Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 06-28-2010, 10:41 PM

The Pauline writings, as we have them today, make mention of a character called Jesus the Christ and repeats the name of Jesus over 200 times and referring to Jesus as the Christ or Messiah over 150 times.

Now a Pauline writer place himself in Damascus around the time of Aretas or sometime around 40 CE. This event is EXTREMELY significant.

2Cor. 11:32 -

Quote:

In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me...

So, a Pauline writer was telling people in Damascus about Jesus the Christ or the Messiah around 40 CE.

The Pauline writers preached, at around 40 CE that Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah was :

1. Born of a woman. See Galatians 4.4

2. Betrayed in the night. See 1 Cor. 11.23

3. Crucified. See 1 Cor 1.23

4 Dead and resurrected. See Galatians 1.1

Again, the time line is EXTREMELY significant.

At around 40 CE during the time of a King Aretas a Pauline writer preached about JESUS called CHRIST or the MESSIAH in Damascus.

Now the Messiah or Christ is probably the MOST SIGNIFICANT EXPECTED figure to the Jews, even today, Jews are still looking for a Messiah.

Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius wrote that the Jews expected a Messianic ruler at around 70 CE and Josephus claimed the expectation of the Messiah at around 70 CE may have been the cause the elevation of the Jewish War.

See Wars of the Jews 6.5.4, Suetonius Life of Vespasian and Tacitus Histories 5.

Up to 70 CE or around the Jewish War, there is NO EVIDENCE of Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Messiah from Philo, Josephus, Tacitus or Suetonius.

At around 40 CE the Pauline writers were preaching that Jesus the Messiah had ALREADY come, was betrayed, crucified, was dead and even resurrected but historical sources claimed the Messiah was expected at around 70 CE.

No extant historian or non-apologetic writer can account for Jesus the Messiah or Christ during the time of Aretas, Tiberius or Pilate.

The Pauline Jesus the Messiah or Christ appears to be a non-historical.

Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, of Paul was EQUAL to God, the Creator of heaven and earth and EVERY knee should bow to the name of Jesus including the Roman Emperors.

There is NO really no non-apologetic evidence of Jesus called Christ up to 70 CE .

There is no non-apologetic evidence of a character called Paul who went all over the Roman Empire telling non-Jews that Jesus the Messiah of the Jews had ALREADY come, was to be worshiped as an EQUAL to God and was the Creator.

It would appear the Pauline writers wrote FICTION and backdated their story of Paul and his resurrected JESUS called Christ.

maryhelena · 06-29-2010, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

I applaud your work re Paul and his spiritual Jesus construct. However, I don't think your 'picture' is going to 'sell'. Ideas might fascinate but they don't provide the physical contact with our fellow man. And it is for that reason that the historical Jesus story has such staying power - that it's not all ideas, not all fantasy, that somewhere there was a human, a physical component, that lies behind, or entwined within, the gospel Jesus story.

Well, that's an admission that people will believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence, or lack of evidence, for it. That applies as much to scholars in this field as it does to the ordinary layperson. And you contradict yourself. You have just said that the HJ story has staying power, not because of proof or the demonstrable probability of it, but because it gives people something which has nothing to do with objective judgment of the record itself. But then you go on to say that for that reason it is not all fantasy. That's fallacious. Just because people want to believe in something for reasons that are purely subjective does not by that measure make the subject of their belief "not all fantasy." It could be all fantasy and they could still believe it. You are betraying (or suggesting) that your own disposition to reject my 'extreme' mythicism (no human Jesus anywhere) is likewise based on subjective reasons that are not the product of objective scientific analysis of the record. Unfortunately, that attitude will get us nowhere, and on a discussion board like this is a waste of time.

Earl Doherty

Evidence? Come off it Earl - all you have is interpretations. Were you to discover some evidence to support your NT 'picture' - heavens alive you would be in line for a Nobel Prize - and even a knighthood. Lets not knock down those who do not 'see' the 'picture' we have drawn up - as though they don't believe for purely subjective reasons. People are not always subjective in what they do, think or say. Objectivity is also possible.

And no, I'm not contradicting myself with the analogy I made - ie comparing how our own reality works to what is reflected within the NT storyline. Fantasy and reality. Ideas and reality. Interpretation and the historical reality that gives 'birth' to that interpretation. We operate on both levels - the subjective and the objective. Thus, however grand is ones interpretation of the NT storyline it remains an interpretation. It remains an interpretation until such time as that interpretation can develop some 'legs'. Some evidence, some historical footing. Some physical component beyond the mythical.

Yes, the historical Jesus storyline has staying power - not because of the assumed historical Jesus - but because of the belief, the very subjective belief, that it's not all mythical. We know, from our own subjective experience of life, that the real staying power is not ideas but the man who holds and creates the ideas. Earl, your 'picture' is black and white - it needs some rainbow colors to bring it to life...

maryhelena · 06-29-2010, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

This is actually quite amazing, the amount of misunderstanding there is around the sources of the Gospels, beginning with Mark, and especially regarding the nature of Q. Q is (or was) a collection of sayings and anecdotes, a hypothetical document we can be pretty sure existed, if for no other reason than that alternative explanations for the common literary material in Matthew and Luke (such as that Luke copied from Matthew) don't work nearly as well. But Q--please pay attention here--is not simply a reference to a document, that document was the product of a community, a network of congregations spanning parts of Galilee and Syria who about the mid-first century preached certain counter-culture ethics at least partly derived from the Cynics, along with the imminent coming of God's Kingdom and the arrival of a heavenly judge called the Son of Man. So "Q" in regard to a source is broader than the document itself. It encompasses the movement which produced Q as a record of its teachings and expectations. The Synoptic Gospels, along with the Didache, began life within communities which were part of or followed on that movement, although they seem to have adopted as an additional dimension some form of cultic spiritual Christ.

Thus Mark does contain some Q, in that he reflects beliefs that were part of that movement, such as the imminence of the Kingdom, the coming of the Son of Man, and a few Q-like sayings. What he does not show is a familiarity with the actual document which embodied these things and which Luke and Matthew used and incorporated in their reworkings of Mark. But Mark, as I have said in both books, gives his Jesus a ministry "cut from Q cloth." To put it another way, Mark is thoroughly embedded in the Q ethos, even if the author didn't possess the Q document. So the content of Q has very much to do with the content of Mark.

An alternative view of Q is that of Mark Goodacre in his book:

Quote:

The case against Q: studies in Markan priority and the synoptic problem.

The Case Against Q (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Preface

The Case Against Q comprises a serious of studies on the Synoptic Problem in which the theory of Markan Priority is affirmed while the existence of Q, the hypothetical second source behind Matthew and Luke, is challenged. I have tried but have found myself unable to be persuaded that there ever was such a document, and this book represents my endeavours to explain why I find Luke’s use of Matthew, as well as Mark, to be more plausible.

page 17

If we were to dispense with Q, it would not be without tears. For Q has all over the world, loved by everyone, feminists and liberation theologians, the sober and the sensational, the scholar and the layperson, a document with universal appeal. Indeed one of the keys to its success has been its ability to woo both conservatives and radicals alike. While conservatives, for example, are drawn by its early witness to sayings of Jesus, others have seen its lack of a Passion Narrative as witnessing to an alternative stream of early Christianity, one not based on the proclamation of a crucified Christ. For those at one end of the theological spectrum, Q can give us a document of Jesus material from before 70, written within a generation of the death of Jesus. For those at the other end of the spectrum Q aligns itself with the Gospel of Thomas to from a “trajectory” in early Christianity that contrasted radically with emerging orthodoxy, and which only “canonical bias” can now obscure from our view.

As Goodacre suggests here, many are the vested interests in keeping this hypothetical document.

There is also a Research Project at the University of Copenhagen.

Quote:

Scholars will explode the myth of The New Testament

Bible scholars across the world have for many years believed that two of the Gospels of the New Testament - The Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Luke respectively were partly based on the content of a supposedly lost scripture referred to as "Q". In a new research project, researchers from the Faculty of Theology will attempt to establish that this lost scripture never existed.

http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2010/2010.1/new_testament/

This research project was the focus of a thread here at FRDB.

The End of Q

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=282014

Quote:

The Gospel of John does not. It developed out of a network of communities probably in northern Syria which had some kind of cultic Son who was a revealer figure. There are no Q-like sayings in John. But for whatever reason, when a particular Johannine community came in contact with one or more Synoptic Gospels, it adapted the figure of the synoptic Jesus to its own theology, one that was gnostic-leaning, which is why John treats the death of Jesus, the system of salvation, just about every aspect of its presentation of the Jesus character, in its own unique way.

The dating of the gospel of John is being re-considered. Another scholarly development that was the focus of a FRDB thread.

The John, Jesus, and History Project

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=283267

Quote:

The “crucified carpenter storyline” first appears in the Gospel of Mark. The author created it (we have no evidence of its existence before this), amalgamating two expressions on the late first century scene. The Q ethos, with its itinerant missionary lifestyle, counter-culture message, its expectation of the Kingdom and the Son of Man, is on the one hand. If Mark had stopped his Gospel before Jesus goes to Jerusalem, it would have been an allegory of the Kingdom preaching movement, focusing on an imagined founder who was not considered a Savior and had not been crucified and resurrected. But he went on, and he added something (along with premonitions of it in the ministry portion) which has no precedent in the Q ethos. Namely, that the preacher Jesus of Nazareth, having gone to Jerusalem, was arrested, tried, killed and rose from his tomb. That side comes from the Pauline type of cult, which had nothing to do with any Q movement, even if it contained certain general beliefs and expectations in common with it. (For example, there is no Son of Man anywhere in the epistles, and no preaching figure teaching any ethics at all; but it does contain the expectation of the arrival of the Son and Christ from heaven.)

Earl - ‘the author of the gospel of Mark created the ‘crucified carpenter storyline’. Great - what’s the problem with that? Wow - so now you are saying that if Mark had stopped his gospel before Jesus goes to Jerusalem - then we would have a storyline of a figure that was not crucified - to you an imagined founder. Wow - so now we have the possibility of an non-crucified figure - and we don’t need Q! All we need is the gospel storyline stopping short of Jerusalem - in other words, a gospel storyline minus Paul’s story of his dying and rising god theology/spirituality.

Quote:

I do not understand Maryhelena’s strange view of amalgamation, one, she says, “between the pre-Paul communities and Paul’ own ideas,” who “would know the outcome - would know that the amalgamation produced the gospel storyline re the crucified carpenter Jesus.” This is non-sense. The pre-Paul communities which Paul joined had nothing to do with the Q Kingdom of God preaching movement, if that is what she means. Paul and his cultic Christ DO NOT arise out of the Q ethos. They had nothing to do with it. There is zero evidence that the Pauline type of cult was a growth from the Kingdom of God movement in Galilee, and virtually zero evidence of vice-versa.

I never said that Paul’s Christ figure arises out of the Q material - since I don’t give this hypothetical document any credibility. I said that Paul’s ideas were fused, amalgamated, with the communities that preceded him. Who those communities were and what they believed etc should not be read out of a hypothetic Q document. Mythicists are forever saying don’t read the gospels into Paul. So then, let’s not read interpretations of a hypothetical Q document into Paul and the pre-Paul communities. If one does not want to use the gospels in order to gain insight into Paul - then take that stance all the way and keep Q out of interpreting Paul and the pre-Paul communities he said preceded him.

Quote:

How could a ‘wise sage’ whom many take to be present at the root of Q, one who had no traditions of undergoing a death which had any special significance, let alone of being resurrected, be turned into the cosmic heavenly Son of Paul, with the entire life and ministry of such a sage dropping into a black hole?

Big misunderstanding here, Earl. No one, not even Wells, has suggested such a thing as you lay out here. The storyline re a crucified Jesus is just that a story, a theologically based story that revolves around the dying and rising god mythology. It is not a case of such mythology being imposed upon a historical figure. The crucifixion storyline is not history. To assume that this un-historical crucifixion story has been super-imposed upon a historical man that was not crucified is pure nonsense. Lets give those gospel writers a little bit of credibility. While the life of a historical man could be the inspiration for the salvation Jesus storyline - that historical man is not, and has not been, embellished with the crucifixion, dying and rising god mythology. The two figures, the historical figure and the gospel crucified Jesus figure are not synonymous figures. There might well be a dim reflection of the historical figure within the gospel Jesus story - but the gospel crucified Jesus is something other than that historical figure - that gospel figure of a crucified Jesus did not exist historically. And that is the point that Wells is making. Traditions, sayings etc about this historical pre-Paul figure have been incorporated, amalgamated, in the gospel Jesus storyline, with Paul’s spiritual Jesus construct. Leading to the creation, the ‘birth’, of a new entity—the gospel crucified Jesus and his assumed historicity, a pseudo-history.

As to the actual life history of the historical non-crucified figure being dropped into a “black hole’. Great question. That such has been the case is grounds for investigation, for imagination, for speculation . It could well be that the ‘black hole’ is in the smallness of our imagination to present possible scenarios why this could be the case.

Quote:

Traditional scholarship’s centuries-long attempts to explain this bizarre phenomenon have never worked, and one of mythicism’s accomplishments is to make this clear. That is why the Jesus Seminar turned its efforts to excavating Q in an attempt to find the “genuine Jesus” at its root, but was forced to ignore or deny the fact that there was no death of Jesus in or behind Q, and to make no attempt to explain how the Pauline type of faith could have grown out of the figure they claimed to find in Q1.

Sure, historicists would like to keep Q - they see it as a last grasp on their assumed historical Jesus. But what mythicists need Q for beats me. The Pauline Jesus Christ type of faith did not grow out of a Q figure - or out of a historical figure. It grew out of Paul’ mind, his imagination, his interpretations of OT prophecy and his consideration of the history that preceded him, the pre-Paul communities. The Jesus figure did not live in history, it lived in Paul’ mind. It lived in Paul’ mind until it was rooted, grounded, in the historical context of the communities that preceded him. A pre-Paul historical context that revolved around an earlier, now already dead, non-crucified dead, historical figure. Thus, the gospel story sets down Paul’ crucified Jesus construct within the historical context, the historical time slot, that was relevant to the history of the pre-Paul communities and their historical non-crucified figure.

Quote:

One of the impulses to deny the existence of Q stems from the perception that with a Q, we have ipso facto very good evidence of some kind of human figure behind the movement. This is unnecessary. Even with a Q sage at the root of that movement, the myth of the dying and rising god of the Gospel would be dead. But a proper study of Q reveals that in fact the Jesus Seminar was wrong, and that we cannot exhume an HJ from Q; he was added along the way.

You have lost me here. The hypothetical Q is irrelevant to the question of the historicity, or not, of the gospel Jesus storyline.

Quote:

(Incidentally, just because there are those who advocate no Q does not mean that one should choose it as one's preferred option without examining the evidence oneself. There are vast numbers who advocate there was an HJ, but do we choose that option without investigating mythicism?--well, OK, of course that's what most scholarship still does.)

So I reiterate that we do, in effect, have two ‘myths’ to deal with, regardless of whether one likes the application of that term. We have the mythical Christ of Paul and the realization that the traditional Christian belief that Paul was speaking of the Gospel Jesus of Nazareth cannot be supported. And we have the alleged founder of the Galilean movement reflected in Q and the Synoptics proving to be equally a myth—or, if you prefer, a fiction, a non-existent entity. Perhaps I'll drop the colloquial use of the term.

Ah - ‘if you prefer, a fiction’. That about sums up your position. A myth plus a fiction. No Earl, the gospel rising and dying god is not a ‘fiction’. That is not its intent at all. It is theology - and as such falls squarely into the ancient Sumarian dying and rising god mythology. One NT myth. The gospel storyline re the dying and rising 'god' and Paul’ own vision of this resurrected ‘god’. The two parts of one myth.

Actually, Earl, I don't see any need for your 'picture' to bother itself with the gospel storyline. If its fiction to your theory re Paul' spiritual, mythical, Jesus construct, why not just go the whole hog and jettison the gospels altogether?

Quote:

MH claims she is not confused. I can't see how her picture hangs together, but I’ll drop the remark.

Earl Doherty

Lots of pictures out there, Earl - not every picture catches our interest. That's life - not a reflection of any confusion in the minds of those either creating the picture or those who 'see' or don't 'see' some value in it. We are not dealing with science but with attempts, however inadequate, to capture some meaning, express some value, from the circumstances of living that life.

Doug Shaver · 06-29-2010, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

We are not dealing with science

You may not be. Some of us are. Or at least, we're trying to as best we can.

Elijah · 06-29-2010, 06:48 AM

Dumb question: Why is the argument that Luke didn't use Mathew and not the other way around for getting away from a need of Q? Is it obvious some way or a link maybe that lays it out??

yalla · 06-29-2010, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Q is (or was) a collection of sayings and anecdotes, a hypothetical document we can be pretty sure existed, if for no other reason than that alternative explanations for the common literary material in Matthew and Luke (such as that Luke copied from Matthew) don't work nearly as well. But Q--please pay attention here--is not simply a reference to a document, that document was the product of a community, a network of congregations spanning parts of Galilee and Syria who about the mid-first century preached certain counter-culture ethics at least partly derived from the Cynics, along with the imminent coming of God's Kingdom and the arrival of a heavenly judge called the Son of Man.

Earl Doherty

Earl,
May I preface my comment with the fact that I have respect and admiration for your work.
Honest.

That said, I can't agree with your assessment of the credibility of the Q hypothesis.
Quite simply we disagree on the statement I have bolded in my quote from you above.

I think the prima facie case of either "Luke" copying "Matthew" or vice versa [which never seems to rate a mention for probably good reasons] is far better at explaining the common material in those 2 gospels.

As Dunn said in one of his books "I have found no need for that hypothesis" [or something like that].

An ancillary problem I have with Q is the way it is used by believers in an historical Jesus to bridge the gap between an alleged HJ an the first gospels.
An extremely convenient back up to oral tradition.

Reading Burton Mack's "Who Wrote the NT" I came across this :

"Q will put us in touch with thw first followers of Jesus. It is the earliest written record we have of the Jesus movement ...That is because it documents the history of a single group of Jesus people for a period of about fifty years, from the time of Jesus in the 20s until after the Roman-Jewish War in the 70s"p 47

Mack, a believer in an HJ, apparently places the gospel of "Mark" c 70ce.
Using Q, the Gospel of Thomas and bits of "Mark" that he separates as discrete pre-"Markan" elements [pronouncement stories and sets of miracle stories] , Mack comes up with 5, count them 5, separate groups he traces, somehow, back to a live HJ 50 years pre "Mark".

Q is a very convenient hypothesis for believers in an historical Jesus.

I would say that my mind is not made up with respect to Q, I would like to read your material on it, but I must also say that Goulder, Farrer, Goodacre and co, make, for me, a strong case for not accepting it.
And I also find Ken Olsen's work on "How Luke was Written" [I presume you are familiar with that?] persuasive.
cheers
yalla.

EarlDoherty · 06-29-2010, 10:22 PM

Thanks for your kind words, yalla. I, too, have read Goulder, Farrer (some of) and Goodacre (not Olson), but when evaluating them after balancing them with critiques of their no-Q case, I find them wanting, Goodacre especially.

Have you read the standard rebuttal to Goodacre by John Kloppenborg, "On Dispensing with Q?: Goodacre on the Relation of Luke to Matthew"? It was published in NT Studies 49 (2003), p.210-236. You can find it online at: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~kloppen/2003mwqh.pdf.

I have also read a couple of other critiques of the Luke used Matthew case, and find that some of the objections to it have not been answered by Goodacre in any satisfactory way that I can see. In my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man I itemize all the standard objections, as well as contribute a few of my own observations on the question. There is just too much problematic with the Luke used Matthew position which even Goulder does not efficiently rebut, let alone Goodacre, who uses some very questionable devices to try to deflect those problems. OTOH I would say that there is very little that is problematic per se about the Q hypothesis. The argument that it is unnecessary, or it hasn't survived, or it somehow contravenes Occam's Razor, are not substantive objections in the same way as those against the Luke used Matthew position. They don't relate to the 'unworkability' of the hypothesis as the latter do.

However, I must protest that just because the 'opposition' finds the existence of Q convenient for their defense of an HJ should in no way prejudice us against evaluating the evidence in an objective manner.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty · 06-29-2010, 10:30 PM

I am going to bow out on any further discussion with Maryhelena. Our respective thought processes simply don't cross at any point. It is futile from my point of view to try to get her to understand me, or me to understand her. That sometimes happens, and one simply moves on to other things.

Thanks, anyway.

Earl Doherty

Littlejohn · 06-29-2010, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo:

Actually, a merely human Jesus was a definite option according to Ebionites.
.

Yes, it is true ... But which Ebionites were they?...

Greetings

Littlejhon

.

maryhelena · 06-30-2010, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

I am going to bow out on any further discussion with Maryhelena. Our respective thought processes simply don't cross at any point. It is futile from my point of view to try to get her to understand me, or me to understand her. That sometimes happens, and one simply moves on to other things.

Thanks, anyway.

Earl Doherty

I can't say I'm surprised by your approach. It reminds me of an earlier exchange - nine or so years ago during the early days of the JesusMysteries list.

Quote:

Earl
> Mary, I have a feeling that we could spend an unlimited amount of time
talking around each other. I truly do not understand what you are
getting at. At the very least, it's murky. But that may be just my
mindset. In the end, I don't think it matters. We are approaching this
subject from two different points of view, maybe even from two very
different mindsets. It's possible they are both potentially productive,
in one way or another. I suggest that we both express ourselves as we
see fit.

> I'm not going to pursue this discussion further, since I don't think
it will resolve itself. And it is simply too time-consuming.

Mary
I, also, do not like to feel that I am talking past someone. Yes, we are
each coming to this topic of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth from
two different perspectives - let us not then, unnecessarily, seek to
devalue a perspective that we are not, ourselves, familiar with. For my
part, while I applaud your work I do not think it goes far enough. I
think your limited view of myth is restricting and thus hampers your
views from reaching a wider audience.

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06-29-2010, 06:48 AM	#175
Elijah Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: MidWest Posts: 1,894	Dumb question: Why is the argument that Luke didn't use Mathew and not the other way around for getting away from a need of Q? Is it obvious some way or a link maybe that lays it out??

06-29-2010, 10:22 PM	#177
EarlDoherty Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,435	Thanks for your kind words, yalla. I, too, have read Goulder, Farrer (some of) and Goodacre (not Olson), but when evaluating them after balancing them with critiques of their no-Q case, I find them wanting, Goodacre especially. Have you read the standard rebuttal to Goodacre by John Kloppenborg, "On Dispensing with Q?: Goodacre on the Relation of Luke to Matthew"? It was published in NT Studies 49 (2003), p.210-236. You can find it online at: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~kloppen/2003mwqh.pdf. I have also read a couple of other critiques of the Luke used Matthew case, and find that some of the objections to it have not been answered by Goodacre in any satisfactory way that I can see. In my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man I itemize all the standard objections, as well as contribute a few of my own observations on the question. There is just too much problematic with the Luke used Matthew position which even Goulder does not efficiently rebut, let alone Goodacre, who uses some very questionable devices to try to deflect those problems. OTOH I would say that there is very little that is problematic per se about the Q hypothesis. The argument that it is unnecessary, or it hasn't survived, or it somehow contravenes Occam's Razor, are not substantive objections in the same way as those against the Luke used Matthew position. They don't relate to the 'unworkability' of the hypothesis as the latter do. However, I must protest that just because the 'opposition' finds the existence of Q convenient for their defense of an HJ should in no way prejudice us against evaluating the evidence in an objective manner. Earl Doherty

06-29-2010, 10:30 PM	#178
EarlDoherty Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,435	I am going to bow out on any further discussion with Maryhelena. Our respective thought processes simply don't cross at any point. It is futile from my point of view to try to get her to understand me, or me to understand her. That sometimes happens, and one simply moves on to other things. Thanks, anyway. Earl Doherty

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