JoeWallack

JW:
I think HuttonGibson has provided us with a wonderful Testimony of exactly what Believing in Jesus has done for him. Richard, don't you sometimes wish you were still an Amateur so you could say stuff like this? I tell you the Truth, it feels really good.



Joseph - Still not afraid to call a Sephardic a Sephardic

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

krosero

Jeffrey, I got the very strong impression from your words that you were referring to an email or a conversation.

I agree with your position on KATA SARKA, and from where I stand, I would very much like to see this thread get back to the content of the question. I would love to see what other professors or individuals judge about the content, which is to say, I'd like to see their specific arguments. Without those, all we have is a contest about who said what about whom.

jjramsey

These are the relevant entries in the Classics List Archives that I could find:

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2...&F=&S=&P=23394
http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2...0&F=&S=&P=8635

Plus a joke or two of Carrier's speling of Euripedes. :grin:

Seriously, one problem I notice is not in the interpretation of the Greek, but the English. Doherty cites Barrett in support for his translation of kata sarka as "in the sphere of the flesh." Doherty uses "sphere" in the sense of a concrete region or locale, in this case, some strata of sky above the earth. Barrett is using "sphere" in a more abstract sense, similar to the sense used when one says that religion and science are separate spheres of knowledge, or when one speaks of having a sphere of influence.

With all due respect, you implied such a claim. You told us "he thinks -- so far as I can tell -- that it does not display a first rate knowlege of classical and koine Greek," but you didn't know what he thought, and you could only make a guess, albeit an educated one. You may not have meant to be misleading, but you were.

GakuseiDon

Yes, on the question of Harris, I agree with jj and Richard Carrier, Jeffrey. That's how I read it also. Isn't this the same thing that we both were accusing Doherty of earlier - how he appears to have been implying that Barrett supported him?

I'm totally unqualified to comment on the kata sarka question, so I'd like to see what professors think of the mythicist interpretation. It would be good if we could resolve that.

Clivedurdle

Isn't flesh more to do with sin than bodies?

Gibson, why not just be open and state clearly who this professor is? Why are you hiding stuff and reading so much into someone not replying? If someone is silent it is more likely to mean they haven't time to respond or they are having problems with the questioner....

jgibson000

Then my apologies to all. But it was specifically to guard against giving just such an impression that I used the carefully chosen words "so far as I can tell" within my statement.

FWIW, I do think that in the light of the fact that I sent Professor Harris Richard's analysis of the meaning of KATA along with my own opinion that I thought the analysis was poorly done, and a note stating that it was the apparent disjunction between knowledge and the display of it in that analysis that moved me to write n the first place, Professor Harris's silence on the matter of the validity of those remarks and whether they display the knowledge of Greek that Professor Harris says Richard has, is telling. Admirable. But still telling.

Jeffrey

jgibson000

The operative word above is "it". And the antecedent of "it" is Richard's analysis of KATA. And the issue is whether Harris or anyone thinks that in the light of what is said about KATA in the very sources that Richard says he used in drawing up his analysis (LSJ, SMYTH, the TLG) as well in other standard Grammars and Lexicons the analysis displays good knowledge of Greek. To say that it doesn't display this is not the same thing as saying that the one making the analysis it is not credentialed.

I'd be grateful if you'd recognize this very real distinction.

Jeffrey

krosero

Your words "so far as I can tell", implied to me that you had studied something carefully. But a silence cannot be studied carefully, because it could mean anything. I really think a silence should be interpreted more fairly. Next time we historicists are silent, it will be interpreted that we gave in or something (and it sometimes is interpreted that way). So this sort of thing hurts us all, on both sides.

Richard is right about this.

Now, if we really want to know what was behind the silence, let's ask for the specific arguments, and put all the rest behind us. That is just my recommendation.

TedM

The bottom line is that you speculated on Prof Harris' opinions based on the fact that he didn't respond. It would have been much much much clearer and IMO straightforward had you simply said "he didn't respond back, and therefore I assume....". It is quite possible that Prof Harris didn't respond for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with the matter in question even. He may never have even gotten the email on question!


Jeffrey, you are continuing to assume what the meaning of his silence is. You may be right about why there was no response, but you may be wrong also. Your case here needs to rely on a true substantiation of your analysis, not guesswork about someone's motivations.

I haven't followed all of the nuances here, so this question may not even be on point: What do you think of the revised/clarified paragraph Richard has written a few posts back?

ted

jjramsey

To be fair, it is technically correct to say that you "made no claim about Harris reversing his position on Richard's knowledge of Greek" only that Carrier did not display that knowledge. However, the problem that I was pointing out was that you gave the impression of having a communication with Harris when you did not. You have already apologized for giving this impression, so I won't press it further.