence of."


Protecting himself from what? Why would Mr. Gibson need to be protected, if he wasn't under attack. And why would anyone need to be attacked, unless they can't use logic and reason to persuade. Oh yes, vitriol - the last resort of the helpless. Right there next to sarcasm.

I entered in to offer possible reasons why someone might not answer immediately. There are other reasons - maybe he doesn't like dealing with your venomous vitriol, or perhaps he doesn't deal with what he deems too ignorant. It appears you haven't answered aa5874's questions here, but is anyone caring?

If anyone has an axe to grind, it's the one who spews vitriol and evades questionis, spouting instead nonsense. And then feels the need to abuse people when they point you out on your nonsense. I'm not a psychologist, but it looks to me as if these are merely defensive tools to allow you to escape the inevitable conclusions - that you don't know what you're talking about.

I asked you why you exclude the gospels as evidence. You gave some assertions, but never any real answer. I'm not asking you to prove anything. I'm asking you to defend your position. It seems you are incapable of doing such, since all you do is waffle and abuse.

Me? Why me? I've already showed one person you've thus far ignored. You still haven't answered Ben Smith's post. You've refused to answer a question on your credentials here. Do you wish me to continue?

Looking at the archives, I see this from you as well:

"I'm confident that any recent scholarly rather than devotional commentaries will help you. Start with ones on the pastoral letters."

Contrast this with:

"I don't read people's suggestions of books."

Quite the turn-around, no?

In this very thread, you entirely ignored what I said on you reading secondary materials, instead coming up with something lame like "If you don't want to deal with the primary evidence, then you're in the wrong place."

I submit that it's simply impossible that you on your own deciphered ancient Latin, ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew, ancient Aramaic, ancient Akkadian, etc... Your position is one of absurdity, not of reality.

spin

Here is your substance: Luke clearly is trying to be historical, since he models himself from other histories.

Gosh, Luke gives you the impression that the writer is trying to be historical.

Do you need it spelt out to you?

Questions which contained assumptions you will not deal with.

I'll answer you once again, when you can provide a context for which the gospel evidence is meaningful, then you can use the gospels.

I don't care about Carrier in this discussion. Either you put forward your own ideas or you repeat someone else's.

If you are a naive literalist. You seem to want to assume everything is dandy and that you don't need to know the genre of the text. Fine. You aren't interested in history.

Rubbish. It is best that one doesn't assume anything. You can't do that for some reason.

Not assuming anything to you means assuming something. That's meaningful.

Just one. Assuming that you will attempt to communicate.

You seem to have a strawman fetish.

And if I have to define primary evidence for you, you may as well forget history and try makrame.

So, you cite a thread which I'd participated in as though it was new information to me. You didn't even read my responses and you don't like me pointing out the egg on your face. Well, don't look in a mirror when you don't wash it off.

Good, now that you've made yourself a little clearer, please deal with the content. Do the various things I mention seem to you merely assumptions? Please explain how you think the writers could obtain the information.

Any potential being picked on of course. That's what you were talking about, if you can't remember.

Need?

I'm sure Jeffrey Gibson will appreciate your defense.

The thing I like is that you came to this thread and picked a fight. You soon received a comment from Toto, the moderator. Here you are flaunting the direction of the moderator.

Good rehearsal of your style.

I said to you that the gospels are evidence, but I can't tell you for what they are evidence, because no-one seems to be able to contextualize them. Without context you cannot say for what they are evidence.

You are desperate. Ben's post isn't more than a day or two old. Grow up.

I don't ask you about your credentials. I don't care. If you can't deal with the argument, as is apparent, then what good will knowing about credentials be to you. I do not respond about myself on this forum. That is a policy.

Oh, yes, do a little bit of work for once.

If you don't deal with the primary evidence, try getting a book.

You still haven't put any primary evidence on the board. Perhaps you are in the wrong place.

You may as well add Ethiopic, Slavonic and Coptic to your pipedream. We are dealing if anything with mainly with Greek and Hebrew. However, this is a ruse on your part. You aren't interested in the languages. You are trying to defend your dependence on other people's opinions. I believe in dealing with the texts from which those opinons were formed.

Now I am tired of your whinging. You came into this thread as a self-appointed defender of Jeffrey Gibson. You complained that I was doing what I accused him of doing, ie not answering questions. My response was "You won't find too many examples" and you didn't. You made accusations of rudeness and hypocrisy. I overlooked such behavior and got on with discussion, but you were here to pick a fight. I will no longer feed you. :wave:


spin

Solitary Man

Thank you spin for proving my point. If this were a movie, a novel, or a comic strip, there would occur self-introspection. Instead, as this is reality, I don't expect much from you. But it's always worth a shot.

There's only two answers, and both I know how to spell. Yes and No. Pick one.

Vague and meaningless coming from you. I already linked you to Carrier and Streeter. If you're asking what I think you're asking, you're acting incredibly dense, or else you are woefully uninformed of the field. What you're asking for takes up a book. You want a full analysis of Luke? I already pointed you to where he imitates the Josephan history - he sets himself out as a writer to clarify the history by taking sources passed down to him. This would be obvious if you read Luke. Whether or not what Luke does is real history is up for debate, but I answered you before and you hand-waived away that Luke is trying to be historical. Do you know what that means...or do I have to spell that out for you? Either way, I already did that for Toto, you yourself can read through what I said in this very thread.

What assumptions are those? The same assumptions when I come across Josephus, or the Historia Augustana, or various inscriptions.

Why? Because you can't be bothered to read a book? Please, spin, understand that not everything is simple enough to break down for you over a series of forum messages. Maybe you like to think it is, but life is hardly that simple. No less so for the hundreds of books written on the subject. Is it too much to ask to learn a little? I already pointed out that you did do some secondary reading. I learned Greek through secondary sources - I assume you can read Greek, yes? Did you learn that through primary materials? I don't ask these stupid questions because I'm dense. I'm pointing out how ridiculously absurd your position is.

For fuck's sake, spin, just because you don't know what the genre is doesn't mean I don't! Beyond that, genre isn't history. It's a modern concept, developed by secondary sources. The primary sources don't mention modern genres - far from it. It seems that either you don't care about history, or you don't know enough about textual genre and its history to say something intelligent about it.

It's impossible to assume nothing. If I see Greek letters, I can assume the document I'm holding is written in Greek letters. Your position leads to the possibility that I'm really reading Egyptian hieroglyphs and for some reason I'm only imagining the Greek letters. You assume that you're alive. That's an assumption. It cannot be proven.

Someday you'll realize that history isn't about what's provable - it's about what is probable. In order to do that, certain assumptions must be made - for one like there is actually a chain of tradition. Otherwise who is to say that the whole world wasn't created last Tuesday? Who's to say that all the "evidence" isn't faked?

As you dive deeper into historical analyses, you'll realize that even more assumptions are made. We have to assume that people are honest unless there's evidence to the contrary, otherwise you'd go in circles wondering if someone forged the entire Corpus Scriptorum Graecorum. A little Occam's Razor, please? Occam's Razor itself is an assumption. It's one I'm willing to grant. Are you?

Why are you so hateful? Why do you keep misrepresenting my position? Is it because I dared to show your faults? Pitiful.

Go for it, spin. Define it. You can define words all you want, that doesn't mean that you know what it means.

I'm well aware of the distinctions between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. What you don't realize is that it's a matter of viewpoint. When discussing the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Luke is the primary source. But there is no "Gospel of Luke". It's lost to history. We have manuscripts written down which copied this source, but at best all of them are copies of copies of copies. We're so far removed. But we have to assume that logic applies, and that if you have a hundred texts that are very, very similar to each other, they're probably somehow related. That's a logical assumption. Do you wish to get rid of that too?

Oh you must be God! I read the entire thread. I saw all sorts of sides. Point to me where I missed where you deny that Mark has a Semitic substratum.

Here's a post you never answered. Perhaps you just missed it. Here's another. Hrm, same author. In that same thread, you go vague with this author. Hardly what I'd call an answer. You used invective when he was trying patiently to explain his thoughts, and then interrupted another sub-conversation that he was having with Amaleq13 on a different subject.

It looks like from J-D that I'm not alone in seeing that your sophistry.

"Try doing a little work for once." More sophistry and abuse.

You're assuming this. This is your assumption. Please refer to the primary evidence to prove your case. א�*י מדבר עברית, ὦ φίλε.

How ironic is it that you, the defender of "primary sources" and the hater of "assumptions" abnegate your own position by assuming what you don't know about me? At least I'll admit that my characterizations of you are assumptions based upon what I've seen.

This brings me back to my original point in this post:

If this were a movie, a novel, or a comic strip, there would occur self-introspection. Instead, as this is reality, I don't expect much from you. You will continue with the abuse, or you will ignore me. But hey, it was worth a shot.

spin

As you all probably suspected, this guy should try makrame.

Until he provides some substance, he is a pariah.


למה תדבר בשגגה